How to change your desktop icons

So you want to change those blah Windows icons on your desktop but you don't know how? I know I have been wanting to post this for a while, but kept forgetting. ;)

The first thing you need to do is to go shopping for some icons, obviously! When I say shopping, I don't necessarily mean that you should pay for icons; there are plenty of sites out there with high quality icons, free for the taking. Check a few of these sites out:

Pixelgirl
David Lanham
Fast Icon
Flameia Design
HYBRIDWORKS
Martin Laksman™
The Iconfactory
Websiteicons
Icon Archive
Yellow Icon

Be sure to download sets that have a Windows icon next to it or actually say Windows in the download because Mac icons aren't going to work on your PC. After you have found a few sets that you like, unzip one using what ever zip program you usually use such as Winzip or Stuffit. Place the icon folder on your desktop so that it's easy to find.

1. Next, right click on your desktop and scroll down to the bottom of the menu and click on Properties. A widow named Display Properties will open, 2. then click on the Desktop tab, then click on the Customize Desktop button.

Another window named Desktop Items will open.
3. Select an icon in that window, let's start with the My Computer icon. Click on it to highlight it, then click the Change Icon button and yet another little window will open.

4. Click the Browse button (as pictured above) and find your icon folder on your desktop, then select an icon from the folder that you would like to change the icon to.

5. Highlight your icon then click Open. I'm going to go with strawberry.ico .

6. You will be taken back to the Change Icon window, just click the OK button.


This will then take you back to the Desktop Items window.
7. As you can see in the picture above, the icon is changed for My Computer. If you are finished and do not want to change any other icons, click OK and that window will close.

8. To finalize the icon change click Apply in the remaining open window, Display Properties, then click OK to close the window and you should see your icon change immediately on your desktop. Here is my new My Computer icon :D

I'm not finished changing all of my icons so I'm going to skip steps 7 and 8. I'm going to repeat steps 3 through 6 until all of my icons are changed.

I have a folder marked NEW DL'S for all of my new downloads to go, instead of them junking up my desktop. I think I want to change that folder icon too, to match my new Fruity heart theme! If you would like to change a folder icon, hang in there with me for a few more steps. ;) Come on... just a few more steps, I promise! You want your desktop to look cute, right?

OK, right click on the folder you want to change, then scroll down and click on Properties. You should see a Customize tab, click on that.

Click Change Icon at the bottom. Now you are going to browse for your icon folder just as you did before. Click the icon you want, then click Open. That will take you to a Change Icon window, click OK and that window will close. Click Apply in the folder Properties window to finalize, then OK and that's it!

Oooooh, purty! For you fellas, I'm sure your desktop looks totally MANLY now, not cute or purty. ;)

I hope you have enjoyed this little tutorial on how to change desktop icons. If you don't get it at first, keep trying. It's pretty easy after a few tries.

Later taters!
~mert

I want more

Though I love what I get out of Blogger because it is free, I would to hear what you guys think about your platforms. I am thinking about branching out and possibly selling some hand made/ machine sewn products online, and I would love to be able to have another section of my blog where I can upload images of my new product, possibly with links to my "store" (I'm thinking about Etsy for that).

I'm currently looking into Word Press and was wondering for those of you who use it, how much you like or love it, and how long before you really got the hang of it. As you know I have a slight geek streak in me, and love figuring stuff out.

If you are on another platform, let me know what you think about what you are using and I'll check it out. I love having options.

I know I will have to pay for hosting, but besides that I really don't want to have to pay for anything else, that's pretty much my requirments. Thanks!

TGIF- Gadgets galore!

I started this little thingy to get you guys off to a relaxing start for the weekend... I'm posting cool blog gadgets and other things I Stumble on that it enjoyed. Plus, having something to mess with at work while your waiting for quittin' time will help pass the time, right? TGIF, baby!




I saw this at Robin's blog, it's a funky name generator that takes letters off of Flikr. Get yours here.


Would you like to have feeds posted directly to your desk top? Check out Spring Widgets. Here is a screen shot of what mine looks like at cre8buzz.

