Those purists still love KDE 3.5, and many of them continue to use the supported version of it called Trinity Desktop Environment. Others, however, mainly just preferred the KDE 3.5 look over the current Plasma Air appearance. If that is the case, Plasma gives you the flexibility to make your KDE 4 desktop look like KDE 3.5.

The Panel

In terms of functionality, much of the KDE panel has not changed. You still have a “K” button, a pager, a task manager, a system tray, and a clock. The default Plasma appearance, however, looks radically different. Furthermore, the Kickoff menu is big and clunky compared to the simple KDE 3.5 menu.

To change the panel’s appearance, do the following:

1. Download the “Vintage” Plasma theme (Unfortunately, there is a problem with the packing of this theme on KDE-Look.org. I repacked it and have made it available here.)
2. Unpack the theme and copy it to your desktop theme folder: /hom/[username]/.kde/share/apps/desktoptheme
3. Open “System Settings”
4. Choose “Workspace Appearance”
5. Click “Desktop Theme”
6. Choose “KVintage”
7. Click “Apply”.

The Desktop

The default KDE 4 desktop uses folderview widgets and icons that are also widgets. If you prefer a desktop that functions like the KDE 3 desktop, KDE 4 can handle that too.

1. Right click on the desktop
2. Click “Desktop Settings”
3. If necessary, click “Unlock Widgets”
4. For “Layout” change it from “Desktop” to “Folder View”
5. Click “OK”

You should now have a more traditional-looking and functioning desktop.

The K Menu

The kickoff menu is very robust with a great deal of functionality, but if you want the simple menu from KDE 3, simply remove the application launcher widget and replace it with the traditional one.

1. Right click on the “K” button on the panel
2. Click “Remove this application launcher”
3. Right click again on the panel and click “Add widgets”
4. Drag the “Application Launcher Menu” widget to the panel

You should now have the traditional application launcher menu from KDE 3.5.

The Icons

The default KDE icon set is called Oxygen, but you can use whatever icons you want, as long as they are properly configured for KDE4’s structure. Fortunately, someone has repackaged the KDE3 CrystalSVG icon theme.

1. Download the icon theme manually
2. Open “System Settings”
3. Click “Application Appearance” and then “Icons”
4. Click “Install Theme File”
5. Locate the icon set you just download and select it
6. Choose the icon theme from the list and click “Apply”

Application and Window Decoration Appearance

Most of the old KDE 3 window decorations and styles are still around in KDE 4. To use them, all you have to do is select them in System Settings. To change the style:

1. Click “Application Appearance”
2. Next to “Widget style” select the theme you want, “Plastique” for example
3. Click “Apply”

To change the window decoration:

1. In System Settings, choose “Workspace Appearance”
2. Choose “Window Decorations”
3. Select the theme you want, such as “Plastik”

The File Manager

One of the most monumental changes from KDE 3 to KDE 4 was the introduction of Dolphin, a new file manager to relieve Konqueror of one its multiple responsibilities. To have a true KDE 3.5 experience, you will need to make Konqueror your default file manager.

1. Open “System Settings” and choose “Default Applications”
2. Select “File Manager” from the left pane
3. Select “Konqueror” and click “Apply”

Once you have all of these changes in place, you may start to see KDE 4 in a different light. Although many features under the hood have changed, it is still possible to get the KDE 3.5 look and feel back on your desktop.

The good thing is, the rendering ability is dependent on the capabilities of the browser. All you have to do is to change the user-agent of the browser and you can easily switch between mobile and desktop mode. Here is how you do it.

Default Honeycomb browser

1. Open the browser app. Tap on the menu icon at the top right corner. Select “Settings”.

2. On the left pane, select “Advanced”. On the right pane, select “User Agents”.

3. Select “Desktop” in the pop-up window.

Done. Now press the Back button until you reach back the main screen. Continue your web surfing. All websites will be rendered in the desktop mode now.

Dolphin For Pad

Dolphin browser is one of the most popular browser in the Android market and the Dolphin For Pad is the version specially for Honeycomb tablet. If you are using it, here is how you can change its user agent.

1. Open the Dolphin for Pad app. Tap the Menu icon at the bottom panel (fourth icon from the left corner). Select “More -> Settings”.

2. Select the first option “User Agent”. Set it to “Desktop”.

That’s it.

I have tried several browsers from the Android market (Firefox beta, Opera, Maxthon, Miren) and all of them have similar ways to configure the user-agents. The only challenge is to find out where their settings page lie. In Opera, the Settings button is hidden under the “O” icon beside the address bar. In Firefox, there is no Settings. You have to go to the Preferences page. Once you locate the configuration page, you should have no problem changing the user-agent, regardless of the browser you are using.

Where can I get Mail Tab for Gmail?

It is a free download in the Mac App Store. Simply type the name of the app into your search field and click Enter. You should see the app in your search results.

Setting Up The App

Let’s begin by setting up your new app. Once it is downloaded, double click on the icon in your dock to open it.

The first time you open the app, you will see a confirmation message, ensuring that the program is allowed to access your Gmail, you have to click on yes if you want to use this app.

Now, you will see a sign in screen. Enter your Gmail username and password. Then click on “Sign in”. Signing in may take a little bit longer with this app then it would with your browser this first time. Just be a little patient, and you will be rewarded. When you here the “ping” noise, you know that you are signed into your Gmail, and can access your messages. You will also hear this ping in the future when you get a new message.

Tip: If you do not want to sign in everytime you launch the app, make sure that the box next to “Remember me” is checked. It should be checked by default the first time that you sign in. If this is a shared computer and you do not want to save your information, then make sure that this box is not checked.

Using The App

Once you are signed in, you will notice an app icon in the upper right hand corner of your screen. To see the messages in your in-box simply click on this icon. Load times may vary.

If you need to view more messages in the list, simply scroll all of the way down to and click the button labeled “Show more messages” and more of your inbox should appear.

If you want to view the contents of a specific message, simply click on it. From here, you can read the message, and then either delete or archive that message by clicking on the buttons. If you do not want to take any action, simply click the “Inbox” button and you will be taken back to a list of your messages.

When you are ready to quit the application, either to go to lunch, or for the day, you can simply click on the small downward pointing arrow next to the message icon. When the menu appears, you can simply click on the words “Quit Mail Tab for Gmail” and you will be signed out of the application and your Gmail account.

Enjoy your productivity!

MailTab For Gmail (iTunes link)

Installing Gadgets

To launch the Gadgets dashboard, right-click anywhere on your Windows desktop and select Gadgets.

Once the gadgets dashboard launches, you can select gadgets to add to your desktop or install new gadgets by searching in the online Gadgets directory.

