Being a geek, you have the urge to modify everything you own. That’s of course applies to your desktop as well. You saw how your Linux friends can modify their desktop and display information with Conky and you are dying to have the same setting in Mac. If that is the case, then GeekTool is the one you are looking for.

GeekTool is a System Preferences module for Mac OS 10.5. It allows you to display information on your Mac desktop so you can quickly check out the time, your Twitter stream, or any other things without any hassle.

Let’s get our hands dirty, shall we?

To fully utilize GeekTool, you got to have a simple knowledge of shell command. But don’t worry, we will guide you through and make it easy for you.

Download GeekTool here and install it in your Mac.

You should now see the GeekTool entry in your System Preferences.

Adding day, date and time to the desktop

Open GeekTool and drag the shell icon to the desktop.

A blank holder and a configuration window will appear. The holder is where your information will appear. You can drag and move it to the position you desire. The configuration window is where you customize the shell command, font size, color etc.

In the configuration window, add the following command to the Command field.

date '+%H:%M.%S'

The above command will produce a clock that displays time in 24 hour format, minutes and seconds. It is important to note that for this script to be properly effective you have to update it every second, or every minute (naturally you just put 60 in the Refresh Every field) if you do not include the %S portion of the command.

After you have the clock on your desktop, drag another shell script onto the desktop and add the Month by using

date +%B

then drop another one on your desktop and add the command

date +%d

in order to put the number on the desktop. Once you have all these dropped on to the desktop you can start changing the fonts to whatever you desire, making them very personalized in the process.

There are some very interesting ideas of what to do with GeekTool within this flickr tag set.

Adding Twitter stream to your desktop

If you want a twitter stream on your desktop, then the command is

curl -s -u username:password http://twitter.com/statuses/friends_timeline.rss | grep title | sed -e 's/<title>/ /' | sed -e 's/<\/title>/ /',

make certain to substitute your username and password in the appropriate space.

Adding calendar event to desktop

If you are keen to place your iCal event in your desktop, you might want to install the custom build of GeekTool by icalBuddy instead.

1. Download custom build of GeekTool. Install it in your system (replace the old GeekTool if required).

2. Launch GeekTool from System Preferences.

3. Click New from the left bottom pane. Select “Shell” from the right dropdown field.

4. Insert the command:

icalBuddy -sd -ic Work,Home -ec WeekNumbers eventsToday

to show all uncompleted tasks, separated by calendar.

You can also check out the icalBuddy manual page for more information on configuring your iCal events.

Adding Facebook feed to the desktop

This involves a series of steps that I won’t go into detail here. You can check out this flickr page for the full detail.

In a nutshell, you have to

1. Create an Automator action that grabs your Friend’s status feed. You can get this feed URL after you have logged into your Facebook account

2. Using the Automator to extract the text from the RSS feed and formats the text with the title, author, and date. Save the text in a txt file. Also save the Automator as a workflow.

3. In GeekTool, you got to insert two shells, one for the workflow and another to display the text file.
Create a new shell called “Workflow refresh” and paste in the code:

Automator Runner ~/filepath-to-the-workflow-file.workflow

Create another shell called “Facebook” and paste in the code:

head -n 300 ~/filepath-to-facebook-text-file.txt | grep '[a-zA-Z-0-9]'

Adding weather information to the desktop

The final item I’ll contribute now is putting weather on the desktop. This one is another shell script that runs in the command field. Make certain to change the city code to the one yahoo weather provides for your city,

curl --silent "http://weather.yahooapis.com/forecastrss?p=YOURCITYCODE&u=c" | grep -E '(Current Conditions:|C<BR)' | sed -e 's/Current Conditions://' -e 's/<br \/>//' -e 's/<b>//' -e 's/<\/b>//' -e 's/<BR \/>//' -e 's/<description>//' -e 's/<\/description>//'

Now you can style the results according to the fonts and colors you want in order to make your desktop stand out as a beautified Information Center.

There are plenty of things that you can get GeekTool to display. What we have mentioned here is only few of the many tricks out there. What is your favorite GeekTool tricks? Share it with us in the comments.

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BumpTop is a software that transforms your desktop into a fun and intuitive 3D desktop. It allows you to maximize your screen real estate by providing several walls that you can pin your stuffs onto and also keeps you organized and stay productive with several useful file/folder management tricks.

