Emblems in Gnome

December 26, 2004 by Steven Garrity

This might seem obvious to anyone who uses the Gnome desktop environment for Linux, but since most of you don’t, I thought it worth pointing out. In Gnome, You can put “emblems” on files or folders. The emblems are small icons that help differentiate and identify particular items. They work something like an graphical/icon version of Mac OS “labels” or GMail “labels”.

The small screenshot below shows (full-size screenshot) a few of the default emblems, and a few of my own custom emblems (the Windows and Acts of Volition icons).

There is a handy set of default emblems to start off (eg. Urgent, Web, Documents, New, Personal, Photos, etc.) and you can easily add your own custom emblems.

December 22, 2004 by Steven Garrity

2005 will bring an extension for Thunderbird that integrates calendaring (tasks, events, etc.), codename: Lightning

Creative is not a noun

December 16, 2004 by Steven Garrity

Pet peeve: people who use the word “creative” as a noun. Example:

“The ad will run on Friday, but the creative will be ready by Wednesday.”

If you say things like that, I don’t like you. Don’t bother offering justifications.

(disclosure: According to Dictionary.com, “creative” can be used as a noun to describe a person who “displays productive originality” – I don’t like that either, but it’s not as bad)

December 15, 2004 by Steven Garrity

This two-page ad for Firefox will run in the Thursday, December 16, 2004 edition of the New York Times.

December 15, 2004 by Steven Garrity

This article about “transitional” applications” describes pretty accurately how I ended up a Linux user.

Acts of Volition Radio Christmas: Session 17

December 12, 2004 by Steven Garrity

While I’m a confessed scrooge about most things Christmas and I do hate most Christmas music, there is some truly great Christmas music. I share some of it in the seventeenth session of Acts of Volition Radio.

Acts of Volition Radio: Session Seventeen (25MB MP3)

Christmas music that doesn’t suck. Recorded Saturday, December 11, 2004 by Steven Garrity. Run time: 32 min.

Session Seventeen Playlist:

Crash Test Dummies – The First Noel
Smashing Pumpkins – Christmastime
Low – Long Way Around the Sea
Barenaked Ladies (with Sarah McLauchlan) – God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
Wintersleep – We Three Kings

For more, see the previous Acts of Volition Radio sessions.

Acts of Volition Radio

Acts of Volition Radio Christmas: Session 17

00:00 /

Feature Request: Google Suggest for Firefox

December 10, 2004 by Steven Garrity

Weblogs are abuzz^* today with the the Google Suggest beta featuring javascript-powered auto-complete in the search box.

I’d like to float an obvious (I think) suggestion for Firefox. I would like to see the Google search bar that is built-in to Firefox have this Google Suggestion auto-complete functionality, but with a real XUL flydown (like the auto-complete for ULRs in the address bar).

Yup, abuzz is actually a word.

December 10, 2004 by Steven Garrity

I didn’t think the Tim Burton remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory could be as creepy as the original, but it is.

An Article Buried in Junk

December 7, 2004 by Steven Garrity

I came across an article on LinuxWorld.com today that was so buried in other site features and advertising, that I had to share it.

This full-size screenshot (1.5MB) shows the full length of the page, with the actual article text highlighted in red. This smaller version gives a good feel of how much of the page is used for the actual article.

The website also offers a printer-friendly version of the article that is much easier to read, but even the printer version has an animated Flash advertisement.

I never did get around to reading the article.

Thunderbird 1.0 is Here

December 6, 2004 by Steven Garrity

Mozilla’s new email client, Thunderbird 1.0 has been released:

steven%silverorange.com 2004-11-09 00:50
People of Earth, I give you Thunderbird 1.0 (download links to be updated by mscott shortly)

Congratulations to Scott and all those who have worked on making Thunderbird a fine email client. Also, thanks for not making me get up at 5AM to help with the release. Your time-zone sensitivity did not go unnoticed.