The online gadgets directory has a number of interesting desktop gadgets to select from.

Once you have found the gadget you wish to install select Download and then Install.

This will download a small file with a “.gadget” extension onto your computer.

Open this file to install the new gadget. You will be prompted to verify installation.

Once you have verified the installation, the new Gadget will appear in  your gadgets dashboard.

The new gadget will also appear on your Windows desktop.

To uninstall the gadget, simply right-click on it in the gadget dashboard.

Gadget Options

After the gadget has been installed and appears on your desktop, you can play around with a number of settings (below is the Now Playing gadget).

The first icon closes the gadget, but it does not delete the gadget.

The second icon allows you to increase/decrease the size of the gadget. This works differently for different Gadgets.

For example, when the Now Playing gadgets size is reduced, it looks like this:

The smaller version of the Calendar gadget looks like this:

The third option opens the settings panel for the gadget. Again each gadget has different settings that can be altered to tweak the settings of the gadget.

Finally, the last option allows you to move the gadget.

Different Gadgets

I use a total of seven gadgets on my Windows desktop. Some of the gadgets I have highlighted come with your Windows installation, however some of them require additional downloads. I have provided links where appropriate.

Google Calendar

The Google Calendar Gadget must be downloaded and installed.

This is a useful gadget that shows the upcoming appointments that you have added through your Google Calendar account. Of course this gadget only works if you actually have a Google account and have added items on your Google Calendar.

After the gadget loads you must click on the settings button to input your Google account settings and select the calendars you want the gadget to display.

Amongst other useful features, the gadget flashes upcoming appointments, displays the colour of individual calendar and even allows you to add new events using the gadget.

To create a new event, click on the small round icon in the top right, and then select the paper icon.

Here you can input the information in the same format as you would in Google Calendar.

Now Playing

After you have download and installed the Now Playing gadget you will see a small gadget with icons for various music players.

Before the gadget launches you must select the music player that you intend the gadget to be associated with (I use MediaMonkey). The gadget should launch automatically showing the currently playing song.

The gadget also has a number of keys that can be toggled.

Audio Controls: Play/Pause, Previous track, Next track

Shuffle: Toggle the playlist shuffle options (on/off)

Lyrics: Displays the lyrics of the currently playing song (only works with Windows Media Player, Winamp and iTunes and requires the Lyrics Plugin)

Playlist: Displays all your playlists

Cover: Displays the track cover

Rating: Change the number of stars to set the rating for that track.

Calendar

The default Calendar gadget is a fairly simple one that shows the current date and also has a browsable Calendar.

World Clock

The World Clock gadget is a simple clock gadget that displays times from different parts of the world, while also showing the weather in that region.

I usually add a few instances of this gadget to show the times from different regions around the world.

Sushi Drive Info

The Sushi Drive Info gadget provides a graphical view of how much drive space is free.

CPU Meter

This is a very stylish gadget that displays the amount of CPU and RAM being used.

The bigger dial on the left shows what percentage of your PC’s processing power is being used. Similarly, the smaller dial on the right shows the percentage of RAM being used.

Daemon Tools

The Daemon Tools gadget comes with the Daemon Tools application which must be downloaded and installed. Daemon Tools is a popular programme that allows you to make disc image files and emulate virtual CD/DVD drives.

The gadget simply makes this process easier by providing a drag-and-drop function to load CD/DVD images.

Which Windows gadgets do you use?

I came across a solution to ease this burden. Android2Cloud is an Android application similar to Chrome to phone. Android2Cloud is in-fact the opposite of Chrome to phone. It lets you send a link to the page you are looking at on your Android device to your Google Chrome browser.

Setting up Google Chrome

There are a couple setup steps you will need to do before you can use android2Cloud. You will need to download the application and install it on your Google Chrome browser.

Download Android2for Google Chrome.

The Google Chrome side of it may cause confusion for some people. It is not complicated, but has a step that could be confusing to some people. Follow these steps and you should be fine.

Once you install the Google Chrome web app, a new tab will open walking you through the setup.

Most of the steps are easy enough. The step that may throw you is step 2. This step asks you to pick a host for your information. Leave this as the default and you will be fine.

Follow the rest of the steps, making sure to press save for each step. You will be asked to log in and grant Android2Cloud access to your Google Account.

The next step is to download Android2Chrome to your Android Phone.

Install Android2Cloud from the Market. Alternatively, you can scan the QR code displayed after you set up the Google Chrome app.

Configuring the Android phone side of the pairing is really easy. You will only need to install and sign in using your Google account information.

Using Android2Cloud

When using the browser on your Android phone, you will undoubtedly come across a page you that would be easier view on your computer. From your Android phone, you can follow the steps below to send the page you are viewing Google Chrome on your computer.

As a reminder, you will need to be signed into Google Chrome on your computer for the process to work.

To transfer this page to your desktop, you will need to access your share menu.

Just like of you wanted to post a link to the page on Facebook or email or message.

You will see Android2Cloud as an option to share.

Tap on Android2Cloud and your message will be sent to Google Chrome.

I tried sending web pages from my Android phone while Google Chrome was open and while it was closed. When Chrome is open, the page will automatically open in a new window. If Chrome is not open, it should show when you open it next.

Conclusion

I find that in more cases, I use Android2Cloud more than I use Chrome2Phone. It is more likely for me to be looking at a page on my Android and need to watch a video with a larger screen than the other way around. Android2Cloud had been an extremely useful application.

What tricks do you have to blur the line between phone and desktop browsing?

Image credit: deege@fermentarium.com

Styles and Themes

In KDE, a style refers to the window color, buttons, scroll bars, progress bars, and similar interactive visual components. Themes include color schemes and more, all in one package. You can set styles in System Settings -> Application Appearance -> Style.

Qtcurve – One of the most highly acclaimed styles, Qtcurve gives you ultimate control over customizable features. The configuration settings are extensive, giving you control over button style, gradients, and even accompanying window manager settings. Many users have created their own Qtcurve presets that you can download and use.

Bespin – Bespin is the technical successor to the famous Baghira style from KDE 3. With rounded buttons, silver gradient backgrounds, and an exotic selection of visual options, it is by far the most stylized of the available KDE styles, and outsiders may not even recognize your desktop as being KDE. Like Qtcurve, Bespin also has a window manager theme to go along with it.

Oxygen Transparent – Plainly put, Oxygen Transparent is the Oxygen style with support for translucent windows applied to it. Normally, only the window decorator can be translucent or transparent, but this features gives you control over the opacity of the entire window. This is best used with the Blur effect, which only works with certain graphics cards.

Plasma Themes

Plasma themes control how your panel, Krunner, and widgets appear. You can change themes in System Settings – Workspace Appearance – Desktop Theme.

