Donnybrookdesign.com

Something I always find myself looking for when I setup a new installation of Ubuntu (really it’s a problem with Gnome) is how to turn off the recent documents list.  There are two ways to do this.

1)  Open a terminal (hit alt-f2 and type gnome-terminal) and input the following two commands

sudo rm .recently-used.xbel
sudo mkdir .recently-used.xbel

This will remove the file gnome stores the recently used document list and create a directory in it’s place, so it can’t be recreated.

2)  Another and probably preferable option is to again open a terminal and type the following:

gksudo gedit ~/.gtkrc-2.0

this will open the gedit document editor so you can add something to the gtkrc-2.0 file.  Now add the line:

gtk-recent-files-max-age=0

Now you just need to save the document, exit and you are done.

Tomboy is a desktop note-taking application for Linux, Windows, Macs and Unix.  It allows you to quickly create individual notes and then add them to topical notebooks.  You can also link between notes much in the way hyperlinks work on webpages.

I’ve been using Tomboy a lot on various computers at home and work.  The main problem with Tomboy is there was no way to synchronize the notes between machines.  I was on Ars Technica recently and came across a project called ‘Snowy’.  According to the developer:  “Snowy is Tomboy’s best friend on the web. Snowy is an online service that allows you to view, edit and share the notes you create in Tomboy on your desktop computer.”  Snowy is not quite ready for use by your average user yet but it is a promising project.

Another tool that adds functionality to Tomboy is the Tomfox addon to Firefox.  According to the author:  “Tomfox adds a ‘Create Tomboy Note’ option to the right click menu. This lets users send a selected piece of text to a Tomboy note directly.”  This is a helpful tool if your memory is as wonderful as mine.  If you’re always wishing you jotted down a quick note or can’t find your way back to some website this is an extension for you.

Since I use Ubuntu 9.04 more than half of the time I setup Tomboy to start automatically every time I load that OS.  To do this I went to System -> Preferences -> Startup Applications.  This gives you a GUI tool to determine what programs start when Ubuntu loads.  Since Tomboy notes is not part of the list I clicked on the “add” button.  In the name field I simply wrote:  “Tomboy Notes” and in the “Command” field I wrote: “tomboy”.  Now click on the “add” button and you are done.

This site, as I originally envisioned it, was going to be a place for me to share some of my links.  Honestly after working on it for a bit I realized that for the most part it’s easier for me to just post most of that to my stumbleupon blog (12,040 sites given a thumbs up so far).  I think I’m going to use donnybrook as a place for me to rant and rave about the world.  Perhaps post a few computer tutorials for friends and colleagues.

The StumbleUpon toolbar is either the best or worst thing to ever happen to my web surfing. This little toolbar that plugs into your browser gives you the ability to be randomly taken to different web pages. To use the stumble toolbar you first input your interests. The web has been broken down into hundreds of categories that you can chose from. When you hit the stumble button you are taken to a random site from one of your chosen categories. Once at that site you can choose to either give the page a thumbs up or thumbs down. Once you start rating sites StumbleUpon will start sending you more pages from people with similar interests who have also given thumbs up or down to the same types of pages that you have.

I currently have 4,599 sites rated positively and probably more than that negatively. I’ve been a member of the StumbleUpon for less than 9 months. Do the math. The toolbar is like channel surfing on crack. You tend to see a lot of things that interest you and it can start to take up a lot of your time.

Another draw back to this service is the privacy issue. Your rankings are on there for anyone to see. This service is a marketers dream. It doesn’t get much easier than this to do target advertising. A while back EBay bought StumbleUpon but they have not done much with it. Personally I always felt this service would be a perfect match for Facebook. Target advertising would be simple, you could share stories and websites effortlessly with friends, it would combine the best of blogging with the best of social networking allowing you to connect with people of similar interests.

In any event, I highly recommend this service. It will really open up the web for you, taking you to all sorts of places you’ve never seen.