Changes

I haven’t blogged for a while but now I have a lot to blog about. I'm going to start with the changes to my 'working' environment.
I bought a 21.3" monitor, the Samsung 213t (review) and cranked the resolution all the way to 1600x1200. I can't remember how I lived before it. It's one of those things you didn't know you couldn't live without. With some much space I decided to dump samurize and install Desktop Sidebar on windows and gkrellm on linux. Also dumped gush (which is still the most beautiful program I've seen) because I don't like the way it manages read/unread feeds or the fact that it is somewhat slow (at times blatantly irresponsive). The limitations of the IM client (send/receive files from my MSN contacts) were also annoying. I installed SharpReader again - my previous windows news reader. It's not perfect either, most notably is the lack of tabbed browsing. But for now, it will do. I also installed the Microsoft Virtual Desktop Manager - first thing it does? Crash. It's working fine now. All my current virtual desktop wallpapers are from Digital Blasphemy - they are quite impressive, even tough the ones I have are 1152x864 and not 1600x1200.
When I fired up firefox I saw immediately I needed to 'waste' some space. Googlebar seemed like the answer but it wasn't enough so I decided it was time for a few tricks, such as making the search bar wider.