It’s rare these days when I come across any app that makes me say, "Wow, now this is useful!" Yahoo’s Zimbra Desktop is one of them.

When it comes to email, there are many who prefer the convenience of web-based mail but wish there was a local application that looked and acted like a mail client. Zimbra Desktop is it. This software absolutely nails it in terms of friendliness, ease-of-use, convenience and everything in between.

First of all, it’s multi-platform. Windows, Mac or Linux. Any truly good application these days supports all three, and this does.

Second, it has support for multiple types of email:

Zimbra, Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, Hotmail, AOL Mail, two types of IMAP and POP.

It always pleases me when I see an offering by a major player like Yahoo! that is willing to support a competitor’s product like Hotmail or Gmail because it shows confidence in their own offering.

It should be noted however that only some Hotmail accounts are supported due to compatibility issues. Most will be, but if yours doesn’t connect, the software will explain why.

Third, look at this interface:

Slim, clean and super-easy. Look at the tabs on top. Contacts, Calendar, Tasks, Documents and so on are all just a single click away. Folder support is easy too.

Oh, and speaking of which, did you ever want your Gmail account to have accessible "normal" folders like all other webmail does? It will when you use Zimbra. Simply add a folder via a connected Gmail account, and it will create nested folders that look and act just like normal ones – and yes they’re completely accessible via the regular Gmail interface as well.

Fourth, although this sounds a bit dopey I really dig it – a mail indicator icon in the taskbar in Windows when new mail arrives:

The yellow envelope is the new mail indicator. This seemingly insignificant feature is just so nice to have.

Fifth, yes it has multiple account support. In the screen shot above, look on the left sidebar. Your other accounts are listed at the bottom and can be accessed easily with a single click. If there is any new mail in accounts lists there, there is a small number in parentheses telling you how much new mail there is.

Sixth is the synchronization features. Using Yahoo Calendar and Contacts? It will sync seamlessly. Using Gmail’s version? It’ll sync that too.

It goes without saying that Yahoo! Mail users will appreciate Zimbra the most because it FINALLY brings a true native client to the desktop. This is Yahoo’s equivalent of Windows Live Mail and it does a fine job even though it’s beta software.

And yes, it’s beta. That means some things may go buggy from time to time. But in my use of it I’ve encountered no issues as of yet.

The way Zimbra works in Windows is by installing itself as a service. You will see a small red icon in your taskbar (when no new mail is present) like this:

This is not a bad thing whatsoever, because when the Zimbra client is minimized, it goes completely out of the way and shrinks to this little icon, which can be clicked to bring the client back up. In addition, it can be right-clicked to completely shut down the service.

Zimbra Desktop was definitely done right the first time. It is the only software I’ve seen that offers a true alternative to Windows Live Mail (especially if you don’t use Hotmail) and the feature set is just plain great.

Oh, one last note. This may be a frilly feature but still worth mentioning. It has 12 different themes you can use:

This is available via the Options tab.

Let’s say for example you want Zimbra to look like Gmail. You would choose "Zmail." This is what it looks like:

Looks pretty close to Gmail, doesn’t it?

Zimbra’s dev team really thought this product through.

As said at the top of this article, this is a product that accesses web-based mail but still retains the total look and feel of a local mail client – and has the very-super-awesome-cool sync features like Windows Live Mail does, so it isn’t an island unto itself whatsoever.

Two huge thumbs up for Zimbra Desktop. You’d be very hard pressed not to like this.

The obvious answer to this question is yes, you can. Before explaining the modern way to use a laptop as a desktop, let’s take an amusing stroll down memory lane on how this was done years ago.

In the beginning…

(Note before continuing: I’m concentrating on late 1990s-to-present tech. Obviously what’s listed below doesn’t cover things like the GRiD Compass.)

We had these absolutely huge unwieldy docking stations, like this:

The laptop went into that huge slot you see above. A monitor would be placed on top of the station. You would attach your keyboard and mouse into ports in the back.