I copied and pasted my feed URL into the preferences so that cre8buzz members can see what's on my blog. :) You can subscribe to any feed and have it load on your desktop widget or create a feed widget and embed code on a site. Vurrry vurrry cool.



If you're curious to see if there are any bloggers in your neighborhood, you can check out this nifty site called FeedMap. I tried it, but there aren't any bloggers listed near me yet :( It's a really interesting concept though, and you have the option to see actual aerial pictures of the locations, which is cool. It will be really interesting if more people sign up. ;)

And yet another widget gadget... there's BlogRush. You can see an example of BlogRush at work at the bottom of my sidebar. The idea is that you submit your blog name and feed, choose a category for your blog and you can get feed titles to posts of blogs similar content to yours. Also, your blog posts will eventually make the widget thus promoting your own content. This if also fairly new, but the folks at BlogRush are claiming that this has potential to bring more traffic to your blog, so once it really gets going I'll let you know. ;) But I'm thinking, the more the merrier, right?

There is this site that I Stumbled Upon that has a similar theme with the animal cuteness factor at ICHC, called Cute Overload. This is what I saw the other day... it's just so stinkin' cute!




My favorite site this week (besides the kitteh above) that I StumbledUpon is this nifty face gadget, Ultimate Face Flash:

You can use many choices of each facial characteristic to make a self portrait. See the little box above that looks like it has a "cross hair" in it? Use that little slider tool to change the size of each characteristic to your liking. I only messed around with it for a few minutes but it was fun!
Edit to add: I just couldn't resist. *snort*


I hope you got a kick out of something in my post and have a great weekend!

~mert

Adding feed chicklets to your blog

I have been trying to become a little more "blog aware" by submitting my feed to several feed subscription sites, and I had a little trouble finding the page to each service that allows you to create a chicklet for your side bar.

Eventually I hit the jackpot though! I found this site called Online Marketing Blog and on this page you can make a chicklet for just about any RSS reader out there. All you have to do is fill in your blog URL and name, then your feed URL. Then just add any tags you want such as the line break tags, which will separate your chicklets so they wont clump together in groups of 2 or 3 per line in your sidebar... unless you like it that way. ;) In which case, don't worry about tags.

Click the image below to see the tags I placed to make a single column of chicklets, as seen below in my side bar.


Click the "create buttons" button, this will take you to the next page with your code. Just copy this code and paste into your sidebar. And that's it, easy peasy rice and cheesy. ;)


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Now playing: Sheryl Crow - I Don't Wanna Know
via FoxyTunes

This is cool!

As I told my good bud Maggie:


My stomach is upset and hurting (which used to happen when I was fighting with my own mother)... I need to talk to the MIL and get it over with so I can stop feeling like this, but until then I'm thinking I wont have anything good to say on my blog.



I'm going to make my rounds in the blogosphere though... it will be a good opportunity to blog surf instead of wracking the brain to figure what to write.

.... in the meantime, check this site out for lots of cool widgets and gadgets for your blog. :D

U Comment , I Follow

Have you noticed the fancy new graphic in my side bar? (BTW, I didn't make the original, but I did make a graphic by combining all of the colors ) It's an idea that by removing the ”nofollow” tag on your blog that you can share a little link love. By removing this tag , you are allowing the comment authors and their blog to get a reciprocating link back to them.

I believe the original explanation for needing this tag was to reduce spam, and to stop link farms from being able to keep having high page rankings and search results. I don't get a lot of blog spam to begin with but this tag certainly hasn't stopped spam on my blog.

So I'm jumping on the band wagon. I'm hoping- as others have said- that this will encourage lurkers to de-lurk. You leave me a comment, and you get a link back to your blog from you comment. It's that simple. This will in turn boost you page ranking therefore making it easier for people to find you site via search engine.

Here are a few articles on the "Do Follow" or the "U Comment, I Follow" topic:

Prepare for more comment spam, not less

Hey Google, Follow Me: Giving More Link Love

U Comment - I Follow

Link generously - you will reap what you sow

Interview with a link spammer