Pinstripe Thunderbird has landed!

I’m proud to announce that Pinstripe has become the new default theme on the Mac version of Mozilla Thunderbird. The theme is a collaboration between myself and designer Stephen Horlander that attempts to make Thunderbird feel right at home on the Mac desktop.

Here’s a picture of the theme in action. You can try it yourself by downloading the latest nightly build (11MB gzipped disk image).

Thanks to Scott MacGregor for his help and patience.

Coming Soon: a version of Pinstripe for the Mozilla Suite

Waiting on the 4:30 birdie

The birds have been returning to New England over the past month. From my porch I can see jays, crows, robins, cardinals, and I can hear the occasional woodpecker. Over the past few years, in late March or early April, a single bird, an american robin I think, sits in a tree outside our window and sings its little lungs out in the early morning. It’s a strange thing to hear because there is almost no other bird chatter at that time. My girlfriend and I call this the “4:30 birdie”. Spring may have sprung, but the season won’t have truly changed until the 4:30 birdie arrives.

Ben's Linux Adventure

I’m encouraged by Ben Goodger’s post about his experiences with Fedora Linux. Installing and configuring Linux used to be a painful experience. At least now you don’t have to be a technical wizard to get it up and running. The GNOME desktop has come a long way. It doesn’t approach the level of usability and polish that is evident in Mac OS X, but it’s refreshing that one of Ben’s complaints is about the “drab colors” of the login screen and desktop background. A few years ago one of my complaints about Linux was that I needed to recompile the kernel to add features that I expected out-of-the-box.