A typical user rarely re-installs Windows on his/her machine regularly, and over time, the desktop becomes cluttered with shortcuts to installed applications, documents that one needs saved quickly and within reach and quick downloads and extracts. I used to be one of these people though over the years, I’ve taught myself to become better at managing the number of desktop icons I have. Nowadays, I rarely save many documents on my desktop simply because that saves it to my c: drive which is the first thing to go if I have to do a reformat/reinstall. And I don’t really want to lose those documents if I forget to back them up (which unfortunately I have done in the past).

While Windows offers many ways to put quick links to your documents, such as the quick launch bar beside your Start button or the pinned Start menu items, etc, the desktop is usually the most convenient place to put important shortcuts (application or documents/folders).

Today I’ll look into two of these applications, Stardock Fences and BumpTop…

Stardock Fences

Stardock Fences is not a revolutionary new way of organizing your desktop (a la  Bumptop). Rather, it provides a variety of dock-like structures called containers that enable you to quickly organize and layout your shortcuts and icons on your desktop to keep it as tidy and accessible as possible.

Made by the same folks who made ObjectDock, its a free (for personal) product that can help a lot of folks at home. Creating the containers is quite simple and you can move your documents between containers (or out of them) using simple drag and drop. New containers can be created quickly and named for convenience. These containers can also be resized and provides scrolling if there are many items in the container.

Fences is not a desktop replacement. Rather its an add-on that compliments your desktop and user experience.

Fences requires Microsoft .Net version 2.0 to run and can be downloaded from here:

http://www.stardock.com/products/fences/downloads.asp

The version that is currently available for download is a beta one and will expire around August 2009. There is a Pro version scheduled to come out in the future. Stardock’s site generally is an easy to read and has a comprehensive sections on its features and an active forums section (though I must admit, i didn’t see a section specifically for Fences).

In addition to Fences, Stardock has many other applications centered around the area of desktop organization, look & feel and completely changing your user experience. They do have an integrated version which has most of their applications packaged into one called Object Desktop, that is a commercial application, so you need to pay for it. But by all means, please do go check out some of Stardocks offerings. The eye candy certainly did catch my eye :)

BumpTop

BumpTop, takes things a lot further than Fences whereby it tries to simulate a real desk environment complete with walls to pin up items, ability to group items (called “piles”), shuffle through  these and integration into social network sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

It is touch screen friendly and allows dynamic icon resizing for important files as well as thumbnail previews.

It try’s to revolutionize the way we use our desktops by making it simpler and quicker to get things done. BumpTop makes use of grouping and gestures all in a “3D” environment that looks pleasing to the eye.

BumpTop is using similar technology to what we have seen in Microsoft Surface but I have a  feeling that these types of desktops will become more popular once touch screen technology replaces the keyboard and mouse as the primary means of user input. Additionally, unlike the desk in the video below, my real desk is like my computer desktop, minimalistic and clear of objects as possible. For someone like me, it will take quite a bit of re-learning to get into the habits of “throwing” icons everywhere :)

BumpTop does a free and pro version but the free version has some essential features missing. You can download BumpTop from here:

http://bumptop.com/download.php

Below is a video of BumpTop in action.