Entries from March 2008 ↓

By default, Ubuntu does not show Computer and Trash icon on the desktop in Ubuntu. Instead Ubuntu shows the Trash icon on the extreme right of the bottom panel.

This is a little inconvenient for me as I delete the bottom panel and hence like to have the Trash icon on the desktop. Also having the Trash icon on the desktop in Ubuntu is a good option, because it becomes easier to drag - drop files onto the Trash icon.

A Computer icon on your desktop gives you easy access to all mounted drives and your home folder at one place just like Windows does. Here is how you can show the Computer and Trash icon on your Ubuntu Desktop.

1. Hit Alt + F2 and type gconf-editor in the dialog that comes up. Click Run to start the GNOME Configuration Editor.
2. Go to the key apps/nautilus/desktop
3. On the right hand side, there is an entry called trash_icon_visible. Check the box.
4. Also check the entry called computer_icon_visible.
5. You can do two more things from that place too, change the trash_icon_name and computer_icon_name.

Now see your desktop. You should see two new icons there.

Microsoft has released the Beta 1 of Internet Explorer 8 and put up a dedicated page for Internet Explorer 8 Beta.

The IE 8 Beta 1 page lists out the new features which will be available in Internet Explorer 8 along with download links to Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1.

The new features in Internet Explorer 8 are :

1. Activities
2. WebSlices
3. Favorites Bar
4. Automatic Crash Recovery
5. Improved Phishing Filter

That’s it. No more new features. Sadly, I don’t find any feature above exciting enough for me to be waiting for Internet Explorer 8. Neither do I find any new UI for Internet Explorer 8 from the screenhots on the page.

Hopefully MS will add more features on the way and also give a new UI to Internet Explorer 8. If not Mozilla Firefox 3 will be THE browser for me. Anywayz it is even now.

Internet Explorer 8 New Features

Download Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 

Download Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 for Window XP SP2

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 Download Page

Update : Mozilla Links has put up a review of Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 and compared it to the Firefox 3 Beta which is under development now. A post worth reading….

A Windows only program, RED is a nifty little utility for deleting empty directories in your Windows system. RED stands for Remove Empty directories and helps you in batch deleting folders which are empty.

Just point RED at the drive you want to clean up. RED scans and gives you a list of all empty folders in that drive. You can target a folder too. Then hit the button “Delete All” to get rid of those folders. Or if you want you can selectively delete folders.

I found this program to be very useful when I had auto-organized by music files which left behind a lot of empty folders.

Download Remove Empty Directories

P.S. - Do not run this on system drives. You may run into problems.