For some the web browser is all they need to, but others use actual programs they download to hard drives (or shockingly install from discs).  For these people I offer some helpful advice on how to organize your desktop for efficiency and fun.  I will note this is focused on windows users but if any guest posters want to write something for Macs or Linux, please shoot me an email.

First thing, clean off your desktop.  Just like your real desk, it’s probably cluttered with crash and pictures of your cats taking up valuable space and attention.  Delete all needless icons and replace your wallpaper with something clean, like a simple design or subtle landscape.  You don’t want lots of bright colors hiding your icons.  A very simple theme manager like MyColors can make your life easier.

For the more ambitious, you can make any webpage be your background.  Right click a blank spot on your homepage and select the Desktop tab.  Click on web, then the new button and type any URL.  You can put your Google Calendar or personalized homepage here for easy viewing.

Now for features.  Vista comes with its own widgets, but Yahoo and Google have a smorgasbord of widgets, compatible for both Windows and Macs (see, I show the love).  I lean toward Google more because I use so many Google features, but both have a huge selection that will quickly overwhelm you.  Like I suggested for your personalized homepage, only use the most important things like too-do-lists, weather, email notifications, and some news feeds.  If you load the page with flash games, you will spend all your time playing flash games.

I can go without mentioning the still young Adobe AIR which has some amazing features (you can mix and match on your desktop with all these if you want, but it will get cluttered).  I am particularly in love with ReadAIR (offline Google Reader) or Snackr, a RSS ticker.

To access your programs, I enjoy pinning my most used programs to the beginning of my Start menu while keeping others in the Quick Launch in my taskbar. The Quick Launch is especially important here since it has a hot key to your desktop. Launchy is an excellent alternative where you type the name of a program to launch it.  If you kept your desktop clean, you can always organize icons there.

A final feature is for the people who feel one desktop isn’t enough.  For you, there’s Dexpot, a free program that will give you up to 20 separate desktops.  You’re still working in one Windows session, so files can be shared, but you can keep clutter down between several windows.

Obviously keeping Windows and your desktop organized is a stressful task and this is just the tip of the digital iceberg with what can be done to make your offline life a little easier (even though a lot of it ends up requiring being online). 

There’s more Organizing your geek life to come (I’ve got bookmarks and social networks in the pipeline) though we’ll see what I’m in the mood for next week.  It might time for something completely different, who knows.

Check out the previous Organizing your geek life features on personalized homepages and RSS readers.