WindowBlinds 4.5 is nearly ready for release. One of the highlights is the new hue changing colorization system.
Just move some sliders and the colors of your skin change. Works very well.
To enable this, you have to go to the WindowBlinds config, click on colorization and then turn it to HSL coloring. I don't know if I'll ever go back to the other system.
The first beta of Enhanced Dialogs is now available for Object Desktop users. Enhanced File Dialogs seamlessly hook in to replace the standard Windows file dialogs. Now users can control which icons show up on the left, always have resizable dialogs, and they actually remember what view you last used (details, icons, etc.).
If you don't already have Object Desktop, definitely look at getting it. It's a must-have utility suite for enhancing your Windows experience. www.objectdesktop.com.
Microsoft has posted its schedule for Longhorn:
Dates:
Milestone 9 (platform complete) - 16th March 2005
Beta 1 - 25th May 2005
Beta 2 - 12th October 2005
Release Candidate 0 - 22nd February 2006
Release Candidate 1 - 12th April 2006
Release To Manufacturing - 24th May 2006
Hat tip: www.neowin.net.
In Harry met Sally, the character Harry, played by Billy Crystal, asserts that men and women can't be friends because the sex thing always come into play.
There's always a lot of debate on this subject and as I get more life experience, the more I can conclude a firm maybe. There are various levels of friendships and there are various forms those friendships can take. So the simple answer is, yes a guy can be just friends with a woman. But there are a lot of qualifiers to that answer.
Qualifier #1: How close of a friend you can be is limited by any romantic relationships you may have. If you're married, it's okay to have girls who are friends whom you work with and see professionally. But don't expect to be having heart to heart talks on the phone at home with them or hanging out all the time.
Qualifier #2: The venues in which your friendship manifests itself is limited by any romantic relationships you have. If you're married, you can certainly have female friends you can go out to lunch with or visit while on a trip. But don't expect to take your female friend (And just your female friend) on a trip to some convnetion.
Qualifier #3: Your own personal discipline will have a great impact on how close a friendship you can have as well as what venues you can express your friendship in. I have had a lot of female friends over the years. This has a lot to do with being raised by a single mother and being an only child. I simply tend to get along better with females as a generalization. But I also have a lot of self-discipline. And being a bit autistic I am able to fall into a pretty rigid pattern to make sure no invisible lines are crossed. Human beings are feeling creatures. There's no way around it. So even if you recognize that deep feelings may exist in some inner resivoir, personal discipline can keep things in line.
Personal discipline can mean being friends with people who also exhibit strong self-discipline. It can mean controlling the venue and putting safeguards on everything. I have a lot of female friends but my wife also knows about all these friendships and I am conscious that some things are appropriate and others aren't. For instance, some of my female friends I get along with so well that if they were a guy, I'd invite them to go to a movie with me and just me. But because they're female, I don't. This is partly out of the self-discipline I was discussing and part for my wife's peace of mind. She trusts me but healthy relationships mean both parties try to avoid doing things they know might cause stress for the other.
On the other hand, when I go to San Francisco or LA or New York or Washington DC on business and I have friends there who are females, I'd think nothing of going out to dinner to catch up on things. Venue and intimacy of friendship are the two competing things.
So that's my rambling un-spellchecked take on the matter. You can be friends with people of the opposite sex but there are limitations on the venues that you can express your friendship in and the level of intimacy you can obtain with that friend that are not as much of an issue when the friend is of the same sex.
What's your take?
I hate Januaries. It seems like that is the time of year that my body decides to make me aware that I'm not a kid anymore. I got a bad head cold which I've never really had.
I just normally don't get sick. And to illustrate that, this past weekend was the first time I've ever had to blow my nose. It's just never come up. That's not to say I've never had the sniffles but I've never had it bad enough where I felt the need to blow my nose until this weekend. Which was a comical scene in the extreme.
Most people I suspect have had to blow their nose since their childhoods. So to them, it's obvious how to blow ones nose. But if you think about it, it's not necessarily obvious. My wife looked on with I suspect some amusement as I mastered the mechanics of forcing air out through my nose. It took awhile and I can't say I enjoyed it. My bellyaching meant little to my wife who has sinus problems. I had long complained about kleenex (since I've never used kleenex before) being around the house and now I was making use of it like it was going out of style.
