Here's a little something fun to try for the new year. Have you ever heard of Windows Active Desktop? The Active Desktop feature allows you to put Internet content on your desktop and it will automatically update itself. You can continuously display a weather map, sports scores, stock market info or any other web page that you want on your desktop. When the Active Desktop was originally introduced with Internet Explorer version 4.0, most computers did not have enough power to support the Active Desktop feature. But with the powerful computers being made in the last couple of years, the Active Desktop works like it was intended to and can be a really fun feature.

To activate the Active Desktop follow these steps:

• Right click on the desktop and click on Properties or Active Desktop
  
  
• Click on the Desktop tab or click on Customize My Desktop
  
  
• On the Desktop tab, click on the Customize Desktop button
  
  
• In the Desktop Items dialog box, click on the Web tab
  
  
• On the Web tab, click on the New button
  
  
• You can put a web page of your choice in the Location text box, or you can get one of the pre-built content items from Microsoft. Let's put a weather map on the desktop using both Microsoft's pre-built content and a web page of our choice.
  
  
• To add the weather map from Microsoft's Gallery, click the Visit Gallery button. Scroll down and find the weather map from the list. Click on the Active Desktop link for the weather map. Click Yes. Read the info and click OK. The Synchronize dialog box will pop up to synchronize the site. Don't click on anything, it will disappear on its own. Close the browser window and you should see the weather map on your desktop!
  
  
• Now let's set up a weather map on the desktop by choosing our own web page. Open your web browser and go to www.weather.com or another web site you want to use. When you get to the page you want to display on your desktop, copy the URL from the address bar. Now, follow the instructions above to get to the Web tab and then click on the New button. Click in the location text box and then right click to get the pop up menu. Choose paste from the menu to paste the URL for the web page you want to display. Click OK and then OK again then wait for the synchronizing to be done. You should now have two different weather pages on your desktop.
  
  
• Let the mouse pointer hover over the top of one of your new Active Desktop items and you will see borders appear. The Maximize, Restore and Close buttons appear in the upper right corner. You can use these to change the size of the map or you can drag the corners to resize the map.
  
  
• You can play with the settings of the Active Desktop item by clicking the down arrow in the upper upper left side. Here you can set your schedule of when the item should be updated or choose to update it yourself manually by clicking synchronize.
  

You can add other things besides Microsoft's pre-built content or web pages. You can put an image or a document on your desktop as well. You can put as many items on your desktop as you want, but remember that each item uses system resources so don't get too carried away. You can always discontinue use of an Active Desktop item by clicking on the X in the upper right corner.

There are also other web sites that offer content for your Active Desktop. ESPN offers a nice sports ticker that runs continuously across the bottom of your desktop or web browser. Go to www.espn.com and click on the Free Sports Ticker icon and follow their directions on how to set it up. Another site offers a calendar for your Active Desktop. Go to http://vapaa.dc.inet.fi/~rainy/Rainlendar.html and follow the instructions to set up your calendar. Hope you enjoy playing around with this fun feature of Windows!