Decorate your desktops to brighten your day

Decorate your desktops to brighten your day

Vishnu K. Mahmud
Contributor
Jakarta

Tired of seeing the same color on the background of your
computer screen? Are you sick of the picture of the beautiful
rolling hills on your PC? Perhaps it's time to accessorize your
virtual desktop.

Most Operating Systems such as Windows 98 or Lycoris Linux
comes with a bevy of colors and pictures users can draw on to
smarten up their desktops, the virtual real estate users reach
after he or she logs on. From the desktop they can then "start"
their word processing application, begin to play games or listen
to some music.

Each operating system has their own default settings. For
example, Windows XP has the picture of green hills while Mandrake
Linux uses a light royal blue background color. But wouldn't it
be nicer if you had a personal picture on your desktop?

But you can! If, for example, you find a picture you like on
the Internet, all you have to do (in most cases) is to right
click the picture, and set it as a "wallpaper" or background
picture (depending on your internet browser and operating
system). So instead of logging on the net to view your favorite
photo of the latest, up and coming movie star, they will greet
you every time you boot up!

Instead of just a background wallpaper image, you can also
change the fonts and icons on your computer desktop to correspond
with the various images on the computer, hence the definition:
theme. Instead of the plain looking PC icon for "My Computer",
you can have an icon of a Star Base to match with your background
image of the U.S.S. Enterprise.

There are many websites on the net that can cater to this
obsessive hobby. Themeworld (www.themeworld.co) is but one of
hundreds of websites where you can download wallpapers and
themes.

"Skins", is perhaps another term for themes but this applies
not only to the desktop but also to the graphic user interface of
certain applications. Winamp, (www.winamp.com), the popular MP3
player, is well known for having skins to change the look and
feel of the program. Instead of seeing the standard colors and
shape on the program title bar and environment, you can have a
picture of Britney Spears decorating the application. It is very
similar to using different color casings for your cell phones.
You can change them to suit your mood.

Does your computer go blank when no one is using it for a
while? Use screensavers! Screensavers are various graphic
pictures or animation that pops up when the computer is idle. You
can set your screensaver to display fireworks after 15 minutes of
inactive time or perhaps adjust your monitor screen to simulate
Star Trek's warp speed. You can even have a slide show of your
holiday pictures projected on your monitor during lunchtime when
the computer is idle.

Want to have a different picture every day? Or even every five
minutes? Use a wallpaper application! Webshots
(www.webshots.com), is just one of many desktop applications that
manages wallpapers and screensavers on your computer. You can
simply preview the images you want to view on the slide show, set
the number of minutes of keyboard inactivity and you're off! You
can also peruse the site's vast library of wallpapers and even
obtain a print if you like.

Most operating systems have these features built in, but if
you are not satisfied, download a wallpaper and/or screensaver
application to play with. You can find most of them via
Download.com with the search keywords of "wallpaper", "skins" or
"themes".

For the wallpapers, there are countless of amateur Photoshop
enthusiasts who make their own images. If you are interested in a
background picture or theme of your favorite TV show or movie
star, do a quick search on the net with the additional key word
"wallpaper". Chances are, someone out there has already made an
image ready for you to download and set as your wallpaper.

Make sure you download the image to correspond with the
resolution of your monitor. If you set an image on your desktop
but it does not fill the screen, chances are you got the picture
with the smaller resolution or size. You can either download a
larger version (with higher resolution) or "stretch" the current
picture that may give a distorted image.

Changing your wallpaper or skins may not be the most
productive thing to do (especially in the office) but it sure
does brighten your day!