Rarely did home users use this because it was ridiculously expensive and furthermore didn’t work half the time. The infamous Windows "docked" and "undocked" modes would wreak havoc with the OS; the hot-swap introduced later on was lukewarm at best. Oh, you didn’t know? Most of these were cold-swap. You couldn’t just yank the laptop out whenever you wanted. You had to shut down before doing it.

Worst of all, it was bigger and slower than a standard desktop PC.

After that…

The computer industry wised up and realized those beasty docking stations had to go. What came after that was the docking bay.

It wasn’t all too much different than the station, but this was a step in the right direction. Even so, it was still just a weird bit of technology. Some allowed the laptop LCD screen to be used while others had a detachable "bench" that sat on top in predefined indentations or holes. This was used when the laptop lid was closed, docked, the bench placed over the laptop, and a monitor sitting on top of that.

The problem here is that it didn’t serve any advantage over simply plugging in your laptop while on the desk. Network connectivity could easily be had with a 3Com PCMCIA card with RJ-45 dongle, so there was literally no point to this putty or charcoal-colored monstrosity.

If you ever asked an LAN Administrator, "Um.. why is this thing necessary?", the answer would always be, "Because the VP of Sales wanted one", because he or she knew there was absolutely no real reason to have it. Gotta spend that budget somehow, right?

And yes this had the same clunky operation with Windows docked/undocked modes.

It goes smaller but is still bulky..

Realizing the docking bay was still too frickin’ big, then came the port replicator.

This was the smallest of the breed. It does exactly what its name suggests; it replicates ports. You click in your laptop, open up the screen and use as you would normally with attached keyboard and mouse plugged into the side or back of the replicator.

This is yet another one of those, "What’s the point of this thing?" bits of tech.

Port replicators are still in use today; they never went away.

In the present..

This is the modern version of a laptop dock:

Example setup:

Here’s another:

The only people interested in these things are corporate users. Home users know better than to use a setup like this because you really don’t get your money’s worth unless you buy docking setups used (some of which can be had at fire sale prices.)

If you are so inclined to purchase a setup like the above, shop any OEM manufacturer’s (such as Dell) "business" section and you’ll see them. Will you want to buy? Probably not after you see the price tag.

A cost-effective home user’s way to use a laptop as a desktop

Any laptop can be used to serve as a desktop – even a netbook. And you can do so without any of that docked/undocked Windows crapola.

What you will need is the following:

1. A ventilated laptop stand.

Your laptop will most likely spend most of its time plugged in and in heavy use. As such she’ll get hot under the collar real quick. There are many stands to choose from. Shop carefully, smartly and always read the customer reviews.

It is absolutely worth it to spend a few extra bucks on a stand that will do the job properly.

It is not recommended to run your laptop as a desktop unventilated because it will decrease the life span of your laptop – particularly with the hard drive.

Tip: Don’t run your laptop without the battery just to decrease heat while the unit is in use. This may render your battery useless in less than a year. You must keep it in the laptop in order to maximize its life span.

2. A USB hub.

You may or may not need this as the stand may have some port replicator options on it. But if it doesn’t, you’ll need your ports in a convenient place and that’s where the hub comes in. You should buy a dedicated small hub for your external keyboard, mouse and other things like USB sticks, external drives and so on.

Using a dedicated hub is convenient as well because you never have to unplug the keyboard or mouse when you take the laptop off its stand, should you decide to bring the laptop elsewhere.

Tip: If you have the option, plug the hub into the port on the laptop that is furthest away from its hottest spot when running. You’ll know this by touch.

3. An understanding of how to use presentation settings in your operating system.

This varies from laptop to laptop. It is usually accessible via a function key in combination with Fn, such as Fn+F1 or Fn+F7. One of the function keys on your laptop will have a small label of a monitor. That in combination with Fn will allow you to switch between the laptop screen and the connected monitor, similar to ALT+TAB’ing between apps, except that you’re switching monitor settings.

