In everyday life we are surrounded by a dizzying array of technological gizmos. The ones we love and use the most are often the ones that have been designed with humans firmly in mind. Those that aren't so fun or easy to use usually end up unloved in the cupboard. Or worse, in landfill.
If you aren't a fan of Ubuntu's new "Unity" interface, weblog OMG! Ubuntu! shows us how to get the old GNOME 2-style look back with just a few tweaks (and without having to downgrade).
Windows only: Taekwindow adds several key features found in the X-Windows based interfaces common to several popular Linux distros. Resize, move, and manipulate with this portable application. After running Taekwindow you will be able to move windows from anywhere within the window, instead of having to grab the title bar. By holding ALT+left mouse button anywhere on a window you can move it; if you have multiple monitors, you can grab maximised windows to move without re-sizing. ALT+right mouse button allows you to drag the mouse to resize the window, and middle-clicking the title bar of an application pushes it to the background. Like previously reviewed WizMouse., Taekwindow enables the use of the scroll wheel on whatever window the mouse cursor is over, not just the window in focus. All in all, it's a nice package of mouse tools for anyone disgruntled by window herding. Taekwindow is freeware, Windows only and requires .NET Framework 2.0 and above. Thanks LethAL! Taekwindow
Need to give your blog or personal site a more modern look? AjaxBuddy, a free repository of Web 2.0-style site tools, is great for site owners who don't have time to learn an entire programming language, or just need a starter block of code to get building. Grab free, easy-to-modify code for Flickr-like editing fields, quick-loading slideshows and tabbed galleries, instant graphs, date-choosing calendars, and dozens more examples. Many require replacing just a few values to get working, but even the more complex tools are great learning tools.
There are a scant few features of the latest release of Safari for Windows and Mac OS X that you can't recreate in Firefox with the help of a few add-ons and tweaks—except for Safari's intuitive inline search. It's not a direct port, but the CyberNet blog has put together a package that gives you the same darkened-screen highlighting that makes it easier to spot your key words on a page—and even gives them that little bounce in case you're not sure where Firefox found the highlighted term. The download is three JavaScript files that you'll drop into a profile folder and a single extension to install, and all of it should be pretty easily removed for most users. I tested it in the Firefox 3 beta in Linux, and it works as promised. Hit the link for the package and installation instructions. Safari 3 Style Inline Search in Firefox
Google Documents has seen a good deal of productive-minded change over the last few days, quietly rolling out new interface features and re-designs. The most noticeable is a new Word-like menu bar, which takes up a little space at the top of the browser. Secondly, coloured folders add a corner-of-eye method for separating documents into work flow states or other systems. Finally, document creators can now re-assign and change document permissions back and forth, giving collaborators read, write and ownership abilities. Zoho users, how is Google's latest set of changes starting to look, put up against its (admittedly) more feature-rich competitor? Let's hear it in the comments. New Toolbar and Menus
