Nat’s Dashboard

Nat’s we-can-do-it-before-Microsoft dashboard for GNOME (and theoretically anything else you can write an interface for) is pretty cool. It’s the first thing I’ve seen in a while that made me think, “huh, but we don’t have that OS X…” Basically, the dashboard is a constantly updated and searchable index of what you do on your computer: IM and IRC conversations, files you’re browsing through, calls received by your peered, Bluetooth phone, whatever, it’s right there and easy to get (back) to. The FOAF integration is particularly cool, as it groks someone’s number or address and displays other information about them; a more persistent form of OS X’s Mail.app showing if the person you’re writing to is on AIM or not. Anyway, the dang thing is cool, so check it out. It might make desktop Linux tolerable someday.