A couple months ago, I decided that Dashboard wasn’t totally worthless and started using it to keep tabs on baseball games, post to my blog, look up phone numbers, check the weather, and look at the calendar. After a couple weeks, however, I went back to not using it. One of the main points of having widgets is quick access to information. This goal is undermined when it takes several seconds for widgets to begin functioning after Dashboard is invoked.
Last week, when I saw that Yahoo had bought Konfabulator and released it for free, I didn’t consider trying it out. Not sure why.
As I was going through my feeds today, I noticed that one of TUAW’s writers had switched back to Konfabulator, I decided that I should at least give it a chance. So, I installed it and used TinkerTool to disable Dashboard.
So far, I’m happy to have made the switch. Konfabulator’s memory footprint seems to be much smaller than Dashboard’s. And because they’re always running on my desktop, the Konfabulator widgets are ready to be used as soon as I need them. There is no warmup time for network-enabled widgets.
But the biggest difference between Konfabulator and Dashboard is choice. Dashboard is always on. Its widgets are only available on Dashboard desktop. (Yes, I know that these things can be changed. These are not things that the average user would know how to do, though.) Konfabulator can be stopped and started, just like any other application. Its widgets can live on the desktop with everything else. Or they can live on their own desktop. They can behave like windows or be part of the desktop. They can be made to stay on top or in the background. You get the idea.
From CNN:
A proposal to build a new 115-story building by 2009 could give Chicago claim to having the first and second tallest skyscrapers in the country.
The 2,000-foot tower, proposed by Chicago developer Christopher Carley and designed by noted architect Santiago Calatrava, would go up along the city’s lakefront near Navy Pier, northeast of the Loop.
What a horrible place to put a skyscraper. Its design and location are totally out of context. It reeks of ego.
Trump Tower now looks somewhat respectable.
I think I lot of people were expecting IE7 Beta 1 to be available to the public. Not so.
The beta versions of Windows Vista and IE7 that have just released should be interesting to developers and IT professionals. For this reason, the beta is available to MSDN subscribers and a pretty small set of pre-enrolled beta test participants.
I didn’t know you had to be an MSDN subscriber to be considered a developer or IT professional. You’d think they’d want to get copies out to all developers so they can build great new things and make sure their old code will still work. It might also help to create some buzz (via Scobleizer).
Here’s my theory. They originally intended for it to be a public beta, but aren’t as far along as they expected. Knowing that the first public release of IE7 is going to be heavily (to put it mildly) scrutinized, they chickened out and limited the beta to a less hostile crowd.
Regardless of the reasons, it’s really too bad. Just when Microsoft seemed to be letting in some badly-needed fresh air, they decide to close the windows again. Horrible pun intended.
Today, Cam pointed to Gmaps Pedometer, a really useful application of Google Maps that determines the distance of a route you draw on the map. It also calculates the calories burned if you were to walk that route. Jenn and I usually walk around the Nike campus.
A few days ago, I wrote about Catholic families looking to adopt being turned away by Bethany Christian Services of Mississippi.
Yesterday, they sent out an e-mail to everyone who wrote in about the issue. Much to my surprise, they’ve changed their policy.
Recently, Jenn and I have found going to the movie theater a thoroughly miserable experience. If movie execs want to see why the piles of cash they’re raking in are somewhat smaller than they’re used to, they should try going to a movie (via Kottke). It’s going to take some serious changes to get me back inside a theater again.
The latest edition of the Gillmor Gang has all the stuff that, in my opinion, makes a great podcast: real conversation, willingness to express emotion, technical difficulties. All these things allow the human behind the mic to shine through. It is the exact opposite of the soulless trash on television and radio.
Tortoise will be playing at Portland’s Aladdin Theater on October 19th. Jenn doesn’t really want to go. So, is anyone interested in going to the show with me?
From CNN:
A Christian adoption agency that receives money from Choose Life license plate fees said it does not place children with Roman Catholic couples because their religion conflicts with the agency’s “Statement of Faith.”
Bethany Christian Services stated the policy in a letter to a Jackson couple this month, and another Mississippi couple said they were rejected for the same reason last year.
“It has been our understanding that Catholicism does not agree with our Statement of Faith,” Bethany’s state director Karen Stewart wrote. “Our practice to not accept applications from Catholics was an effort to be good stewards of an adoptive applicant’s time, money and emotional energy.”
I checked out this Statement of Faith. I can’t find anything in it that is incompatible with Catholicism. I’ve asked them to be specific about where the conflict is. I also let them know that I thought they ought to give a straight answer since they receive money from the government. I’m not holding my breath.
