themes
Latest
GrApple themes bring Safari's UI touches to Firefox
For those of you who aren't looking forward to Firefox 3's default new look today, might I suggest an FF2 theme called GrApple Yummy, from Aronnax. It makes Firefox a dead ringer for Safari. In fact, Aronnax claims it looks three times more beautiful than Safari. Your mileage, of course, may vary. GrApple Yummy is available in two flavors, blue and graphite. Blue contains three-color window controls, while graphite, as you might imagine, has gray window controls. Both themes are donationware.
Sony's official PS3 theme creation how-to
A few days ago, the PlayStation.blog posted an official how-to, going meticulously step-by-step through the process of making original PS3 themes. It shouldn't be surprising, but there quite a number of icons used by the PS3, meaning a total XMB overhaul will take quite a bit of effort. If you're willing to take the jump, download the files you need here.Unfortunately for Mac users, Sony's official theme program requires Windows. Considering how only 11% of you use Apple OS (according to our stats), it seems like Sony's neglect of the operating system will continue.
New iWeb themes from Jumsoft
iWeb 2 (the iLife '08 version, that is) comes with an assortment of 26 different themes, but if you're tired of trying to mod the Comic Book theme for your new blog, you may want to look at ten new iWeb themes from Jumsoft.There's a good assortment of styles in the Jumsoft collection. I personally find the Teddy theme to be a bit twee and Flowered World is too feminine for my taste, but YMMV. My personal faves from the new collection are the sparse and paper-like Simple Info, and the pastel and plastic Business. An installer app is included to make sure that your new themes end up in the proper place on your Mac. Jumsoft sells each theme for $9.99 or you can buy the entire pack of ten themes at a 30% discount for $69.99. If you're an iWeb fan and want some additional design options, take a look at the new themes.
Free Indiana Jones XBLM downloads
Do NOT remain calm. We repeat, do NOT remain calm, because this is a FREE Xbox Live Marketplace download alert for U.S. Live subscribers. Now get excited!To celebrate the upcoming release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (wow, that's one long movie title) the powers that be have put up a free six pack of Indiana Jones gamer pictures as well as an Indiana Jones theme. Make your way to the "New Releases" section of the XBLM to grab your free goods and to admire Harrison Ford's unnatural ability to fend off old age.
Download free Drillbit Taylor and Hitman goodies
If you're like us, we need a fresh coat of new gamer picture paint ever once and a while. You know, to keep things fresh and lively. But our only requirement is that all gamer pictures we grab from the XBLM must be free. Call us old fashioned, but that's how we roll. So, we're happy to share with you that two new sets of movie themed gamer pictures (and dashboard themes) are available to U.S. Xbox Live members for free.Right now on the XBLM, you can grab a free Hitman the movie gamer picture pack and theme as well as a free gamer picture and theme from Owen Wilson's comedy Drillbit Taylor. Like we said, all four sets of downloadable goodness are free and are (surprisingly) quite well done. Especially the Drillbit Taylor pack. You'll have to download to see, but for some reason those gamer pictures make us crack up.
Free Ax Men gamer pic and theme downloads
Pimping their new television show to the "youngins", The History Channel is offering free gamer picture and theme downloads for their latest docu-reality show Ax Men. Sadly though, Ax Men isn't about assassins running around New York City on a mission to kill, it's about the people involved in the logging industry. A very dangerous industry. The free downloads are available to U.S. Live subscribers and rate pretty low on the coolness scale. But they're free and we've never, ever been against free goodies. Ax Men premieres March 9th on The History Channel, Ax Men downloads premiere on the XBLM right now. Please be careful when downloading.
Free Air Force, Missed Call and Sarah Connor XBLM downloads
It has been a long, long while since we've told you about free XBLM theme and gamer picture downloads and we're a little disappointed in ourselves. It's inexcusable and, for our lack of free download notification, we apologize. But today is a new day and a time to re-invent ourselves, so we figured we'd point you towards new and free XBLM downloads. That is if you're in the US. Newly available and free for download is some Air Force content (theme and gamer pictures), One Missed Call content (theme and gamer pictures) and The Sarah Connor Chronicles content too. Enjoy your free goodies US Live members and we promise to keep you better informed about free stuff. This time we'll slap our own wrists.
European PSN updates for December 6th
We hope you like themes, because there's not a lot else available today, apart from a couple of add ons and a demo. In fact, today's update is even lacking trailers - not to mention a huge hole where the Guitar Hero 3 downloadable content should be. Here's the full release list: Kane & Lynch demo (free) Motorstorm "Domino & Adventure" vehicle pack (£1.49) Folklore "The Origin of Belae" add-on pack (£1.49) Blazing Angels 2 Multiplayer trailer (free) Mesmerize theme (free) Tori Emaki theme (free) Heavenly Sword theme (free) Snakeball theme (free) Lemmings theme (free) Killzone 2 theme (free) Singstar theme (free) Themes are all well and good, but where are the downloadable titles Europe has been promised for ages now? Puzzle Fighter, Everyday Shooter - even Blast Factor: Advanced Research hasn't been made available to us yet. As for the Guitar Hero 3 downloadable content, the least said about that, the better. You were doing so well SCEE. What went wrong?