Glassified – Slick and smooth, Glassified gives you a clear picture of your desktop, through the looking glass.

Tibanna – This theme is designed to go with Bespin, and unlike most other themes, it will give you an opaque panel and widgets, complete with Bespin gradient backgrounds.

Elegance – Elegance is reminiscent of the earlier black Oxygen theme with a little more class to it. It is very dark and will set a night mood to your workspace.

Ghost - If nothing else, Ghost wins points just for being unique. This will transform your desktop into something completely different.  If you can stand the extremely dark theme, it will make your computer desktop look like it came off an alien ship.

Icons

Black and White icons – These black and white icons will go nicely with the new monochrome system tray icons. They will extend the silvery feel of Oxygen.

MIB Ossiengo - Like your icons were dipped in the ocean, these icons have an aqua-like feel to them.

H2O – Add hydrogen to oxygen, and you get the H2O icon set. As the creator describes it, H2O will add color and life to your desktop.

If you want more themes, icons, and styles, you can add browse/search for them directly from within System Settings or go to KDE-Look.org.

I am always plugged into new songs on my portable iPod or desktop computer, regardless of whatever I am doing. However, I also enjoy finding new songs that are still missing from my iPod playlists. In such situations, Internet Radio saves the day.

Radio channels streamed from the internet is a great way to listen to latest tunes as well as old classics. Things are pretty random with radio streaming, so if you are looking for a tool that will let you enjoy online radio stations from all over the world, try Nexus radio.

With a collection of over 15 million tracks and 11000+ radio stations listed, you will never get bored with music streamed with this free application.

Download Nexus Radio and install the tool on your computer. You will need to sign up for a free account to get started with it. Once you have successfully registered for a free account, use the login credentials to sign in.

NOTE: If you are using Windows 7 or Windows Vista, the program may crash several times. It is recommended to start the player in administrator mode, to avoid the annoyance.

There are 17 tabs that you can use to control different parameters of the radio player as well as use it properly. I took a quick look at the tool and listed below are the most needed tabs along with the tasks that are included within them:

1. Music Search: This tab lets you search individual tracks, there are four sources to choose from and the count of the tracks is more than 15 million. Once the search is complete, choose the song and use the playback buttons to play, pause or stop the track. This is a great way to look for tracks you just can’t live without.

You can also use the “Save Song” button to download any selected song to your computer and listen it offline.

2. Stations: This tab lists more than 11000 radio stations from all over the world and all of them are categorized as per genres. Click a genre from the left tab and select the station from the middle pane. Use the play button to start playing the channel.

Use the “Quick Record” button to record the currently streaming radio station. There are an overwhelming number of radio stations available, so finding your favorite one is not a problem at all.

3. Record: This is one of the great features of the tool that lets you record live radio stream on a scheduled time. Choose a Genre from the dropdown at the top of the middle pane. Select the radio station, choose date and time from the left pane and hit “Save” to save the recording schedule.

4. Filters: If you are want to record a specific song or songs from a specific artist, creating filters will help you.

Go to the filters tab and click the “Add/Remove” button (just above the playback controls) and select “Add Filter” and enter the artist or song name. After you have added a filter, you will be prompted to activate it. You can also turn it off/on from the “Options” button located beside the “Add/Remove” button.

5. Equalizer: The tool has a built-in 10 band equalizer to adjust the sound quality of the radio stream or the songs playing. The equalizer worked perfectly for me and the sound quality can be optimized to great level to soothe your ears.

6. Effects: Next to the equalizer tab, there is an “Effects” tab which complements the equalizer effects, by letting you control the pan, speed, echo and reverb settings of the songs played.

7. Tagger: The tag editor can be found under this tab and can be used to edit the ID3 tag info of any track on your PC which is quite neat if you are using any portable device to sync songs with your computer. Although I feel a bulk editor would have been better.

8. Trimmer: The tool’s inbuilt trimmer can be used to cut selected portion of any song on your computer. There are times I need to change my cell phone’s ringing tone. Till date I have been using some dedicated online tools to get this task done. I’m glad to find another reason to stick with this free tool now.

9. Options: This tab contains all the additional options relevant to the tools working methods. You can set to start the tool as Windows starts, change the default download location or hide/unhide song pop ups within this tab.

The other tabs included in Nexus Radio can be used for visualization during playback, see top 100 song charts, watch music videos, install or uninstall plugins, see history and many more other things.

By far, I am more than satisfied using the program considering its all in one usability. Barring the case of crashing on several occasions, the tool worked just as fine otherwise. Do try Nexus radio once and let us know your thoughts in the comments section.

Wallch is a pretty new wallpaper changer app for Gnome. It has just released version 1.0 of its software days ago. Just like any other wallpaper changing app, it allows you to define a set of wallpapers to be rotated at certain interval.

Installing Wallch

There is no PPA for Wallch yet, so the next best option is to install via the deb file (unless you love compiling from source). Go to its SourceForge page and download the deb file (do not download the tar.gz file).

Double click the deb file to install.

Usage

Go to “Applications -> Accessories -> Wallch Walpaper Changer” to launch the app. The usage is simple. Add your wallpapers to the box, set the interval to change the wallpaper and press “Start” to run the program. That’s it.

One thing that you have to take note is that once you “start” the program, you won’t be able to change the configuration (add/remove wallpapers, changing interval etc) anymore. You will have to “Stop” the application to make changes to the configuration.

One feature about Wallch is that it allows you to create your own wallpaper, either from the webcam or take a screenshot of your current wallpaper.

Live Earth wallpaper

The most interesting thing about Wallch is the ability to set Live Earth images as the desktop wallpaper. Go to “Edit -> Preferences -> Live Earth Wallpaper. Press the “Activate Live Earth Wallpaper” button.

There is no detail instruction here, but the Live Earth Wallpaper module can’t work concurrently with the main wallpaper changing module. If you have “Started” the wallpaper changing module, you won’t be able to activate the Live Earth Wallpaper. In addition, the changing interval is set to 1/2 hours which you can’t change.

Other configurations

Creating a wallch album

Wallch allows you to create a photo album with your wallpapers. You can create multiple albums. Depending on your mood, you can then get it to load the wallpapers from your favorite album.

Notification sound and bubble

I find this to be very annoying, so I switched both (the sound and the notification bubble) off instantly.

History

Wallch keeps a history of the time the wallpaper is changed and the changed wallpapers. You can access the history file at the .config/WallpaperChanger/History folder. Seriously, I don’t see any use for logging the changes. Will you be interested to find out at which time of the day which wallpaper was set on your desktop?

