RSS really is an effective way to quickly find out about things. Thinking about the Windows look and feel – as you do from time to time – and just glancing through my RSS feeds this lunchtime turned up these two litle gems:
- Two posts, from Dvorak Uncensored and Scobleizer, took me to a really excellent website offering some very cool icons for Windows. These icons are beautifully designed and rendered with some considerable skill and flair, and all available on free download. Not only icons (for Mac OS as well) but also wallpapers and a discussion forum. Go to InterfaceLIFT | Free GUI Enhancements for Mac OS X and Windows.
- Then via Scoble to Between the Lines | What Time Is It? and info on Microsoft Time Zone, a very useful little Windows utility that runs in the system tray and allows you to view the date and time in various locations around the world. You need .NET Framework installed to run it.
Speaking about customizing Windows, I’ve been using a range of products from Stardock for some years that lets me choose a wholly different look and feel for my Windows installation. Among the apps I run are WindowBlinds (which lets you skin title bars, push buttons, the Start button, toolbar icons, radio buttons, progress animations and nearly every other part of the Windows GUI), Windows FX and the very cool Mac-like icon dock, ObjectDock (which I call the legal successor to the great Y’z Dock that was forced to shut down by Apple last year).
Yesterday, Stardock released WindowBlinds version 4.4. If you want real control over how your Windows looks, it’s worth taking a look at it. You can download a trial version.