Want to know just where your hard disk space has gone? Traditionally, you might search for files larger than a specified size, or you might use a utility which will show the size of folders one level at a time. Both means need effort and digging around to work out just how your disk is divided up.

Due to its single-minded purpose, there isn’t much more that can be said about Filelight. In the open source way, however, other developers have been inspired to take the concept further. Philesight is a Filelight clone but instead of running interactively, it resides on a web server. Running on a schedule, the disk is scanned and the usage data stored in a database; this is then rendered as a series of PNG images which are then viewed across the web. An online demo is available, presumably showing the developer’s system.

Tomboy

Another Gnome app, Tomboy, provides easy to use note-taking for all your random thoughts or clipboard pastes. This is no mere notepad; Tomboy goes much, much further by combining its dead-easy data entry with terrific built-in Wiki-like linking.

This means you can organise all your ideas and thoughts as simply as typing a name. Branching is as straightforward as clicking the Link button. You can rename and reorganise all your notes without breaking any of the links.

Tomboy presents a floating, always-visible, panel to ensure it is no further than just a quick click away. This brings up choices to search for existing notes or create new ones. A table of contents lists notes in last-modified date order.

Tomboy is still a work in progress. One of the exciting plans the authors are working on is letting desktop objects be dragged-and-dropped onto notes, with the app working out intelligently what to do with them. At the moment e-mail can be dropped and support for more types of data is in the works.

Additionally, Tomboy has a plugin mechanism allowing unlimited future utility. A rich set of plugins is already available. Some of the best are “Backlinks” to see which notes link to your current note, and, for coders, a Bugzilla plugin that lets Bugzilla URLs be dragged directly from your browser. The bug number is inserted as a link and flagged with a bug icon. Other plugins export notes to HTML, import notes from the commonly-available Sticky Notes applet and other purposes.

Like the other apps described above, Tomboy’s simplicity masks powerful functionality. Its ability to dramatically de-clutter your thoughts with a minimum of expended effort is absolutely worth taking up.