I've been customizing my desktop for a long time (7 years I think) and I'm kind of losing my passion for it. :-\ This setup was more or less my take a at more permanent solution; something simple, easy on the eyes, and highly functional. I stumbled upon the XPM Classic visualstyle and I knew that this was the style to go with.

Wallpaper - Aqua Candy: Graphite by whyred [link]
VisualStyle - XPM Classic by b0se
Miranda - modernclist by me, IEview is by someone else (moded)
Icons - tango patcher
Litestep - by me (see below)

The LiteStep theme I used was created entirely by me, though I found inspiration/ideas for it when I saw this screenshot:

[link]

I pretty much took most of the ideas for it directly from that shot. The little buttons on the right bring up confirmation dialogs for the log off, restart, and shutdown. The buttons below the inbox notification and command box bring up popup menus with custom content.

p.s. I like thickbar themes. I don't care if you don't.

p.s.s. I recently reformatted my computer, and I haven't put any music back on it yet. Thats why you see my listening to Beethoven; it's windows xp sample music.