I update my Advogato diary far more often than these pages, probably because I have more things to say on nerdy stuff than on anything else. That diary is now also being consolidated into Planet Classpath, courtesy of Mark Wielaard.
Courtesy of Yumpee Saar I now have a Gmail account from Google that too with my preferred username: rmathew AT gmail DOT com! With 1000MB of total storage space and up to 10MB allowed per incoming or outgoing message, this provides much more breathing space than what is given by the provider of the other email address I use regularly. I am slowly moving to using this account as my primary email address.
Somewhat belatedly, I applied for and got write-after-approval access to GCC's CVS repository. This means that I can now commit my own patches after approval from a maintainer instead of making another person do it for me.
The GIMP got its most significant upgrade in a long time when version 2.0 was released recently. Among other things, Windows is now a fully supported platform so many, many more users can try their hands on this ultra cool piece of fine Free software. Definitely worth a dekko and very highly recommended.
A couple of weeks ago, I decided to update my Slackware 8.1 based Linux installation at home to the latest and the greatest stable versions of the components, compiling them all from their sources - glibc 2.3.2, kernel 2.4.26, GCC 3.3.3, XFree86 4.4.0, KDE 3.2.1, Mozilla 1.6, Gtk+ 2.4.0, etc. The upgrade was surprisingly smooth and the system feels even more responsive under Linux than ever before. In sharp contrast, under Windows the system feels slower after every upgrade. Mind you, I am not speaking this as a Linux zealot but as someone who uses it to get his work done with the least hassles - but this does make me love this wonderful system more than ever before. Oh by the way, with the gorgeous Crystal SVG icons set for KDE by Everaldo, my Linux desktop looks positively beautiful!