I don't know if you have noticed the new trend lately of customization mania. I say mania because it seems like you can make anything that you own your very own by customizing it with a little personal flair. The place that I have noticed the most customizing frenzy at the personal/office computing market. Themes galore including desktop themes, radio station themes, search themes, etc. "Skins" or the internet browsers version of the theme is another great example of this trend.



So what is behind this? And what kinds of options are we talking about that are offered to the computer users. Well lets take desktop themes as our example. You can go on the internet and purchase downloads for the cost of typical computer game let's say. You actually purchase a long list of menus of different options that you can go through and choose according to your preferences. These options affect things like the general look of the wall paper on the desktop. Or the appearance of the icons, windows, tool buttons, mouse cursor, lettering, menu forms, and on and on. It can also assign sounds that you like to different actions performed such as minimizing windows, to clicking on menus, or deleting, saving, etc.

So you might be wondering why they are called themes? And the answer to that question is that each of the different choices you have are grouped into larger groups called themes. Back to our example of desktop themes, say you chose a space theme. You may then for your wallpaper get to choose between pictures of a supernova, mars, Saturn, or the moon. You may also choose that you want to have an animated part of the wallpaper like Saturn spinning, or an astronaut walking on the moon. You then have the choice of sounds for different common operations which could be a rocket sound or a sound from a popular space show like star trek. You get the picture.

Why are these themes so popular? Well this is America isn't it and individualism is glorified right? So you wouldn't be being true to yourself if you and your coworkers didn't all have your own personalized desktop themes would you? On a more serious note, they add some flair which might say be easier on the eyes, or more interesting to stare at for your whole work day. They also fit into the gadget genre and therefore are popular just because people are curious and want to play. So what are you waiting for? Start making your workspace a little more "you". You can easily find what you are looking for and I am talking about on the internet for download. Just google for desktop themes, and off you go.