Dear all,
It has been almost 4 years since windows XP has released. After the release the updates are only for security issues not majorly for User Interfaces. There is Microsoft Plus! but that even does not give much different look to your desktop. Windows XP comes with three appearance theme + Classic Style. Classic style is similar to those of Windows 2000/Me/98 system interfaces. Windows XP theme was quiet amazing when we saw for the first time. New schema of colours.. High depth icons etc etc. But when we (I) look at the same interface.. which i have been seeing for long time.. it is boring. Sometimes u feel .. "Hey daily seeing the same face". Though u change wallpaper there is nothing to it.
The other OS's such as Mac OSX (No 1 in user interface), or Even many Linux distributions are getting more beautiful in terms of look and feel.
For windows XP users , there are numerous and numerous thirdparty windows beautifiers. Few examples are
1. Window Blinds from Object Dock (http://www.objectdock.com)
2. StyleXP (http://www.styleXP.org)
3. WinCustomize (http://www.wincustomize.com)
and many more..
Though there are many of those.. many are not having professional look. Icons are not clear not sharp / soft at corners. Image is not so good or taking too much of resources.
Next windows Version is Windows Vista which is huge leap ahead of windows XP user interface that exisits today. But it is not available until mid of 2006. Users like me like to see 2moro's windows , today.. I now tried new BrickoPack Vista from http://www.crystalXP.net. The result is this
To add more beauty.. is the WIDGETS from Yahoo!, get it from http://widgets.yahoo.com (which is similar to Max OS X Dashboard). Apart from standard widgets pack you can also download numerous widgets pack from same link above.
In the above image you see Analog Clock widget, Calendar widget, Weather and Stock Ticker.
Really cool is it not ?
Cons: On installing these your windows looks very beautiful and appealing. But a major drawback is it is high on resources. It consumes memory and CPU processes. Widgets run as application, so more widgets u load more memory it consumes.
If u really have system with good resources and interested to try.. Enjoy.
Catch u later..
bye
Barath