What's on your desktop?

With early industry years spent in pre-press and then in the training and demonstrating of typesetting systems, I guess there is still a part of me that likes playing with bits of software, trying to get the best out of them. Some years ago I started adding extra bits of "furniture" to my PC desktop, with a vague notion of making it a more useful animal. Often the PC screen is simply an ugly repository for "short-cut's" for software, work-in-progress, or web site references, requiring two clicks to kick them into action, when you can find them! My PC desktop has evolved over time into a useful tool, making software location simple, file location quick, and bringing plenty of news and information straight to the user. It currently looks something like this:



As the background image might suggest, this is now running on a Windows Vista system, but in fact all of the software you see running on the above desktop will all run quite happily in XP as well.

Components:
Regularly used software is put into action with the "zoomy launch bar" at the foot of the screen. Similar in style to the launch bar on the Apple Mac, this one is created by a free software called Rocket Dock. Software is launched with a single click, and programs currently running are minimised to the right hand side of the waste bin. The screen image of RocketDock above is visually enhanced by using a number of freely available icons.

                                
Close up of the "zoomy launcher" Rocket Dock, with Firefox program just launching, and thus expanded in size.

At the top of the screen you will see a faint yellow line. This is actually a marching display, running right to left, of two RSS news feeds (could be more if desired!). The program used to create this is a Yahoo! Widget called "NewsTicker" Its my favourite type of Widget in that it is highly configurable. RSS news feeds are offered by many sites, and they detail news items in brief. In this Widget the headline can be moused over to reveal the short version of the story, or clicked on to open the original web site and the full version of the story.

                            
The news story here, "Ruling due in witness murder case" has been moused over to reveal the brief version of the story (just fading when this image was taken!). It could also be clicked to open the full story (and open the web browser).

Taking the left hand side of the screen, working top to bottom: we have Mozilla's Thunderbird e-mail client. I was having so much trouble with MS Office's Outlook for Vista I just gave up and grabbed the freeware Thunderbird instead. Its "minimised" to this shape on the desktop so that I can easily see when there is new mail in. Just below this, before the weather info, there is a small round button. This is another Widget. It simply opens/closes the electronic CD/DVD drive without having to reach down to find it! Below that is a fairly common Widget for local weather details. This can be expanded with a click to show a five day forcast.

In the centre of the screen is a Yahoo! Widget called "NewsStand". Another RSS news feed reader, this one can be configured for multiple sources. The version below shows 11 feeds in the left hand column. Clicking on any one of these feeds gives the actual stories for that feed in the right hand column. A click on any story opens a window to the right hand side of the Widget giving the short version of the story. Double click a story to open its web site and the full version of the news item.

                  
Here, in the news feed for PrintWeek, the headline on Chesapeake raising its prices by 10% has been clicked, opening the viewing panel to the right, giving more detail on the story. Click again on the same story and it will open up the PrintWeek.com web site and give the full story via the web browser.

Further down the centre of the screen you will see 10 yellow lines. These are lines of text that are part of another Widget entitled "ShortCut Manager". You can click on any of these lines for one-click access to folders, directories, applications or web site references, with screen text (the yellow lines in this case) used to identify the function of that particular line. I use it for fast access to a mix of customer folders and web sites. You could have up to 20 references within the Widget, and it can have a background around it (I prefer a transparent surround). Font and colour are user definable.

Two pretty basic Widgets are used at the top of the right hand column - one for a decent sized clock (with an alarm if you need it), and one for an easily accessible calendar. The calendar can actually be linked to a diary Widget, but I prefer to use a stand alone diary. As with most of the Widgets discussed here the typeface and size is user definable. My preference on this desktop set is to standardise with Franklin Gothic Demi Bold and Heavy, usually in italic and with a shadow where it is available to help lift the text up from the desktop background.


                                          

Can't find a Widget to do a job? Then build your own desktop devices with Samurize. This "to do" list on the right hand side of the screen is a "self build" device. The white text scrolls up through the box. The device includes a date and time reference, as well as a live update on your machines memory status. Another Samurize piece of work sits across the middle of the screen, just under the RSS feed reader. The white text on this one scrolls right to left, and this one highlights urgent issues for the day.

Both of these devices require a simple and easy way of updating the text. The Samurize software interfaces with a plain text file. However, I then stumbled upon a ready built Widget that provides for an easy way to update this text.

  

During normal operation the Widget, TH Note, appears as the little bar as in the picture on the left. Just by mousing over this bar a "post-it" note style page appears with the current text in the Samurize "to do list", as in the picture on the right. Simply add a new item, or edit existing text; press the save key; and the new updated text appears within the "to do list" on the screen. Page 1, as above, is for the list on the right of the screen; page down through this Widget and you get to the text for the "urgent items" list that runs across the centre of the screen.

I do not have the time or the skills to detail anything more about Samurize itself. It takes a bit of working out (to a novice like me anyway!), but is quite good fun.

Update - September 2009

 

September 2009: A few changes from the original desktop, with Samurize now playing a larger part down the left hand side. This creation provides big and bold clock and date information, with a three phase "to-do-listing" - general "to-do", targets for the week, and key projects for the day. Under this are four short-cut links to software or areas of the hard disc, and then a further 12 boxed short-cuts to customer folders and general folders. On the very right hand side of the desktop is another Yahoo Widget - Tabinator. Behind each of the logo'd tabs are links to files, folders, programs, or web sites. Overall its means that the desktop offers over 80 short-cut links to various files - it works really well!