For Windows XP users: You have the choice between using the laptop screen, connected monitor screen, or both activated at once (called "duplicate" mode) using the lowest native resolution of the two monitors (but not as a monitor extension as far as I’m aware – although I could be wrong there).

For Windows 7 (and maybe Vista) users: Use Presentation Settings via Win+P (as in "Windows flag" key + P):

With this you can use a secondary as an extension of the primary, keeping the native resolution on both screens. Very cool, very useful. I do not know if this exists in XP as I no longer run that as my primary OS. If anybody out there with XP wants to test this, feel free and post a comment.

4. An understanding of controlling what the lid does.

This is done on a software level. In Windows 7 it looks like this:

This is available in Power Options via Control Panel in Windows and has basically been the same ever since Windows 95. Some of you will probably want to run your laptop with the screen lid closed when using as a desktop connected to an external monitor. If that’s your goal, what you don’t want to happen is the laptop "hibernating", "sleeping" or shutting down when you shut the lid. What you do want is the "plugged in" or "on AC power" setting to be "Do nothing."

Remember to only change this for "plugged in" and not "on battery."

5. (Optional) An external USB optical drive.

You may not need this as your laptop may have one of these already installed. But even if it does, I suggest getting one anyway because you can place it much closer to you via your USB hub, and furthermore will keep any extra heat out of your laptop from optical drive use.

6. USB keyboard and USB mouse.

You’ll obviously need these for "true" laptop-as-desktop use. These can plug in directly into your USB hub.

Quick question answered: Is it a problem to use both the laptop and desktop keyboard and/or mouse and the same time? No. Windows will activate both of them. If you want to switch between them, that’s fine. You won’t have to enable/disable anything to do that.

Drawbacks using laptop-as-desktop

1. Limited video memory.

Your laptop most likely uses shared memory for video and does not have a dedicated graphics card. In addition, the external monitor you use probably has a higher native resolution than your laptop LCD screen does. This means your laptop will have to "work harder" to render video on a higher resolution.

In plain English: Choppy/stuttering video may occur from time to time. As long as you’re aware of this, then you’re fine. You’ll notice this most with Flash video (of course).

2. Slower

Laptops are by nature slower than desktops because they house mobile processors, slower RPM hard drives (5400 compared to 7200), and are designed to emit the least heat possible so they don’t literally burn up.

You will notice the slowness most when you have a lot of programs open. Psychologically you will be fooled into thinking, "this is a regular desktop" because you have a regular monitor, keyboard and mouse in front of you. It’s not. It’s a laptop. You know this is true, but it’s easy to forget. Remember what you’re using and what it was designed for.

3. Potentially unplugging a bunch of stuff every time you have to go mobile.

The best possible situation with a laptop-as-desktop setup is to only unplug three things when going mobile, that being your USB hub, monitor connector and power cord. You have a spare AC adapter in your laptop bag, so you don’t need to unplug that from the wall – and then off you go.

However most people don’t have a spare AC adapter as they are expensive (usually at least $50). And some of you won’t use a USB hub. This means every time you want to go mobile, you have to unplug all the USB stuff, disconnect the power cord, unplug that from the wall or power strip, wrap up the power cord cable, chuck it in the laptop bag, etc. You get the idea. It can turn into a tangled mess in short order. And you’ll have to do it all over again when you want to use the laptop as a desktop again.

Using a laptop as a desktop will require you to spend a few bucks to do it right, make no mistake.

Advantages of using a laptop as a desktop

1. Quiet.

Nobody likes a loud desktop PC. Laptops are built to be quiet. And most modern laptops (with the exception of gamer laptop rigs like Alienware) are whisper quiet. The only thing you want to hear is the click-clacking of your keyboard and clicky-clicky’s of your mouse. With a laptop, that’s what you get.

2. You are not chained to your desk.

You are using a portable medium, so whenever the mood strikes you, go mobile. Everything will go with you in a usable compact form.

