This thread is basically going to be a "how to pimp your desktop" thread. Whether it's with resizing images to make your wall paper look better, or creating a skin on Rainmeter. I'll start with a picture from /wg/ on 4chan, it's incredibly helpful.
Now, if you're going to download Rainmeter, (which I highly suggest) then there's some stuff that might confuse you at the beginning. When you load it, it will be on Gnometer theme. To change it to Enigma, the second theme that comes with Rainmeter, right click on any of the new icons that have opened up at the top of the screen. Scroll over themes and click "Enigma" this will load a much better and more efficient theme. To change things about this, click on the icons at the bottom of the sign that appeared when you loaded Enigma, not the sign that appeared when you loaded Gnometer. This sign will let you navigate and customize your theme and skins. Click on the icon labeled "Skins" it will open RainBrowser. In RainBrowser you can access your skins relatively easily. To add skins, click browse, to make them appear on your desktop, click "Load skin." The skins I would suggest adding are:
MoxaWeather. It's a skin that loads a horizontal or vertical 3 day weather forecast. Making it incredibly easy and simple to have a quick update on the weather. Can be found at Enigma -> Sidebar -> MovaWeather.
Calendar. It's a simple Calendar that you can click and drag around your desktop. It loads up days of the month and tells you what day you're on. It can be found at Enigma -> Sidebar -> Calendar.
Arcs. It's a large simple clock. Very futuristic looking and awesome for space backgrounds. You can find it at Browse -> Arcs.
Systems. It loads the RAM usage, CPU usage, hard drive, and laptop battery. It can be found at Enigma -> Systems.
If you want to download more Skins, you can use
http://www.deviantart.com or http://www.customize.org/rainmeter.
(PS. In the picture above it mentions RainLendar, but for some reason it won't let my computer run RainLendar, so it's not included in this.)
Download it at
http://www.rainmeter.net/RainCMS/
Object dock makes your life easier, and makes your desktop much cleaner. It's a dock like on a Mac that allows you to scroll over it and click an icon, which is a shortcut to the application specified.
It can be found at
http://www.stardock.com/products/objectdock/ if you'd prefer, there's another dock called Rocket Dock, it has more icons available through the site. http://rocketdock.com/download.
To find awesome pictures for backgrounds, use Deviantart.com, google.com, and http://boards.4chan.org/wg/, they tend to bring up the best results the fastest. When looking for a desktop background, if on google, customize the size to your profile, and to make it look good, get a high resolution picture. If you find a low res picture and think it is also in high res, or you want someone to make it higher res, use boards.4chan.com/r/. Seriously, you make a thread and continuously bump it, someone will find it or make it higher res for you.
Some other widgets, I personally don't use any of these, but they're all pretty legit:
http://www.litestep.net/
http://desktop.google.com/
Here's a picture using all the programs and skins I recommended.
So as you can see, I've got Object Dock on the left, got Arc Clock in the upper left, got the taskbar at the bottom. Using the Enigma theme. Everything is organized and perfectly placed. Plus, my background makes me giggle every time I see it.
Post up ways of pimping your desktop and give advice to the people who are lost. Any questions about anything I mentioned, just ask!
(PPS. If this should be in Media and Arts, mod please move.)
