gui design - Is there a better character than the asterisk to indicate a modified document?

In Windows applications it seems to be a common way to indicate modified, unsaved documents with an asterisk * character.

E.g. this is how Visual Studio .NET 2012 indicates a modified document:

When the document is saved to disk, the asterisk character disappears again. I'm currently using the same method in my own applications, too.

Since I loved how Microsoft replaced the * in password fields by the much clearer • character, I am thinking about something similar for indicating my unsaved documents, too.

Unfortunately, I think the • for indicating "feels" not quite right.

So my questions are:

• Would you recommend of using something other than the * character to indicate modified documents?


• If yes, how would you do it (i.e. which character or which other way)?

Update:

As commented by kedar, I've tried the text editor Sublime Text 2 to see how they do it:

Answer

You definitely should not make users learn new patterns (especially only due to personal preference).

I think the right way to go is to follow the common practice, and I believe (please correct me if I'm wrong) the common practice in this case is using asterisk. You will, definitely, find other patterns in various applications, yet in this case, I think asterisk is the most recognizable one if you are limited to one character only.

The other way to go is to add "modified" or similar text on the tab, but it occupies way more space.