Bonus – Download 1000 cool HD desktop wallpapers

To encourage its users to use the app, the developers of Wallch are giving out 1000 desktop wallpapers (400+ mb) for free. I have downloaded it and I must admit that the collection is pretty cool.

Download the wallpapers here

Things that Wallch are lacking

Being a long time wallpaper changer app user, here are some things that I found lacking in Wallch.

1. Unable to select multiple folders when adding images – You won’t be able to add images in multiple folders at the same time. For example, I have a main “Wallpaper” folder with several sub folders containing my wallpapers. I would love to have the option to select the “Wallpaper” folder and add all my wallpapers inside the folder and subfolders. (update: Fixed by developer)

2. Unable to watch a folder for new wallpaper – It would be great if it can watch my Wallpaper folder and add new addition to the library.

3. Switching the close button should minimize to tray, not exiting. (update: Fixed by developer)

4. The tray icon should provide a one-click access to change the current wallpaper. (update: Fixed by developer)

Wrapping up

Wallch is still new, so there are still plenty of feature that it is lacking. The ability to display Live Earth wallpaper is cool though. For the time being, the trustworthy Desktop Drapes still remains my favorite wallpaper changer app.

Wallch

MeMenu

I’m a creature of habit, and I’ve kept a GMail tab open at all times for the better part of the last 4 or 5 years. One of the newer features of the Ubuntu desktop is the MeMenu, which aims to combine chat, email, and social networking into the Gnome panel, thereby hoping to remove the need for a browser tab.

The concept is simple and clever. The applet monitors incoming notifications (such as IM chat), displays the text using the builtin notification system, and changes color to indicate a pending message.

As far as actual usage, I personally found it a bit lacking. Half the functionality is found in the applet shown in the first screenshot, while the rest is split to the Indicator Applet. Oddly, it’s the Indicator which actually holds all the setup for both.

Between the confusingly split application controls, and the fact that neither applet provides a quick and simple way to sign on and off, I’m forced to give the current MeMenu a completely subjective grade of C+. Great idea, but mediocre implementation.

Multimedia Applications

As I’ve shared before, I’m very picky about my multimedia applications. Since beginning this experiment a few weeks ago, a few of the applications have grown on me. One of those is Rhythmbox. Previous experiences never left me feeling very good, but after forcing myself to use it a bit more I’ve grown to appreciate some of its design.

With the built-in burning, flexible smart playlists, and fast media import, I’ve been rather impressed with Rhythmbox, at least much more than I was expecting to be. I’d give it a solid B.

I’ve got mixed feelings, however, about Brasero. It burns discs and all, it does the basic job, but in a way that’s the problem. For quick and common tasks, it’ll probably let you do what you want, quickly and easily. Once your tasks become more complex, and you begin to have preferences about how the job is done, Brasero might not meet your needs.

For example, I put a lot of effort into making compilation albums for my nephew. It takes me an entire year to put each one together, and each track is precisely cut, faded, and normalized to my liking. If I attempt to burn the CD with Brasero, it will automatically apply its own normalization to all tracks anyway, ruining the manual volume adjustments I had already made. I have yet to find a way to disable this. For having some great features but lacking in control, I’d give Brasero a C.

Finally, while a few applications surprised me (in a good way), the one I still can’t stand is Totem, the video player. It supports almost nothing out of the box, and to get even basic playback you’ve got to jump through codec install hoops. Even once everything’s up and running, Totem still lacks the feature set of more capable players like VLC.

I understand that Totem as an application is consistent with the Gnome look and feel, but I can’t help feel that it can’t be that hard to include a more capable player. Sadly, Totem gets a D.

Conclusion

While I can’t speak for anyone else, my experience with the stock OS was better than expected. The MeMenu has not yet fully replaced my GMail tab, and I still prefer Exaile to Rhythbox, but the stock Ubuntu isn’t really meant for me, it’s meant for the casual PC user. Other than perhaps Totem, the standard applications are well suited for that type of person. The stock setup may only get a “meh” from me, but it’s got more than one interested “oooohh” from my wife. With the Unity desktop taking over in future Ubuntu versions, we might begin to see a shift away from some of the Gnome-centric applications, perhaps to something new. So far, just about every Ubuntu release has improved upon the last, so I for one am looking forward to what comes next.

But for the record, I personally wish they’d stuck with Gnome Shell as originally planned.

Getting Screenlet Support

The screenlets package is available in the standard repositories of several major distributions including Ubuntu. If you cannot find it in your system’s package manager (such as Ubuntu Software Center), it can be downloaded manually here.

As noted in the introductory paragraph, further setup of screenlets has been discussed on MakeTechEasier before. If you need more assistance, check out Damien’s article here.

1. Circle Sensors

While not particularly impressive in functionality, Circle Sensors can really make system monitoring gorgeous. The design is very similar to the Ring Sensors screenlet, but using a solid ring instead of one broken into chunks. I believe this gives it a much cleaner and more pleasant look.

2. Disk IO Space

While the standard screenlets application comes with disk space monitoring tools, Disk IO Space comes with a few of its own tricks. For starters, it automatically monitors any devices you have mounted and expands itself to fit the new drive. The most notable feature however (to me at least) is that alongside each drive, in addition to the space graph, you’ll find some colored bars indicating the amount of activity happening on that drive.

3. Sidebar

This screenlet is more about visual style and organization than it is about function. The sidebar is just a (themeable) visual layer that can sit behind your other screenlets to make them distinctly separate from the rest of your desktop.

4. All Core CPU Usage

If you want something more than the current CPU use as a percentage, you can use All Core CPU Usage to see a little bit of recent history. It may not be the prettiest screenlet around but it’s simple and effective.

5. Drag Drop Play

The name should give you a pretty good idea what this screenlet is all about. Dragging a media file from something like Nautilus on to this app will play it. Both audio and video are supported, and it’ll play anything that mplayer can handle (which, by the way, makes mplayer a requirement). Drag Drop Play

6. Impulse

Impulse is pure eye candy, plain and simple. It watches your PulseAudio output and generates a spectrum analyzer along the bottom of your desktop (or wherever you place it). If you use this, it’s recommended to set the window properties to Keep Below, or it’ll get annoying fast.

7. Manometer

While clean and modern design is appreciated by many, some like the vintage look. For them we’ve got the Manometer screenlet which allows you to perform your system monitoring with a more unusual style.

There are dozens more great screenlets in the built-in pack and on Screenlets.org. We couldn’t possibly review them all here, so if you’d like to find more just search or browse through their categories.

If you’ve got any other great screenlets to share, drop a note in the comments below.

Android Manager WiFi makes this task surprisingly easy.

