When you look at your Windows desktop, what do you see? A neat and tidy display with a few judiciously picked icons, or a meaningless morass of files, folders, ancient pictures, and Web links that were dumped without logic and continue to steadily march across your computer screen? Stop me if this sounds familiar. Stop me again if the thought has crossed your mind to clean house on a dozen occasions in the last few years, but the prospect of sifting through the refuse has deterred you every time.
Look Ma, I cleaned my desktop.
(Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)Happily, a pretty darn good solution is at hand. ... Read more
Power Downloader and I have talked about how useful RocketDock can be, and it is still is. But another excellent program dock to check out is ObjectDock, from Stardock. Besides providing a skinable and extensively customizable Mac-style dock, the free ObjectDock lets users replace the Windows taskbar completely.
ObjectDock can replace the Windows taskbar, and includes a Start menu link.
(Credit: CNET Networks)Colorful and animated, ObjectDock is so customizable it's impressive. Not only can you choose your own icons to represent programs and documents, set the dock size and location, and configure icon behavior, but you can also set the dock to run faster and take up more RAM, or sacrifice the gloss for other programs.
In replacing the Windows taskbar, users can insert a Start menu button that launches the menu right from the dock, as well as inserting a clock icon using the built-in docklets. Other docklets include prebuilt links to your default Web browser, document editor, music player, e-mail client, and other application essentials. The only docklet I found lacking was one for the task manager, but that's easy enough to create by hand.
The simplest way I found to add a program to the dock was to send a shortcut for a program to the desktop, and then drag-and-drop directly onto the dock. Once added, it was easy to configure the specific icon for the application via the context menu and dock entry properties.
Users also have two choices as to how to indicate that a program is in use. You can have open programs appear minimized on the dock, or have an indicator hover over the dock icon. A huge mess of options makes the 30 included dock skins go a long way, from adjusting the transparency to importing icon and dock themes.
When hiding the Windows taskbar, ObjectDock still lacks an adequate replacement for showing programs that live in the system tray. If you're otherwise dissatisfied with the Windows taskbar, though, or just want to spice up your desktop, ObjectDock is a cool port to call home.
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
While Power Downloader was sifting through criminal case files recently, he received an e-mail from Kitty Kilobyte who had gone back to school. After telling him of her latest "impossible" assignments and new "amazing" friends she had made, Kitty had an interesting software request. Kitty wanted some way to make her computer stand out from the rest of her classmates. She figured, if she's the niece of a famous software superhero, it should show--perhaps even if it's just in her computer's interface.... Read more
You might not believe me, but preparing paella is more complicated than using TweakVista.
Among the many criticisms of Windows Vista, one that even Microsoft's own engineers should agree upon, is that it's not easy to access essential system information. Stardock's TweakVista unifies all the bits and pieces that you might want to change under one circus tent, but TweakVista's interface is no chaotic circus.
... Read more
Imagine a work space with three monitors standing side by side, each displaying a different work environment. E-mail and IM are pulled up on one monitor, Word processing is open on a second, and a spreadsheet graces the third. Now imagine the cursor flitting effortlessly between the screens, clicking, copying, and pasting from one to the other. One keyboard sits on the desk, and just one mouse.
This is no multimonitor setup; each screen here is controlled by its own computer. It isn't remote access software, either, since the controlling console is linked to the satellite computer. It's Multiplicity, and minus one rather large and glaring kink, it's pretty close to a multitasker's dreamware.... Read more
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