Plus there's all kinds of new discomforts..aches..pains. Things I never would have imagined 10 years ago. And I'm only 33. I can't imagine what it'll be like to be 40 or 70 for that matter. I think I can understand why people, as they get older, fear death less and less.
Being a sissy, I don't like pain or discomfort. I have a very low tolerance for it. And more and more it seems like there's always something in the background causing some small but noticeable amount of discomfort. Whine whine whine.
Apple has announced a $499 computer - the Mac Mini. This computer could really put the Mac on the map in a much more mainstream way. Designed as the ultimate computer PC, the Mini is designed to literally just plug in and go.
Will this change the facts on the ground in the PC vs. Mac demographic?
ObjectDock & ObjectDock Plus 1.1 are now available! ObjectDock is a freeware program launcher and task manager that is highly configurable in how they look and feel. ObjectDock Plus adds tabbed docks, multiple docks, fly-out menus and other features.
New in ObjectDock / ObjectDock Plus 1.1:
Download ObjectDock 1.1 or upgrade to ObjectDock Plus 1.1 at www.objectdock.com
Natural Desktop is a program that gives your desktop a natural look, feel, and sound to it. First, it changes the wallpaper on your desktop based on the time of day and time of year. The wallpapers were created by Ryan Bliss, founder of Digital Blasphemy. Mason Fischer created nearly a half hour sound track that is based on the time of day. Morning doves in the morning, crickets at night, rain when it's storming. And finally, the most advanced weather visuals available created by Matt Crockett (Tiggz) are displayed. With tons of settings and the ability to customize the wallpapers and sounds to your liking, Natural Desktop has become one of the most popular programs Stardock makes.
Version 1.2 fixes some bugs users have reported such as saving default sounds, toggling the 12/24 clock, rain and thunderstorm sound effects being in sync with your current weather, quick mute not working, and some animation looping at midnight addressed.
You can get Natural Desktop at http://www.naturaldesktop.com. If you already have Natural Desktop, you can get the latest version via Stardock Central.
People seem to be really obsessed over how much cash different countries are pledging. One thing that doesn't (surprise) get that much coverage is how much money different countries have already spent in reality.
As I surf the web, one thing that comes up over and over is the utter lack of understanding of logistics. It's as if some people imagine that food, water, shelter, clothing just magically appear to victims of the Tsunamis. One almost imagines they they picture a Star Trek like beaming sequence of food stuffs to isolated groups of people in the Indian ocean region.
But in reality, this stuff has to be delivered and it has to be delivered quickly. How long can you go without fresh water? How long can you go without food? How about medical treatment? That's where the US military comes into play. And it's amazing how little coverage this is getting because as a practical matter, the US (and Australia) are the only two countries that are able to effectively deliver aid in a timely manner.
Rebuilding funds from around the world months from now will be very helpful. But they'd be pretty useless to the tens of thousands who would die if there wasn't a US Navy to actually provide the logistics to provide all the stuff.
As Varifrank wrote:
Today, during an afternoon conference that wrapped up my project of the last 18 months, one of my Euro collegues tossed this little turd out to no one in particular:
" See, this is why George Bush is so dumb, theres a disaster in the world and he sends an Aircraft Carrier..."
After which he and many of my Euro collegues laughed out loud.
And then they looked at me. I wasn't laughing, and neither was my Hindi friend sitting next to me, who has lost family in the disaster.
I'm afraid I was "unprofessional", I let it loose -
"Hmmm, let's see, what would be the ideal ship to send to a disaster, now what kind of ship would we want?
Something with its own inexhuastible power supply?
Something that can produce 900,000 gallons of fresh water a day from sea water?
Something with its own airfield? So that after producing the fresh water, it could help distribute it?
Something with 4 hospitals and lots of open space for emergency supplies?
Something with a global communications facility to make the coordination of disaster relief in the region easier?
Well "Franz", us peasants in America call that kind of ship an "Aircraft Carrier". We have 12 of them. How many do you have?