Icons on the Dock

Keeping with the theme of icons this post is about the icons on the
dock. The Dock is that horizontal bar at the bottom of your screen
that contains icons for some of the more commonly used programs
(programs are also referred to as "applications"). These are simply
shortcuts to the applications that live in your Applications folder.
Any of the icons can be removed from the Dock. All you have to do is
click and drag them up to a space on the desktop. As you do so,
you'll notice that the icon changes and you can now see a puff of
smoke attached to the icon you are dragging. This is to indicate that
you are deleting the shortcut.
If, instead, you want to add an icon to the dock then simply open your
Applications folder and drag one of the icons from the list and down
onto your dock and let go. This action will not remove the icon form
the Applications folder, but will create a shortcut and place it where
you released your mouse button on the dock.

Changing a Mac Icon

How do you change icons on the Mac?

Sometimes you might want something more interesting than those blue folders to look at. Or you might want to change the icon of an Application. You can change the icons fairly easily, but first you need to find an icon you like. Icon packages can be downloaded for free from places such as Icon Finder or Icon Factory.

Once you have found an icon that you like, right-click and choose "Get Info" (or click on the icon and then use the keyboard shortcut: Command-i).

(note the icon becomes highlighted when selected)

The 'Get Info' pane comes up you can then select the icon that appears in the top left of that pane by clicking on it and then right-click, copy (or use the keyboard shortcut: Command-c).

Now go to the folder you want to change the icon of and select it by clicking on it, right-click and choose "Get Info" (or Command-i), and then right-click and paste (or Command-v) to replace the current icon.

Now you have a new icon for that boring folder, or Application.