Jazz up Your Windows Desktop

The Windows desktop can become so cluttered that managing it can become quite a tedious task.If you have an ATI graphics card on your system, you can increase your Windows experience with Hydravision. It comes bundled with its cards, but can also be downloaded separately. Similar features can also be gained using the Win XP PowerToys and other free/ shareware applications we have covered in this section in the past. 

Hydravision lets you have transparent menus, multiple desktops, use multiple monitors seamlessly and assign Hotkeys for setting display options. The software supports up to nine virtual desktops and you can jump from one desktop to another using your mouse wheel. Its transparency feature lets you add fade-in and 3D shadowing effects to application Windows

Download this software from ATI's website. Now if you have an ATI graphics card, install Hydravision to continue to configure and use it. 

Here, check both the options 'Enable Windows Transparency during Dragging' and 'Enable Transparent Menu'. The first option will make the window transparent  When asked to select effects for your display, check  'Enable Window Fade-in' and 'Enable Window Shadow' options. Once installed, it can be launched from system tray From 'Hydravision Properties', enable hot keys for a range of tasks as shown, or add your own To set up multiple desktops, go to the Task Panel and right click on Multi-Desk. You can load upto nine desktops

Sanjay Majumder