From the Kim Komando newsletter, March 17.

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Make Your Desktop Active

When Microsoft first introduced Active Desktop with Internet Explorer 4, I wasn't too thrilled at the concept. In case you missed it on your desktop, the purpose of Active Desktop is to display "live" Internet content that you select on your Windows desktop. This way, the Web's content is delivered directly to you and hence, no more searching on your part is required.

Sounds cool, but a couple of years ago when CPUs, video cards and Internet connections weren't as fast as they are today, most configurations choked on Active Desktop content. It's amazing how an 800-MHz processor, a 32-MB video card and high- speed Internet connection can change your perspective.

Assuming you have Internet Explorer 4, 5 or higher installed on your system (I recommend upgrading to the latter), turning on Active Desktop is a simple matter. Try it and I bet you'll like it. Just move your mouse pointer to an empty spot on your Windows desktop and click the right mouse button. In the resulting pop-up, select Active Desktop and then View As Web Page. (Note that with Windows ME, View As Web Page is replaced by View Web Content.)

If you were displaying your desktop using Windows' defaults, enabling Active Desktop will change the background color of the desktop to a bright blue with a Windows logo in the upper right corner. This logo is itself a live Web link; clicking it will take you to the Microsoft Web site. If you were already using some other Appearance, you probably won't notice any change at all. In any event, you're ready to start adding Active Desktop content.

Adding Active Desktop content is easy, too. Again, go to an empty spot on your desktop and right-click. This time, select Active Desktop and then Customize My Desktop. In the next dialog box, click the New button. This will display a message asking you if you'd like to check the Active Desktop Gallery on the Microsoft Web site. This is a good place to start, so click the click the Yes button. (If you ever want to go directly to the gallery, you can get there by typing www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie40/gallery in your browser.)

The Active Desktop items in the Gallery are divided into the following categories: News, Sports, Entertainment, Travel, Weather and Cool Utilities. You may notice that the date on this Web page is over a year old, but as best I can tell, all of these Active Desktop items work just fine.

For example, if you select the Sports category, you get to choose between CBS Sportscenter and ESPN Sportszone. To view one of these, just click on it and a sample is displayed. Alongside each sample is an Add to Active Desktop button. I'll use EPSN SportZone for the sake of discussion.

Clicking on the Add button takes you through a couple of dialog boxes, and in a few seconds, a small ESPN SportZone window appears on your desktop. About every four seconds, the content in the window changes to something new.

Clicking on the content area of the window opens Internet Explorer and displays the ESPN SportZone page that corresponds to the current content. If you click on the title bar in the Active Desktop item, you're taken to the main SportsZone page.

Moving your mouse over the title bar also displays a little task bar at the top of the item. This includes a drop-down menu with various options for controlling and customizing that desktop item. These options, or course, change from item to item.

The one thing you need to keep in mind is that Active Desktop can be used to display any Web page to which you want quick access; it's not just for displaying Active Desktop items. Suppose you find yourself constantly visiting Yahoo to perform Internet searches. You can easily add the Yahoo search page to your Windows desktop.

Once again, go to an empty spot on your desktop and right- click. Next, select Active Desktop and then Customize My Desktop. In the resulting dialog box, again click the New button. However, this time when you're asked if you want to visit the Gallery, click the No button. Clicking this button presents a dialog box into which you can type a Web address. For our example, type in www.yahoo.com. Click through the next couple of dialog boxes and shortly you'll see the Yahoo home page on your desktop.

You can move and size this item just like any other. Size to show just the search field on the page and tuck it away in the corner if you want. The good news is that Active Desktop is smart enough to display your search results in a real browser window, so your search window is always ready to go.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), March 19, 2001

Answers

Lars,

Microsoft is a godless monopoly. Please don't encourage them.

-- Jesus (jchrist@hotmail.com), March 19, 2001.

Jesus:

God Himself claims he's a monopoly. Monopolies are Bad Things, so don't encourage Him.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 19, 2001.

SEC going after God when it settles Gates' hash.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), March 19, 2001.

Lars:

I believe you'll find the Justice Department's view of Microsoft has undergone somewhat of a change of philosophy lately.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 19, 2001.

The stock market doesn't see any Bush bonanza for Microsoft. MSFT

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), March 19, 2001.