Yearning for a change in my desktop theme on my work machine (an XP Pro box), I did a quick search for XP theming sites. I haven’t changed the look of my XP box in quite some time and after having been Linuxified (tm) at home for several months now, it was a real eye opener. Two things became immediately apparent: there are a helluva lot of ugly XP themes out there and the theming sites that are out there (at least the ones I tried) are extremely annoying and gawdy.

Now, Linux is no stranger to ugly desktop themes. It has its own fair share. But when you’re used to browsing open-source and free software sites for so long, going back to windows targeted sites is a bit of a shocker. Compare the two screenshots below to see what I mean. Lots of open-source project sites might be unpolished and plain, but I’ll take that over flashing banner ads and blinking lights every time. And one other thing. That frickin’ smiley faced thumbnail at the top left of the windows one, is in the top left on every single page of thumbnail results you page through. They must have paid more for that privilege. If you’d even call it a privilege.

Incidentally, I ended up sticking with my Clearlooks - Gnome-based theme for my workstation. Surprise surprise.

Five silly things I like doing on Digg.com:

1. Reading the poor speling in the coments.

2. Reading comments that are at -25 diggs or worse.. just to see what can get you hated at any given time.

3. Reading a poorly spelled comment chastising someone about their atrocious spelling - and the ensuing pile-on.

4. Digging up someone who obviously should be Dugg down. Just to “fight for the underdog”… and play with the system.

5. Oh yeah, almost forgot - reading the actual stories.

I’m not much of a TV watcher, probably 4 hours a week (mostly comedic stuff). But Jericho has me hooked at the moment. It’s a nice blend of post-apocalyptic suspense and drama. It’s a thriller with top-notch writing, acting and production. I just finished watching episode 5 and I have to say I love all the storylines save one. If it were up to me, I would have sent the IRS agent (Mimi Clark played by Alicia Coppola) back to DC and off the show forever. That storyline is like a cheeseburger amidst a sea of filet mignon. No wait… I love cheeseburgers.

[Update: And by the way, where did Bonnie Richmond (the deaf sister, played by Shoshannah Stern) go this week? If they’re not averse to dropping characters at this stage, then by all means let the IRS agent disappear! ]

Here’s a good news story about teamwork.

I’ve been playing around with Google Reader a bit more. One thing that is pseudo-neat is the sharing feature. If you read a post you’d like to share, you click the ‘share’ button below the post (surprise surprise). All posts that are marked to be shared are posted on a publicly viewable web page. Currently you have no way of customizing the resulting page. I think people can also subscribe to the feed from this page.

Two discussion points for me I guess:

1. The complete post is readable right on that page (provided the original source feed provided a complete version). The post name and site name are linked right there. But why not provide the original feed address or an RSS chicklet to allow readers to subscribe to that blog feed in their own aggregator if they find they like what they see? This would provide a much expanded means of new sparsely-read bloggers to be discovered based on the merits of their post.

2. Does this subvert posts like Kent Newsome’s "Morning Reading" posts (which I quite like) ? He could more easily provide the posts of note, (heck I wouldn’t even have to go to their blogs to read them), but without the much needed context. I like Kent’s posts because he is filtering things for me and provides some narration. He doesn’t just list a series of links. He’s adding value to my blog reading. I choose to go or not go to the posts based on how he describes them. This is worthwhile to me.

So I’m unsure whether the Google Reader Share page feature is a useful or useless thing. Whether it could easily be made useful if it’s not already. And whether or not something like this is really a good thing for fostering growth in the blogosphere. Any opinions?

Here’s a link to my Google Reader share page. I’ve just thrown up a few  posts as an example. Take a look and give your opinions.

Back in December of last year I was trying out NewsGator online as an alternative to Bloglines. It never quite worked out for me. I didn’t like the interface all that much (much prettier, but seemed significantly slower). Now I’ve given the latest Google Reader a try for a couple of days and I have to say I like it!

I do all my personal email stuff via my Gmail account and have for quite some time now. Google Reader has a lot of that same feel. I find it every bit as useful as Bloglines and then some. While I haven’t evaluated every feature against Bloglines - I’m no Bloglines poweruser that’s for sure - , I can say that it has made reading my feeds significantly easier and more enjoyable. Heck, it’s not even "ugly" like Gmail

I see today that they’ve combined Writely and Google spreadsheet into the beginning of an office app. I haven’t moved wholesale to Google apps quite yet. I use GMail quite heavily (I’m writing this post with it right now) and of course their blogsearch and websearch, but at work I still can’t break my Excel habit (part of being an engineer I guess) and Picasa is just not up my alley for image-related stuff. Still, they’re chipping away at me and Google Reader is one more thing they’ve got me using.

Now if they would only do a free AutoCAD clone that runs on Linux. Har Har..

Pardon my french, but this shit is just scary.