Comments on: Why Boring Desktops are Good

By: luciano

luciano — Tue, 13 May 2008 20:28:42 +0000

I agree ! I agree ! I used to have a standard blue desktop backgrounds. No distraction with beautiful color or landscape…

By: Rob O.

Rob O. — Sat, 03 May 2008 22:40:07 +0000

I sometimes use the desktop as a temporary storage but more often than not, I almost never see it. So, a big, snazzy, high-color wallpaper is just chewing up RAM needlessly.

I;ve of a similar mind on screen savers... Why do I care what my PC looks like when I'm not there? After all, a screen saver only works when I'm not.

By: Erik Mallinson

Erik Mallinson — Fri, 02 May 2008 19:17:48 +0000

I grab the square swatches of color from my colourlovers account and rotate through them every 1/2 hour. That way it’s a color I know I love but it’s pretty boring still.

By: Matt F

Matt F — Fri, 02 May 2008 01:10:33 +0000

Agreed. Dark grey on all my computers. I am a visual effects compositor and all decent comping applications have a dark grey colour scheme so you can more accurately judge colour corrections.

Who the heck looks at their desktop? It's like people who spend inordinate amounts of time blinging out their icons and theme'ing their computers. How much time do you actually spend looking at the icons or menubars? If the answer is "2-3 hours a day" may I suggest you are in more need of productivity help than you might think ;)

By: Jacob Cass

Jacob Cass — Fri, 02 May 2008 00:13:44 +0000

But how often do you actually see the desktop as a designer? I don’t think I ever do unless I am starting or closing the computer.

By: Jon MacKinnon

Jon MacKinnon — Thu, 01 May 2008 17:53:46 +0000

I'm feeling this, have the same medium gray background on both my monitors now and I've honestly noticed my productivity go up.

Or maybe it's because I've got a sweet dual monitor setup...

Either way, this post made me smile.

By: Matt S

Matt S — Thu, 01 May 2008 17:52:55 +0000

I use a medium grey brush metal background. It does not distract or tire the eye. It is very easy to make one for yourself, instructions abound for Photoshop and Gimp.

By: kadavy

kadavy — Thu, 01 May 2008 17:11:18 +0000

I used to go with the grey background for the same reason. What I have discovered about myself, though, is that if I’m not reminded that there’s an outside world, I’ll just stay on my computer all of the time. So I periodically download nature images from InterfaceLIFT ( http://snipr.com/26nv9 ), and set them to rotate every half an hour or so. So far I’ve found it refreshing, since it reminds me to go for a hike once in awhile.

By: Jay to the C

Jay to the C — Thu, 01 May 2008 16:58:36 +0000

Thanks George, you’re right:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Syp4uzvcSo

By: Chanpory Rith

Chanpory Rith — Thu, 01 May 2008 16:44:10 +0000

Hey skoobs, thanks for suggesting Camouflage. It’s a great suggestion for folks who just can’t seem to keep their desktops clear of icons.