I've got the new Kubuntu 8.04 KDE4 Remix running now on my laptop and it is looking really good. I really like the new visual design and it is great that the Kubuntu project team made a release featuring KDE4 available on top of everything else they have had to do to get the main release of Kubuntu out. Up to now I have been running KDE3 and experimenting a bit with KDE4 on a virtual machine, but now I'm making the move full time. I don't know yet if that will prove a good decision while KDE4 is so young, it was only released in January 2008, but it is easy enough to swap desktop system on an Ubuntu distribution so I thought it was worth gaining that "bit of an edge" and going with the latest desktop experience that is available on Linux. The Ubuntu distributions always show very significant progress on every new release, and 8.04 has followed this trend and I'm finding it very pleasant to use.

Do you like the new design for this website? I had been meaning to do a custom Drupal theme for quite some time, the old theme I had been using 'Sky' looked pretty good but carried with it a couple of problems. Firstly, it was a fixed-width theme. Fixed-width websites are one of my pet hates, and laden with problems, they don't get the most out of the available screen area, often leaving large empty spaces or disappearing off the screen. Secondly, you could either have a left or a right sidebar; I wanted both! Plus it is always nice to have a unique design.

For a limited time, Sitepoint are offering a complete PDF download of their book Build Your Own Ruby On Rails Web Applications. I haven't used Ruby On Rails myself, but it has attracted a lot of attention recently. Get your copy at: http://www.sitepoint.com/books/rails1/freebook.php.