3. Eliminates bulk, and a lot of it.

If you took a brand new $300 Dell mini netbook and outfitted it as outlined above, you’ve got a super-small way of computing that can more or less do everything save for high-def video editing and gaming. It is the ultra-compact setup that completely eliminates the traditional PC tower. Is it as good as a tower? Obviously not. But it does do the job surprisingly well for what it’s capable of.

By attaching a regular-sized monitor and traditional keyboard and mouse, it feels just like a regular desktop computer when using it, save for the hardware limitations as noted above.

Do you (or have you) run a laptop as a desktop?

If so, does it work for you? Did you feel it was a good decision? What recommendations (and/or warnings) would you give about computing in this fashion?

At the behest of the PCMech LIVE audience (particularly Kyle), I downloaded the latest version of PC-BSD. This is not a Linux distribution. As the title of the OS says in plain view, it’s a BSD based UNIX. In this instance, FreeBSD based.

Obviously UNIX can work on the desktop. Ask any Mac OS X user. But I digress.

PC-BSD is a rather large operating system. The 32-bit flavor requires at least two CDs (and optionally a third), or one DVD. 64-bit flavor is DVD only. While it’s true you could use "boot-only" versions, most people would opt for the full OS.

PC-BSD also requires a fair amount of computing horsepower just to run it. The recommended system requirements in its own documentation suggest a Pentium 4 or higher with 512MB RAM, 12GB free hard drive space, network card, sound card and 3D accelerated NVIDIA or Intel video card.

For those interested in the bare minimum, those requirements are a Pentium II, 256MB RAM and 6GB free hard drive space, network card and sound card. But I wouldn’t recommend anybody with system specs that low to run PC-BSD.

The installation procedure was painless. It’s no more difficult or easy than installing just about any Linux distribution.

The default desktop environment is KDE. In Linux/UNIX circles concerning the desktop you’re either a GNOME or KDE type of user (or a super-lightweight environment like Fluxbox). I personally prefer GNOME, but I’m not turned off by the way KDE does things; it’s just a different type of environment compared to GNOME.

Getting apps for PC-BSD can be accomplished by going to www.pbidir.com. On the default desktop this is labeled as "Download PBIs", like this:

You will notice up front that the apps available for PC-BSD are not as extensive as what’s in the file repositories for Linux distributions. This does not make UNIX a bad choice for a desktop OS, but it is important to know that you won’t have access to as many applications.

You will notice that while the apps are less to choose from, what’s available for PC-BSD is what matters more to the people that use it. Moreover, all the apps work and usually have commentary next to each from PC-BSD users expressing any thoughts or concerns about it (this information is valuable, believe me.)

PBI files act similar to EXE files in the Windows environment in the respect you just download one file, run that one file and it installs the app.

For example, I downloaded the Firefox web browser from pbidir.com. On first run, I got prompted for my user password (typical in UNIX/Linux environment), and then this is what I see:

What can I say? Cool! This is easy. Download one file, run it, install the app. No .tar.gz files to deal with. No repository crapola. No compiling necessary. Download and go. It’s all automatic. Very nice.

When done, it tells you what menu entry it made (Ubuntu doesn’t do that).

The KDE environment is easy enough to use. In fact there’s something in it that was removed from Windows:

Note the little "2". That tells you how many instances of an app is running. This is in Windows XP. It is not in Vista or Windows 7 RC. It’s little things like this that make for a convenient desktop environment. Every desktop environment on every OS should have this, period.

The best part about PC-BSD is actually its manual. This is one of the best-written guides I’ve seen for an operating system – any operating system. It explains in very plain English how to do things, both what you can and moreover cannot do. This is truly a user’s manual, not that "thing written by a programmer that’s impossible to understand."

A UNIX manual that’s actually helpful? Yeah, I didn’t believe it either until I read PC-BSD’s.

A good example is section 6.2.1 Folder hierarchy. The guide actually tells you what every directory PC-BSD uses actually means in simple easy terms.

Now I will admit the guide isn’t 100% complete, but I’d say it’s at least 98% of the way there. Fortunately all the important stuff you’d need to know is written in detail.