Set-Up

First, install Android Manager WiFi app (market link) on your Android phone and configure the PIN to connect to your PC. From here you can also set the idle timeout time for your WiFi.

Once you have setup the PIN, ensure your phone is connected to your wireless network and your Android phone will start broadcasting a IP address.

Keep a note of the WiFi IP.

Next, navigate to the Android Manager WiFi homepage and download and install the application to your Windows PC. Once it is installed and running, you will see the main dashboard.

The first thing you must do is select “Settings -> Connection” to connect the Android Manager WiFi app on your phone to your computer.

On the connection page, input your PIN and your phone’s WiFi IP.

If you have entered the details correctly a small icon will appear on the bottom of the dashboard indicating that the connection is successful.

On your phone the app will say that you have connected.

Additionally, a new section will appear on the dashboard, showing the files on your phone.

Usage

After your phone has connected to your computer, you have the option to sync your contacts, messages, photos, videos, music, applications and all other data files. Unfortunately, I was unable to sync my photos, videos, or music files, but the rest worked fine.

Contacts

The contact sync simply copies all your contacts from your phone to the computer. If you make changes to your contacts on the computer, the changes will be synced back to your phone as well. 

The contacts dashboard displays the full list of contacts along the left panel and detailed information on the right panel.

You can create a new contact by clicking on New.

From here you can add a variety of information.

You can also edit the contacts by clicking on Edit.

Finally, you can delete or create a copy of any one of your contacts.

Messages

Similar to the contacts display, all the messages on your phone are synced and displayed in a threaded conversation view.

You can even send messages directly from the dashboard by adding a contact (or replying to one), typing a message and hitting the yellow mail icon. This is useful for those who prefer to type messages on a keyboard rather than on the phone.

Applications

Syncing your applications with Android Manager WiFi is similar to using AppBrain. All the apps on your phone appear in the applications dashboard and you are able to uninstall them by clicking a check-box.

Files

You are also able to view all your files and copy them from your computer to your phone and vice versa.

Sync Settings

From the Sync menu, you can choose the items you want to AutoSync.

Back-Up

You can backup all your data (contacts, messages, calendar and files) to a single file using the backup tool.

Select “File -> Backup & Restore“. This will launch the backup menu.

You can also use this tool to restore your data.

Conclusion

With so much digital data floating around between your computer and phone it is difficult to keep it in sync. Android Manager WiFi solves this problem by automatically syncing the data whenever your phone is running.

Download Android Manager Wifi

Download Android Manager mobile app: AppBrain | Market

Why would I want to try Sparrow?

The answer is simple. Literally. The best part about and main selling point of Sparrow is the interface, which definitely seems to be inspired by the uber-popular Tweetie for Mac. With 4 buttons along the top for Composition, Reply, Archiving, and Deleting, and 5 along the left side for Inbox, Starred, Sent Mail, Drafts, and Trash, its basically a graphical representation of the Gmail inbox. This is super nice for a couple of reasons.

First, generally speaking, a simple, clean interface is a beautiful interface. With no clutter to speak of, it keeps your email looking nice. The second reason is that while its lacking some things, its got some nice extras. For instance, Sparrow has native Growl integration, meaning you get great, customizable pop-up alerts to your desktop, which of course Gmail on the web can’t do. One more positive for the interface is that it uses very little in the way of system resources, so its no problem to keep it running in the background.

Want to try it? Here’s how.

Download and installation, as well as setup, are super easy.  Head over to sparrowmailapp.com and click download beta. (Yes, beta, and we’ll come back to that soon). Once it is downloaded, the install is standard. When you start Sparrow for the first time, it will prompt you to set up your Gmail account. This is fantastic. Because Sparrow works exclusively with Gmail, all you do is enter your Gmail User name and Password, as well as your Name as you want it displayed.  Sparrow does the rest. It will sync your Inbox, Starred, Sent, and Drafts automatically, and then you can add as many accounts as you want from the File menu in your Menu bar. You can now access Sparrow super easily by clicking the envelope in the menu bar, or of course clicking it in the dock.

The Downsides

Let’s face it, no application, program, app, or dev is perfect, and this includes Sparrow. Here are the major problems to be concerned with. First of all, the app is in beta. This means you’re basically testing the app for the developers. While this is certainly something to keep in mind, also keep in mind that this is a super stable release. Really. I’ve been testing it for a couple weeks and have had minimal problems. Also remember though, that you will almost definitely find a bug at some point, so consider yourself warned!

The second, and much bigger problem with the app, is that is has no label support! Come on guys, this is Gmail! We need labels! Now don’t get me wrong, as I just mentioned, this is beta, and support could be added at any time, but I fully expect labels in a Gmail exclusive app, so here’s hoping!

What do you guys think of Sparrow? Do you prefer Gmail in your browser? Or something else? Tell me in the comments, and maybe that will be the focus of my next post!

Download Sparrow.

Desktop with Cairo Dock (Click to enlarge)

GIMP (Click to enlarge)

Gnome Application Menu (Click to enlarge)

Nautilus (Click to enlarge)

Installing Elegant Gnome Pack

There is a detailed installation instruction over at the Gnome-look home page, but for those who prefer to see it visually, here is the typical Make Tech Easier way of installation instruction, coupled with lot of screenshots.

Note: The following instructions are based on Ubuntu and Linux mint

Open a terminal. Add the Elegant Gnome Pack repository

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:elegant-gnome/ppa

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get upgrade

Install Elegant Gnome

sudo apt-get install elegant-gnome

If you are using Linux mint, use this command instead:

sudo apt-get install elegant-gnome-mint

Once the installation is completed, go to “Applications -> Accessories -> Elegant GNOME“. Select the first option “Install the pack” and click OK.

It will proceed to install the theme.

Next, select the “Configure Nautilus” option and click OK.

In the next window, select the version of Nautilus that you are using. If you have installed Nautilus Elementary previously, select the second option. If not, keep to the default (first option).

Configuring Elegant Gnome for Google Chrome

The theme only include theme package for Firefox. If you are using Google Chrome, download the Elegant Gnome for Google Chrome here.

Extract the tar file. You should see three files with the .crx extension in the extracted folder. With Google Chrome running, drag and drop the three files (one at a time) to Google Chrome. You should see a warning popup at the bottom of the Chrome browser, click “Continue”.

That’s it. The last thing that you are going to do is to logout and re-login to your computer. Your desktop transformation is now completed.

Uninstallation

To revert back to the original settings, go to “Applications -> Accessories -> Elegant GNOME“. Select the “Restore to previous settings” option.

Are you enjoying the Elegant Gnome theme?

