Tax day is over finally. I filed mine the day before (yes, last minute), but then TurboTax was having problems yesterday, saying that I never e-filed. That was just from their servers being overloaded or something and it turned out that since they had already been submitted, I was safe, even though it reported that I hadn’t e-filed.
My favorite skin for Rainlendar is the default one that comes installed. It’s simple and looks really good, especially with transparency. But, there’s just a couple things that I felt needed to be modified to be completely satisfied.
The first modification is with the red circle around the current day. I feel that it covers too much of the number, so I have to look at the numbers beside it to tell what the current day is. Although that isn’t difficult to do, I’d rather just be able to see the number. Lazy? Maybe.
So, I extracted the skin file and went into the images folder and found Today.png and used Photoshop to edit it. I figured a square would be a better shape around the number, so I created a square and added a small shadow.
You’ll see on the right how it looks.
Next, the last change I wanted to make was in the to-do list. I love the new progress bar feature, which shows you how much you’ve completed that task. But, the only thing I didn’t like was how large and ugly it was. It covered up the task and I couldn’t really read what the task was.
Just like before, I went inside the images folder and looked for Todo-Progressbar-Large.png. There is also a small one, but the large one is what is being used in the skin. So, I opened it up in Photoshop so I could start editing.
I didn’t even know how I wanted it to look, so I tried a couple things, one being a red line, which would stretch over the task, so when it’s completed, it would appear as if it had been marked off. But, that didn’t turn out very nice, so I tried something else with the same idea. I went with black, and instead of being in the middle going through the task, it would be underneath the task and appear as a progress bar.
Even though my progress bar doesn’t look placed perfectly, as you can see on the right, it’s the best I could do to make myself happy. I didn’t do this to make anyone else happy. So, if you don’t like it, you don’t have to download the changed skin.
I don’t usually provide customizations made to skins or themes created by other people to the public, but I figured this time that maybe someone might feel the same way I do about the red circle and the progress bar. So, if you like what I changed, then go ahead and download. Please be sure to back up the original skin before replacing. I won’t be responsible for anything breaking. Nothing broke for me, and there are no viruses. It is a clean file!
If you don’t know how to insert the PNGs into the skin file, then download the skin with the PNGs already inside. Otherwise, if you know what you’re doing, download the PNGs.
Rainlendar is yet another program that I fell in love with when I started using it at least 4 years ago. No other desktop calendar software can compare to Rainlendar. Yes, it’s that good. Well, that is just my opinion and the opinion of many others.
It surprises me that a lot of people haven’t heard of Rainlendar when it’s very easy to find. It is a really popular calendar and much nicer than the ones out there. I have watched it improve over the years, too.
A lot of you will be happy to know that it can be run on both Windows and Linux.
Here are several features that Rainlendar has:
Rainlendar gets a 5 star rating from me, because of the amount of features and that it is mostly free (Lite and Pro version). The features that require a purchased license are Outlook and network calendars (otherwise it will display [Unregistered] in the Pro version if you do not purchase a license). The creator of this calendar deserves money for the time and energy he has put into it. A couple other reasons for the 5 stars: support is great and the amount of skins available created by many people who are willing to share their work for free.
Clicking the preview below will open the Rainlendar website in a new window or tab depending on your browser preferences.
If you have any questions about Rainlendar, before downloading and installing, see the FAQ and the Forum. If you want to ask a question on the Forum, at least be sure that you’ve searched for the answer first (in both the FAQ and the Forum).
Installing should be very easy as it’s an .exe file that installs everything for you. If you want me to help in any way, leave a comment and I’ll do my best to help you. Otherwise, head on over to Rainlendar and download this awesome calendar!
I officially have Yahoo! Widgets 4, being that it was released today as I said it would be in Yahoo Widget Engine, Formerly Known As Konfabulator. Upgrading from the previous version was very easy and all my widgets work. Of course I had to set them up again, but that wasn’t difficult.
There is one new feature that is noticeable right away. The dock shows up automatically on the right side of the screen showing all of the available widgets. This dock can be collapsed to only show the currently running widgets as well. If you don’t like the dock taking up a little bit of space, set it to automatically hide and just move your mouse over it to see it again. Otherwise, I guess you can disable the dock if you don’t like it at all.
A second new feature (my favorite) is a widget that lets you browse the widget gallery without opening a browser. If you have the dock open, you will also be notified of new widgets that are available! Good job Yahoo!
Click on the preview on the right to view the widgets that are currently on my desktop, along with the dock showing.
Widgets running: Desk Calendar, Live Search Mini, Neon Gauges, Neon Clock and Yahoo! Weather (which is included with YW 4).
There is also a video tour of Yahoo! Widgets 4 running that is available if you’re curious, but not sure about installing yet.
Overall, I’m impressed with this new release. I think the dock showing the currently active widgets is a very nice idea. YW 4 gets a rating of 4.5 stars from me. If they would come up with a catchier name, I would give them 5 stars!
UPDATE: Because of a comment made by Jonathan Strauss (product manager for Yahoo!) (see below), I am changing the rating from 4.5 stars to 5 stars!
I started using Konfabulator a couple years ago and fell in love with being able to have these widgets on the desktop which provide all kinds of information. For example, there’s weather, clocks, search tools and more. The best part is that it’s free, looks really nice on the desktop and is easy to install and setup.
Then, Yahoo acquired Konfabulator and it became Yahoo Widget Engine. No offense Yahoo, but Konfabulator has a much nicer ring to it and it will always be Konfabulator to me. I still even type in www.konfabulator.com in the browser, only because that is the name that stuck with me and sometimes I forget what sub-domain Yahoo has put it at.
It’s been several months since I’ve kept up with what’s happening with YWE, but just recently I decided to check it out again and see if anything has changed. It turns out they are releasing a new version of YWE on March 22, which happens to be tomorrow! I’m really excited because I’d like to know what they’ve been working on since it’s been quite a while since they released anything.
My current desktop on my desktop computer (running Windows) has a few widgets. I don’t like to have too many because it just clutters the desktop, which is just as bad as desktops that are full of all those icons. Click the preview on the right to view the full screenshot.
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