Three of my favourite software apps launched new or upgraded versions recently. Only one definite hit in this group, unfortunately. Windows Vista when that appears later next year (and it should work with the current beta). WindowBlinds 5 now offers some of the cool new appearance features that will be in the next version of Windows, things like per-pixel alpha blended support for title bars, borders and controls. This means you can have glassy titlebars and borders, smooth edges, and just spectacular-looking desktops. With WB5 installed, you can then download some very imaginative desktop themes from here for details of what this program can do for you.
- Verdict: WindowBlinds 5.0 - A resounding Hit. new features - great one: drag-and-drop re-ordering of open tabs - and behind-the-scenes fixes, installing it a few weeks ago has resulted in some of my indispensable Firefox extensions no longer working. Number one: Mozilla 0.9.1.0 dictionary libraries it requires in order to work are compatible with Firefox 1.5, which disabled my already-installed libraries. Manually re-installing Spellbound and then installing those libs again makes no difference - it still won't work. But, I have discovered a really cool extension that solves my constant issue when doing the TabSidebar 1.0b4 is really neat as it displays thumbnails of all your open tabs in a vertical sidebar. No more peering at multiple tab titles to figure out which is the one you want to quickly jump to.
- Verdict: Firefox 1.5 - Miss. Firefox extensions - Hit. written before. Developer Pixoria was not an easy task. I managed to do that eventually but reading the many forum leads me to conclude - stick with Konfabulator 2.1.1 and wait for the bugfix Yahoo! Widget Engine 3.01 (or even 3.1). Pity. "Yahoo! Widget Engine" doesn't really trip off the tongue as beautifully as "Konfabulator" does, don't you think?
- Verdict: Yahoo! Widget Engine 3.0 - A definite Miss for the time being . Perhaps I should have titled this post "Too many software misses." Do you have any? Hits, preferably? Neville Hobson is the author of the popular Crayon. Visit Neville Hobson's blog:
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