(via Gnome look Elegant Gnome Pack)

Glide OS 4.0 is a free cloud computing solution, which offers a wide range of web based applications under one umbrella.  Glide provides cross platform compatibility for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris and a wide range of mobile devices which includes Android, iPhone etc.

If you have missed the earlier article, we recommend reading it first and then read this one which discusses the following points:

• Syncing files from multiple computers to online operating system
• Managing folders in Online glide OS.
• Using Glide applications for various computing jobs
• Customizing the Glide desktop.

Syncing Files From Multiple Computers to Glide OS

1. First, go to the downloads page and download the Glide desktop client for Windows, MAC or Linux. You have to install this client on each computer you want to sync with your Glide OS account.

All the files which is synced from different computers will be kept at a central location; you can further create multiple containers and sync each container with a specific device, as described later in the article. Glide supports over 250 file formats and the files synced to Glide are automatically converted into compatible previews for a broad range of devices.

2. Install the desktop client by following the instructions of the installation wizard.

3. Start the client and go to “Settings -> Accounts” and enter your Glide account credentials, as shown:

4. Go the “Sync” tab and specify a folder which you want to sync with your Glide OS account. This folder can be anywhere on your computer and you can further choose multiple folders or drives to sync, at a later point of time.

You can choose to sync the Glide folders automatically, every hour, every day or week or choose to manually sync, as shown below:

Syncing files is easy, just dump everything to the Glide Sync folder and everything will automatically be uploaded to your Glide OS account. You can further create subfolders and organize the files – the same directory structure will be preserved in Glide OS as well.

Here is the local folder in my Windows computer that is synced with Glide:

I added all of them in the Glide desktop client, as shown below:

After the sync is complete, just log in to your Glide OS account from a browser and you will be able to view or download any file or folder. Here is a view of my Glide Desktop:

Very Important: Every sync activity is followed by a time stamp, so you should be very careful with file syncing. Suppose you have synced a folder from your desktop one day ago. After a week, you log into Glide OS from the browser, find the folder and delete it (thinking that the folder is already present in your computer).

Now the next time, you run the Glide desktop client, the application will check for the last timestamp of the sync activity. It will see that the last timestamp was when you deleted the folder from online Glide OS. Hence, running the sync activity will delete the folder from your local computer as well.

How Do I Ensure that Data is never lost

Keep two things in mind:

• Do not delete anything from Glide OS, delete from the local computer first.
• If you must delete from the Glide OS, do not run Sync activity from each local computer. First back up the deleted files or folders from the Glide folder to another drive and then run the sync activity.

Managing Files and Folders in Glide OS

Managing files and folders (read containers) in Glide OS is very easy, just select the file or folder and you have different options to choose from:

• You can download the folder or upload more files to the specific folder by using the “Download” and “upload” buttons.
• Move the folder to another container by dragging and dropping.
• Create sub folders within the same folder and organize your files or documents.

It’s very basic and works the same way as if you are working in windows explorer.

Using Glide Applications

Using Glide applications is also very easy, just log into your Glide desktop and you will have a lot of applications at your disposal. You can create documents, images, presentations and other files using these applications and save them in your Glide OS account. I am not going into using these applications because they are pretty straightforward and self explanatory.

Here are some application previews:

Image Editor

Word processor

Presentation

Address Book

Calculator

Paintbrush

Email Account (Optional)

Meetings and Scheduling

Calendar And Event Management

Do you need anything else? Despite of all the above apps, there are a lot more apps which you can use.

Customizing Your Glide Desktop

Customizing the Glide desktop is also easily achieved, just click “Customize” at the Glide Taskbar and you can pick a theme for your Glide desktop. You can not create a theme from scratch, but there are a wide variety of themes to choose from :

After picking a theme, you can rearrange items, show specific folders on the desktop or create shortcuts to applications. It’s exactly the same in Windows and novice users will feel at home using the Glide desktop. Here is a view of my Glide desktop:

Conclusion

Without any doubt, Glide OS is the best web based operating system I have ever seen or used. It’s not just file syncing, there are wide range of applications all at one place, you will never need any other website or tool to create documents, manage photos, schedule meetings and  so on.

What’s your take on Glide OS? Do you use any web based operating system? Please share your ideas in the comments section.

When activities were introduced into KDE 4, they did not make much sense in isolation. In addition to having virtual desktops, there were activities, which the user could create and configure to have different wallpapers and different widgets. Much of the virtual desktop functionality of KDE 3 was absent and not directly connected to Plasma activities.

With the release of KDE 4.5, Plasma has reached a much higher level of maturity, and activities can now be integrated with virtual desktops, dual monitor screens, and with the Dashboard feature.

Desktops

By default, all virtual desktops operate on the same activity and look identical. If you add a widget on desktop 1, it will be the same on 2, 3, and 4. Similarly, icons, panels, and anything else you add will all be the same. With activities, however, you can separate each desktop into truly independent workspaces.

To have a unique activity for each desktop:

1. Open System Settings
2. Under the “Workspace Appearance and Behavior” section, click “Window Behavior”
3. Click the “Virtual Desktops” icon.
4. In the Layout section, check “Different widgets for each desktop”
5. Click “Apply”.

After you have enabled this feature, you can add unique icons, widgets, and wallpapers to each individual desktop.

Screens

KDE automatically recognizes dual monitor configurations and creates separate activities for each screen. Therefore, each screen has its own panels, widgets, icons, and wallpapers. Turn on the “different widgets for each desktop” feature, and each screen will additionally have separate activities for each desktop. For example, if you have a total of four desktops per screen, you would end up with eight activities, each of which can have its own set of widgets and wallpapers.

To configure your screens in KDE:

1. Open System Settings
2. Under “Hardware” click “Display and Monitor”
3. Click the “Multiple Monitors” icon
4. Check “Enable multiple monitor virtual desktop support”
5. Click “Apply”.

Dashboard

Those familiar will Mac OS X have most likely used the Dashboard feature. When the user presses a hot key, a dimmed, translucent layer appears over the screen, displaying widgets the user has selected. Since version 4, KDE has offered a similar feature.

The default hot key for KDE’s Dashboard is Ctrl+F8, but the Dashboard feature behaves like a “show desktop” button, only bringing to the foreground the widgets currently on the desktop. In order to have a separate activity for the Dashboard with unique widgets, you must do the following:

1. Open System Settings
2. Under the “Workspace Appearance and Behavior” section, click “Workspace”
3. Next to “Dashboard” select “Show an Independent Widget Set” from the dropdown menu
4. Click Apply.

FolderView

The default setting for the KDE 4 desktop is called “Desktop”, and it only displays widgets. Those widgets can be icons, Folder View, weather, taskbar, and many other types, but, in this mode, the desktop will never behave like the former KDE 3 desktop or similar desktops in Gnome, Windows, and other interfaces.

