Tag Archives: desktop

Quickly Arrange Desktop Icons To Any Edge & Lock Positions For All Resolutions

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Icon management is very important in order to keep your desktop clean and have quick access to your important shortcuts and files. The native desktop context menu of Windows provides you with some settings to change the size of icons, enable auto arrange and align to grid, and toggle the display of icons and gadgets. Even though these options are good enough for basic arrangement, they are nothing to write home about. Stardock's Fences is a well-known tool that allows you to manage your desktop icons by locking them inside separate zones. Another application known as Desktop Modify lets you rearrange desktop icons in over 77 different shapes, while DesktopSaver remembers the location of icons in separate profiles, automatically returning them to their original location if they are accidentally moved. Today, we bring to your another desktop management software called Fluid Icon Organizer that allows you to quickly arrange icons on all four sides of your desktop, sort them according to name, age and usage, and lock them into place. Read More

Give Your Windows RT Desktop A Facelift With Rainmeter

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Windows RT has been around for a few months now, with Microsoft's own Windows Surface being the primary device this tablet-friendly OS has been running on so far. Recently, when XDA member clrokr successfully jailbroke Windows RT, it resulted in opening up doors of possibilities for the homebrew community to run ported x86 desktop apps on ARM architecture. By now, a multitude of app have already been ported to the platform by various users, and one of the awesome additions to the ported apps library is Rainmeter. For those who don't know about it yet, it's a fascinating desktop customization utility that allows you to give your desktop a complete makeover. In what follows, we will guide you through the process of changing that boring desktop look and spicing it up with Rainmeter’s plethora of gorgeous skin packs. Read More

View iCloud, Google Or Yahoo Calendar Events On OS X Desktop With ICEfree

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One of our top Mac apps from last year was Mindfu - a $1.99 productivity app that puts the day’s iCal (Calendar in Mountain Lion) events on your desktop in an elegant chronological timeline. Though if you aren’t in the mood for spending money on an app like that, ICUfree is a free alternative now available on the Mac App Store. At the core, it does what Mindful does but in addition, it can display events up to 3 months in advance. The app gives you the choice to view events from your local, iCloud Google, or Yahoo! calendars, though at present, you can only view events from one type of calendar at a time. Currently happening events and those that are coming up are all distinguished from each other. Read More

Group Different Files On Each Desktop Space In Mac With iDesktop

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Desktop Spaces are a great and unique way to manage apps, especially if you’re working with them in full screen, and want to switch between them easily. With Desktop Spaces, you can have a different space for each app or for a number of apps, which allows you to group apps relevant to a particular task in one space. The trouble with the default feature is that it's only for managing app windows, and it doesn't allow you to have different icon arrangements on each Desktop Space. Basically, you get the same files, folders and apps on each space and any changes you make to it are reflected across all of them. In a nutshell, where the spaces allow you to group apps separately, they do not allow the same for files. If you do want to sort files and folders differently for each desktop, you will need  iDesktop, a Mac app worth $4.99 in the Mac App Store, that adds a different set of desktop spaces to your Mac and allows you to change which files you see on each one. You can keep personal files on one desktop and office files on the other. Unlike the default Desktop Spaces, however, you can’t assign an app to a particular space. Read More

Get A Slimmer Windows 8 Start Screen That Opens Within Desktop

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Here at AddictiveTips, we have covered a large number of utilities for dealing with the changes brought on by Windows 8. One of the most prominent of these changes is the replacement of Start Menu with the Start Screen. A lot of utilities have come out to get back the Start Orb or change the way we interact with the Start Screen. Today, we have another tool called Start Menu Modifier that allows you to have the contents of Start Screen directly on the Desktop. You do not have to get out of Desktop to access tiles of installed apps. The program lets you toggle between full screen and desktop mode for Start Screen, and supports all features included in the original Start Screen, such as type-to-search. Read More

Shade: Hide Desktop Clutter For Better Screenshots & Cleaner Work Area

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There are lots of ways to manage desktop clutter; besides actually cleaning things up, you can use apps like Folder Tidy and Desktop Tidy to sort and move files on your desktop by file type. You can also do something that’s much much easier: sweep it under the rug, i.e., hide it all behind a nice wallpaper so you don’t have to look at it while you work. Shade is a free Mac app available in the Mac App Store that adds a second wallpaper in front of all your desktop icons and hides them from view. App windows stay visible on top of this second wallpaper that is superficially imposed on top of the original one, and allows you to take a nice clean screenshot if you like or just work more easily without being distracted by the many items littering your desktop. Read More

