An effective Linux desktop is made up of various sets of software, using various programming languages, paradigms, toolkits, and more. The two major desktop environments competing for top dog are obviously KDE and GNOME. I've been using KDE since the 2.x days, and it was X-Windows before that. I have to admit that KDE4 is bringing a lot of improvements in desktop usability, but there's a lot of non-KDE programs out there that I use on a daily basis that simply don't work as nicely as I'd like to see.

• Firefox - My only real complaint about Firefox is the lack of support for the QT toolkit. Yes, there is a project going on to port it over to QT... sadly, the progress is slow and the usability isn't there yet.
• Thunderbird - KMail isn't that bad, but it randomly crashed on me. For that reason, I use Thunderbird. Again, no QT support. My other complaint is that the "Message Checker" plasmoid doesn't support Thunderbird for checking mail.
• Pidgin - Kopete doesn't stand a chance against Pidgin. It's a more solid codebase, and much more widely supported. I think Kopete would benefit more if they build a QT client for libpurple, Pidgin's backend.
• OpenOffice.org - This has shown the most improvement in this area over all the other programs I've listed so far. QT4 support finally arrived a week or so ago, and now I'm just waiting for Gentoo to update Portage. KOffice is a very nice office suite, but OpenOffice.org is a much more robust application.

Reasons such as those above are what have sparked my interest in developing a QT4 client for XMMS2. I'm hoping that in the near future we'll see more KDE/QT4 compatibility with some of these programs I've listed.

I came home from Sarah's this morning after sleeping for a few hours. In those few hours, I had what seemed to be a weird dream... but not?

Unfortunately, all I can remember is that I was standing inside a classroom full of people standing up. I turned towards the door and saw my friend Chris Hernandez standing there. I gasped, then tried to move towards him, but he ran out the door. After I left the classroom, I woke up and couldn't manage to fall back asleep.

Chris committed suicide in 2007... and I haven't seen him since. It's so distinctly odd that I would see him in a dream like that. Especially when I woke up from it and couldn't get back to sleep... almost like a ghastly feeling was tingling the back of my head. Visitation from an old friend, or a sign of something to come?

I deleted all my old posts. It was about that time. I have a record of them all for myself to look at, but there's no need for them to plague the internet any longer. I figured it was time for some change, as my life has been so plagued with trouble these past few months. Maybe this is exactly what I need.

Things are going well. I'm looking for a new job, and contemplating how I'd like to finish up my bachelor's degree. For the time being, I think I'm going to stick with the restaurant industry. Honestly, I love the people, and I love the hours. A 9-5 job seems so boring to me, and I've never been one to get up early more than two days in a row.

I have some exciting projects I'm slowly working on. Obviously, number one is BIOSLEVEL, my group's product review site with an open source-twist. It's down at the moment, but I promise it won't be down much longer. I just need to finish interfacing with phpBB3 and make a few other small adjustments before it will live again.

Also in my newfound spare time, I started working on a QT4 XMMS2 client. I don't have much accomplished outside of an interface, but it's promising. I'm not a fan of Amarok, and using a GTK-based audio player just isn't pretty. I'd like to incorporate many different ideas into it such as Last.FM browsing, multiple playlists, iPod support, and much more. Once I have a little more going, be certain that there will be a post here about it