Bastardizing an OS
Sometimes you just need to get your hands dirty. That's my motto right now. As my shopping for a new computer continues, (leaning towards a Mac and Bootcamp with Windows... that's another story) I'm doing what I can to survive my current setup. My desk is glass (yay!) but I have little to no storage (boo) and lots of crap. So what to do? First, I got a desktop organizer. Black, cardboard-ish. Whatever, it works. I began to put my office supplies in that. Other random items I either tossed out or put in "storage" (aka, my nightstand). so far on my desk I have the following items that are not arranged nicely. Starting from the left: An Xbox controller. Headphones. A dollar bill. A USB Drive. A pocket knife. a jug (I kid you not. It's how I stay hydrated). A pair of sunglasses. a code to redeem a digital copy of Daft Punk's new album. A coffee mug. Two empty bottles of Woodchuck. A chromebook and on top of that a spiral binder. Three (semi-decorative) shot glasses. A champagne cork I converted into a pin cushion. Finally, a breast cancer awareness rubber duck. As I typed those things out I suddenly realized how much shit I still had on my desk and began to clean. This is the urge that has been getting to me lately. Most of what I listed is still on the desk, but other things have found new homes. I'll always keep the duck. I like it.
My desk has quickly become the focus of this post. That was not the original intent. As my title suggest, I should be focusing on what I have done digitally rather than physically. In short, I still have Windows. Ubuntu has caused me untold amounts of annoyance and I'll stay with Microsoft for now. But, in order to make the interface more bearable I made some changes. First off, there is now a dock. I used Rocket Dock as it suited my needs perfectly. Secondly, there is no taskbar. Dexpot helped me get rid of that and allowed me to have multiple workspaces and an expose-like feature. Neat! Finally, I edited icons. Flat and minimal were the only requirements, luckily Metro UI from Windows 8 has brought this style to the forefront. The result: (linked because it's too damn big otherwise) Clicky
So, I've taken Windows 7, put an OSX style dock with a UI reminiscent of older Linux distros. That, my friends, is practical, nice looking, and minimal. And it's definitely bastardizing an OS.