Dr Jan’s Tips From The Top

Fedora Linux is the operating system of choice for both my home PC and my work laptop. KDE is my preferred window manager.

The main reason I use KDE rather than Gnome or another system is the Fuzzy Clock. The clock in the lower right hand corner of my screen uses real English to tell the time. So, for example, 11:22 would appear as ‘Twenty past eleven’. The fuzziness is adjustable, but the minimum setting changes the time every 5 minutes, which is more than good enough for most things. This means that the clock will say ‘Twenty past eleven’ until it changes to ‘Twenty five past eleven’.

Recent versions of KDE also include a nifty utility called ‘kbluelock’. When you enable kbluelock, it scans for Bluetooth devices nearby. Select your phone from the list shown, and if your phone ever goes out of range, kbluelock will enable the screen saver, automatically locking the screen. Effectively your phone is being used as a ‘presence detector’ - it indicates if you are at your computer.

This reminds me of the Active Badge system, although that used infra-red technology rather than Bluetooth wireless. I like the idea of using my phone to indicate where I am (within limits

This entry was posted on Monday, March 24th, 2008 @ 01:45 on the category kde, linux, unix.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.