14 DAY TRIAL // Like a passionate driver's hobby to personalize and tune up his/her car, it pleases me to have my desktop just the way I like it.
I'm not just talking about the wallpaper, which can be changed in a second. If I would be able to, I would develop my own operating system, so that it could suit my needs better. I'm not saying Windows doesn't do a good job. I'm just talking about the final touches that make everything "perfect".
Customizing your desktop
I have found a little program that can help the likes of me, and customize the look and performance of the desktop, by managing little components named desklets.
A desklet can be either an icon, a shortcut, a component that allows you to run a shell right on your desktop. It can enable you to access command line functions without having to follow the Start>Run>cmd path.
AveDesk is an application that lets you create your own personalized set of desklets. The list of available desklets you can add includes the following: drive, folder, FTP, Notes desklet, recycly bin desklet, shortcut and speak desklet.
Apart from the classic My computer icon, that's been hanging in the upper left corner of your desktop, having My Documents as a sidekick, you can add individual Drive desklets on your desktop.
I like this feature because you can perform several adjustments to the desklet. For example, in Windows, you can only select the icon and caption of the Drive shortcut. Here you can modify its size, color (with hue and saturation control), alpha level, drop shadow, label format (it can contain information about the available free space, total space, number of files and directories, and so on). All this information updates itself.
For each desklet you can add and configure visual effects (bounce, shake, glow, matrix, selection box, and so on). They are nice, but if you set the options to good quality, your system will run a little low on resources; on the other hand, if you set the effect to "speed", the effect won't look that nice.
Another type of desklet that you can add is a Folder. This is, in fact, a shortcut to a folder, and has basically the same options as the drive desklet, only in this case, you have to set a target directory, rather than a drive. This is not so useful, as the two elements could have been easily integrated in one.
Moving on, I've found an FTP desklet, that allows you upload files to an ftp server, by simply dropping them on it. You can add and change the server settings, and you can even specify a directory where you want your files. This is, of course, just an upload tool, and not a managing one, and if you would like to carefully organize your files on the ftp server, you would have to search for a different, more specialized application. But this little tool makes the job easier for you!
Another great component that comes with AveDesk is the Notes desklet. This little tool will help you store notes right on the desktop. There is no text formatting, just text! The changes you make are automatically saved as you type or delete. To make things simpler, you get a preview of your text right in the icon (which is a paper note slip), giving your desktop a nice 3d look.
There's also a recycle bin desklet available, but, to be honest, I don't see the use in this. The icon is just the same, and all it does is provide a shortcut to the Windows default recycle bin. You cannot modify the drive settings. All you can do is a right click and select to empty it, and double click it, so that you're directed to the original bin.
If you have a program or a file that you like the most, you can place a shortcut for it on the desktop, so that it's easier to open! This desklet also allows you to set some parameters for the program or file you want to have fast access to. AveDesk manages to remove the arrow that's specific for a shortcut, but other than that, there's not much more you can do, that you couldn't do with a regular Windows Shortcut.
Last in the list, but not least important, is the speak desklet. This little feature allows you to drag text over it, and the Microsoft Sam text to speech engine will pronounce it for you. It would be nicer if this program had been shell integrated, so that you can select the speak desklet from a context menu.
If you're planning on getting familiar with AveDesk using the help menu, you're going to be disappointed, because even though there is such an item in the configuration panel, it's not doing anything.
After you've added as many desklets as you wish, you have to save your configuration, otherwise when you exit the application you will end up back where you've started.
I have to confess that when saving, it takes the program quite some time to perform this action (twenty seconds seems awful long for this kind of program), and if you try to do something else while AveDesk saves the progress, you might end up getting the fatal error blue screen (it happened to me twice, but only when I had added many desklets).
The items you place on the desktop behave like any normal windows elements, but you can toggle between single and double click as the Open action. The only way to see what desklet is selected is by selecting the Select box effect. Also, multiple selection is not available, so the only arranging option you have is the 'align to grid' function (the grid is configurable).
You can adjust the global settings that apply to all the desklets that you create but you can also modify each one individually, from the Desklet property panel.
The good
The program is simple to use, and can improve your desktop's performance and looks. It's not difficult to work with, and you'll master its commands in a matter of minutes. The desklets are smoother than what Windows offers.
The bad
If you use the good quality settings, and add more desklets to the desktop, the system's performance is affected; also I don't like the fact that it crashed my computer, so these issues should to be taken into consideration for future versions.
The truth
It's worth to try and see what changes it can bring to your desktop, but you have to be careful not to overload it. Otherwise the feature list is rich enough to put it on your download list, and since it's free, why not install it?
Here are some screenshots of the program:
