Decorate your desktops to help brighten up 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!