What does your desktop look like?

[Zen]

Well I think one thing that for the moment is saving my wallet from getting a good work out is the fact, that I've just learned that my current video card will not support 3 monitors. It's only got one DVI port off the back of it, and my friend who runs 3 told me that I need a minimum of two DVI ports to run 3.

And my same friend when asked about the "productivity" that might be achieved by running 3, he was bold faced honest with me. He told me that when he made the choice to go triple, he did so more so out of vanity and to feed his super macho ego! He might be feeding his overinflated ego, but his current setup is to die for, 3 matching Dell slimline 24 inch High Def monitors, the glowing dark red keyboard, matching dark red glowing mouse, all the dark red LED cooling solutions and even going as far as taking a dark red colored bicycle reflective tape and neatly covering any exposed wires with the tape to match the color theme. Don't know how it works, but his speakers illuminate red as well?!?

So now I need to do a little research on a good decent dual DVI port video card, run the primary monitor off port #1 and use my DVI splitter cable for monitors #2 and #3. But for the moment I'm getting along, might be some time before I dive into this, but I'm not going to be dishonest with you Leeky, three matching Envision 22 inch monitors would look all so good..............."I'm so tempted to feed my ego"!

 

[Leeky]

No problem on the double post,. I've removed it for you.

What model is your GPU?

Mine only has 2 DVI's, but can support 6 displays, so not sure how on the money that is -- can easily find out with your GPU model though.

My decision is more for productivity for more reason than any. There are plenty of scenarios where I've got a VM powered up and I'm using that, working with webpages open and documents as well. As it stands right now, I need to open and close windows even with twin displays, so moving to triple to enable me to dedicate one display to what VM(s) are running whilst still having the remaining to functional.

Whether it results in being overkill or not I won't know the answer to until I do it. The second option of course is to move to two high resolution (2560x1440) 27" Dell displays, and keep to the two, but increase my work space with the increase in pixel-count. That's by far the most costly option though, but its one to consider none the less.

 

[Zen]

In regards to your question as to what my video solution is, it's is a older Nvidia Quadro NVS 285, 128 MB's, with DDR2 RAM, RAMDAC is Dual 350 MHz (integrated).....better yet let me let you look at the thing.....

Amazon is where I got it about 10 months back, might as well show it's picture from there!

So that's the image....

Now the technical spec's......

So as you can see by the image of my identical card, only one DVI port, might have to research and see of a DVI three way splitter might work, doubt it, but it may be worth a look.

Could I go triple? Let me know what you think!


Update Edit......

Just realized where the tech spec's say monitor support, it only supports two.
Maybe I could wing three but looks like that would be a "no go"! Crap!
I guess I'm looking for a new card then!

 

[Zen]

Sorry for the back to back posts here, but displaying my last desktop screen shot had been bugging me because of the way it shown up, to damn big! This is a re-sized version of just about the same shot, made some slight changes to it this morning. Try'd to go that the "well blended" look.

There we go, I think that size of a shot looks way better!

 

[Zen]

Got another one, just created this one today.........enjoy!

 

[Zen]

It's been a little bit since giving my laptop computer some "bling bling", so I sat back in my easy chair tonight and let it rip! Not a bad little deal here, don't know which one is hotter, the car or the woman? I'll let all of you out there figure that one out.

Enjoy........

 

[Zen]

Well this creation was created very interestingly, let's just say "time limit" and someone else selected the wallpaper! My good friend Mr. Raykin popped me a visit this morning, which was nice. He needed to check his e-mail while here and noticed I was back up to my old Windows customizing tricks again. He dared me and bet me $10.00 that I couldn't create a customization within 10 minutes time, a buck a minute thing I guess. He also threw out that I had to 100% remove all I had and start from scratch, and he got to pick the wallpaper I had to create from, so for a minute my system looked stock Win XP...."yuck"!

I told him......prepare to loose that $10.00, I'm on like Donkey Kong! He got miffed a bit when I put the finishing touch on this at the 8 minute and 45 second mark, everything proper, everything new, nothing carried over from my last desktop creation, a virgin creation!

