Digital Home Thoughts: Pimp Your Desktop, Rainmeter Style

"There's a lot you can do with Rainmeter thanks to a diverse collection of available 'skins' (think of them as widgets), all of which can be individually tailored in look and function. There are skins for keeping tabs on system resources, displaying RSS feeds, sending and receiving Twitter messages, and even recording notes."

I have always resisted the whole widget craze, despite having moments of weakness every few months. Why? Well, I could never accept the compromise of reduced performance that comes with them. I still habitually keep my desktop clean of icons just so my computer does not have to render them anytime I minimize all my windows. Of course, these days, computers generally have a lot more horsepower than a user knows what to do with, so the return of widgets may be imminent. Maximum PC has a workup on Rainmeter, one of the top contenders for this space and yes, it does offer a lot of neat skins that can provide some use. Considering how there is an increased amount of information flow through the real-time Web, having dedicated sections of your desktop for Twitter, RSS feeds, etc. makes more sense now than it did before. How many of you use Rainmeter or some other form of widget manager? For me, I will probably stay with my plain, blank desktop. Old habits die hard.