The clean desktop
Thursday, June 29th, 2006 ~ 10:28 am
Maybe I’m a little bit strange when it comes to my computer desktop. Strange may not be the proper word for it, it could be called slightly obsessive. In a world of widgets and icons that allows you to see the weather in Fiji, play a game of tetris, or check what’s on your google colander, all directly on your desktop I say no. I refuse to have anything at all on my desktop. That’s right, except for the recycling bin (which you can’t remove – or at least I haven’t figured out how) there is not a single icon, widget, document or folder on my desktop.
Why, why would I do this you might ask? Are you mad?! I can hear those people who have about 100 documents, icons and folders all sitting proudly on their desktops.
The reason is quite simple, it just doesn’t work for me. I have all of my icons of programs I use often in my Taskbar so that I can access them quickly when I have other windows open. When I’m working on my computer, I rarely see my desktop. So, why would I keep shortcuts on it that require me to close or shrink other windows to access them? It makes more sense and takes less clicks for me to simply add the shortcuts in the task bar.
Sure I like all the weather gadgets and other bits and pieces you can add to your desktop and I go through phases where I try them out. That phase usually lasts for a single night and then when I boot my computer up again they always seem big, clunky and just don’t make sense for me. My desktop needs to remain clean and uncluttered or I start to get twitchy.
I use FireFox so with their extensions I can find a release for my extension desires. I can see the weather, check to see if I have new messages in my various email accounts and probably a zillion other things I haven’t even tried out. So my inner geek isn’t completely pissed off at me for denying it the widget madness that has taken so many of us by storm.
I find having a clean desktop makes me feel calm and peaceful. I can turn on my computer and be presented with a blank slate. There are no documents that are demanding my attention, no bright icons that are trying to lure me into using their program. It’s a very free feeling.
You should try it some time.
