Saturday 28 April 2007

3D Desktop for Linux: Metisse

Today I experienced Linux's 3D (or more accurately 2.5D) window manager Metisse for the first time. And I was impressed by what I saw! Instead of taking the "eye-candy" approach used by other 3D desktops like XGL and Beryl, Metisse tries to make the desktop more usable, apparantly "increasing productivity", as Mandriva says. Although I'm not sure that you could justify this to your boss, it certainly does offer strong alternative to Vista's Aero Glass interface.

Sure Boss, I really do work better when the text on the screen is all back-to-front...Sure Boss, I really do work better when all the text on the screen is back-to-front...

Metisse offers quite a few features, including X, Y, and Z axis rotations, scaling, transparency, and the much-touted "two-fold desktop" feature. I've got a few photos below of just some of the features that Metisse sports:

Metisse offers many options for the tilting and scaling of windows.Tilted windows

One of the actually useful layouts that Metisse can render.A useful layout in 3D

And here is what you get when you run Metisse with an inbuilt graphics solution:
This is what happens when you run Metisse without a graphics card!Is this the Linux BSOD?

At present, Metisse is only available for the Mandriva version of linux, although it is sure to be ported sooner or later. For more information on Metisse, visit the links below:

Metisse links:
In Situ's Metisse site
Mandriva's Metisse site

General links:
David's "Images of Nature" Gallery - Nature Photography
WOWebbs blogs

Tuesday 24 April 2007

Google > God?


According to Google Trends, the term "Google" is searched for many more times than the word "God"! Does this mean that Google is God? Well, at least the news references them both equally, so our entire religiosity has not been taken over by Google - yet....!




Related blogs:
Nature Photography

Monday 23 April 2007

HOWTO: Make Linux look like Windows

A lot of people I know are comfortable with Windows, but don't want to spend lot's of money buying it. They also don't want to learn a new interface, like GNOME. Caminoix has an article about how to make Linux look like Windows, which I am sure would help lot's of people to re-create a realistic Windows Experience!

Saturday 7 April 2007

Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8 - Back to basics?

Check out the latest news: Microsoft has gone way back to basics in this mock-up of the release of IE8! I'm sure some of you Linux fans would find this browser quite familiar, although the Windows users would not be so happy with the so-called "features" that are introduced.

Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 Feature Announcement

Wednesday 4 April 2007

Alternative Bliss Wallpaper 2

Alternative "Bliss" Desktop background #2

Here's another desktop wallpaper you might like. If you would like to see any more "bliss"-like wallpapers, just leave a comment on this post with any features you would like to see on the next image. For more wallpapers, visit David's "Images of Nature" Gallery

Related posts:
http://thebigbyte.blogspot.com/2007/03/alternative-bliss.html - A "bliss" wallpaper for those of you who are tired of the MS bliss...
http://davids-pics.blogspot.com/2007/03/english-countryside.html - Another "bliss"-like hill.
Posted by Picasa