Have you ever had an image in a standard format (PNG, JPG, etc.) which you wanted to convert to an icon? If so, the freeware program, SimplyIcon is for you.

Simply create windows icon files (.ICO format) by drag-and-drop images on to this program. [...] This program generates down-sampled 32×32, 24×24 and 16×16 levels automatically. It will also generate the 128×128 level if your source image is equal to or larger than 128×128.

The program is ridiculously easy to use (here is a good at-a-glance review) and sure beats creating them by importing into a graphics program and converting the format. I have used this program several times to make icons (using the company logo) for programs I have developed at work and it works beautifully.

I made a decision a while back that the most icons I would have on my desktop is one column worth, meaning if the icons on the left side of the first monitor "skip" to another, there’s too many and it must be cleaned up.

The only icon I have on the right is the Recycle Bin. I have entertained the idea of removing that from the desktop, but I find that I do actually use it from time to time.

I would say the #1 thing that legitimately irritates me is when people dump everything, and I mean everything, on the desktop.

 
Above: My Windows 7 desktop (tower PC, dual monitor).

Some would say, "That’s a Windows thing." Oh, no sir. I’ve seen cluttered OS X and Linux desktops as well. The only reason non-Windows users label it as a "Windows thing" is because that’s the OS that’s most used. If OS X or Linux held the title as most-used, you’d see cluttered desktops just the same.

I do partially blame browsers (Firefox included) for clutter if using Windows XP, because the default download location for files is the desktop. Yes, this can be changed, but most people don’t do that.

 
Above: My Windows XP desktop (laptop, single monitor).

Here are the problems with using the desktop as the place to put all your stuff.

1. The more stuff is there, the harder it is to tell the difference between a downloaded file and a program.

While it’s true in Windows that a shortcut can be distinguished from a downloaded file by use of a small arrow on the icon, if you have so much crap on your desktop you fall into that "everything looks the same" scenario.

2. It makes it more difficult to find stuff.

The desktop in modern operating systems is not meant to be the launching point for everything you do with a computer. In Windows, that’s what the Start menu is for. On a Mac, that’s what the dock is for. In GNOME (the default in Ubuntu Linux), you have a Start menu-ish environment like Windows. All modern OSes are telling you the same thing: DON’T use the desktop to dump all your stuff to.

If you purposely use the desktop as your launching point, over time this makes it more difficult to do something as simple as launching a program. You have to literally hunt for the icon to start the app you want. This is bad. Use your menus; that’s what they’re there for.

All modern OSes also have ways of searching for the app you want simply by typing it in.

Windows XP doesn’t have this, but it can easily be added using Launchy.

Windows 7 has a program search built right into the start menu.

Mac OS X has Spotlight.

GNOME has Beagle.

3. Clutter leads to wasted hard drive space.

The more crap on your desktop, the easier it is to lose track of it. After a relatively short period of time it’s totally possible to have gigs of space wasted. Maybe you downloaded some trial editions of games and dumped the installation executables on the desktop. Maybe you downloaded a Linux ISO, burned the disc but left the file. It could be any number of things.

Steps you can take to clean up your clutter

1. Get it off the desktop.

Not to overstate the obvious, but move or delete your files. If you have so much crap that you’re not sure what to delete, just burn it all to a DVD. If you fill up a DVD, make two, or as many as you need to.

2. Learn ways of launching apps via menus, QuickLaunch icons and/or text commands.

There’s really not that much of a learning curve here and it’s self-explanatory.

3. Know your folders.

Windows 7, OS X and Linux all use user folders and so should you.

If still using Windows XP, use your My Documents folder. Create subfolders within for categorization.

4. Change any app that downloads files to save to your user folder by default.

This is probably a big reason why you have so much crap on your desktop in the first place. Change the settings and put files where they’re supposed to go.

5. When installing new apps, remember to remove the icons off the desktop.

This is the only part of this article where I will say that this is a "Windows thing". Almost all apps on install will dump an icon on the desktop by default – some without even asking you first. These icons are just shortcuts, so get in the habit of deleting them whenever a new one pops up.

