Palm Bliss: An old product of my interest
in themes and templates

UITE often I rave about KDE, as I last did a week or so ago. However, I admit that GNOME is beautiful too, so I have collected a few themes and previews which support its beauty.

• Gentle Gnome mockup
• Glass Icons Theme
• nuoveXT
• Avio-GDM

Lastly, here is a way of making GNOME look more like Mac OS X. I don’t necessarily endorse or praise, but I just love the looks of Apple hardware and software. KDE is able to achieve similar results, I might as well add.

An example of less innovative KDE themes: Baghira Mac OS X lookalike

ESTERDAY I took a quick tour through some mockups and proposal made for the KDE project. I would like to present three examples, which are merely screenshots, sometimes combined with art work.

• Navigation Bar Reloaded
• Korganizer better integration
• KBFX 0.5 (One of the mockups)

As these ideas were contributed and voted on by the community of users, no doubt KDE will remain at the forefront of functionality and user experience. It’s a case of programmers preparing and eating their own dogfood, so to speak.

A shrimpy yet fully-functional USB drive

Here are a couple of fun lists which I have recently come across:

• Top 10 Strangest Custom Gaming Systems
• Ten Products Google Should Develop (hypothetical)

Some even contain videos.

A KDE pager containing eight virtual desktops

KDE is a powerful and versatile desktop environment, which I have raved about for as long ago as I had known it (read GNOME vs. KDE, for example). Apart from its augmented support for virtual desktops, it boasts an almost infinite number of features that make it highly extensible. Here are some examples of things that any user is able to achieve with KDE.

• Open a particular program, let us say the Web browser, consistently in desktop 8, always in shaded mode with opacity level 80% (20% translucent). These per-program features were added around version 3.4 of KDE.
• Without any extensions, KDE enables the user to download fresh wallpapers off the Internet (primarily through kde-look.org), all with a single click. Then, the user is given the choice to select multiple wallpapers from the collection, revolve them (as in a slideshow) every number of minutes, with separate wallpapers assigned to different virtual desktops, at different changing intervals, and with effects like hue shifts applied to them ‘on the fly’.
• Move and resize windows without reaching for their edges and corners, simply using the mouse pointer and the keyboard. Moreover, window focus policies, as well as new window placement, is highly customisable.
• KDE supports XGL (or conversely so, as well GNOME, of course). XGL is hardware-accelerated nice ‘eye candy’, which does not necessarily enhance the pace and productivity of work.

So where is the competition? KDE appears to be best bar none, in terms of function. Many consider it user friendly since its look-and-feel is assimilated to that of Microsoft Windows.

Related items:

• KDE Pushed to the Limit
• Wallpapers Obsession
• Desktop Environment Freedom
• KDE and Ease-of-Use

An inflatable booth for you to work in [rolls eyeballs]

XPAND your mind for a moment and imagine working everywhere. Imagine being able to grab your office (probably computer) everywhere you go.

If the thought seems pleasant, look no further. I have just come across what I can only describe as an inflatable igloo. Frankly, I doubt it will ever become a success. People go outdoors in order to escape, rather than pursue work in a disconnected, mobile environment.

Also see: Server in a Bubble

CSS analysis with The Web Developer extension (click to enlarge)

TUART Nicholls has been doing some stunning work on cutting-edge cascading style sheets (CSS). I first noticed his work roughly one year ago. More latterly I came to discover that he had implemented pure-CSS fonts! Imagine the complexity. Have a look at some time-consuming illustrations of the power of CSS:

• CSS font
• Snooker Cue (requires a Mozilla-based Web browser)
• Opaque, overlapping circles

No images are involved in creating any of the above, among many more which you can find in the site.

Also see: Barcharts using CSS

The front page of Slashdot on April 1^st, 2006

FTER Slashdot’s transition to proper CSS-based layout (it used to be heavily based on tables), a contest is run to select the new, permanent site design. Here are some of the latest design contenders. Some of these designs are included as actual Web pages, whereas others are appended as PNG-formatted screenshots. Shown above is the Slashdot front page as of April 1^st this year.