Changing icon size on the desktop or anywhere in the Finder

I have to admit, one of the only place where my computer is not organized is the desktop. I take a screenshot, receive attachments, download some freeware to test, etc... Everything goes on the desktop to be sorted when I have more time. My desktop is a bit of a mess but even if your desktop is perfectly organized, you can take advantage of this tip. What actually happens to me is that when the desktop gets too cluttered up, I sometimes miss space for new icons as the desktop is full!! A good tool for getting more space or simply for reducing the area covering the super nice background you have is to right click on the desktop and choose "Show view options". From there, you can change the size of the icons and the size of the text under the icons. If you load this window when you are in another folder, you actually have the choice of changing the settings for all the folders or only for the current folder.

From the "View options" preferences, you also have other options, such as "Show Icon Preview" to display the picture instead of the generic jpeg icon and "Keep arranged by" to have the icons automatically sorted. The "Keep arranged by" can greatly reduce the need of using "View" and "Clean Up" all day long.