Although we tend to concentrate on picking the right chairs, tables and wall colourings for our home office to provide a comfortable working atmosphere, if you spend a lot of time on the computer then it's equally as important to customise that part of your environment too.
Here are three quick and easy tips to make your computer nicer:
- Think about your screensaver/wallpaper. I asked all my followers on Twitter what they used and naturally family, pets and calming scenes were unsurprisingly very popular. But it's worth experimenting with slightly more unusual (though not too distracting) backgrounds too. Writer Sarah Salway uses pictures of seeds from the Kew seedbank and Adam Gray has The Helix Nebula (Eye of God) taken by Hubble. And also consider regular rotation: I like to change mine every couple of months so that I don't get that feeling of ennui and deja vu every time I fire up my MacBook Pro.
- Bespoke your screen. If you have Google set as your home page on your browser, you can easily add a different theme rather than the basic welcome page (go here for a list of possibilities). I use the Kate Spade one which changes automatically every so often from octopus designs to poppies and polka dots. The browser itself can also be tailored: I use Firefox which offers a range of themes including walnut which is my current favourite.
- Decorate your laptop. You can just stick some Match Attax cards onto your monitor but for something a little more professional, try something from GelaSkins. These are removable covers which decorate as well as slightly protect your laptop (and indeed other gadgets such as iPods). There's a massive range of really attractive designs including this Keith Haring one, Retrospect, pictured.
For more details on how to jazz up your computer there is a good article on The Independent's web site, 'How to pimp your laptop' - Alex Johnson