Desktop Tidy: Clean Files From Desktop & Sort According To Format

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A clean desk is a sign of  a troubled mind, and that is possibly one of the best reasons to let your desktop get cluttered with files and folders. The only problem is that as your desktop continues to gather clutter, it gets difficult to locate a file and sometimes to work. Mac users might still be able to locate files with the help of Spotlight, but that doesn’t make the desktop any easier to work with. If lack of cleanup time is what keeps your desktop looking like a mess, Desktop Tidy is a good solution. It is a Mac app worth $4.99 in the Mac App Store and it periodically cleans your desktop. You can define the time period for cleaning up the desktop and the app will take care of the rest. Files and folders are categorized based on their type and moved to a different folder. You can select any location for this folder and add additional file formats to the ones that already exist. Since not all items on your desktop are trash, the app lets you select items that should be ignored during the periodic clean up. Read More

MetroApp Link: Create Shortcuts For Native Metro Apps On Windows 8 Desktop

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Windows 8 allows access to the installed apps only through the Start Screen. So, if you want to access an app, you have to first open the start screen, look for the required app, and then open it. It is quite easy if the number of installed apps is low; however, if you have a significant number of apps installed, looking for the one you want to launch can become difficult. One solution is to use the search feature of the Start Screen that allows you to search for apps, files, folders, settings and everything else on your computer, just by typing its name directly on the screen itself. You can think of this as the same search feature provided in the Start Menu of Windows 7, but since Windows 8 does not have a Start Menu, it works through the Start Screen. In previous Windows versions, Desktop shortcuts allowed you to quickly launch the frequently-used applications and save the trouble of either searching for them or going to their install directory. Today, we have an application for Windows 8 that lets you easily add shortcuts to the Desktop. MetroApp Link is a portable tool that lets you add shortcuts of default Metro apps to the Desktop workspace in Windows 8. Read More

Save Desktop Icon Positions & Keep History Of Any Changes

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While some people keep their desktop icons arranged using the Auto Arrange option of Windows, others like to have a more personalized look for their desktop by placing their icons in positions of their own choice. For instance, a user might want to keep a certain type of icons grouped on the left side, while another group to be available on the right side of the desktop. There are a lot of applications that allow you to arrange your desktop icons. I like to use Fences, a software for Windows that allows users to create separate icon-holding boxes. Fences is, beyond doubt, a very useful program, but it is only useful for grouping icons together, and does not remember the position of icons on the desktop. So, if you have placed an icon, say, on the left top corner of your screen, and it gets moved by mistake, you can only return it by dragging it over to its original location. If there are a lot of icons on your desktop, you can easily forget where each one was placed before it got moved. DesktopSaver is an open source application for Windows that allows users to save the location of icons on the desktop in separate profiles, and return the icons to their saved positions if they get moved. Keep reading to find out more about DesktopSaver. Read More

How To Skip Windows 8 Start Screen & Go Directly To Desktop On System Startup [Tip]

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With Windows 8, Microsoft has let go of the iconic Start Orb and replaced the Start Menu with Start Screen. Now, instead of clicking the start orb to access installed software, users have to use the Start Screen and search for the items stored in their computer. It would be safe to say that Windows has seen, effectively, a replacement of the Desktop with the Metro Start Screen, and now Desktop is also just another app. By default, there is no option to make Windows 8 go to the Desktop app when the computer starts. Previously, we have covered a couple of ways that allow you to skip the Start Screen and go directly to the Desktop; however, since both methods work using the Show Desktop shortcut in Windows, the Start Screen does come on for some time before going to the Desktop. Today, we have an application that does not let the Start Screen appear at all during startup, and the system goes directly to Desktop. In this post, we will explain how to use the tool in Windows 8. Read More

