
How A Desktop Background Can Improve Productivity - NathanKP
http://experimentgarden.blogspot.com/2010/02/how-desktop-background-can-improve.html
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cgs1019
My background is a vertical gradient. I have a script that runs via cron every
5 or 10 seconds that sets the top and bottom colors of the gradient to values
that reflect the memory usage (top) and cpu usage (bottom) at any given time.

So if my memory usage is low, the top color of the bg gradient is blue and if
it's high the top color is red. It varies smoothly in between. Similarly, the
bottom color varies between two colors to indicate low/high cpu usage. This
way, if I'm executing a long-running, cpu-intensive task, I have a subtle
indication of whether it's still running.

~~~
catch404
would you be able to email the script to me? was always a fan of fedoras
changing background (based on time of day) but this seems more useful.

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jff
On Plan 9, the default background is a light, solid gray. In fact, the only
way to change it is to a) hack the rio source or b) download a pre-hacked
version that someone like myself has written to allow starting with a
different color.

The reason is that quite a bit of care was taken to choose UI colors which
work nicely together, and when you throw a brilliant blue background in there
the whole thing kind of goes out the window.

~~~
catch404
Interesting, I didn't know that. I've always preferred the same.

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jrockway
If my desktop background were red, I would be more productive because I'd want
all my windows to cover it up. "My eyes! The goggles do nothing."

But actually, I don't have a desktop background. If you can see your desktop,
you are wasting space and your window manager is broken.

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city41
> If you can see your desktop, you are wasting space and your window manager
> is broken.

I disagree. I think the sign of a broken windowing environment is when people
find they need to maximize everything (like most Windows users do), which
really goes against the point of windowed apps in the first place. Having
negative space is important psychologically, lets you "breath" a bit, and not
to mention, lets you more effectively use your apps together. There's a good
reason MacOS has never had a true maximize button on their windows.

~~~
crux_
I'm guessing jrockaway was trying to refer to tiling window managers (e.g.
xmonad) , only without being too obvious about it. ;)

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prewett
He did specifically mention Windows, though.

Actually, I've also noticed that Windows users maximize everything (maybe from
the Win 3.1 days?). Having the dullness of empty app-space makes me feel that
same way that living in a sea of concrete buildings does. Having my (dark)
desktop image visible is a bit like Central Park for NYC.

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noonespecial
To make my background I took the best (manual) DSLR camera I could get my
hands on, pointed it off my back deck at a view that I found eye wandering to
whenever possible, unfocused all the way and took a picture. The only
processing I did was to desaturate it a bit before making it my background.

This creates the pleasant illusion that my eye is focused on the near tasks in
the windows but the outside view is present in the background, and blurred,
just as if it were really there.

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barrkel
I use a black background with a very carefully placed light grey diagonal line
that corresponds to the lower left-hand corner of my second monitor, which is
to the right of my primary monitor.

I use this line to align the bottom-left corners of cascading windows on the
secondary monitor. In this way, the corners of the windows themselves form a
kind of "spatial taskbar" that lets me switch between console windows, email,
documentation, browser, etc. - all usually stuff that's auxilliary to the
action on the main screen.

Here's a diagrammatic description:

[http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2GNT8vlZj48/Svme4EwbLWI/AAAAAAAAAI...](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2GNT8vlZj48/Svme4EwbLWI/AAAAAAAAAIE/rmTTey5TQ0U/s1600/Cascade.png)

Here's a description of how I did it - and how awkward it is to do in Windows
7, for good measure:

[http://blog.barrkel.com/2009/11/on-difficulty-of-setting-
win...](http://blog.barrkel.com/2009/11/on-difficulty-of-setting-
windows-7.html)

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jamesbritt
I have 8 desktops, each a different color.

I use particular desktops for specific tasks or projects.

If I'm toggling through desktops it's easy to see which is which by color. I
know, for example, that ctrl-f5 takes me to where I have Thunderbird running.
If I don't see the familiar dark blue desktop I know I've hit the wrong key
combo.

It's one reason I went with KDE3 over Gnome. Having the same color on every
desktop deprives me of useful navigation and organization info.

There seems to be a cognitive advantage to having a different color; it's like
walking to a different room to do a different task. There's a useful context
switch that helps me focus.

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whalesalad
I think I see my background once a week. It serves almost no purpose to me.
I'd probably disable it if I could to be honest. I'm in OS X. ⌘+Tab, my Dock,
and Launchbar is all I need.

I personally find it odd when people out there have a ton of icons in their OS
X dock... I only keep frequently apps in there (<http://grab.by/2yZF>) and
then use Launchbar to do everything else. ^+Space lets me launch any app.

~~~
camccann
I actually hide the dock in OS X; it just clutters things up. I do pretty much
everything through Quicksilver, or just Finder/Terminal when I need to go
poking around.

In fact, I've gotten so used to doing it that way that I now use Gnome Do and
Colibri as well (yes, I alternate among all three OSes on a near-daily
basis... sigh).

~~~
kellishaver
I do the exact same things. Quicksilver/terminal on the macbook, Gnome
Do/terminal on the desktop. If I'm working in the Windows VM, I use Launchy.

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klenwell
This is mine:

[http://phosphorusandlime.blogspot.com/2005/11/php-cheat-
shee...](http://phosphorusandlime.blogspot.com/2005/11/php-cheat-sheet-
wallpaper.html)

Helpful for php projects. I find I use it almost exclusively for the date
formatting section.

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uggedal
"If you're really using your computer, your desktop should almost never be
visible"

This is even more true if you use a tiling window manager like xmonad, dwm, or
awesome.

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alexkay
Forget the background — install xmonad [1] and never see it again. As a bonus
point, you also won't have to worry about arranging your windows ;)

[1] <http://xmonad.org/>

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petercooper
Aha, so Mac users tend to be more creative types because the default wallpaper
is blue(ish)? That's my take away point and I'm sticking by it :-)

