Mac Tip: Icon Customization

Today I have a quick tutorial for you. It's a tutorial about customizing your icons in Mac OS X. I find some of the icons in Mac OS X to be a bit dull. I like to mess around with them and change them to my satisfaction. I hope you find this tutorial helpful. 

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Tutorial: How to Change Your Dock 3D to 2D

I figured I would throw this simple tutorial out there for all the Mac enthusiasts that want a new and rather classy looking Dock. This new Dock is actually 2D, and the 3D dock and has a nice clean look to it. You can see everything clearly. Now I will also include how to change your Dock back to 3D, and a website that has some cool Docks to download and use with their app.

To change your 3D Dock to 2D, go into Terminal and copy and paste this code: defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES

Press Enter/Return and then copy and paste this code: killall Dock

Press Enter/Return again and you should have a new 2D Dock.

If you want to go back to 3D, quit and go into Terminal again and copy and paste this code: defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean NO

Press Enter/Return and then copy and paste this code: killall Dock

Finally, press Enter/Return and your Dock should revert back to 3D.

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For other Dock changes, I have found a helpful website: http://leoparddocks.com There you can browse and download Docks, and then download the application. Remember though, when using that app, make sure you go into Terminal and change it back to 3D, and then use the Leopard Docks app. 

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Customize with CandyBar

Those of you who have used Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger know that User Interface customization was typically an easy task and allowed you to make your Mac more your own. However, the software that users used to make these graphic changes in the past no longer works on Leopard and above. But have no fear! Candy Bar saves the day with a drag and drop interface to easily change any icon from a standard application icon to a system or volume icon. For just $29, Cnady Bar allows you to use free icon packs from The Iconfactory to change things up a little. Candy Bar also allows the customization of the dock. You can replace the background texture, "landing strip" seperator, lights and arrows and even convert the dock back to the old 2 dimensional version. Candy Bar is a must have for any Mac geek with a need for a personalized touch.

Download a 15 day trial of Candy Bar free from Panic Software and check out itsthurber.com for more reviews and Vlogs from me.

A Dock For Windows?

Have you ever wondered if there was a way to get the Mac dock on Windows? Well there are many different docks available on the web, such as, Objectdock and Rocketdock. Well i searched various searches to find one that i liked.

The first one i tried was Rocketdock. It had a lot of settings but it didn’t have the themes and appearance i was looking for. It had some cons which were being extremely light weight, it didn’t take up that much RAM usage, it did not have any lag issues, and it always ran smoothly. This came with a few icons but they seemed that they were for 12 and under?

Secondly, I tried Objectdock. It was pretty nice, it had a lot of settings but it also didn’t have the themes and appearance i was looking for. It didn’t run very smoothly, it lagged very much, and sometimes froze and stopped responding. One thing that I don’t like about it is that it has a paid version, the paid version adds tabbed docks, you can have multiple docks on your desktop at the same time, multiple monitor support, and system tray support. This comes with very useful docklets also, such as, Start Menu Docklet, clock docklet, weather docklet, and web search docklet.

Lastly, I tried RK Launcher. At first, it was confusing but it got really easy to use after a whille. Honestly, RK Launcher is my favorite out of all of these docks. It comes with about 100+ icons (Mac Icons), not as many docklets as Objectdock but almost as many, the dock spaces are identical to Mac OS 10’s, it has the Mac Genie Effect, and it is extremely easy to custimize and use. It runs very smooth on my Desktop, no lag issues at all. Sometimes it freezes and stop responding, but not very often. I want to say so much about RK Launcher but I would bore you. Out of all of the docks I have tried, this one is the most Mac-like. Here’s something to pay attention too, its only in Beta, so this is only the beginning of the custimization, in the future there will be many more features such as, docklets and icons and they will fix most of the issues.

Want An RK Launcher Custom Pack? It comes with Rk Launcher, 1 extra theme, about 30+ more icons, iShut Program, 3 powerful docklets.

Download Link Here

One recomended docklet you should get is the stacks docklet. It does the stacks and grid feature when you open a folder in the dock. Very similar to a Mac’s dock! If you want a dock for Windows, Rk Launcher is the one to pick. I recomend you go try it out! If I Was to put these in order to least to greatest it would be, Objectdock, Rocketdock, then RK Launcher.

Ratings:

Rocketdock – 4 out of 5

Objectdock – 3 out of 5

RK Launcher – 5 out of 5

Here are the download links to each:

1. Rocketdock
2. Objectdock
3. RK Launcher

If you want to custimize your docks and get more themes, docklets, icons, etc here are the links:

1. Wincustimize
2. Add-Ons
3. DeviantArt

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