Some prefer this new feature and love KDE 4 because of it, while others have avoided KDE 4 because they prefer a traditional desktop. Fortunately, KDE has options for both. To change a desktop to a traditional interface:

1. Right click on the desktop
2. Click “Unlock Widgets” (If you see, “Lock Widgets”, leave it as-is)
3. Right click again and click “Desktop Settings”
4. Click “Activity”
5. In the dropdown menu for “Type” change it to Folder View.

Once selected, the entire desktop will become a Folder View, allowing you to specify which folder it will display. You can also repeat this for any of your virtual desktops, configuring each one to display a different desktop folder.

Activities

There are many possible other uses for activities, such as those used in the KDE Plasma Netbook interface. You can also create activities for any purpose you want and select them with Alt+D+A (or right click on the desktop and select Activities). Each activity can have a unique name and unique function, and you could even completely change over your desktop for working during the day and entertainment at night. The possibilities are only limited by the imagination. For more information about Plasma activities, visit KDE’s Userbase.

Installation

This is a new project, and not yet available in the repositories of your average distribution. There are binaries available (no packaging or installation needed) for 32 and 64 bit Linux on the project’s Google Code page (the page is in Spanish). This author had trouble getting the 64 bit version to work properly, and would recommend the 32 bit version for both platforms.

Once you download the tarball for your architecture, extract it into the location of your choice. This can often be done by right-clicking the file from a file manager, or from the terminal with

tar -zxvf ConWizard_32bits_V1.0_Beta1

#or whatever your filename may be

It will extract an individual file, which can be run to launch ConkyWizard.

Layout and Appearance

After the initial Welcome screen, your first options will be to choose where on your desktop you’d like Conky to reside. If you use a panel or dock that does not expand to fill the entire edge of the screen, you can set Conky to the same side and you may be able to place certain items in the always-visible space left by the dock.

The next screen is slightly more complicated. Here you can set more specific placement options for the Conky window. As demonstrated by the visual aid in the wizard, you are given multiple options for margins. You can set these to ensure that the Conky screen does not end up behind your panel or dock. This was one area where I found ConkyWizard particularly impressive, as it correctly detected my settings and guessed appropriate margins to set for my desktop, even though I have the dock in a very non-standard right-side 64 pixel configuration on a 1440×900 widescreen desktop.

Setting Widgets

Adding and removing widgets from Conky has been improved dramatically with the Conky Wizard. Instead of searching online or through documentation to find out the names of all the possible widgets and the options for enabling them, you can simply select or deselect whichever ones you’d like.

If you like, you can add your own widgets based on the existing ones. For example, the screenshot above shows a CPU monitor widget. If you’ve got more than one CPU, you can use the Edit Widget button to copy the settings from one and paste them into another (altered as needed).

Once you’re finished customizing the order and layout of your widgets, you can finish the wizard. When started, Conky should now have a configuration matching what you entered into your options. There are occasionally some issues with proper alignment, but for the most part ConkyWizard creates a beautiful and functional Conky config quickly and easily, and that’s pretty impressive.

Sounds cool!  What’s first?

As usual, the first step is to click through to the developer’s website to download, then install, the app. Once you copy the application into the appropriate folder on your Mac, you can run in it.  Upon first run, you’ll see this screen:

Click through to the next screen for your first set of options. Here, you’ll need to select what folders you want DeskShade use for background pictures. I’ve selected every album that I have in my normal OS X Desktop Preferences window.

Next, DeskShade will prompt you to get you to choose a transition effect. This is used when DeskShade changes what your active background is. This is a great feature because it is

• customizable and
• perfect for those of us who generally want a new background for our computer on a weekly or more basis.

The last feature you’ll set up are system wide hot-keys. These will allow you to quickly and easily access DeskShade’s features system wide, whenever you see fit. This is a great solution for those of us who are addicted to our keyboard rather than to our mouse.

Results!

As you can see from the before and after shots below, DeskShade cleaned my desktop up quickly and easily.  The ease of install and use alone is enough for a product like DeskShade to stand on, but the visually pleasing desktop you get after you’re finished is certainly worth taking the time to download a shareware app.

While I feel like my results are pretty drastic and, as far as I’m concerned, outstanding, I want to know what you think. Do you know a better solution for cleaning up the desktop? How do you keep your wallpaper visible and files straightened up? Sound off in the comments!

Apps like Launchy, Gimp, Chrome and Open Office were some of the first programs I downloaded. This still did not simulate one of the Mac app I really miss, Expose. It’s not quite the same, but  MooO Multi Desktop helps ease the withdrawals.

The way MooO Multi Desktop works is, instead of 1 desktop, it expands the number to 4. I have been using it for a while now and am really liking it. Being able to have a less cluttered desktop is a great thing on a small 11 inch screen.

Setup

The setup uses the typical installer you click through to set up. If you are running XP however, it is recommended you install an additional “helper” program called MooO Xp Desktop Heap. It helps expand the number of open applications you can have running at one time.

Using it

You can use  MooO Multiple desktop a couple ways. When the application is running, you will see a little rectangle with 1234 in it.

You can click on the number to go to the desired desktop.

Shortcuts

There are a couple ways to navigate through your desktops with several different key combinations.

The first set is by pressing the Windows key (default is Ctrl) and 1,2,3 or 4.

The second way is to press the Windows key (default is Ctrl) and the left or right arrow.

Minimize and restore

You have the option to hide the desktop you are on by pressing Ctrl and the down arrow. Similarly, you can restore the minimized desktop by pressing Ctrl and the up arrow.

Change the shortcuts

If you use other programs which share the same keyboard hotkeys as MooO multi desktop, you are given the choice to change the combination. In some programs you have installed, the Ctrl or the Alt keys are used in combination to activate a command.

In these cases, it is a safe bet that most programs do not utilize the Windows key as the hotkey.

Conclusion

After using MooO Multiple desktop for a while, I really like it. There are a few things to take note of when you first start using it.

Most applications will only work in one window. By that I mean, if you have Tweetdeck open in window 2, you cannot have it open in window 4 also. However, some applications such as GIMP will allow more than on occurrence to be running.

If you are the type of person who typically has 2 different web browsers, Tweetdeck, your desktop email client, instant messengers  and who knows what else open all of the time, you will love this app. It is also great for Windows machines with smaller screen or anyone looking to be a bit more productive.

Also check out the virtual desktops for Windows for other choices of software to enable multiple desktops.

How do you keep all of your windows easily accessible on a small screen?

