dots and loops

Diligently culled from the web for your perusal:

• Lifehacker Best Of 2008 Roundup
• Howto: Add Items to the Right-Click Menu in Nautilus | Techthrob.com
  GUI app to customize the nautilus right click menu. An essentially feature of any descent file manager.
• Best Of 2008: Most Popular Free Windows Downloads of 2008
  An impressive list of some damn fine looking software. Could Launchy actually have some competition?

Diligently culled from the web for your perusal:

• Compiz - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  A crazy 3D window manager for *nix systems. You can use this in place of metacity on a gnome desktop.
• Alan Doyle » Setup FreeNX under Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex)
  This thing is so fast I'm speechless. After fiddling with XRDP and VNC, I've decided this is the definitive remote desktop solution for Linux. And it all happens over ssh automagically (no tunneling required, like with VNC).
• rss2email
  A handy tool for delivering RSS feeds to your email account.

Diligently culled from the web for your perusal:

• AppleInsider | Apple ordered to end exclusive iPhone deal with France's Orange
  I wish something similar would happen in the States. If I could use the iPhone with Verizon I'd almost definitely get one.
• Bash Shell PS1: 10 Examples to Make Your Linux Prompt like Angelina Jolie
• Huffduffer
  Delicious for audio files.
• Lastpod
  An audioscrobbler (last.fm) client that works nice with the iPod. Very useful for those not using iTunes.

Diligently culled from the web for your perusal:

• Screenwm
  An improvement on the invaluable console multiplexer "screen".
• Seeing No Progress, Some Schools Drop Laptops - New York Times
  This was embarrassingly predicatable. What did they think these kids were going to do on their laptops... crossword puzzles?
• Vista Keyboard Shortcuts

Diligently culled from the web for your perusal:

• ExtremeTech | Ten Must-Have Gadgets for Windows Vista Sidebar
  I've always been suspicious of sidebars and other desktop applets, long before Vista came out (the concept has existed on Linux and OS X for a while now). Sure, they can be fun, but I'm not convinced they are anything more than resource hungry toys. If there really is some piece of software you need running all the time, why not have it in your system tray? Is the Vista sidebar simply extra overhead, or does it actually provide a framework for coding light weight applets? I don't know the answers to these questions, but I suppose computers are meant to be fun as well as useful.
• ExtremeTech | Speed Up Windows Vista
  A descent article on tweaking Vista for performance.
• LibraryThing
  LibraryThing allows you to catalog your books online. "Why?", you might ask... well, LibraryThing will connect you with people who read the same things, and offer recommendations. It also allows you to display what you are reading on your blog.

Diligently culled from the web for your perusal:

• FlickrCash
  This is an amazingly cool use of javascript and AJAX. Just type in some keywords and this site searches Flickr for matching images, then presents them in a fullscreen thumbnail gallery. While you are viewing it caches the next couple of pages for you.
• DC++ your files, your way, no limits
  This seems to be a popular up and coming p2p protocol.
• Wired News: Downloading Is a Packrat's Dream
  Obsessive hoarding in the digital age.
• Microsoft: Make our HD Photo format a standard | CNET News.com
  This new photo standard sounds great, and MS is actually playing nice and wants to make it an open format. It's compression algorithm is roughly twice as efficient as jpeg apparently, meaning for the same file size you will have a much better quality image.

Diligently culled from the web for your perusal:

• Web 2.0 Workgroup - A network of Web 2.0 resources
  The Web 2.0 Workgroup is a network of premium weblogs that write content about the new generation of the Web.
• Vista Tweaking Guide - TweakGuides.com
  This looks like it could be useful.
• VistaBootPro (Windows Vista) - Lifehacker
  Tweak your Vista boot configuration with VistaBootPRO, an easy-to-use alternative to the command-line bcdedit.exe utility.