What makes your desktop shine?

[Cain Highwind]

I'm just curious, what do you do, if anything, to spruce up the display on your computer? I'll just copy a little something from my latest Journal post:

This is my desktop:
http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/2360/desktopji9.png

What you don't see are things like WindowFX, which adds things like cool minimizing/restoring animations, closing animations, and a Graphical Application Switcher with Preview Image. I also have ObjectDock and ObjectBar but I want to play around with those when i get my second monitor. I don't have a clock in here, so it's be nice if my second monitor had a clock and all the other fancy stuff OB/OD offers so I have something to look at when I'm playing a fullscreen game or watching a movie.

If anyone has some cool suggestions on what makes their PCs shine with exquisite visuals, feel free to drop me a line.

[LocoColt04]

When Explorer.exe doesn't EVER run... trust me, that's where the shine comes from.

Visually, I'm all about the simplicity. I do change my wallpaper fairly regularly (on average, once a month), but I'm more into the customization of alternate shells. When I have 100% control over every possible design and feature of my visual operating system, I'm content. Sure, it's still Windows on the bottom, but I'm okay with that -- I have a lot of programs that wouldn't work very well via emulation on a Mac or Linux box.

Windows Explorer is where a lot of the unnecessary resource hogging comes from.

Remove the source, and the problem disappears.



On occasion, when I feel like having a screaming-fast system, I'll disable any shell altogether and use the Run command to pull up programs. It's amazing how much space your system has in its cache when there's no visual shell or interface to speak of.

[Almasys]

I just change the wallpaper here and there. Nothing too fancy.

Which reminds me...I need to change the wallpaper. It's been months since the last change.

[Angantyr]

I can never kind of find the right wallpaper to suit me at the time so I only change it now and then if I find something mildly interesting.

I use style XP for my themes, I have that SysMetrix but I can't find the skin I wanted. There was this awesome RPG one which showed your PC stats like on an old style RPG with the bars shows how much ram used, HDD space and CPU usage.

[ChloChloAriadne]

I tend to get awfully sick of seeing the same thing on my desktop. I quite regularly change my wallpaper and the themes of the toolbars and all. That's basically it. Bits and pieces of other things I add every now and then, too. Some for functionality, some for it just to look good ><.

[darkViVi]

For XP I use a Vista transformation pack, plus a patch that lets me run Vista sidebar

Vista I don't use anything, why would I? *drool*

[.07]

A quick change of wallpaper is all that I need to keep me happy, nothing drastic...heck I hadn't even heard of "Object Desktop" before now...

[Crazy Chocobo]

I just usually change my wallpaper over every now and then, it doesn't worry me too much anymore. I used to change it over a lot when I was younger but now I just leave the same wallpaper up for a couple months in a row or more. At the moment I have a Christmas scene I created on Photoshop as my wallpaper, it looks rather nice. Before that I had a photo of my two dogs but since it's close to Christmas, it was time I changed it! I don't worry about much else on it really.

[Furore]

What makes my desktop shine?
Well lemme see...
Custom start bar (think StyleXP, but not quite ), random wallpapers, custom icons for pretty much everything on my desktop with a 'Quick Access' folder for most shortcuts to avoid clutter, random screen savers, matching media player skins (even if I have to make them myself...), custom mouse cursors and that little bit of love...

Another thing I do is purposely try to download a smaller resolution desktop wallpaper and then centre it whilst finding a suitable colour background to frame it. Doing this ensures no icons over the wallpaper. ^^

But yes, I do use my laptop enough for me to want it to shine...
Regardless of the effort that could entail.

[Secret Azn Man]

I like to run various screensaver as my desktop background.

[Cheez]

I have a different Garfield wallpaper for every month

[Leviathan]

I have a picture of my busty missus as my wallpaper. In terms of shortcuts I've always gone with the fewer the better.

I have no more than 7 icons on the desktop at any one time.

[Tiger Lily]

At the moment I've got Squall as my wallpaper. I don't usually do much with my desktop, but I may mess around with my icons and make them spell stuff if I don't like my wallpaper very much. I usually change the theme a bit, I like the Olive Green one for XP.

And yeah, Raikkonen. I wouldn't do anything either. Aero interface ftw. Now, I think someone said you could download something to make XP look like that. *joins in drooling*

[SailorCallie]

I have on my desktop a background of Rick Hunter from Robotech made by a fellow Robotecher. Along with the aforementioned background are a few widgets from Yahoo.

[Skai]

I favor minimalistic setups when it comes to organizing my desktop. I do not like to have icons on the desktop because I feel that it ruins the image of the wallpaper. Instead, I use the quick launch heavily and rely on quick eye-hand coordination to navigate through the start menu and through the program files, lol.

http://nartnala.save-point.net/other...p_04_06_08.jpg

The wallpaper can be found here: http://sa-ki.deviantart.com/art/Clouds-38065368. As for the Royale Noir theme, you can find it here: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windo...-by-microsoft/.

