Taking Design to the Desktop

How many of us use a background on our desktops? I think if I were to post a poll about it, I would get at least 95% of people saying ‘yes’. But what is it most of us see when you look at the same familiar screen 2 thousand times a day? A good looking woman, a sports car, or a tranquil scene of some fish floating around on a reef somewhere exotic is a good place to start when you try to envision other people’s monitors because the majority of people never stray further past the default wallpapers Microsoft ships with windows.

A few create their own wallpapers or use programs such as Microsoft PLUS to extend their desktop capabilities, when in fact there is a really cool way of using the desktop which was introduced back in Windows 98 which not a lot of people know about or care to use if they do.

That forgotten feature is the ability to use web documents on the desktop. And the fun doesn’t stop there. Not only does it support HTML, but if you use a page from the web then the options are quite open for what you can view.

Locally (using files off your own machine) you can use HTML, CSS & Flash documents.

Remotely, I haven’t tested it with all file types but I have ASP & PHP pages displayed with ease, so I’m assuming CFM pages etc. should run ok. If not you always have your trusty browser to rely on ;)