changing desktop icons?

Nobody is an idiot for asking questions. If you don't know something about your Mac that you would like to know, you are smart to ask.

The best forum for this question is the "Software Discussion and Help" forum, so your thread was moved there.

A see-through dock is not a standard feature provided by Apple, but an $8 shareware program called TransparentDock is one way to arrange it.

What do you mean by "change your desktop icons"? Change them in what way?

 

Here's a way you could do it yourself, step by step, using only software that comes with your Mac:

1. Pick any photo that's on your computer.

2. Import it into iPhoto, if it's not already there.

3. In Organize mode, double-click the photo to see it in Edit mode.

4. Choose "Square" in the Constrain drop-down list at the bottom left of the window.

5. Drag a selection to select the portion of the image you would like to use as an icon. (The selection will be automatically kept square.)

6. Click the "Crop" button at the bottom of the window.

7. Select menu choice File->Export.

8. In the "File Export" pane (tab), under "Size", choose "Scale images no larger than" and specify size 256 x 256.

9. Click the "Export" button and name the file myicon.jpg. Save it on the desktop.

10. If you don't want the copy of the photo in iPhoto to stay cropped, select menu choice Edit->Undo Crop Photo.

11. Quit iPhoto.

12. Double-click myicon.jpg on the desktop to open it in Preview.

13. Select menu choice Edit->Copy.

14. Quit Preview.

15. Select (single-click, not double-click) iPhoto in the Applications folder and select menu choice File->Get Info.

16. Make sure the triangle next to "General" points down, so you can see the iPhoto icon. (Don't confuse the large icon in the "Preview" section with the small icon in the "General" section; we only care about the small icon in the "General" section.)

17. Click once on the small icon in the "General" section to select it.

18. Select menu choice Edit->Paste. This should change the icon to your photo. (Don't worry that the bigger icon in the "Preview" section won't change automatically.)

19. Close the "info" window.

20. Your iPhoto icon should now be the photo you wanted.

21. If you have iPhoto in the Dock, drag its icon out of the dock to the desktop. It will go "poof". Then drag your new iPhoto icon from the Applications folder into the dock.

22. Delete file "myicon.jpg" from the desktop.

If you change your mind and want the old iPhoto icon back:

1. Select (single-click, not double-click) iPhoto in the Applications folder and select menu choice File->Get Info.

2. Make sure the triangle next to "General" points down, so you can see the iPhoto icon.

3. Click once on the small icon in the "General" section to select it.

4. Select menu choice Edit->Cut. This should change the icon back to its original version.

5. Close the "info" window.

6. If you have iPhoto in the Dock, drag its icon out of the dock to the desktop. It will go "poof". Then drag the iPhoto icon from the Applications folder into the dock.