BumpTop is currently available for Windows and Mac. Linux users, I am sorry, you have no luck here.

After you have downloaded and installed BumpTop, it will set itself to autolaunch whenever you start up your computer. When it launches, it will take over your traditional desktop and transform it to a 3D interface with a desktop and 3 walls (imagine a room with 3 walls).

At the first run, BumpTop will run you through a tutorial on the usage (drag left, right, up and down) and various features (files piling, grid arrangement, social media stuffs etc) of the application.

Things that you can do with BumpTop

Piling up similar files

For those who have a messy desktop, you can now get it organize by grouping similar files in a pile. To create a pile, you just have to right click your mouse and select Pile By -> By Type.

To group different kind of files in a pile, you can first drag them together, then draw a circle around them and select Create Pile from the popup option.

To view your files in the pile, double click the pile and all your files will fan out in a grid manner.

Useful widgets

There are some interesting and useful widgets that you can place on your wall. The most useful ones are the Facebook, Email and Twitter widget. The Facebook widget allows you to view photos, upload your status and upload your photos. It doesn’t allow you to view the update from your friends though.

Similarly, the Twitter widget allows you to tweet from the desktop. One cool thing is that you can even drag your photos into the widget and get it updated to your Twitter. Same as the Facebook widget, you are not able to see the tweets from your friends.

Change Icon size

If you have plenty of files/folders/shortcuts on your desktop, most of the time, you might have to look through all the files just to locate that particular one you are looking for. One cool feature about BumpTop is that you can shrink/grow your file icon to be bigger than the rest and make it more prominent. This allows you to pinpoint the important files easily.

Themes

What is the use of BumpTop if it doesn’t allow you to dress up your desktop? Luckily, it comes with a theme feature where you can switch the skin to your favorite wallpaper. For those who are not into designing, you can download ready made themes and apply them to your desktop. Alternatively, you can create your custom theme and apply different design to each of the wall.

Multitouch support

This is really the best among all. The latest version of BumpTop comes with multi-touch support for both Windows 7 and Mac. If you have a computer that support the Windows 7 multi-touch feature, you can now use your finger to drag the icons around. For Mac, BumpTop works with the magic mouse multi-touch feature, which means you can pinch, swipe and zoom into your desktop with your fingers.

There are plenty of desktop enhancement software out there, but I think BumpTop is really a notch ahead of the rest. Its performance is great and with the multi-touch support, there is really no other software that comes close.

BumpTop comes in both Free and Pro version. The Pro version costs $29.

Related Posts:

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In KDE file associations allow you to specify what actions occur when you click on various file types. They also offer alternate actions and embedding preferences. KDE provides an extensive list of media types to configure, all with default settings, although you can easily add more when necessary. In addition, KDE also has a separate settings component for certain default application types.

Default Applications

Some users only need to configure a few default applications and are really not concerned with specific file types.  To access these settings, do the following:

1. Click the K-menu

2. Start System Settings (or press Alt-F2 and type System Settings)

3. In the “Personal” section, click “Default Applications”

4. Choose the application type you want to configure.  For example: Web Browser.

5. The first setting will essentially open all web content in Konqueror.  If you use another browser, such as Firefox, click on “in the following browser:”..

6. Click on the “…” next to the text box.

7. Find your application, and click on it.

8. Click Apply.

You can repeat the same steps for any application type listed. Some of them, like File Manager, have a list of file managers you can choose, or you can pick another not in the list. You can even select a different window manager, if you prefer something with more desktop effects like Compiz, or something slimmer like Openbox.

File Associations

You can find the File Associations configuration in System Settings in the Advanced tab. It displays a tree view of known file types, listed under several categories, such as audio, image, video, and text. It also has a search box if you know exactly what you want to configure. Before you begin making changes, make sure you test the file types you want to use in your application. Nothing is worse than having to go back and reconfigure numerous file types.

