Keep Your Wallpaper Fresh with Cross-Platform Wally [Downloads]
My Clippings November 14th, 2009 by System
Automatically pulled from Google Starred
Windows/Mac/Linux: If you’ve been sporting the same desktop wallpaper since the Bush administration, it might be time to mix it up a little. Wally is a lightweight wallpaper changer that pulls images from a wide pool of sources.
For a simple wallpaper refresh, you can simply point Wally at a folder on your computer and set the interval at which you want the wallpaper to refresh. If you don’t have a huge stash of wallpaper, or you’re tired of your collection, you can have Wally pull pictures from remote directories via FTP or from any of ten available sources like Bing, SmugMug, Picasa, Buzznet, Photobucket, Pike, Panoramio, Yahoo!, or Flickr.
You can adjust various settings like auto-rotation based on EXIF data, photo selection only if photos are bigger than the desktop and/or landscape as well as how frequently the wallpaper will change and how pictures will be positioned.
Wally is freeware and available for Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems. Have a favorite wallpaper tool or source for great wallpapers? Let’s hear about it in the comments.
Tags: cli, Google, IO, Linux, ma, Mac, Photo, php, Wallpaper, wind
Showcase of Designs Optimized for iPhone
My Clippings September 27th, 2009 by System
Automatically pulled from Google Starred
   
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Over the last couple of years, mobile devices have managed to gain mainstream popularity. With iPhone, making mobile Web applications finally usable by broad masses, web design can now be applied to mobile applications as well. In this post we are focusing on designs that are specifically optimized for mobile devices, in particular iPhone.
Though iPhone’s Safari browser is able to render any website just like you would see it on a desktop browser, the available screen area is much smaller than in common “classic” displays. This poses a new challenge for designers and developers who now can reach millions of users that use mobile Web. Websites that are specifically optimized for the iPhone utilize the screen to the fullest extent, and use less bandwidth (which is necessary, because the connectivity is not always optimal).
The iPhone browsing experience is quite different than the regular browsing experience. The buttons and hyperlinks have to be bigger because our fingers are not as sharp as the mouse pointer. Optimizing a website for iPhone is not rocket science. It’s the same HTML, CSS and JavaScript that you already know. The only major difference is the screen size.
In the showcase below we present some of the interesting, interactive and beautiful designs that are optimized for the iPhone. You will also learn about some handy tools that will help you optimize your website for the iPhone.
Also consider our previous articles:
- How to Create Your First iPhone Application
- iPhone Apps Design Mistakes: Over-Blown Visuals
- 100 (Really) Beautiful iPhone Wallpapers
1. News / Entertainment
Sevnth Sin
The unique navigation makes this site very interactive. Nice concept, nice colors.
Blip.tv
Perfectly suits the theme: video entertainment! Clean and clear typography.
NBC
The YouTube-style design makes it very easy to navigate and find shows.
Zinio
That’s a kit of magazines, all one-touch away!
Spin The Bottle
A simple bottle spinning game. Good use of graphics.
Daily Wallpaper
Similar to Zinio, but 2 thumbnails in a row make it more easy to navigate around.
AOL Horoscopes
Very well designed for a horoscope site. Matching color scheme throughout.
Related posts:
Tags: Apple, Build, css, Food, Google, Guideline, Information, IO, ISO, Javascript, ma, man, Photo, php, quick, script, Shopping, video, Wallpaper, way, WordPress, XP
Google Images Offers Search by Size and Face Recognition [Image Search]
My Clippings August 4th, 2009 by System
Automatically pulled from My Clippings on NewsGator Online
Taking a cue from the custom web search options, Google Images has added fine-grained search controls. Want a pink-hued rabbit image that’s exactly 340×180? A clip art bird larger than 300 pixels wide? Google Image Search has you covered.
As with the newer web search tools, Google Images rolls down the search options in a left-hand sidebar when you click “Show options” in the blue bar right under your search term. Google’s search can recognize clip art, line drawings, photos, and faces in photos, sort pictures by a prevalence of 12 basic colors, and, most helpfully, search photos larger than, smaller than, or exactly a certain pixel size.
It’s easy to imagine desktop wallpaper enthusiasts getting lost inside that kind of custom-fit image search, but it’s also a boon to anyone who’s been stuck looking to fill a white space with just the right size something-or-other. Yahoo Image Search offers the same size-matching, along with Creative Commons licensing filters, but Google’s color-matching and face recognition seem to be unique tools. If there are other image search sites you’ve used that get just as specific as Google’s new roll-out, share the link in the comments.
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This is a world you have never seen before, a world normally hidden under miles of water…the landscape of the ocean bed. Click to learn more 
TinEye Lets You Search the Web for Images
My Clippings July 27th, 2009 by System
Automatically pulled from My Clippings on NewsGator Online
If you have an image, but want to see where on the Web that image is being used, or if you’re a photographer and would like to where on the Web your work may be in use, TinEye is here to help. The service is a search engine for images, and allows you to either upload one or paste the URL of an image already on the Web and the service will search for other sites using it. You can use TinEye to find higher resolution versions of your favorite wallpapers or vanity search for your own graphic design.
Unlike Google Image Search, you don’t start with a phrase with the goal of finding an image at TinEye–it’s the other way around. TinEye lets you start with an image and then find more copies of that image or see where else it’s hosted. Best of all, it’s completely free.
The service has been used by photographers who want to know who else on the Web is using their work–both to see how popular they are and to shut down anyone using it for profit. Others can look for higher resolution versions of their favorite graphics, album art, and wallpapers, or just to find out where their favorite wallpaper originated.