Have to be honest here, when Mr. Raykin was the one to pick the wallpaper, that made it hard for me, it took some of the creation out of my hands, which I'm not used to. But after about 30 seconds of discomfort, went to Rainmeters web site, downloaded a theme package, set it up, edited it's config's, picked a new Window Blind, new mouse cursor, and deactivated Objectdock and activate Rocketdock and nipped and tucked that thing till it was done!

So here it is, my first "time challenge" Windows Customization....

Now that I stole that $10.00 off my friend, I think Carl's Junior sounds good for dinner tonight, what the heck......Mr. Raykin is paying for it! :haha:

 

[Zen]

Just wasn't satisfied with the old look, plus I was thinking about starting to create the "building blocks" of a good custom Windows customization. For a web group I know of is about to have a custom Windows/Linux contest, which I have been, as of late last night personally invited to participate in. I haven't entered a contest with this group of super mega customizers since 2009, at that one I came in 13th place, with a very slight "honorable mention". I know this group well, full of members that throw a lot of tonnage into their creations. I will be practicing reverse psychology here, knowing that they like to throw everything in but the kitchen sink at their designs, well they might throw in the kitchen sink, I opted to go "clean"! They always load their stuff with as much "bling bling" as possible, I'm not doing that this time. I opted for open spaces, transparent Rainmeter config's, semi transparent matching dock icons and a simple clear glass styled Window Blind, which makes up the taskbar. I'm not done here, I figure just a little more "nipping and tucking" and I'll then be done, unless you all think that this thing looks good "as is"! Now it just boils down to a decent background image, I like the one I'm using, but maybe I can find better. I have until 9:00am this Monday morning to enter it in the contest, so I got some time to ponder the image.

So basically based upon my recent look, just really cleaned up!

Normally I don't nervous about my creations, they usually bring me great joy and fun, but this contest thing has got me slightly nervous. So if anyone out there is kind of into what I do, that is pimp your desktop and all, if any of you do what I do here and have any recommendations, I'm open to them!

Plus I know one reason I'm a bit nervous here, I will be going "head to head" with my very good friend Kenny. Ken was one of the very few people that introduced me to the world of altering Windows with third party tools, to make it look the way I wanted it to look. He's also a founding member of a very well known customization web site out there, one that's used by 100's of people each day, he helped found that site and about 5 years ago he bowed out and decided to go it alone. He has no clue I've been invited by one of the groups moderators. I guess when it comes to Ken, I guess it's like the student hunting down the teacher! I guess I will let the element of surprise try to help me out here......."very wishful thinking"!

 

[Zen]

Well I think it's safe to go ahead and show off my custom desktop, the one that I created for that private invitational contest thing, that I talked about in my prior post. I have no clue as to where I will place! It wasn't until 24 hours after all submission were in, that the Administrators unlocked the contest gallery, as to be viewed by the participants. Most everyone there did as I feared, "they threw in the kitchen sink"! Oh well, I'm proud of this work, took me a long time to get it done, and I'm glad I choose to go with a more minimalistic look.

For not wanting to "blow up" this area with a life sized image, I will post the smaller one, then I will post a link as to where the life sized image can be seen. For there's a lot of small detail that this smaller image doesn't show.

And now the life sized direct link.....
http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/4056/abstractflowerscopy.jpg

The "nut's & bolt's" of this creation....

Window Blinds 6.0 (Blind name Laguna Kaiser)
Rocket Dock version 1.3.5
Dock Icons (Agaz Set provided by Deviant Art)
Rainmeter version 2.2.0
Rainmeter Config (Simplicity Theme Package provided by Deviant Art)
Icon Packer version 2.1
Wallpaper (Pasha DS provided by Wallpaperswide.com)

Well that's it, please folks, wish me luck here, taking into consideration the other entries I've seen, I'm going to need it! :blackeye:

 

[LNCPapa]

Gotta say that looks beautiful Zen. Nice, clean, and elegant.

 

[Zen]

Baby Got Back.....