mStartEx: Metro-Style Start Menu Replacement For Windows 7, Vista & XP

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Microsoft has hugely changed the UI of Windows in the latest iterations of the operating system. While all previous versions of Windows were based on the Desktop workspace, Windows 8 has been laid heavily on the Metro looks. In the Metro UI of Windows 8, the Desktop is not the main workspace; instead, it is just left as an app that runs within the operating system. The Metro apps for Windows 8 work somewhat in the same way as the Android or iOS counterparts. Other than the apps, almost every other UI element is also changed to give it a more modernized look. People switching from the previous version of Windows, such as Windows Vista and Windows 7, will surely have a lot of difficulty in getting used to the new Metro Style UI. Even though, the final version has not been released yet, the Consumer Preview and Release Preview have given us a taste of what to expect from the upcoming release. You can download and install Windows 8 following the procedure available here. However, if you don’t want to install the complete operating system and still want to have a feel of the Metro UI, check out mStartEX. It is an application for Windows that works as a Start Menu replacement and displays programs in Metro style tiles. Read More

RumShot: Take Screenshots & Create Awesome Themed Previews With Them

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We always emphasize the importance of screenshot capturing utilities and how they can help you explain system problems to your friends or an expert. Just last month, Fawad compiled a list of five of the best free screenshot tools available out there. Today, we will take a closer look into yet another awesome screenshot application labelled RumShot. Created by Andrew Powell from Shellscape Software, this unique software, unlike other screenshot capturing utilities, comes with a twist. Along with grabbing high-resolution shots of your desktop, it also generates beautiful-looking screen previews, snuggled in with a wide variety of user-created themes. It doesn’t contain a plethora of features like other famous tools, including our own favorites, Greenshot and Shotty, but rather depicts a fancy new idea of how we can share different parts of our screens. The intuitive interface takes just a little time to get used to, and comprises a very simple layout. Read on for details. Read More

trimDesk: Hide Taskbar, Wallpaper, Desktop Icons & Gadgets Using Hotkeys

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Hiding all the icons, widgets and gadgets from the desktop becomes quite a tedious task, especially in a situation where one needs to take multiple screenshots without any icon and/or other clutter visible on the desktop. The default method requires users to manually hide desktop icons and gadgets from the View menu. If you regularly find the need to hide desktop icons and gadgets and find the default way tiresome, give trimDesk a try. It's a simple application that allows you to easily manage your desktop background, gadgets, icons and taskbar settings. It lets you quickly hide icons, gadgets, the taskbar and wallpaper via configurable hotkeys. Additionally, you can minimize all open application windows, and choose to apply selected changes at once using a single hotkey combination. Read More

Instagrille For Pokki: A Compact, Elegant Instagram Viewer For Windows

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These days, photo sharing seems to be the craze. The ability to instantly share photos with each other has been a major reason for the success of a number of applications and web services. However, the image sharing and hosting applications are not the only ones to share this success; a lot of apps for modifying and enhancing the images have also popped up on the scene. Instragram, recently acquired by Facebook, is one of the most famous apps available for capturing images with a mobile, applying different effect filters on them and sharing them with your friends and other people. Instagrille is, in essence, a desktop client for photo-sharing giant Instagram. It is an app for Pokki that provides users with a quick way to view their Instagram feeds directly from within Windows, without having to open a browser and navigate to an online viewer. For those who are yet unfamiliar with Pokki, it is (as explained in a previous article) an application built on the Chromium framework, which enables developers to build web applications that can be pinned and executed from the Windows taskbar. The application lets you sign in with your account and view popular Instagram images from all around the world, as well as those uploaded by you or your friends. The application supports both Grid and List views for feeds, and allows you to add photos to favorites and comment on them. More on the app after the break. Read More

Shock 4Way 3D: Customizable Virtual Desktop Manager With Awesome Transition Effects

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Software that add multiple virtual desktops to Windows provide you with more work space without buying or attaching any extra displays. Virtual desktop tools are available in many functional forms; simple ones, such as mDesktop (an open-source application to enable up to 10 multiple virtual desktops on your screen with hotkey supported switching), and others with more focus on being an eye-candy to the users, like Blacksmith (a portable virtual desktop manager that lets users have the feel of Windows, Android and MAC OS X Lion operating systems with their corresponding transition styles). Today, we have another GUI-focused and slightly customizable virtual desktop management application called Shock 4Way 3D, which provides users with four virtual desktop screens and switches between them in a beautiful 3D interface. The application supports switching through hotkeys and has a very user friendly Screen Manager. Keep on reading after the break to find out more about Shock 4Way 3D. Read More