Nautilus

Desktop: Gnome
Most of us will be familiar with Nautilus, the default file manager for Gnome (and Ubuntu). It comes with tabbed browsing and allows external scripts to improve its functionality. In addition, there have also been a few projects over the years attempting to enhance or simplify Nautilus. Currently, the top contender is Nautilus Elementary. It’s a version of Nautilus patched for simplicity, not a standalone package, so it has a somewhat unusual installation routine. To try out Nautilus Elementary, open a terminal and enter:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:am-monkeyd/nautilus-elementary-ppa
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
nautilus -q

Nautilus Elementary is useful in that it adds a zoom slider, a breadcrumb navigation and an extra folder pane to the already useful Nautilus.

Note: At the moment, the breadcrumb navigation only works for certain themes. A quick fix is to download this file and extracts it to your Home folder. Restart your Nautilus (with the command “nautilus -q”).

EmelFM2

Desktop: Multi
One of the many so-called Commander-style file managers, EmelFM2 runs with two independent panes and a series of command buttons between them for operations like Copy and Move. This style is also known as a Orthodox File Manager, and is very common among console and GUI file managers. EmelFM2 also includes a plugin system and built-in command line feature.

Thunar

Desktop: XFCE
Originally part of the XFCE desktop environment, Thunar has made its way on to other desktops because of its speed and simplicity. In many ways it is similar to the standard Nautilus but with a smaller footprint and faster start. Thunar includes features like a plugin system and bulk renamer.

PCManFM

Desktop: LXDE
Like Thunar, PCManFM was written as part of a desktop environment, but has since found its way on to other desktops because of its speed and usefulness. In this case, it was the LXDE desktop environment. Like all LXDE apps, PCManFM is very small and fast. Interesting features include tabs, internet bookmarks, and multithreading.

Gnome Commander

Desktop: Gnome
Gnome Commander is another orthodox file manager like EmelFM, however it’s much closer to the original Norton Commander, right down to the intense blue background. Gnome Commander includes file compression, remote filesystem connections, and Python scripting support.

Rox Filer

Desktop: Rox
The Rox Desktop is a very interesting piece of software which deserves an article of its own (in the very near future). One critical piece of that suite is Rox Filer. It doesn’t look like much but it works with the rest of the Rox Desktop to mimic the near-magical drag and drop capabilities of RISC OS. The interface is extremely clean because it relies heavily on context menus to perform normal tasks. Rox Filer can be used in other desktop environments but it may lack some of the magic.

Krusader

Desktop: KDE
Not to be left out, KDE has long had its own orthodox file manager. Krusader sports a mount manager, remote filesystem tools, and archive handling and a heck of a lot more. It’s an extremely feature-rich and fully configurable file manager for KDE, and well worth checking out.

As with all things Linux, there are far more options than we could possibly cover here. If you’ve got a favorite file manager that we neglected to mention, let us know in the comments.

Design Concept

Not everyone has the same goals for their desktop interface, so before we get much further I’d like to explain the reasons for this design. The single most important aspect of this design is the “info bar” on the right.

As you can see, this setup is designed for a widescreen monitor. Without that extra space on the side, the info bar (as configured in this guide) would take up too much screen space.

I have a lot of requirements for my info bar, and finding and configuring the software necessary to meet those requirements took a lot of research and testing. No single solution met all my needs, so I had to combine several tools.

The standard Lucid Lynx Gnome install, as of Beta 2, is the basis for these modifications. All software, unless otherwise noted, is available in the standard repositories. The wallpaper is from wallpaperbox.eu, and I’m using the Dust theme for Gnome.

Panel – Gnome Panel

Some may be surprised that with all the fancy 3D docks available, I stuck with gnome-panel. The main reason is simple – applets. Specifically, the Gnome Panel in Lucid was the only dock or panel available that includes a useful interactive notification area for chat clients.

From the standard Gnome desktop, remove the lower panel completely, and open the properties for the top panel. Change location from Top to Right, and increase the size to 64. In the screenshots, the panel is set to solid black with about 60% opacity to match the Gadgets sidebar. Choose your panel applets at will, but if you’d like to copy my setup the objects are ordered as follows (from top to bottom):

• Main Menu
• Indicator Applet
• Indicator Applet Session
• Application Launchers (Moblin Icon Theme, desaturated)
• Weather Report
• Shutdown
• CPU Frequency Scaling Monitor

Full panel can be seen in the desktop screenshot above

UPDATE: Download link added for icon theme

Google Desktop Gadgets

There are two features of Gadgets that make it essential to my setup – the Gmail app, and the ability to block off a section of the screen. With the Gadget sidebar active and set to Always On Top, maximized windows will not cover the sidebar. Without it, Gadgets would be far less useful to me as they’d always be covered by running applications.

There are other mail-checking panel applets out there, but only the Gadgets version gives me a fully interactive interface where I can read, compose, and reply without ever opening up a web browser or email client.

Conky

Conky is an extremely powerful system information tool. To use it, you edit a text file to list the items you want displayed, and Conky embeds itself into your desktop background, frequently updating itself to show real-time system information.

Configuring Conky is beyond the scope of this guide, but fortunately we’ve already taken care that. By using the Gnome Panel weather applet, we can greatly reduce the complexity of our Conky setup. If you’d like to copy my Conky setup, you can download my .conkyrc file here.

Important Note: If the Gadget sidebar is set to Always On Top and you want Conky to sit behind it, you’ll need to edit your Conky config file to include own_window yes and own_window_type override. If you’re using my config file, those entries are already set.

Desktop Management – Compiz Expo

I can’t live without virtual desktops, sometimes called workspaces. X has supported them for decades, but until recently there’s been very little innovation. The Expo plugin, part of the Compiz package, provides a fast, beautiful, efficient way to view and manage your virtual desktops.

If Compiz and Expo are already installed, you can activate it with the Win+E key combo. If not, Expo can be activated from within the Compiz settings manager. The 3×3 pattern in the screenshot is a result of setting Gnome’s workspaces to 3 rows, 3 columns.

Guake

Finally, there’s Guake, the drop-down terminal. If you’ve played a lot of PC first-person-shooter games, you’re probably familiar with the concept of a drop-down command terminal. Guake and similar apps like Yakuake for KDE are extremely useful for heavy users of the command line, as you no longer need to alt-tab or switch workspaces to get to a terminal.

Room for Improvement

The biggest problem with this setup is that it requires several different applications to get the proper functionality from the info bar. For this to truly be a top-notch setup, we’d need a sidebar application capable of handling all the required tasks. I’d like to abuse my position as an internet writer to ask the software community to help with this. Can we create an application that can act as system info center, notification area, messaging center, and dock? Google Gadgets bring you pretty close, but I think we can do better.

If you’ve got any suggestions or other desktop customization tips, let us know in the comments!