For the purposes of this example, we will set the default video player that we want to use for most video types. By default, KDE 4 ships with a video player called Dragon Player. It uses the Phonon backend, which relies on either Xine or Gstreamer, and is easy to use. Dragon Player, however, is nowhere nearly as robust as Kaffeine from KDE 3, and it is like a child’s toy compared to more advanced players like KMplayer, SMplayer, or VLC. Therefore, one of the first things I would do on a new install is change the default video player by taking the following steps:

1. Click the plus next to “video” to expand its contents.

2. Starting scrolling through the list for video types you want to change.

3. Select a type, such as “quicktime”. It will show you the file patterns that it uses (such as *.mov and *.qt).

4. Under “Application Preference Order”, find your favorite video player. If you cannot find yours in the list, click “Add…” and find yours from the menu provided.

5. Select your video player and click “Move Up” repeatedly until it is at the top. The order of other players will be the order they appear when you right click on that video type. You can change that order however you like.

6. If you are also configuring Konquerer, click the “Embedding” tab and select the embedded player you want to play the file.  This will apply to sites such as Apple Trailers, which requires an embedded Quicktime player.

When you are satisfied, click “Apply”. Look through the list of files and find any other types you want to configure.  You might want to also click “Add…” at the bottom to add a new file type. Once you have all the file associations configured, be sure to test them to make sure they work as expected. With those tasks completed, you will be a few steps closer to complete customization heaven.

Related Posts:

• How to Check Your Gmail Account with Kmail
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1) My Desktop by ramios

A clever use of transparency to make the windows stand out. Notice that most of the icons in the AWN dock are of black and grey shade that complement the dark theme.

Details

• GTK2.0 Theme: Overglossed by TheRob [link]
• Emerald: Overglossed by TheRob [link]
• Icons: Black-White 2 Neon/Style by DBGtheKafu [link] [link]
• Wallpaper: Grassy Sunset by mattyv8 [link]
• AWN Theme: Liquid-Black-Glas by Phlox [link]
• Cursors: Blue Glass XCursors 3D by ezteban [link]

2) GNU Linux 03 by jjrrmmrr

It is obvious that this is a well thought design. The use of the various screenlets widget match wallpaper exactly. It almost seems flawless.

Details

• GTK themes – BiMetallico 1.1 [link]
• Icon – Mac4Lin ver.0.4 GTK Icon Theme [link]
• Screenlets – widescape weather, digital clock and clear calendar

3) sth about nix by kowic

For those who like dark color, this is a good example of how you can utilize a dark theme to its fullest. There is no panel, no navigation menu and no system tray on the desktop. Other than the wallpaper, the desktop is almost bare.

Details

• XFCE + Compiz + Emerald
• Theme – Vorta suite [link]

4) Intrepid Vorta by Kshegzyaj

A minimal desktop that uses the same Vorta suite dark theme, but added conky and a panel support.

Details

• XFCE + Compiz + Emerald
• Conky
• Theme – Vorta suite

5) Linux is not vista by lieshamza

Details

• adesklets [link]
• Emerald theme [link]
• VU Meter theme – [link]

6) New Desktop Layout by Horgrathi

A very simple desktop (and cute wallpaper). Note how the icons are located at the corners of the screen, making them accessible to the users, yet is not obstructing the overall design. This setup is among the easiest and the most efficient desktop design that I have seen.

Details

• Wallpaper – The download link to the wallpaper is no longer available. I will update this link again if I can find the source.

7) Earth Desktop by Calibre-Not-Output

This is not really a desktop customization, but a compiz effect. I have previously wrote about how to make your desktop rotate as a sphere. You can easily tweak the skydome and the background in the CompizConfig Settings Manager.

8) My Desktop :: Set-21-2008 by kErNeL-sCrIpT

This screenshot shows that you can achieve beauty even if there is nothing on your desktop. A simple and plain wallpaper and several conky setup. Cool.

9) Screenshot 22th July 2008 by solidslash

Another XFCE setup that uses dark theme.

Details

• XFCE + Compiz-fusion
• GTK theme – Vorta
• Emerald theme – Vorta
• Icons theme – Eikon
• Running : sonata (music player), thunar (file manager), conky (system monitor), tint2 (task manager), trayer (tray), Conky

10) linux by booochodu

This is more of a cute desktop rather than an aesthetic one. The icon theme and the gdesklets design make it pleasantly nice to look at.

Details

• No detail of the icon theme and gdesklets used.

Do you like the above design? If you have a better desktop design, why not share with us by posting your link in the comment?

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