Are there any major differences between Linux and UNIX on the desktop?

The keyword part of the question above is "on the desktop".

On the desktop, you’re not really going to see any major drastic differences from a Linux distribution to UNIX.

But as for the "guts" of the OS, that’s where you encounter things that happen differently.

You will notice that the way FreeBSD/PC-BSD handles things is a bit (gasp) Windows-ish. But I don’t consider that a bad thing. For example, the Services Manager (see section 12.2 of the PC-BSD guide). This is essentially the same as Services in Windows in the way it acts. Pick a service, start it, stop it, restart it, enable/disable startup, do whatever. It’s easy.

In fact, you will notice that the way BSD does things overall just seems to make more sense. And I’m not even referring to the Windows-like stuff here. Things in the OS are done in such a way where you say, "Wow, I can understand this. This is useful to me."

See for yourself at http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/handbook/ and you decide. In all seriousness, it truly is an easy read.

Interested in running a UNIX home server that acts like a desktop?

I can say with certainty that PC-BSD would definitely fit the bill if that’s what you’re looking for. The installation asks up front whether you want to have a desktop or server type system in a friendly way. Most of you interested in UNIX would probably want to use it for server duty.

Even though PC-BSD is a friendly UNIX, bear in mind it does not have as many applications available compared to popular Linux distributions. It also does not come with codecs for playing DVDs or anything else that would require special licensing. Yes, you could configure it to do so if determined enough, but it does require some effort to get it to work.

If you want the frills, goodies and more apps, you’re better off with a Linux distribution.

But for rock-solid FreeBSD UNIX reliability in a friendly desktop environment, it’s tough to beat PC-BSD.

I especially recommend PC-BSD to those who tried a BSD before and absolutely hated it. This time around I’m sure you’ll like it a whole lot better.

Would you consider running UNIX over Linux?

Or are you running a BSD based UNIX now? Let us know in the comments what you think.

I made a decision a while back that the most icons I would have on my desktop is one column worth, meaning if the icons on the left side of the first monitor "skip" to another, there’s too many and it must be cleaned up.

The only icon I have on the right is the Recycle Bin. I have entertained the idea of removing that from the desktop, but I find that I do actually use it from time to time.

I would say the #1 thing that legitimately irritates me is when people dump everything, and I mean everything, on the desktop.

 
Above: My Windows 7 desktop (tower PC, dual monitor).

Some would say, "That’s a Windows thing." Oh, no sir. I’ve seen cluttered OS X and Linux desktops as well. The only reason non-Windows users label it as a "Windows thing" is because that’s the OS that’s most used. If OS X or Linux held the title as most-used, you’d see cluttered desktops just the same.

I do partially blame browsers (Firefox included) for clutter if using Windows XP, because the default download location for files is the desktop. Yes, this can be changed, but most people don’t do that.

 
Above: My Windows XP desktop (laptop, single monitor).

Here are the problems with using the desktop as the place to put all your stuff.

1. The more stuff is there, the harder it is to tell the difference between a downloaded file and a program.

While it’s true in Windows that a shortcut can be distinguished from a downloaded file by use of a small arrow on the icon, if you have so much crap on your desktop you fall into that "everything looks the same" scenario.

2. It makes it more difficult to find stuff.

The desktop in modern operating systems is not meant to be the launching point for everything you do with a computer. In Windows, that’s what the Start menu is for. On a Mac, that’s what the dock is for. In GNOME (the default in Ubuntu Linux), you have a Start menu-ish environment like Windows. All modern OSes are telling you the same thing: DON’T use the desktop to dump all your stuff to.

If you purposely use the desktop as your launching point, over time this makes it more difficult to do something as simple as launching a program. You have to literally hunt for the icon to start the app you want. This is bad. Use your menus; that’s what they’re there for.

All modern OSes also have ways of searching for the app you want simply by typing it in.

Windows XP doesn’t have this, but it can easily be added using Launchy.

