Icon Library

As you might know, we at Iconshock post one handpicked icon set from around the world DAILY. Yes, you read it well, we do it at a daily basis, because we want to turn the blog into a comprehensive catalogue of the best icon work from top artists around the net.

But early on in our quest, a problem arose; every time I posted a Mac icon, the complains just poured and almost everybody was disappointed. Everyone but Mac users of course. I know that Mac fans are less than Pc users… But that doesn’t mean that PC users can’t own the wonderful artistry of Mac icons. A very kind blog reader called “Southerner” left a comment some time ago with useful step by step info that I wanted to show here and turn into this tutorial, so you guys can enjoy the icons we post, regardless of their format. So…here we go!

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Mark Nutter made this good article for Smashing Magazine where he signals out thirty hacks and tweaks to get all cozy and warm with your Mac experience. From Mac newbie’s to Apple old timers there’s a hack for everyone. The author even includes at the end a list with suggested free software.

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Does the OS have to adapt to you or is it the other way round? Read this thorough article from Macworld where they give us a list of improvements to make your MAC UI fit your exact productivity needs.

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Troika design has a point here; when personal computers started to get popular, say twenty five years ago, virus were little programs designed to have fun and amuse users. Troika is a collective of artists, designers and engineers that decided to go back to that golden age of bit infection and create a virus-work-of-art.

The Newton virus uses the movement sensors equipped inside apple laptops to apply physic characteristics to all icons and interface elements of the OS.

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There is a general belief that Pc’s are for programming and Mac’s are for designing. And although the market tendencies aimed at that partial truth ten years ago, the tides are turning pretty fast. In fact, we can say today that developers are turning to Mac’s and designers are turning to Linux. My question here is… who’s turning to windows?

This good article by Mark Nutter shows us five good reasons why developers are leaving their trusty, not so good looking Pc’s for the better accessibility and versatility of the always sexy  MacOsx.

Click on image to download.

Matt Buchanan form Gizmodo writes a thorough review of Windows 7 mayor UI enhancement; the super task bar. He gives us very good insight of what Microsoft will bring to us this month with the advent of Windows 7 and he even goes further, stating that it beats Mac OSX dock in features. A must read.

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General opinion of reviewers is that Mac’s envied operating system just got one step closer to heaven. At first glance, the new OS doesn’t show any substantial changes, but if you do go deeper, you will find that the $30 dollars that the upgrade cost are well deserved. Besides mayor performance upgrades, Snow leopard has subtle but very significant changes to their UI that every user would appreciate. This is somehow a message to Microsoft: We users don’t want a flashier OS… we want a FASTER ONE! Are you guys from Redmond taking note? Hello?

Apple’s snow Leopard presentation in the WWDC. (World Wide Developers Conference)

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Remember my article regarding the evolution of graphical user interfaces? You better, because I spent two whole F@! days writing it! Well, I found this post by Leander Kahney from Cult of Mac who tells us how to find a little Easter egg back from the time when Steve Jobs hated apples and had breakfast at NEXT instead. (Guide to understand this not-funny-at-all-joke-even-to-geeks here.)

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I’m going to buy my first iphone this week, and am pretty anxious to join the club at last. Well, not that I’ve ever wanted to join the club or like clubs anyway. It’s just that I couldn’t resist that naughty, minimal, little gadget that’s driving everyone crazy. I began researching, and found this very useful list of apps at Macappstorm. What I like the most about this list made by David Appleyard, is that it features the iphone apps with the most exciting interfaces around.

I have to say that what drove me to buy the iphone wasn’t its hype nor it’s tempting fashionable appeal. What really turned my bucks towards it were the possibilities that such a new and evolving technology could offer. Iphone development is kind of a loose Ferrari with no brakes, a real mainstay on portable software and interfaces. A darling too young and growing to fast to ignore.

Besides, it has a 16 Gig mp3 player. How can you beat that?

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I just found out this very interesting post by Rob Griffiths, where he gives us a clue on how to change those strange icon mess-ups you find under Leopard. Rebooting your Mac, using mace pepper spray or unplugging the power chord are options not included.

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Picasa is a google application, which allows you to see most of bitmap formats, among them you can see the most populars: .png – .jpg – .gif – .ico – etc…

Besides being the greatest image viewer, is the easiest way to share, search, organize and edit your images, photos, graphics and also you can convert them in movie clips, collages, and it gives you the opportunity to filter your files. You can choose if you want to see only portrait pictures, movies or images you’ve cataloged as the most specials and a lot more.

This application Works in Mac, Windows XP/Vista or Linux and you can use it as the principal application to open any kind of new images that you import in your computer.
Picasa finds your documents and organize them from albums, files and any other material that is related with an image.

You really should try it: http://www.picasaweb.google.com