FREE Xbox Originals themes and gamer pictures
If you know anything about us here at X3F, then you've already accepted the fact that we love our free Marketplace content. It's one of the rare things in life that can instantly brighten our day. And today we've got our fair share of free XBLM content with the release of a hand full of themes and gamer picture sets from the new Xbox Originals games. Available to all Xbox Live subscribers is a free theme and gamer picture pack for each Xbox Original game including Crash Bandicoot, Crimson Skies, Fable, Fuzion Frenzy, Halo, Indigo Prophecy and Psychonauts. That's a total of seven free themes and picture packs. And surprise, surprise, they're all actually pretty decent. Especially the free Halo picture pack, because we're suckers for a good Grunt gamer pic.
More gifts. LIVE is 5IVE sponsoring free themes
The LIVE is 5IVE branding is far from over with the Microsoft marketing team releasing a set of six free dashboard themes to the XBLM.The free themes include Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Mech Assault, Halo 2, Ghost Recon 2, Gears of War and an Xbox LIVE is 5IVE branded theme. But as with anything free, the production quality on a few of these is lacking, especially the LIVE is 5IVE and Wolfenstein themes. Watch out for their guide backgrounds ... eesh! Though, we must say that both the Halo 2 and Gears themes are actually quite enjoyable. Anyhoo, all your free theme'age is listed under the "Xbox LIVE is 5IVE" heading on the Marketplace, so go and get your download on.
XBLM freebies: HP, Transformers and Sidekicks
We're not huge supporters of branded XBLM gamer pictures or themes and aren't all about "selling out" when it comes to downloading them. But when the content is free (the 100% free kind of free) then we find no harm in taking a look at the goods ... it's our sick obsession.Major Nelson gave us a heads up some newly free gamer pictures and themes that await on the Marketplace. Canadian Live members can get themselves both a free Transformers movie sponsored Chevy Camaro gamer picture and a pretty dashboard theme. US Live members have access to a free gamer picture (slash) theme download featuring HP's BlackBird 002 gaming rig and a free set of gamer pictures (slash) theme featuring the new T-Mobile Sidekick LX. Then of course there are is some older (and still free) content including the Ford Sync and LG Mobile. Wait ... we're starting to sound like peddling fools taken over by the corporate giants and their large pocketbooks. We feel dirty now ... that is unless a new Camaro outfitted with a BlackBird 002 gaming setup and a Sidekick holster would appear at Fanboy Towers. Then we'd feel dirty, but be really happy.
DragThing 5.9 with Leopard support and full dragabilty
DragThing, which could have my favorite Mac app name ever, is a launcher that will open up anything you (surprise!) drag to it, and can also work as a Dock alternative and a visual clipboard. The idea is that everything you need is just a click (or a hotkey press) away.And now, this thing has hit version 5.9, with full support for Leopard (an entire week early!), and a host of other updates. Actually I'm not sure how much a "host" is, but there's a lot-- a new look, icon reflections (optional, in case you don't want things too shiny), new themes, live previews, and the ability to insert and rearrange items in the Dock using just the eponymous dragging action. Very slick.DragThing is available over on the website-- a single license is $29, and you can get five and ten packs of licenses for $99 and $149. Trust me-- it's a real drag.[via DF]
Create your own custom PSP theme
If you, like us, have gotten a little tired of the "Cookies" and "ClassyPink" themes on your PSP, you'll be happy to hear that the custom PSP theme creation tool has just been released on Sony's Japanese website. What you will, however, be less excited about is that while the program makes full use of English, the instructions do not. If you're the sort who's not intimidated by a challenge (or the sort that can read Japanese) feel free to begin crafting your very own Welcome Back Kotter theme*. If you don't mind waiting though, we'd sit tight. We're sure an English download can't be far behind.*If, for reasons that are an affront to God himself, you wish to base your theme on something other than hilarious 70s hit comedy "Welcome Back Kotter," we're fairly sure that would work too.
DashboardThemes.com is no more
We just caught wind of some sad community news today as one of the most resourceful Xbox 360 theme preview websites decided to throw in the towel. DashboardThemes.com, the website where you could preview, vote on and talk about Xbox 360 themes, is no more as the owner's of the site decided to end it. The homepage is now stark white with a final farewell and an explanation to why they decided to shut down the site which mostly revolves around the fact that they've "lost interest in maintaining and growing [the website]".Goodbye DashboardThemes.com, you were a very useful website that helped in our search for the perfect 360 theme. We were with you at the beginning and now we're with you at the end. Rest in peace.[Thanks, NitroFrost]
New WipEout, Pursuit Force themes available
So you've updated your PSP to firmware 3.70, and you've checked out Joystiq's guide to installing themes. Now you're saying to yourself, "that was fun, but I wish I could have a theme that wasn't bright pink". Well your wish has been granted by the UK Playstation site. Click here for your choice of Lemmings, WipEout, or 6 different Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice themes, as well as Cookies or Classy Pink.[Thanks Random!]