[winterborn86]

At the mo i got a lovely pic of johnny deep, a pic taken from the film sweeney todd, i got it in the centre cos it look to weird full screen

[ekimeinna]

everytime i have new pictures and tranfer them to my husband and i's computer, i use to change my wallpaper...

[SilkAngel]

I always change my wallpaper, and I even downloaded this cute japanese MP3 player (Flele). I can make it look like any character as long as the shells for it have been made. <3

[Govinda]

Spit.

[Darkdragoon]

Idk how to do any of that...

[SailorCallie]

Idk how to do any of that...

PrintScreen or Alt-PrintScreen does the trick. You may want to open Microsoft Paint (if using a PC) and Ctrl-V it to the template.

[Howling Wind]

I change my wallpaper a lot I guess. And sometimes I change the window skins from silver to something else. One time I had it a black color. But when I upgraded my OS it went back to silver and I have not bothered to redo my skins yet. Its not really straight ahead to change skins but Finder does not puke on me when I do it so I'm happy. =^.^=

[Block]

It's all about the elegance. A picture of my fiancee and me or something that looks really pretty. Main think I care about with my desktop is tidiness. There is nothing on my desktop but the recycle bin, and if I knew how to get rid of that damn recycle bin I would!

[Dodie16]

Posted by Block
There is nothing on my desktop but the recycle bin, and if I knew how to get rid of that damn recycle bin I would!

Block. You give a whole new definition to the word "minimalist".

If you're serious about doing that, then there is a way. At least on my computer there is. Just right click on the recycle bin icon and a menu will pop up. Scoll down to where it says "delete" and click on that. It should delete the icon from your desktop.

As for myself, I usually just change up my wallpapers every now and again. Nothing fancy, but it works for me. I do have a few shortcuts to a lot of programs that I use often on the left side of my desktop, because I don't feel like going through the program menu every time I need to run things like GIMP or iTunes.

[Tiffany]

My guy works in IT, so my laptop is barebones in terms of looking "pretty". He said I could have it look polished, and give up memory and space, or have it toned down a bit. I toned it down.



That's my desktop. Nothing fancy, lol.

[midgetbob]

I really like scenic city pictures... skylines etc.

Thats what I usually rock out. Currently using a black and white downtown Skyline of a city unknown. I've also pulled farther and farther back on what I have on my desktop... getting rid of more and more on the regular.

[Block]

Block. You give a whole new definition to the word "minimalist".

If you're serious about doing that, then there is a way. At least on my computer there is. Just right click on the recycle bin icon and a menu will pop up. Scoll down to where it says "delete" and click on that. It should delete the icon from your desktop.

As for myself, I usually just change up my wallpapers every now and again. Nothing fancy, but it works for me. I do have a few shortcuts to a lot of programs that I use often on the left side of my desktop, because I don't feel like going through the program menu every time I need to run things like GIMP or iTunes.

Unfortunately no delete option But thanks for trying Dods!

[T.G. Oskar]

My desktop...isn't very shiny. Rather, it tends to vary depending on the mood. Though, I don't change wallpapers...that much.

My shiniest desktop was the Christmas-themed wallpaper I had. It's based on a really funny pic I found:



Then again, I've graced my desktop with other things, such as...

SPOILER!!:

A theme hastily built with Paint of all Mega Man characters + all Robot Masters until MM9...



...or the traditional and usual pic of a Paladin that I enjoy. These two are old, and they have what I usually tend to have on the screen (basically, Google Desktop and a messy load of buttons which since has been reduced.

Current has a SRW theme, until I can find a better one with a Paladin.

[GypsyElder]

I change wallpapers whenever I get bored with the one I have, I have plenty too that I save to it's own folder. I make my own desktop icons when I'm bored. I tried installing a couple themes but vista is hell to skin.

It really bugs me when there's stuff in my recycle bin because I can see when there's stuff in it which just makes me want to get rid of it even more.

Does windex (glass cleaner) count? lol I have to wipe off my laptop at least once a day because it's one of those super smooth shiny ones and it gets finger prints all over it after a while, can get kinda gross. I use it for the screen too but I don't have to use it as much.

[Howling Wind]

My screen is glass but I never tried using that because it might damage the aluminum body >.< My dad uses it to clean old monitors (flat screen) that don't have glass protecting it and it doesn't seem to ruin it. I just use a wet lint free cloth that came with my computer to wipe mine off.

Also. I like my desktop with no icons too. The only icon I have is the hard drive icon which I could take off but I don't like having to open a Finder window just to right click my hard drive and see how much junk I have. Its just easier to right click it from my desktop.