Icontraband

Starting the week off is one fantastic application that just may or may not preclude any further reporting on new desktop wallpapers. Why? Desktoptopia by, er, Desktoptopia streams fresh wallpapers to your desktop based on what you want. Every 15 minutes (in our case - you can define the change intervals) a new wallpaper pops up, and your computer feels brand new. You can even customize the feeds to download the desktops from the source of your choosing (we might have to do one down the line!).

Desktoptopia is FREE and available for both Mac and Windows (beta)

Link to Download Desktoptopia

Technorati Tags: application, background, desktops, desktoptopia, feed, mac, rss, software, utilities, wallpapers, windows

Just happened upon a great set of icons via Apple’s Download page, Web 1.0 from Studio MX. Their intent is simple, but they are quite good looking, and they’re available for both Windows and Mac OS X.

Studio MX also has a selection of other great icons, so check them out!

Link to Download Web 1.0

Technorati Tags: earth, globe, mac, pc, windows, puppy, studio mx

Between iTunes, Hulu, Xbox Live, BBC iPlayer, Joost, and network websites, we might need to add four to five additional hours to the day in order to take in all the streaming content blasting through the internets these days. Adobe - who’s AIR self-contained platform is beginning to make some waves - unleashed the Adobe Media Player this week, which adds another streaming content application to the mix. Upon first glance, it offers a solidly designed interface, but it’s got some ways to go; you’re presented with a largely bare canvas before realizing that you have click on the “catalogue” button to find anything new. Contentwise, it’s just getting started, so there are a handful of video blogs and Viacom properties (like MacGyver!), and the video is well compressed. For now, it has nowhere near the navigational ease of iTunes or Hulu, but it excels beyond the organizational mess of Xbox Live’s video store and the indecipherable blast of generic icons and boxes of Joost.

Link to Download Adobe AIR (required before installing Adobe Media Player)
Link to Download Adobe Media Player

Technorati Tags: adobe, air, app, bbc, cbs, hulu, interface, iplayer, itunes, joost, linux, live, mac, macgyver, pc, windows, puppy, software, streaming, viacom, xbox

If watching creepy little multicolored bugs crawl around your screen and replicate the image from your iSight camera is your thing, then BugMirror is your next download. From Oriol Ferrer Mesià, BugMirror is a pretty impressive screensaver which captures a live image from your Mac’s camera and interprets it as a low-detail mosaic using animated insects as the “pixels.”

BugMirror is Mac only and costs €7,99.

Link to Download BugMirror

Technorati Tags: bugmirror, bugs, isight, mac, mirror, oriol ferrer mesià, mosaic, screen saver

One of our favorite designers, Louie Mantia, has a spectacular desktop wallpaper in anticipation of this summer’s Batman sequel, The Dark Knight. This one will be on our desktop rotation until July.

Link to Louie Mantia’s Desktops Collections

Technorati Tags: batman, desktops, linux, louie mantia, mac, pc, the dark knight, windows

It seems only fitting that our first icon recommendation would be from the legendary Iconfactory. They’ve been making icons since you were in short pants and their stuff pops up everywhere. Today’s pick, Refresh, comes from Dave Brasgalla, the artist behind two of the greatest icon series ever produced for the Mac, the classic 32×32 World of Copland, and it’s fatter, wetter son, World of Aqua. Refresh comes in two flavors, original blue and sakura red and gives your desktop a clean, futuristic lift. It’s available for PC and Mac, with a Candybar option for the latter. Love that smooth gloss on the folders? There’s a matching desktop that complements the set quite nicely that will make your computer scream out “don’t touch me with your greasy monkey hands, you’ll get prints all over the shine.”

Link to Download Refresh (original)
Link to Download Refresh Sakura

Technorati Tags: aqua, copland, dave brasgalla, desktops, iconfactory, icons, mac, pc, refresh, sakura, windows

Hello world!

We are proud to unveil ICONTRABAND, your premiere destination for the best of the GUI world. In the coming days, you can be assured that we’ll be diligently and frequently updating the site with all the latest and greatest enhancements for your digital life, from desktop icons to cell phone themes. We’ll even have exclusives now and again, so keep visiting us!

If you’re a designer, feel free to get in touch, link us your stuff and we’ll post you!

If you’re an aficionado and have a hot tip for us, let us know!

If you’re the kind of person who likes to customize their desktops and devices, Icontraband is the place to be: We want you to look good!

Stay tuned. If it’s got a screen, we’ll be all over it!

Technorati Tags: announcements, desktops, icons, icontraband, wallpapers, windows