If you are a Windows XP user but really like the visual glass effects of Windows Vista, then Border Skin is for you.

Border Skin is a new free program that skins the windows
borders by skins composed of png images with the support
of 2 famous windows vista & 7 effects ( Blur and reflection )

Nothing much to really add here. When you run Border Skin, there is a control panel available in your system tray which allows you to control the settings. Additionally, you can set program exclusions in the event this effect causes problems on certain applications.

While this does not work 100% the way Vista does, it is an easy way to get the same eye candy effects.

One of the eye candy functions that Mac OS offers is a feature called Expose. Wikipedia describes this feature like so:

Exposé allows a user to quickly locate an open window, or to hide all windows and show the desktop without the need to click through many windows to find a specific target.

It is very similar to the tab view function offered by browsers where all your open tabs are displayed as a thumbnail and you simply click on what you want to open.

If you would like to add this functionality to Windows, you can do so with the DExposE2 utility. Simply put, this freeware eye candy program imitates the Mac functionality in Windows XP and Vista. There is a short video on their web site which shows how one user utilizes the utility on their Vista machine exactly as they would on a Mac.

A very easy way to add some ‘pizazz’ to your Windows installation is to install a dock application to launch your programs and documents. I have written about one previously, but another to turn your attention to is the open source Circle Dock.

Circle Dock offers everything you would expect from a dock application in that you can add as many programs and applications as you like, drag and drop, rearrage, etc. (you can read the full list on their web site), but one cool feature is to dock is made available on-demand through either a hotkey or by clicking the middle mouse button. Additionally, the circle design makes this an ideal way to launch your most commonly used items quickly as they can be made placed on the inside ring of items while the less commonly used ones are available on the outside rings.

While a dock really doesn’t add functionality, they are a fun way to ’spice up’ your day to day Windows usage.

A really nice feature which is standard with Windows Vista is the task bar preview. That is when you hover your mouse over an item in the task bar, you get a small thumbnail of what the application currently looks like without having to restore it. If you would like to add this functionality to Windows XP, check out Visual Task Tips.

This free program simply adds the same functionality you get in Vista to XP. Take a look at the screenshot on their web site to see a before and after of what the program does.

Enjoy.

Yesterday Rich posted an article on how nVidia users can make their taskbar transparent. Well, if you are not an nVidia user and want to apply this effect, give a look at the appropriately named program: Transparent Taskbar.

As you would expect, the program description is pretty simple:

Transparent TaskBar is a free tool that lets you to easily adjust the transparency of your taskbar. Transparent TaskBar can even be set to remember your transparency settings, and reapply them automatically every time you startup your PC.

I just gave it a quick try and it worked without a hitch. Take note of the instructions in the installation program though: this program is designed to work with Windows XP, so it is possible the program my behave erratically with other versions of Windows.

One piece of eye-candy Mac’s OS offers is the program launch bar which animates mouse over events and displays a preview of minimized windows. If this is something you would like to add to your Windows machine, then look no further than RocketDock.

RocketDock basically takes the exact functionality of the Mac program launch bar and adds it to Windows. You can watch a short video on their website to see exactly how it works. There are a list of features you can read directly below the video, but watching shows exactly what the program is capable of.

RocketDock is a free program and works on 2000, XP and Vista, although Vista users get a some extra features such as the ability to watch movies in Windows Media Player in the dock window. While RocketDock doesn’t add any “groundbreaking” functionality, it does add some nice eye-candy you may be interested in.