TinEye takes a digital signature of the image you provide and uses that to search the Web for images with a similar signature. This way the service avoids using metadata, tags, or other context on a page where the image is located. Best of all, if you’re a commercial photographer or someone concerned about protecting the images you search for, you’ll be happy to know that any images you upload to TinEye only stay in the site’s database for 72 hours, after which they’re deleted. If you sign up for a TinEye account, you can save images in your profile to make it easy to run searches on them later.
TinEye also offers a bookmarklet that you can add to your browser’s bookmarks toolbar. The bookmarklet allows you to quickly search TinEye for images on a page you’re viewing without having to download the image and re-upload it to TinEye, or copy the image URL and paste it into the search box. If you’re a Firefox or Internet Explorer user, the service also has a plug-in for your browser that extends this functionality and lets you right-click any image and instantly search for it using TinEye.
Apple Mini Keyboard Wallpaper [Downloads]
My Clippings July 10th, 2009 by System
Automatically pulled from My Clippings on NewsGator Online
This Apple Mini Keyboard by philipskillern isn’t just a logical progression of the hardware line, it’s fancy looking too. Download the wallpaper yourself in various sizes. [Deviantart]
Birdies: Cute Free Twitter Icons For Your Blog
My Clippings June 24th, 2009 by System
Automatically pulled from My Clippings on NewsGator Online
In this post we release Birdies: A Free Twitter Icon Set, a set of 12 beautiful and lovely Twitter icons. This set was designed by IconEden and released exclusively for Smashing Magazine and its readers. All the icons included in the set have clean shapes and neutral colors that can be used for various contexts, from a “Tweet it” button for your blogs to desktop wallpapers.
The set is available in both pixel and EPS vector format so the icons can be rescaled to any size while retaining their original details. As usual, the icons are free for both personal and commercial projects.
Download the icon set for free!
You can use the set for all of your projects for free and without any restrictions. You can freely use it for both your private and commercial projects, including software, online services, templates and themes. The set may not be resold, sublicensed, rented, transferred or otherwise made available for use. Please link to this article if you would like to spread the word.
- preview
- download the set (.zip, 1.5 Mb)
- download the .eps-source (.zip, 6.6 Mb, .eps)
Thank you very much, guys! We appreciate your efforts!
Related posts
You may want to take a look at the following related posts:
- Flavour Extended Icon Set
- Quartz Icon Set
- Project Icon Set
- DelliStore: A Free Professional CSS/XHTML/PSD-Template
- “Magazeen”: Free Magazine-Look WordPress Theme
- Typography Keyboard Layout
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Mac4Lin Gives Linux Desktops the Complete Mac Look [Downloads]
My Clippings June 18th, 2009 by System
Automatically pulled from My Clippings on NewsGator Online
Linux: Mac4Lin, a package of skins, wallpapers, icons, and interface refinements that brings a completist Mac look to Linux with an automated installation, has reached the 1.0 stage with an impressive array of features.
Besides basic theming changes to your desktop covering login windows, window look and feel, a modified app launcher dock, and more, Mac4Lin plugs into and plays nice with a lot of third-party apps. Thunderbird, Rhythmbox, Songbird, Pidgin, Firefox 3, and others are supported and receive theme integrations, while a customized Cairo or AWN dock are rolled into your system during the installation.
It goes without saying, but there are, obviously, areas where the Linux desktop can’t replicate the Mac’s. Still, if you like the Cupertino look for your system, Mac4Lin is an easy way to get there, without an afternoon-consuming step-by-step process.
Mac4Lin 1.0 is a free download for Linux systems. Hit the link below for a list of features, standing bugs, and screenshots.
How-To: Proximity Automation
Uncategorized June 11th, 2009 by Shai Perednik
Would you like to be able to use the magic of Bluetooth to automatically pause iTunes, set your away message in Adium, and lock the screen simply by standing up and walking away from your desk? Of course you would — it’s future-tastic (jetpacks not included)! Let’s take a look at how to pull this off.
What You’ll Need
First you’ll need a copy of Proximity, a handy (and free) little application which monitors your Bluetooth-enabled device and fires off AppleScripts when it leaves and enters connection range. As an added touch, we’ll also use a copy of DeskShade to lock and unlock the computer with style, leaving a nice away message displayed on the screen and opening a “Hacker Log” to display what activity took place while you were away.
DeskShade actually does a lot more than just allow AppleScript to lock and unlock your screen. I won’t go into a full review of it here, but essentially, it will also help keep your desktop clean, your wallpaper fresh, and your mind uncluttered. If, however, you want to forgo the use of DeskShade, you can instead lock and unlock the computer by having AppleScript launch your screensaver and adjust the security settings required for waking it up. AppleScript files for both approaches can be downloaded here (8kb, ZIP).
Getting Set Up
Install Proximity, and from within the preferences pane select your Bluetooth device. I used my iPhone, but any “discoverable” device should work. In the AppleScript section link to OutofRange.scpt for when the device moves out of range and InRange.scpt for when it moves back in range. Make sure that monitoring is enabled and set a frequency for proximity checks — I used 60 seconds. If you decided not to go the DeskShade route, then just swap in the second set of scripts for that step above and skip ahead to the testing.
Install DeskShade and on the DeskLock tab set a password, enable AppleScript to unlock, set the Hacker Log to open after unlocking and set the away message to something appropriate. I used the same “More than 30ft away from my computer” message that is set in Adium via the out-of-range script.
