[rambo47]

The Active Desktop in Windows is a feature I'd love to see in OS X. On my ThinkPad I have a world map that displays the current times in cities across the world. It updates constantly so I see what time it is in London, Beijing, Moscow, Sydney, etc, very handy for financial work. I can also put stock charts on my desktop as desktop items and syncronize them so they're updated daily.

Could we see this in Mac OS X? Is it a feature anyone else would like? I've found little things like LaunchBar, while certainly not a necessity, have changed the way I work. I rely on little time savers like LaunchBar to make computing easier and more streamlined. Active Desktop would be another feature, while not providing anything I couldn't do another way, would save me time and effort.

[Mithras]

WebDesktop

WebDesktop layers a web browser over your Mac OS X desktop.

Any standard web page can be displayed. WebDesktop uses WebKit, Apple's HTML rendering engine from Safari, so web pages should appear exactly as they do in Safari, including such advanced features as CSS and Flash. But on your desktop.

Some actual uses, as reported by real-world users:
* Tracking the orbit of satellites
* Monitoring servers / network operations center
* Monitoring stock quotes
* Keeping an eye on an eBay auction during the last few minutes
* Staying up-to-the-minute on news
* Monitoring a live webcam
* Viewing current TV listings
* Tracking weather conditions
* Tracking sports scores

[TETENAL]

WebDesktop above, Konfabulator and Dashboard in Tiger are similar concepts.

[guenter]

dont know what active desktop is on win but try
OSXplanet ( http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/19828 )
dynamic desktop of the Earth with citys (and time) of your choice.
maybe it dose what your are looking for

[zachs]

I second WebDesktop. It's excellent for doing exactly what you want to do.