Tired of the default Windows Vista desktop? Want something that's more eye-catching, unique....something that will grab others' attention when they're looking over your shoulder (no not porn!) Then customize your desktop with several tools that you can get from the links below.
First you need a background or wallpaper. My favorite site for this is deviantart.com
They have a ton of wallpapers in a variety of resolutions to best match your screen (widescreen/standard).
Next I would recommend adding a dock (a la Mac OS). These docks look great, are highly functional (I find it much easier to find and open files/programs), and allow you to remove the clutter of tons of icons scattered about your desktop. Two good/free programs for this are
Objectdock and Rocketdock. You can tweak the way it looks by changing the dock backgrounds and icons (both programs come with a number of options but you can download a ton on the web from sites such as deviantart.com)
Other cool customizations are gadget like tools. You could use the built in Vista sidebar and download additional gadgets from Microsoft. But most of these are bland, and the positioning is limited to the location of the "sidebar". Google gadgets is another, better option. My favorite is Rainmeter and be sure to download custom skins from http://customize.org/rainmeter. Think of rainmeter as the sidebar program, and the skins as various gadgets or suites of gadgets. Some of my favorite rainmeter skins are HUD.Vision and Enigma (both of which contain multiple gadgets). You can then choose which gadgets to display such as a calendar, live weather forecasts, clocks, news RSS feeds, computer info (CPU/RAM usage), CPU/GPU temps, etc. What I like most about this is you can move the "gadgets" anywhere on your screen. If you want a more functional desktop calendar try Rainlendar, which allows you to add events/to do functions to your calendar.
One major key to keep in mind, is you want all of your desktop features (background, dock, gadgets) to blend or fit together nicely. This is easy to do since there are so many customizable options. For those who pay attention to every little detail, you can also customize Vista completely by adding themes. This can change things such as your taskbar, start button, windows, opacity of windows, etc. First you need to "unlock" windows so you install custom themes by using vistaglazz http://www.codegazer.com/vistaglazz/ (Note: I do not take any responsibility if this messes up your computer, it should be safe. I and many others have used this to install custom themes). Then you need to find custom themes on the web and from such sites as deviantart.com (this site is awesome, if you haven't already noticed). One of my favorites is Ezlo or Ezlo thin. Many of the Windows 7 themes are also popular.
So there you go, my guide on how to pimp your desktop. With a little effort and persistence you can have some eye candy and/or a desktop that reflects your personality. Feel free to post your favorite customization/wallpaper download sites and any suggestions. Or post your desktop for others to see! Finally a good forum site to get more ideas and see some more customization features is here.
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