Desktop Widgets
Have brought the new PC and having it have Windows XP on it isn’t too bad I guess. There are some things that I miss from KDE though, one of which was a funky tool that lets you run small desktop toys and information applications and integrate them to the desktop.
So I found Yahoo! Widgets which are very closely aligned to the MacOS X look and feel. What I have is a functional desktop that rather than be cluttered with icons, is filled with a value added expereince.
These little applications are brillient, I have a picture frame that loops round a directory showing my digital photos, there are weather reports that closely match what’s actually happening outside. Resource watchers, RSS readers, funky clocks, calendars, radio stremaers, and a niffy plugin that after 5 minutes of inactivity darkens the screen before the screen saver gets chance to kick in. Certainly making better use of my desktop space. I have the TV as a second display so can watch DVD’s etc over on the TV while keeping the desktop open for browsing and email.