alternatives category archive

Thunderbird New Mail Notifier

If you regularly use or have used Windows, you’re familiar with the taskbar’s notification area (often called the “system tray”), canonically found in the lower right of your screen. This is the place where thoughtless application programmers stuff icons for their programs; programs that often don’t deserve or need such a prominent piece of real estate. System tray hijacking thus promoted further innovation from Microsoft in later versions of Windows that alternately nag you about unused icons, or hide them from you automatically.

Anyway, one important notification that you want is for new mail. That blessed little envelope icon with its siren call to drop whatever you’re doing at the moment and read your email, in the hopes that this new message will finally change your life for the better, …

GNU/Linux Graphics Programs in Ubuntu

My graphics/image manipulation needs are relatively simple. I’ve gotten by pretty well with MS Paint and IrfanView in Windows.

In the past several months I’ve started using the GNU Image Manipulation Program (the GIMP!) for Windows and have learned how to fix red eye and make downgraded transparent PNG files that display properly in Internet Explorer 6, but that’s mainly all that I’ve used it for. I’ve never used Adobe Photoshop so I can’t compare them from personal experience, but the GIMP is apparently loaded with comparable features. For those Photoshoppers who are confused by the GIMP interface, or for people who want to use Photoshop tutorials in GIMP, there is GIMPshop which emulates the interface of Photoshop.

I’m looking forward to …

Password Safe / Password Gorilla

Updated 20 April 2007: Password Gorilla’s author, Frank Pilhofer, contacted me to clarify how permissions work and to investigate the problem I was seeing. Talk about great customer service! See update notes below…

I’ve been using Password Safe in Windows for many years to manage my passwords. It seemed credible to me because it was originally designed by Bruce Schneier and made by his company, Counterpane Systems. It uses either the twofish or blowfish block cipher, depending on the version. I respect Bruce’s knowledge and opinions on security and figured it would be a robust application, free from obvious security flaws.

And it was free for use. As in free beer. At some point it was released under the free and open source …