Another episode of why I prefer Linux to Windows

I was playing around with some pictures yesterday. I had one picture of some goldfish (coy) in a pond that I Gimped (Linux equivalent of Photoshopped) and made the fish look like they glow (you can see it to the left of this post in my TwitPics). I then made it my desktop in Ubuntu. Ubuntu Hardy Heron (version 8.04) has transparencies, like Vista, and it looks so cool as my desktop. I then brought the picture to work to make it my desktop background here as well and it looks like crap in Windows XP. I tried it on my work laptop's display and my monitor, looks dull in both. I'm sure it would look really cool in Windows Vista, but to enable Aero Glass in Vista (Vista's fancy name for transparencies), your computer had better have at least 1GB of memory or it will be quicker to hand write a letter and mail it overseas, than it would be to write a simple email.


To get technical, to use transparencies in Vista, your computer will consume 700+ MB of RAM with nothing open (meaning no internet, no Word/Works, no solitaire, etc). In Ubuntu, with two tabs open in Firefox 3, a program called Twhirl (www.twhirl.org - Twitter client), and Pidgeon (Linux's version of MSN messenger), my computer is only using 380MB of RAM. That's almost half as much as a Vista machine, and it looks cooler (don't forget my previous post in my MSN space, software's free).

Anyway, on to other things. I'm going to buy my own website. I haven't picked a name yet, but I'll let you know. There are a few reasons I'm doing this. First, I don't have to use Microsoft with my own website. Second, there will be no limitations except what I'm not capable of doing. Last, this website is blocked in China (unless I post from work) and MSN doesn't work in Linux. So, that will be happening pretty soon.

I'm gonna get back to my work here, make it look like I'm doing something constructive.

(Correction: My title was worded incorrectly, updated that)