Windows 7 has a program search built right into the start menu.

Mac OS X has Spotlight.

GNOME has Beagle.

3. Clutter leads to wasted hard drive space.

The more crap on your desktop, the easier it is to lose track of it. After a relatively short period of time it’s totally possible to have gigs of space wasted. Maybe you downloaded some trial editions of games and dumped the installation executables on the desktop. Maybe you downloaded a Linux ISO, burned the disc but left the file. It could be any number of things.

Steps you can take to clean up your clutter

1. Get it off the desktop.

Not to overstate the obvious, but move or delete your files. If you have so much crap that you’re not sure what to delete, just burn it all to a DVD. If you fill up a DVD, make two, or as many as you need to.

2. Learn ways of launching apps via menus, QuickLaunch icons and/or text commands.

There’s really not that much of a learning curve here and it’s self-explanatory.

3. Know your folders.

Windows 7, OS X and Linux all use user folders and so should you.

If still using Windows XP, use your My Documents folder. Create subfolders within for categorization.

4. Change any app that downloads files to save to your user folder by default.

This is probably a big reason why you have so much crap on your desktop in the first place. Change the settings and put files where they’re supposed to go.

5. When installing new apps, remember to remove the icons off the desktop.

This is the only part of this article where I will say that this is a "Windows thing". Almost all apps on install will dump an icon on the desktop by default – some without even asking you first. These icons are just shortcuts, so get in the habit of deleting them whenever a new one pops up.

The netbook style of laptop is hot right now. Really hot. A big reason for this is because the price for them is really cheap (even as low as $250 brand new or $299 for the Dell Inspiron Mini 9), so yes, they’re flying off the shelves as fast as manufacturers can make them.

However as a far as it would suit as a primary computer replacement, the answer for most people would be a flat-out “No.”

Even though I personally champion the netbook format, I won’t say you should use it as your primary computer.

Continued

This is the first time I’ve found something Linux can do that Windows (or OS X for that matter) cannot, that being to backup a large Flickr account.

I’ll explain.

My paid Flickr account has 1000+ photos in it. I use it routinely, realized it was frickin’ huge and felt the need to back it up.

The only semi-decent tool available is flickredit. But there’s one huge problem with it. If you have a ton of photos it simply won’t work. Sure, if you want to do periodic backups of say 500 photos or less it will do just fine. But over that mark it will just stop in the middle of a backup. You’ll have to start it all over again and do it piecemeal style (such as 50 at a time, etc.)

Very, very irritating. And slow.

Linux on the other hand has this thing called flickrfs. It mounts your Flickr account as a drive so-to-speak. However it is very "linuxy" and the installation may scare off some (read: command line crapola).

The alternative? Use Desktop Flickr Organizer. From what I understand it uses flickrfs and there’s absolutely zero command line crapola to deal with. This is directly available from Add/Remove in Ubuntu and looks like this when you go to get it:

When installed it’s available here:

When you run it, it looks like this:

Said honestly, if you use Flickr, you will love DFO. I’ve never seen its equal. It uploads, it organizes, it sorts, it tags, it does sets (and creation), it has search and most importantly – it downloads with no problems whatsoever.

I was able to download my entire Flickr photostream – which is 1000+ photos – on first try and DFO didn’t skip a beat. I was impressed.

Like with any application you use to access Flickr, you have to have your Flickr account "allow" it first. This only takes a few clicks of the mouse and you’re off to the races.

This is one real-life example of something Linux can do that no other OS can. In addition this Linux app is without a shadow of doubt better than any Windows or OS X offering for Flickr photo organization/backup. Normally whenever I see a Linux app it’s usually behind – but not this one. It’s way ahead.

If I want to backup my large Flickr account with no issues, I have to use Linux to get it done. Is this good or bad? Well if you’re a Linux user, not bad a’tall I’d say.

Over the years I have noticed people love to just drop everything onto their desktop. Be it shortcuts, pictures or files they are actively working on, the desktop is the common gathering place. While this may work for helping you get your work done it also increases the amount of time your computer takes to boot up.

