Thursday, January 4, 2007

Casual update + OSXify/Linuxify your Windows environment (a little)

Hi,

I am very pleased with all the constructive comments I have gotten about my first three posts. To all who've contributed, thanks a lot (and expect me to return the favor soon).

Well, I've been looking for tips on how to increase traffic to my blog. In my efforts, I have come up with many sites that deal with this issue. However, one site was particularly useful, and heck - half the other sites were referencing it. I'm talking about a post in Seth Godin's Blog, titled - "How to get traffic to your blog". He offers a list of 56 ways to maximize your blog's hits. His list is insightful, comprehensive, concise (short) and often paradoxical (Acknowledging the sad fact that a "one ultimate, sure-fire way to get traffic", doesn't exist). I was so impressed, that I have take it upon myself to implement as many of his tips, as I can.

In accordance with that, I am introducing a new segment, tentatively called "Seth's Laws in (no particular) order". In it, I will be implementing one of his tips each post.

And now, without further ado, I would like to present the first post in this segment:

Seth's Laws in (no particular) order - Tip no. 30 - "Point to useful but little-known resources"

I have been using Linux a lot lately. I'm using the Ubuntu distro, which is a relatively user- friendly distro, based on Debian. Ubuntu is great, and has many advantages over XP. Alas, I was forced to discontinue my experiments because it didn't handle some of my essential applications very well (that, and clinical laziness). So now, I'm back to Windows XP, unfortunately.

First time I booted up Windows XP, I was appalled by the ugly icons, fonts and the overall dated appeareance of the desktop when compared to OSX or Linux. You've probably noticed that other OS's beside windows look like science fiction lore, when compared to it.

What bothered me most were the jaggedy, pixelated fonts Windows uses. Well, that got me thinking. And thinking, got me searching. And searching got me to a web page that informed me that Microsoft had developed new fonts for LCD screens, called ClearType. These fonts are MS's equivalents of the Mac fonts or the Linux fonts which I have so accustomed to. MS offers a little free program that implements these fonts into your desktop environment. Give it a try, it makes Windows a little bit easier on the eyes.

This "Powertoy", offered by MS, is absolutely free, via the MS Homepage -

Cleartype Tuner Powertoy -

http://www.microsoft.com/typography/ClearTypePowerToy.mspx

Here's a comparison image, old fonts vs. ClearType (click on the image, for a clearer view) :

OH! And one last thing. You may have noticed that I've added a guestbook. Please sign it, if you have the time. And if you have nothing but time on your hands, I would love to hear your thoughts about what I've done so far, and what should be done in the future.


Peace.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good to come across a new piece by a promising blogger. Well conceived and well written.In whatever you do,the tricks lie in innovations, and creativity,and both requires
(to quote you) "to get thinking".

I shall presently tryto send this comment.Hope the filling the information below is not an obstacles I cannot surmount. Not at home, hence by two two boys are not here to help me.

Anonymous said...

checked to see if my comment has been registered. Dismayed at the profusion of typos. Blame the typewriter.

Anonymous said...

Hey guy! You got us hooked on your first entries, and now we await some more of your juicy or often useful stuff.

May your house be safe from tigers and bubble with inspiration.

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