free

Apr 27 2009

Create your own Icons, Free

Icons have illustrated Macintosh desktops as long as they have been around. Now with OS X and the advent of 128×128 icons, you can squeeze even more detail into your icons. After all, if you couldn’t customize it, it wouldn’t be a Mac.

mu Create your own Icons, Free Icon2PNG

Before we get into creating icons of our own, we’ll look at converting existing icons into something we can edit. Icon2PNG extracts icon resources (OS X and classic) and saves them with their masks as PNG files. This app also gives us a preview of the icon before saving it and includes more options in the preferences.

mu Create your own Icons, Free Iconverter X

This program will allow us to create icons from the contents of graphic files or their thumbnails. Iconverter can even batch convert a whole directory. Once converted, it saves your icon as a Mac icon file, Windows icon or one of several graphics formats with the icon set as the documents thumbnail.

mu Create your own Icons, Free Pic2Icon

Here’s another free application that will make you a proud icon creator. Pic2Icon uses an image file to create a 128×128 icon and them applies it to the original image file. Settings allow you to apply antialiasing, drop shadow and even a dog ear to the icon. Be careful with Photoshop image files, as this app has a hard time replacing existing thumbnail icons. You can use Preview to save a “clean” version to process.

mu Create your own Icons, Free icon2ico X

Now that you’ve created some killer icons, share them with your Windows friends. This simple drag-and-drop app translates Mac icons to the Windows ico format. This is also a useful conversion if you are making favicons for your web site.

Now you have the tools to plaster your system with custom icons, you have nothing but your own nepotism to hold you back! I’ll be back again next week with more great free downloads…

Brian

mu Create your own Icons, FreeDownloads provided by MacUpdate

By admin • Articles, Freeloader Friday Download of the Week • Comments Off • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Apr 27 2009

VoIP Call-in for Free

Voice chat over the internet isn’t much of a novelty. VoIP doesn’t get cool until you connect it to telephone networks. So in this week’s Freeloader, I’ve got a brief run-down of the top three providers of free “call in” numbers that will all ring to your Mac. Now, unless you are lucky enough to live in one of these select area codes, the numbers will be long distance. But, with VoIP and cell phones, that is really not much of an issue anymore.

Area775 from CallWave

Get a free Nevada area code number with voicemail. Area775 works with your Gizmo/SIPphone account. Calls go to an answering service which you can screen on your Mac with Gizmo Project. Press 2 to answer the call. Voicemail gets emailed to you as a WAV.

IPKall

IPKall offers free Washington State area codes. You can set your number up to ring to any SIP-compatible service you have, including Gizmo Project. Inbound calls ring to your SIP client. In unanswered, they go to voicemail. Messages are emailed to you as a WAV file.

Sip Number by FreeDigits

This service provides you with a free non-local number (with, like Area775, the option ot upgrade to a local number). The site and support info is a little vague compared to the previous two. The service works with a FreeDigits SIP account (free) but can be set to forward to another SIP account. Voicemail is available to download from your account as an mp3, and comes to your email as well.

Skypecast with Skype.

No, there are no free call-in numbers for Skype. But there is an interesting new feature called Skypecasts.
And contrary to popular belief, the Mac version of Skype works perfectly with Skypecasting (provided you are on version 1.4). So, chat it up.

This week AOL announced free inbound numbers for AIM, but I doubt that will come to the Mac for a while. In the mean time, thanks to standards like SIP we can enjoy free numbers now.

Brian

By admin • Articles, Freeloader Friday Download of the Week • Comments Off • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Apr 27 2009

More Free Web Services

We’ve covered some of my favorite free web services. Today we’ll look at a couple new ones.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn was created by a former executive from PayPal. This “social networking” system allows you to connect with potential employers, contractors and employees. We all know that networking is the most effective means of finding a job, not you can do something about it.

Currently, LinkedIn is in its beta phase, which means all services are free. In the future, signups will be free, but requesting links from strangers will cost. So, now is the time to sign up and build that network.

How does it work? Easy: You sign up, fill out a short profile and then you invite all your professional contacts to join you, building your network. Then you go out on a limb and search for people with whom you’d like to connect. For example, if you search the keyword “MacMerc” I will come up, and you will be able to send a request to me to join my network.

WebShots

If sharing photos is more your style, you’ll want to check out WebShots.com. This service is currently beta-testing a Mac desktop client (OS 8/9 and X). Their stand-alone application is truthfully pretty sad. But the service is worth looking into. They allow you to share 10 albums of 24 pictures each for free. These pictures can be large as they expect them to be used as your desktop.

WebShots also has gigabytes of others’ pictures, including some professional ones, from which you can freely download (up to 5 a day). WebShots also makes it easy to share your personal albums with others and tracks viewer statistics.

Now get out there, get yourself plugged into the network and share your pictures online!

I’ll see you in the social pipeline,

Brian

By admin • Articles, Freeloader Friday Download of the Week • Comments Off • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 »