Windows only: Free Windows utility D-Shell customises your Windows desktop icons, allowing you to switch your icon's text colour, background colour, and icon layout styles. It's a very simple, lightweight app that does just a few things, but if you're a desktop tweaker, it's a great little tool. Try swapping your icons to "Tile Icons" for a nice tweak that gives your icons a more organised stack look. D-Color is freeware, Windows only.

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If you've spent any time stumbling around the net, you've run across a site using an irritating animated favicon—a moving icon that shows up in the address bar, the site's tab, and even the bookmarks toolbar in Firefox. (Here's one at the DHL site.) While there's no way by default to disable animated icons in Firefox other than completely disabling all favicons, there are a couple of possible ways to block a particularly distracting web page icon.

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The Digital Inspiration blog points out a simple, handy way to change the size of your desktop icons beyond the three default sizes offered by right-clicking or by burrowing into your settings. Hold down the control key, left-click on the desktop, and then move your mouse's scroll wheel to change the icon size. The trick definitely works in Vista. As Amit notes, you can un-check "Auto Arrange" for even more control.

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Tech site CatsWhoCode.com offer 10 good-looking icon sets to customise your GNU/Linux desktop.

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Flickr user Gabriel Radic has an elegantly simple solution for organising icon clutter. His "Layered Desktop" background, free to download in high resolutions, divides your computer space into four areas—an aluminium board, a ruled sheet of paper, a sticky note, and wooden background. The idea is to treat the elements like you would a real desktop, putting temporary or urgent matters on the note, things you haven't yet organized into the outer parts of the desk, and personal or work projects divided between the board and sheet, for example. The background works best on screens up to 1440 pixels wide. Looking for other subtle organisers? Hit the via link below for four more ideas.

Windows only: Donationware application Iconoid reduces screen clutter and gives you more control over your desktop icons' appearance and arrangement. With Iconoid installed, you can automatically hide your desktop icons and taskbar with a click of a button. Choose a custom background colour for your icons' titles, or make it transparent with Iconoid. If you're not using Windows' built-in icon "Auto Arrange" but you do have your icons placed just so, Iconoid can save your icons' positions for easy restoration. Iconoid is a free download (donations requested) for Windows only.

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If you're running Windows apps on your Mac with VMware Fusion in Unity mode< but you're sick of blurry icons in your Dock and application switcher, the VMware Fusion blog has a simple solution: Replace your blurry Windows icons with high-resolution ones. Many of your Windows icons max out at 28x28 pixels, which is why you see the blur when they're on display next to your Mac's at least 128x128-pixel icons. The post highlights a few high resolution Windows icon packs for the job, and then details how to make the switch. As a bonus, the high-res icons work equally well if you just want to spice up your regular Windows install.

Windows tip: The How-To Geek weblog details how to set up a simple keyboard shortcut to show and hide your desktop icons in Windows. To accomplish this, you'll need to download a very simple application called HideDesktopIcons (available from the post), set up a shortcut to that app, and then simply assign a keyboard shortcut to it. It's very simple to set up, but head to the Geek's post for the full low-down. This app is similar in function to our own desktop-hiding application, Dropcloth, so if you liked the idea behind Dropcloth but weren't happy with the execution, this simple shortcut provides a great way to quickly declutter your desktop.

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Mac users rockin' Firefox 3 who like to see web site icons on their bookmark toolbar already know that the previously mentioned Mac Favicon extension isn't Firefox-3 ready yet. But a user style can give you back those pretty icons instead. You'll need Stylish to install the Mac bookmark toolbar favicons user style, but it'll get your toolbar looking as good as the Windows version.

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Web app Bradicon is a super-simple tool to convert most of the major graphics formats—JPG, PNG, BMP, or GIF—into icon files. We've previously posted a similar tool, but Bradicon's wider file range and two-step process make it a great bookmark for anyone fixing a desktop or personalizing a file package. Thanks, Jerame!

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