Tech Insider: David Wolfgang-Kimball

It's another day, and you sit down at your computer. Power on. Up comes that familiar blue desktop, seen on millions of computers worldwide. Yawn. It's the unexciting standard, right? Sure, but you can inject a little bit of your own individuality! Today, we're going to talk about personalizing your desktop so that you could identify it in a room of identical machines.

Today, most Microsoft Windows 95/98 machines come with an add-on called the Plus! Pack. Plus! exists for both Windows 95 and 98. To see if you have it installed, look in Settings --> Control Panels --> Display: there should be a tab in this panel called Plus!, with a row of icons along the top for the Recycle bin, My Computer, etc. If you don't find this, you may still have it. There is a directory called Plus! on your Windows 95/98 installation CD. Run the Setup application therein to install Plus! on your machine.

CHOOSING ICONS
Plus! has a lot to offer in terms of customizing your desktop. We'll start with that tab in the Display Control Panel (mentioned above). Using this Control Panel, begin your customization by changing the icons for My Computer, Network Neighborhood, and the Recycle Bin. Windows comes with a lot of nice replacement icons, or you can choose one of your own. You can find icon collections on the Net--you will find a trove of iconic treasures at WinFiles.com.

WHAT ABOUT MACS?
Mac users, don't worry! You too can replace your desktop icons, and the process is as easy as it is for Windows. Say you want to replace the icon for your main hard drive with some neat icon from another piece of software. Here's what you do: open the folder containing the software with the icon you like, then select that file. Hit cmd(apple)-i (get info) to view the Information box about the file. Click on the icon at the upper left and it will become selected. Hit cmd-c (copy), and you have copied it to your clipboard. Next, select the icon for your hard drive, and again hit cmd-i. Once again, you will see the hard drive's icon in the upper left of the "get info" window. Click on it to select it, then hit cmd-v (paste). Close the window, and voilà! You have a new hard drive icon! There are at least as many icon collections for Mac as there are for Windows. Next: A Kaleidoscope of Options >

More columns by David Wolfgang-Kimball