If you are developing a web site or a program, adding color and graphics is definitely a way to make your product look much more professional. Of course, not all of us are graphic artists so any free graphics are always welcome.

A while ago I posted a link to famfamfam’s fantastic icon set and today I’ll point you to another link which has lots more icon graphics you can use in your projects: Sweetie.

When you look at the graphics, they are very similar in style but are distinctly different. Both are 100% completely free to use and modify as needed, including commercial projects.

Does anyone know of any other similar collections available for free? If so, post them!

KeePass Password Safe is a free open source password manager for Windows. If you happen to be using something other than Windows there are contributed versions for PocketPC, Smart devices, Linux, Mac OS X, Blackberry and others.

One very cool feature of this app is the ability to use custom icons from any image to represent entries. Being that images are stored within the database, the app won’t "lose" them for any reason.

When you use Google image search you can quickly find the logos you need for your password entries.

For example, let’s say you have a Yahoo! Mail account stored. It looks like this:

You’ll notice the icon at top right is a key. We want to change this over to a Yahoo! logo for easy reference later.

From Google image search I searched for yahoo logo and found this:

This will work just fine.

Even though this image is large for an icon, that’s okay because KeePass Password Safe will auto-resize it.

I save this image locally, then click the icon button in the application next to "Icon" (see screenshot above where the key is), then click "Use custom icon".

Looks like this:

At the moment the Yahoo! logo I downloaded isn’t in there, so I click the "Add" button, locate the image I downloaded and added it in.

Now it looks like this (note the little Y! logo under Custom icons):

I select this entry and now this is what it looks like in my list:

When you start accumulating a lot of accounts for stuff you sign up for on the internet, having visual representations of what the service is by icon is very helpful.

If you get into the habit of image-searching a logo for the respective web site each time you add in an entry to the database, you’ll quickly discover that the visual reference really does make a difference. It may be small and seemingly insignificant, but in fact is a really good way of locating things quickly in KeePass Password Safe.

In addition this is also helpful if you have multiple accounts with the same web site.

Here’s a few examples:

Some PCMech specific stuff using the PCMech logo.

Some RoadRunner (my ISP) specific stuff using the RoadRunner logo.

Ustream accounts that I administer.

As said above, the visual reference really does make a difference.

Final note: KeePass Password Safe does not require the image to be .ICO specific. It can be GIF, JPG/JPEG, BMP or ICO. It all works.

Everyone loves icons. Whether you are a developer looking for ways to ‘beautify’ your user interface or you are putting together a presentation, attractive icons make a good impression.

In the past, I have pointed out the excellent collections from FamFamFam which is free for both private and commericial use. So on that note here are a couple of sites which point out links to tons of free icon collections:

• Smashing Magazine
• LyteByte

While all these icons sets are free for personal use, if you want to use them commercially be sure to check out the terms of use for the particular collection to make sure it is ok with the author.

One resource to take note of is the Tango Icon Library which is an open source project trying to unify icons used in other open source projects.

Earlier this week I wrote about making use of the Windows Icon Set embedded in system DLL files. While this can be handy, it becomes somewhat of a burden finding the right DLL file with the icons you want to use. To eliminate this problem, simply extract the icon files with NirSoft’s IconsExtract.

This nifty utility allows you to select a file and it pulls all the icon and cursor files out which you can then save individually. Additionally, you can scan an entire directory (or drive) using a wildcard match, such as “\Windows\system32\*.dll” to pull out all embedded items in one swoop. This works great when you don’t know which DLL files have embedded icons.

When I ran an extract on my Vista installation on the system32 directory it found over 2,500 icons, so this is definitely a quick way to find the one you want.

Windows comes with a rather attractive set of standard icons which are scattered throughout the operating system. One thing you may not know is you can make use of this icons on any of your shortcuts by going to the shortcut’s properties window and then clicking the ‘Change Icon’ button.

If you do not have a custom icon to use, take a look at Windows’ built in libraries by browsing to one of the following files located in your \Windows\system32 folder:

• shell32.dll
• wpdshext.dll
• moricons.dll (for some retro icons)

Anyone know of any other good DLL or EXE files which have a good set of standard icons?