About 7 or 8 months ago I moved my taskbar to the top of the screen, for what reason I do not know, but I love it enough to keep it that way and to set it up on all my machines. Originally I do not know why I moved it, but thinking about it the reason to do it seems very simple. When you close, minimize, or maximize you are already at the top of the screen so throwing the mouse to the left side is much faster than going to the bottom corner. The other reason is that when you open the start menu you will most likely click something that is at the top or within the programs listing and when the taskbar is at the top clicking the start menu puts the mouse pointer closer to both. Also when a person goes looking for something in an alphabetical list they are more likely to start at A than at Z, so having the mouse closer to the top means less mouse movement to do what you want in a lot of cases. Just my view, but try it out for a day or two.

Since I am planning on learning Arabic, I found this to be extremely cool, Ubuntu Muslim Edition. It is a version of Ubuntu that has applications for learning Arabic along with the Quron and prayer times. I am going to try it out sometime next week and I will let you know what type of benefits there are for the non-Arabic speaking user.

I am really happy to see all these awesome distributions that have been coming out that are centered around a certain purpose. Last night I created 5 virtual machines so I can separate my development from my desktop. I have a Python Dev, Ruby Dev, .net Dev, Linux Server, Junk testing box. So now I have a separate purpose for each one and I can limit the use to just that making my life a little easier…I think.

I just finished installing and playing around with Ubuntu v6.06.1 Server. It is a little older but pretty decent. It is a really quick way to get a LAMP server up and running without much effort or hassle. I have never been much of a fan of Ubuntu and that could be for a lot of reasons, but the server is going to be a huge help to those wanting to get a LAMP server running quick.

I have not spent much time with Ubuntu Desktop A) because it is Gnome and I don’t enjoy Gnome much and B) most of the applications have to be downloaded and I am unfortunately on dialup in my current location. I can’t forget reason C) Slackware is God