Personal Productivity Tools

I use both Linux (Ubuntu at home) and Windows (Windows XP at work).

WikidPad
I have found this Personal Wiki software pretty useful (once you get the hang of things). It functions like Notepad only that it allows you to create links between various 'Notes' aka WikiWords and thus maintains a hierarchy of documents that you can easily access.

I'm finding myself using it more and more to note down things instead of Notepad++ (which incidentally replaced the default Notepad). That way, all my 'notes' are in one location and I only need to start up WikidPad to access them.

Its open source too.

Google Desktop
If you have sufficient RAM on your PC, this would be pretty useful. Hitting Ctrl twice pops up a Google Desktop search bar allowing you to search for items on your computer (or your gmail if you've enabled it) and better still, allows you to run applications if you know at least part of the name.

08/08/08

Irritations: Full beam while other vehicles are around at night

This post has just been coming ....

Sometimes I wonder if people who do not dip their headlights while driving at night behind another motorist realize that they are potentially increasing their chances of being in an accident. The effect on your rear view mirror serves to disorient and blind you.

Not to say the guys who do not dim their lights when a vehicle is approaching in the opposite direction at night. With the craters on the roads, it complicates driving at night: dodging potholes, and having some dude (tte) with lights so bright that they could help the three blind mice see.

Aargh!

GnuCASH and personal finance management

I have finally moved to Gnucash for management of my personal finances, after my trial license for MS Money 2008 (US Edition) expired.

This means that I now completely use FOSS software for all my personal software. I had done a post on this about a year ago, and the missing link was financial management.

Gnucash is pretty simple to use once you get the hang of it. Some stuff can be a bit manual - e.g. automatically setting up tax on personal incomes (possibly due to the business oriented nature of the software), but one feature I like a lot is the ability to have multiple accounts open at once and switch between them at will.

I opted not to migrate from MS Money, but start from a particular date to make it easy for myself.

I would recommend Gnucash for anyone looking for a FOSS alternative to the commercial accounting packages out there.