The reason why your operating system supports organizers and the like is supposedly to get you more productive and systematic while working on your computer. Microsoft has popularized “Outlook” as the all in one organizer.. compiling emails, addressbook, calendars, etc. And while standalone applications such as Outlook or the open source Thunderbird of Mozilla are available and stable as they are, there are still people who prefer to work offline and still stay organized. With this, your operating system provides you with a built in addressbook, and also a calendar that sits on your taskbar by default.
But sometimes, spending more hours infront of the computer makes you more adept and skilled in working seamlessly through all your tasks, that whatever action that takes more than one click is becoming tedious.. moreso, tiring. ;) Its funny, but its true.. and I know that some of you agree. There are those add ons or ‘hacks’ that make Windows’ calendar appear in just a hover. Others prefer to use widgets since they look nicer and seem to decorate your ‘desktop’.. well, but to me, it is clutter. And so, a couple of days back, while I was redesigning my desktop (I get bored sometimes, and feel like working on a task or two is taking time because of improper desktop element arrangements).. I came across an elegant yet simple alternative to a calendar.
Smashing Magazine has this exciting montly call for beautiful desktop wallpaper calendars. I stumbled across this July’s set of submitted work, and I already picked my choice. Maybe next time I’ll join in.. haha, if I have some skill to show off. ;) There are other places too that you can turn too when you can’t find the design that suits you. Others provide free wallpapers while some will require you to register. So this time, I’ve got my desktop wonderfully designed, and I don’t need to continuously click on my calendar tool all the time when I need to check on future dates. Not only am I a fan of the 80’s New wave.. but I like my hot pink and black colored wallpaper. I’m loving the cool display of highlighting friday dates in the wallpaper too! Simply great! I love it. :)
If, for some apparent reason you’re becoming too picky of the ready made wallpapers, well, then why not try and make one of your own? Since this is one of the stuffs that interests me, I think I’ll also make one similar open source tool that I can put up to share… hmm.. great isn’t? :)