Sometimes I don't quite know why, but it seems that whenever I go to change something on my laptop or desktop computer, regardless of how small the visual change, it always blows up into a complete renovation! Oh well, this little deal was fun, it gave me something to do for like 30-40 minutes. Guess I've gone from yellow to a purple-ish based theme!

At least my laptop has some new "bling" to it.

Enjoy...

 

[red1776]

here's mine;
7860 x 1080

 

[Zen]

Wow Red, that amount of desktop screen space is quite impressive! Must be a triple or quad monitor setup. For I don't even think that my desktop computers dual monitor setup could handle that. My only thing about this one Red is how do you quickly access programs without the normal desktop icons and or the use of a dock program? I see the few icons to the left on the taskbar, near the start button, but if that's it, I don't think this setup would work for me. But very clean, very tidy and elegant!

 

[red1776]

Wow Red, that amount of desktop screen space is quite impressive! Must be a triple or quad monitor setup. For I don't even think that my desktop computers dual monitor setup could handle that. My only thing about this one Red is how do you quickly access programs without the normal desktop icons and or the use of a dock program? I see the few icons to the left on the taskbar, near the start button, but if that's it, I don't think this setup would work for me. But very clean, very tidy and elegant!

I actually am not quite that tidy. I do use docking program (fences etc) i just did a clean install of win 7 for a comparison with my test rig for a review. This was before I put everything back (thats why the date is off). its 4 x 1920 x 1080 x 25" you see there. I have a 5th as an extended not in the pic. I will tell you that for doing reviews, having the ability to have MS Excel, MS office, Photoshop CS5, The Editor, and a browser all up ,full size in their own window, or easily re-sizable in Eyefinity is absolutely brilliant to work with. I game on three monitors right now, but thinking about 5 in portrait. Fences BTW has a double click feature and all icons disappear. another double click brings them back. So no matter how big a mess I make I can get rid of it in a hurry.

 

[Zen]

Wow, a total of 4 main monitors with one as an auxiliary! I'm entertaining the thought of buying another Envision 22 inch monitor and adding it to what I already have on my desktop computer, which is two Envision 22 inch deals, I think my little desk could handle one more, but if I go with any more than three I'll have to buy a new desk. But you are very much right, it's real nice to have the ability to have multiple open programs on different monitors. Which once upon a time I kept needing to shrink a window, maximize a window and go back and forth that way if I wanted to run two open programs on one monitor. And just like with your "fences" thing, my Rocket Dock has an autohide feature, which will only pop up if you place your mouse cursor towards the bottom of the screen.

But I like what your doing, I've always been impressed by your screenshots!

 

[Marnomancer]

Here's mine:




Very "No-nonsense". The only icons are kept for my sister's sake. Otherwise, Rainmeter's the only thing on the desktop, other than the wallpaper.

 

[davislane1]

I like to keep it simple...

 

[Zen]

Well I guess in regards to making one of my custom desktops last, I guess slightly over a month, without changing it up due to boredom might just be a record for me. Last night I dumped my purple style customization and went a tad bit colorless. So now my laptop has a fresh new look, I guess we'll just wait and see how long I can make this one last!

Enjoy...!

 

[Marnomancer]

Guess I like this one better now:


Linux all the way!

 

[Leeky]

Always nice seeing a Linux desktop.

 

[Marnomancer]

Heh-heh...the speed is too addictive. And I want more. Fancy that!
I'm currently trying to set up power-saving features like in Windows, voltage throttling and all.

 

[Zen]

Well I guess I was a little bored sitting here in my easy chair and one thing lead to another and as always, when I make one little change to something on my desktop, whooolaaaa, total change! So this it what I came up with, I kind of really like it.

Regular image without the start menu!

Image with custom start menu!

Well I hope you all like this, I had a good time putting this one together!

Enjoy!

 

[Marnomancer]

<Wolf-whistle>..! (y)

 

[SNGX1275]

Mine is pretty simple, but I haven't uploaded one here in a while, so here goes:

 

[Technochicken]

Here's mine. I thought it was a neat picture, so I grabbed a screen cap before I respawned.