Productive Use of Active Desktop

Refer to my previous post about displaying my To Do list on the Desktop. I have since stopped using todo.sh for various reasons. But I continue to use the Active Desktop feature of Windows XP.  One of the use I have found, is to display a mini phone list.

I recently joined a smaller organization. Although there are over 50+ employees, I need to interact with about 5-6 people of regular basis, and another 4-5 on not so regular basis.  So although they have an Excel document containing a big list, I don’t want to refer to that document every time I need to make a call, so I created a short .html file containing the compressed extension list. Here is how you can do it too.

Create a phone list

1. Create a simple spreadsheet containing the name and extension. You can get creative and add their cell numbers as well, if you want.
2. Save this as HTML file. This option is available in OpenOffice.org (3.x) and I think even in MS Office as well
3. OR You can create your phone list as csv file, and use this script to convert it to HTML
4. If you like to have more control of how your HTML looks,  you can hand-code HTML code using simple HTML table. I used gvim to edit the file, but you can use your favorite editor.

Use it on your Desktop

1. Right Click on your Windows Desktop, Click on Properties Menu option.  You will be presented with Display Properties page
2. Click on the tab named Desktop
3. Click on Customize Desktop button located at the bottom of the tab.
4. Click on the tab named Web
5. Click on New, and point (using Browse button provided by the wizard, if needed) to the newly created HTML Page.
6. Make sure that your newly added page shows up in the list, and that the checkbox  is selected.
7. Click OK, to close the Desktop Items dialog. Also close the Display Properties dialog by clicking OK
8. Now you should see your Phone list on your Windows Desktop.

Now, whenever you need to refer to the phone list, all you need to do is press Windows+D to have a look at your desktop.

Note : I’ve tested this only on Windows XP, instructions might differ for Vista.