Create, Sort & Manage Text Snippets With This Pastebin Desktop Client

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Users use Pastebins to post messages on Twitter, and is very popular among IRC channels. One of the most renowned and earliest example of pastebin is Pastebin.com, a web-based application that lets users upload text snippets in order to share them with friends, colleagues and with public.. Most software developers use this online service to paste large chunks of code modules to get help and feedback from other developers and users, making various troubleshooting aspects tad easier. Even though it allows you to store text for a certain period of time, you can paste any type of text and share it with others without worrying about any size restrictions. To use the service, one has to visit Pastebin website or use web browsers' extensions to quickly paste text to Pastebin.com. If you want to manage your Pastbin account and publish your text snippets from desktop, have a look at PasteBin. It is powered by Pastebin.com, the application lets you create, store and manage your Pastebin entries, without even opening your web browser. You can either log in to your personal Pastebin account or use a Guest account to upload the text snippets. More details to follow after the jump. Read More

ReSpaceApp Provides Easier Desktop Spaces Navigation & Window Management [Mac]

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Desktop Spaces is not only a remarkable feature in OS X, but also the only way you can group your windows by tasks. There is nothing that suggests the feature is inconvenient, but for those of you who think there is always room for improvement, you can give ReSpaceApp a try. It is a free Mac app that makes it easier to switch between desktop spaces and move windows from one to the other. The app is free while in beta, and is ideal if you work with a lot of windows spread throughout multiple desktop spaces. It supports a wide range of keyboard shortcuts that you can customize to make navigation easier. Read More

minWE: Access Windows Explorer Contents From Quick Launch Bar

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A lot of people do not like to keep a large number of icons on their screen. Application launchers are utilities designed to help you manage your shortcuts and quickly launch frequently used applications without creating clutter on your desktop. They basically keep shortcuts in your reach without disturbing your work space. Previously, we have reviewed some very useful application launchers that allow you to easily launch applications either by adding them to a toolbar or specifying their shortcut path. Famulus, a previously covered app, lets you  launch files as well as websites using hotkeys, while Windows 7 App Launcher lets you effortlessly create application profiles so that they can be launcher with a single click using the Jumplist and Thumbnail Preview features. Today, we have another application, called miniWE, that is a combination of Quick Launch Bar and Windows Explorer, it is not exactly an application launcher, but a file explorer accessible from your task bar. Keep reading to find out more about miniWE. Read More

Tiny Uploader: Capture Screenshots & Upload Images To Imgur & ImageShack

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Websites such as 9Gag, Reddit and Digg don’t host the images posted by users on their own servers. That's why most users upload images to online image hosting websites, such as Imgur.com, Minus, ImageShack.us etc. Imgur is an image hosting & sharing website that offers both account-based, as well as anonymous image uploading services. ImageShack is another free image hosting website that allows users to upload up to 5 megabytes of JPG, PNG, GIF, TIFF and BMP images. Previously, we have covered desktop applications for uploading images to these image hosting websites; Imgur Uploader for Imgur lets you quickly upload images by just dragging them over the specified area, whereas ImageShack Uploader is a cross-platform web application, which allows you to upload images in bulk. Today, we came across an application  for Windows called Tiny Uploader, which lets you upload images to, both Imgur, and ImageShack from a unified interface. You can upload images already available in your hard drive, or take screenshots of a region on your desktop or complete windows and upload it to Imgur.com or ImageShack.us. Keep reading to find out more about Tiny Uploader. Read More

Screen Capturer: Set Custom Frame Rate For Recording Screencasts

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Screencasts are digital recordings of your computer screen that allow you to demonstrate a certain sequence of actions on your desktop, or create a video tutorial. There are a lot of good free applications available for capturing screencasts, but it is hard to find good software that let you create screencasts of your desktop. Most of the free tools apply a watermark over the video, and the ones that don’t have some video related issue, such as the quality being low. However, we keep covering new free screencast making applications that have a lot of potential to become very useful after some improvement. One such application that we found today is Screen Capturer. It is a free application for making screencasts of your desktop screen that lets you set a custom frame rate, choose to include the cursor and follow the mouse cursor. More on Screen Capturer after the jump. Read More