How can I know if I have any Notifications with newer OS X Notifications bar? I have OS X 10.8, and one thing I don't understand about the new Notifications system is that the icon in the menu bar doesn't tell me whether I have any notifications or not. The icon (  ) looks the same to me whether I have notifications or not.  Every once in a while I'll click on it, and realize that I have Notifications from weeks earlier.  

Am I missing how this is supposed to be used?  Is there a way to have this icon change color when there are notifications?  Can I simply disable this panel and icon?
The icon does not change color (other than when you temporarily disable Notification Center, but that only lasts until the following day). The other things that happen, such as banners, icon badges, etc are the actual "notification".

To temporarily disable Notification Center (until the following day), Option+click on the Notification Center icon. The icon will turn grey to show it is disabled temporarily. Clicking on it reveals a message that notifications will resume tomorrow. Dragging the Off slider to the right will re-enable it immediately.



To permanently disable Notification Center, follow these steps from OSXDaily:


Launch Terminal.
Enter the following command:

launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.notificationcenterui.plist

Enter the following command:

killall NotificationCenter



This disables it for the current user only.