More specifically, when you log into Windows the icons on the desktop are redrawn several times while your desktop is initially loading. So having fewer icons on your desktop will decrease the time it takes to load. Depending on how many icons you use and how fast your machine is, the time can be negligible, but if you have 100+ icons on your desktop you are probably going to notice it.

Ultimately, what it all comes down to is what works best for you. Waiting an additional 10-30 seconds when your machine is loading is small beans if you are more productive dropping everything on the desktop. One thing to try though is to simply create a folder on your desktop and move all your icons there.

If you have a large monitor and/or use a very high resolution and have determined that virtual desktops are not for you, a tool you might want to look at instead in order take advantage of all your screen space is Acer Gridvista.

This free utility is pretty clever as it allows you create dockable sections on your desktop. From the description:

Acer Gridvista devides your screen into two, three or four sections in which you can drag & drop windows.
The windows will then be automatically resized. You can also set a window to be always on top or semi-transparent.

If I had a larger monitor I could definitely see myself using this application to dock my most commonly used applications. While you could resize everything manually and minimize/restore as needed, the docking spaces would make this process fast and efficient.

Using the freely available Terminal Server Client in Ubuntu Linux it’s easy to connect to your Windows XP computer(s) on your local network. See video below for details.

My Ubuntu desktop looks like this (click any image for full size):

When I have an app open it looks like this:

The way to get Ubuntu to look like this is fairly simple.

1. Download Microsoft core fonts to get Arial

Like it or not, the Arial font looks good on Windows just as Helvetica looks good on a Mac (unless you’re some typography nerd that insists on arguing which looks better/worse/etc.)

Arial looks even better when used in Ubuntu.

To get it, we need to go to Add/Remove, select "All available applications" from Show, then search for core and you’ll find it. Once you do, install it.

It looks like this:

2. Change fonts to Arial

In the Appearance section of Ubuntu is where the fonts are changed.

It looks like this:

3. Change font rendering to "Slight"

The standard font rendering in Ubuntu looks a bit "computery", so to soften it up we change the way fonts are rendered.

From the above screen, click the Details button at the bottom right, set "Smoothing" to Subpixel (LCDs) and "Hinting" to Slight. Then click close.

It looks like this:

4. Set toolbar button labels to Text besides items

While it’s true this takes up a bit more screen area width-wise, it saves screen space height-wise.

This is optional. I prefer text-beside-item because text-under-icon looks very "old".

It looks like this:

5. Increase the size of your mouse pointer

For whatever reason the mouse pointer is very tiny in Ubuntu by default and difficult to see even on lower resolution monitors.

You can adjust this by going to Appearance Preferences, select your theme and then click Customize, then the Pointer tab.

It looks like this (note the bottom – drag the slider to increase/decrease pointer size):

6. Set transparency on your panel(s)

Transparency = modern-looking. By default the panels are solid in Ubuntu. You can change this over to transparent by right-clicking an empty area of the panel, selecting Properties, click the Background tab, choose Solid color then drag the slider next to Style to set your desired transparency.

It looks like this:

6a. Go 100% transparent, bump up panel size for big icons

If using the standard "24" panel size doesn’t float your boat and you want something with larger icons, set the transparency to 100% and your panel size to 48.

When you do it will look like this:

Some may like this, others may not. Whether this works for you or not greatly depends on the wallpaper you choose (some wallpaper may "blank out" the text altogether).

7. Get a cool wallpaper

The wallpaper I use was formerly a standard image bundled with Ubuntu but they got rid of it for whatever reason.

The image is called Dawn of Ubuntu and it’s easily found via a Google image search. So if you like that Ubuntu wallpaper, go for it. I personally think it looks great.

~ ~ ~

By doing the above steps you can turn a plain Ubuntu desktop into something much more modern looking in just a few minutes.

Cray is a supercomputer company that makes computer boxes that, simply put, have absolutely staggering computational power. Interesting trivia: It was boxes made by Cray that rendered movies like Tron (yes, that long ago). Back then a Cray looked like this.

