Show Off Your Desktop

Lexie had me tag myself for showing off her simple, albeit funny, desktop. I really want to do the meme, though I had a little difficulty picking which one out of four systems (or maybe every one) I use I should show, and from which systems I’d pick five of my favorite applications. I eventually decided to go exclusively for the best one (system).

The meme goes like this: Post a screen shot of your desktop, and list five of your favorite applications.

And, so, here’s my desktop:

The top five applications I currently can’t live without include:

1. Mozilla Firefox: the best and most extensible Web browser there is. It even runs fast on Linux. Though Linux has inherent security features, the security Firefox gave me when I was still on Windows gave me more peace of mind while browsing the Web.

   Addons: ColorZilla, Download Statusbar, Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer, FxIF, Organize Status Bar, Screen grab!, SearchStatus, ShowIP, Web Developer

2. GNOME Terminal: a command line interface for Ubuntu, which I use for almost anything not readily available on a GUI.

   Separate apps I run on terminal: SVN, GNU nano

3. Rhythmbox: Ubuntu’s default music player. This app isn’t really full-featured, IMO. It lacks an equalizer and configurable global hotkeys,^[1] among others. But, its readily available plugins that include a very good iPod support, and Last.fm scrobbling makes up for everything. Notably, iPods’ music content could be read and played without syncing.^[2] And, it has LIRC support I am hoping to try someday.

   Plugins: Last.fm, iPod, Cover art

4. Gaim (now Pidgin): a multi-protocol instant messenger. I usually like official IM clients more, but since I use the Yahoo! Messenger service the most often, and the official YM client for UN*X systems became abandonware,^[3] and I use Google Talk as well, I opted for the default IM client on Ubuntu. Besides, Psychic Mode is bloody cool.

   Plugins: Buddy State Notification, Message Notification, Message Timestamp Formats, Psychic Mode

5. µTorrent (with WebUI beta): OK, I cheated as this application runs on my Windows desktop. But, thanks to µTorrent’s very innovative WebUI, I could control it from my Ubuntu notebook as well. I could have used Wine (hat tip to my classmate Luis), but my high-capacity disk is on my desktop anyway.

Now, there’s some link love you don’t see here everyday. I tag everyone reading this who has a knack for showing off something. 😛

Footnotes:

1. ^ for non-multimedia keyboards; Good thing I have multimedia playback keys on my notebook.
2. ^ I sync with the official iTunes client on my Windows with the big hard drive, and I haven’t tried syncing on Ubuntu yet—or tried checking if it is at least possible.
3. ^ Latest release for UN*X systems is version 1.0.4 dated September 2003, while the latest Windows release is version 8.1.0.419 dated 29 August 2007.