Scared about themes? Let Joystiq be your guide
Mr Justin McElroy, resident funny man over at Joystiq.com, has written up a very handy post which guides you through setting up themes on your PSP. In five easy steps (all ending in exclamation marks!) you will learn to download, install and then, finally, remove one of the two offending themes currently available. With more themes available in the near future, however, this is a skill you need to learn. Like driving, except you can do it while drunk.
PSP firmware version 3.71 and downloadable themes on their way
Sony have updated the PlayStation.Blog to tell us that two new firmware updates will be available - one for PS3 and one for PSP. PSP version 3.71 will further improve the functionality given with update 3.70 which hit yesterday. 3.71 will add "many features" that the commenters on the PlayStation.Blog have requested. There's no word what exactly those will be, but they name the main new feature as being the ability to apply themes to your XMB. Wait, wasn't that added in 3.70? Regardless, Sony have also said that new themes will be available for download at some point on PlayStation.com, the official PSP Site and the PlayStation Store. The PlayStation Store? That sounds great, but why stop there. We'd love to have demos, wallpapers and videos made available that way, too.
Dockables: Control your Mac from your Dock
We have a pretty wide array of choices when it comes to controlling our Mac, but Dockables adds even one more way to do things like shut down, start a screensaver or sleep the display. More of a collection of tiny apps than a full-blown utility, Dockables simply installs a folder in your Applications folder that contains 12 separate one-trick-pony apps (they're actually just packaged AppleScripts with pretty icons) that can perform the following actions: Shut Down, Start Default Screen Saver, Restart, Empty Trash, Eject Media, Sleep, Log Out, Close Applications, Hide Applications, Mute Sound, sleep display, and take a screenshot. The idea is that you drag just the Dockables that you want to your Dock, thus providing one-click access to the actions you use most. A few Dock dividers and alternately themed Dockables are even provided for yet more options for controlling your Mac with style and organizing everything just the way you need it.Dockables is provided as donationware from COCOApps.[via MBW Picks]
Keynote '08 Picture Frames hack
Brian sent us (thanks!) what is probably the very first Keynote '08 hack. He found that there's a new stroke option in the program called Picture Frames, which are various types of framing graphics to put around a slide. The standard choice screen lets you choose from 12, but Brian opened up the Keynote files, and found that there were actually 72-- apparently Apple included Frames for its own Themes, but didn't allow the user to use them separately.Fortunately, all it takes to show the extra frames is their names in an xml (actually a .plist) file inside the Keynote .app folder, so Brian cracked it open, and added all the names. Turns out, also, that no matter how much you stretch it, the Picture Frames choose can only show 50 at a time, so Brian even created a customized .plist file that shows his 50 favorites-- all you have to do is download it from him, put it inside your Keynote .app file, restart Keynote, and you've got access to almost all the Picture Frames that Apple does.It's pretty clear why Apple didn't want people playing around with custom frames too much (opening a Keynote file with a custom frame requires that you have it installed, apparently, so sending a Keynote file to your friend without the custom frame could lead to trouble), but who knows why they didn't at least give you the option of using all the frames everyone has. Thanks to Brian's superfast hack, now you can.Update: Just to make it clear, it's fine to use these hidden frames, since everyone has them installed. The problem with sharing frames comes when you send someone a slide with a frame you created-- they don't have that frame installed, and so they won't see it.
iWeb '08
I need to come right out and say it: I am really, really excited for iWeb and all the new .Mac changes. With the first version of iWeb, Apple didn't seem to quite 'get it' yet; everything you could build into your pages had to more or less come from your Mac desktop. In a web 2.0 world though, that just doesn't cut it for so many aspiring iWeb users. Many of us have Twitter accounts, pictures on Flickr and stuff we create at zillion of other sites that we'd like to integrate into a personal website, and iWeb 2.0 reveals that Apple finally understands this. Web Widgets Finally melding the power and ease iWeb brings to publishing your Mac's media with the rest of the internet is iWeb's arguably biggest new feature: Web Widgets. While this page is a little skimpy on details, we can now embed code snippets from the endless community sites cropping up on the web into our iWeb pages. As an awesome bonus I can't wait to see in action, iWeb also offers a live preview mode that will include these widgets, so you can see your site in action and be sure everything gels before publishing. Publish to a personal domain This feature doesn't get its own page at the new iWeb site, but hopeful iWeb power users will likely appreciate the fact that you can now publish your sites to personal domains. Details are even slimmer for this one, but it sounds like Apple finally shared some of Mac OS X's built-in FTP abilities with iWeb, allowing us to set up our own personal sites for one-click publishing.