If you’ve got 25 grand you don’t mind parting with that would put 768 gigaflops in your house, you can buy a Cray CX1, pictured right. Bear in mind 25k is the starting price of this box. Eight nodes with 16 Intel Xeon processors on board. Yes, you read right, 16 processors.

So if you thought the 8-core Mac Pro had some decent power under the hood.. well.. um.. no. Not compared to this "baby" cray it doesn’t.

The OS choices are Windows HPC Server 2008 or Linux.

[Source: Computerworld]

A feature in Linux which has been around for quite some time is virtual desktops. That is desktop “views” you can switch between which have different applications open and running. If you want to add this functionality to Windows, take a look at the Sysinternals tool, Desktops.

Desktops allows you to organize your applications on up to four virtual desktops. Read email on one, browse the web on the second, and do work in your productivity software on the third, without the clutter of the windows you’re not using. After you configure hotkeys for switching desktops, you can create and switch desktops either by clicking on the tray icon to open a desktop preview and switching window, or by using the hotkeys.

The nice thing about having “multiple” desktops is you can segregate your applications into logical groupings as opposed to cluttering up your primary desktop. For example, you could have your web browser and email open on one, your music library on another and your development tools on a third and swap between them using hotkeys.

Something I have seen serious power users do is run a server OS as their primary OS on their desktop. Doing this offers many benefits, including the most appealing: ultimate system stability. If you think about it, a server OS has to be rock solid as crashes are really not an option.

If you have an extra license of Windows Server 2008 around and want to give it a shot as your desktop OS, this guide is for you. This guide discusses everything from audio setup to wireless connectivity to fine tune the server as a usable desktop environment.

Of course, there are some drawbacks such as the potential lack of driver support (for example, most audio drivers are not written with a server OS in mind). Additionally, gamers will not want to explorer this option as most games will probably not work.

Remember the days when the the Internet was new and when we were all spellbound at the idea of having our own desktop computer? Learning the workings of the computer was of prime importance. You had this piece of powerful equipment on your desk and you wanted to explore all the possibilities it presented.

Fast forward to today. Things have most certainly changed. My question is: has everybody realized that it has indeed changed?

Continued

Microsoft recently released version 4 of Windows Desktop Search so I decided to check it out. If you’d like to check it out for yourself, launch Internet Explorer, head over to http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com, do a "Custom" (instead of "Express") install and you’ll see the option to download it there. It’s free.

WDS installs itself in the taskbar and will look something like this:

I have the indexing window purposely open in that screen shot because when you first install it it will take time to index everything. If you don’t have the indexing window open, you will know WDS is doing something by a fade-in/fade-out magnifying glass icon next to the clock (you can see it in the screenshot above).

The Big Question: Is this better than the standard built-in XP search?

Yes.

But it depends what you’re looking for.

My biggest gripe: E-Mail searching

I do like the fact you can search thru e-mails without having the client running. If you use Outlook, Outlook Express or Windows Live Mail, WDS is a nice little shortcut to search thru mail quickly.

The only drawback is that it doesn’t show the title of e-mails, just the cryptic-looking file names.

Like this:

Not cool.

There is a specific way you could use WDS where you can see the information that matters when e-mail searching. You have to use the "big" version (by clicking the magnifying glass icon), then click "E-Mail" then purposely select "Large icons" and then you can see e-mail content when searching for it.

Big pain in the rump if you asked me.

Searching everything else? Does just fine.

Aside from the e-mail searching b.s., this is a genuinely good utility for finding anything else in XP. It does find things faster than the standard search does.

Will this slow down your computer?

Only on older systems – especially during the indexing process. For example, I’d never put this on a computer with a Celeron processor in it or on any anything with under 1GB of RAM.

How to uninstall in case you don’t like it

Easy enough: It’s listed as Windows Search 4.0 in your Add/Remove via Control Panel.

Looks like this: