I love my Mac because of the way it runs. It’s speedy, as well as easy, and never slows down with time. Another reason I love my Mac though, is because of its aesthetics. In my opinion, MacBooks just look nice. Part of what makes them look so nice though, are the personal touches we put on them. For many, background pictures are a huge part of customizing our desktop experience and expressing who we are, or something we’re in to. It doesn’t take much time though, before your desktop begins to get cluttered with icons, making that careful choice of background photo that much less important. To solve this problem, we can turn to DeskShade, by MacRabbit.

Sounds cool! What’s first?

As usual, the first step is to click through to the developer’s website to download, then install, the app. Once you copy the application into the appropriate folder on your Mac, you can run in it. Upon first run, you’ll see this screen:

Click through to the next screen for your first set of options. Here, you’ll need to select what folders you want DeskShade use for background pictures. I’ve selected every album that I have in my normal OS X Desktop Preferences window.

Next, DeskShade will prompt you to get you to choose a transition effect. This is used when DeskShade changes what your active background is. This is a great feature because it is

  • customizable and
  • perfect for those of us who generally want a new background for our computer on a weekly or more basis.

The last feature you’ll set up are system wide hot-keys. These will allow you to quickly and easily access DeskShade’s features system wide, whenever you see fit. This is a great solution for those of us who are addicted to our keyboard rather than to our mouse.

Results!

As you can see from the before and after shots below, DeskShade cleaned my desktop up quickly and easily. The ease of install and use alone is enough for a product like DeskShade to stand on, but the visually pleasing desktop you get after you’re finished is certainly worth taking the time to download a shareware app.

While I feel like my results are pretty drastic and, as far as I’m concerned, outstanding, I want to know what you think. Do you know a better solution for cleaning up the desktop? How do you keep your wallpaper visible and files straightened up? Sound off in the comments!

Frankly, Colin is a big geek about the things in which he’s interested. From tech to science to the business behind it all…When Colin get’s in to something, he really get’s in to it. Mac’s and Android phones are his forte, but you name it and he probably uses it. He’s an avid pilot and is also deeply interested in the industries that encompass his technical and well, sort of nerdy hobbies. He is open to any and all communication, so feel free to shoot him an email with comments, questions, suggestions or corrections at any time! Visit him at ColinScattergood.com or ItsTechKnowledgy.com.

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