Website ThirdError.com has a great post on how to add widgets from Google Homepage, or iGoogle, onto your Windows XP desktop using oft-forgotten Windows feature Active Desktop. Active Desktop is the feature in Windows that lets you put offline web pages embedded into your desktop wallpaper.

Some people found the item useful, but for the most part it was just a dud. Most web pages you’d use with it would end up launching an Internet Explorer window anyway, so interacting with a web site on your desktop was impractical.

Now with iGoogle Widgets able to keep you abreast of practical information, combining this idea with Active Desktop is genius. In the example on the link above, Third Error uses to-do list web app Remember The Milk, and imbeds the iGoogle Widget for RTM on a Windows XP desktop.