4. Create a Custom Desktop Hud

The free application Samurize embeds an information-rich heads-up display (HUD) on your desktop, including anything from a simple to-do list to your system’s stats. You can customize virtually every aspect of Samurize, and it’s extensible through plugins developed by an active community.

Samurize comes packaged with an example configuration file that demonstrates how to use the application as a system monitor—embedding your hard drive, RAM, CPU, and network stats directly on your desktop. That’s a nice start, but this app doesn’t really shine until you roll up your sleeves and open the Samurize Config Editor (right-click the system tray icon, then select Edit Config File). It’s here that you define exactly what you want Samurize to do. To get familiar with your options, take a look at the Add Meter drop-down menu in the sidebar on the right. This menu contains every control Samurize can add out of the box.

As a quick example, embed your to-do list in Samurize by clicking Add Meter > Add Text File. Click the Source tab and point Samurize to your to-do list on your hard drive. Now save your config, right-click the Samurize system tray icon, and select Reload Config. Your to-do list now lives on your desktop. Whenever you edit it—whether you’re adding, editing, or removing an item from your—the changes will instantly update on your desktop. 

Quick Tip

When you feel comfortable working with Samurize’s defaults, you’re ready to graduate to the big leagues: Head to the Samurize scripts and plugins page (http://tinyurl.com/3fepp7) to try out some user-contributed plugins.

5. Organize Your Apps with a 3D Desktop

Virtual desktops have been around forever, allowing users to relegate windows to different desktops and providing a more organized experience for the power user. But besides being functional, virtual desktops can be jaw-droppingly cool.
DeskSpace is a 3D virtual desktop that allows you to organize applications and icons on multiple virtual desktops on a three-dimensional cube. If you’ve seen the 3D Compiz Fusion desktop manager for Linux, you know what we’re talking about. The 3D space makes the idea of virtual desktops much more intuitive, and DeskSpace allows you to customize each desktop individually.

That means each virtual desktop can sport a different look, so you know exactly where you are at any time. All it takes to spin the cube to a new desktop is a stroke of your mouse or keyboard. To invoke DeskSpace, just hold Ctrl+Alt+Shift or middle-click the taskbar. When you do, your desktop will pull away from you, revealing a translucent desktop cube. From your keyboard, you can switch to any of the six virtual desktops DeskSpace provides by simply pressing one of the arrow keys in the direction of the desktop you want to switch to. To complete the switch, just release the Ctrl+Alt+Shift shortcut (or middle-click anywhere with your mouse) and the new active desktop will fill your screen. You can even set rules so that specific applications always display on a specific desktop, allowing you to create context-specific desktops (e.g., an Internet desktop, work desktop, media desktop, etc.).

DeskSpace is shareware and costs $25 for a full license. If you’re willing to do a little searching, you can find an older version called Yod’m 3D—DeskSpace’s name when it was still a freeware application.

6. Keep Your Wallpaper Fresh

If customizing your desktop is like customizing a car, so far we’ve souped up the engine and added new chrome plating. But just as every car needs a paint job, a customized desktop needs killer wallpaper, and your choice of desktop wallpaper can make or break the whole aesthetic. Lucky for you, finding gorgeous desktop wallpaper is a breeze if you know where to look.

Our favorite resource is the popular photo-sharing website Flickr (http://flickr.com)—more specifically the Wallpapers pool (http://tinyurl.com/y5glw5). That’s a good start, but even the best wallpaper can feel stale after a few days. The Flickr Wallpaper Rotator is a free application that automatically downloads and sets a fresh wallpaper from Flickr on a regular schedule, so your desktop background never gets old.

Flickr isn’t the only place online where you can find extraordinary wallpaper, of course. Online artist community deviantART is another popular repository that hosts a large collection of incredible wallpaper images (http://tinyurl.com/yqelll). If you’re sporting multiple monitors, Mandolux (http://www.mandolux.com) serves up stunning, high-res panoramic wallpapers that can stretch over up to three monitors. Can’t find a dual-screen wallpaper to suit your taste there? Try InterfaceLIFT (http://interfacelift.com), a site that hosts wallpapers for every size of screen, from your mobile phone to your triple-monitor desktop.