Just Got Back

The Wall Street Journal ran an article today about bloggers and vacations. Considering I’m not big-time blogger, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to take a week and a half vacation in Florida. Anyway, I’m back.

This is Sad: Palestine Kids Playing at Shooting U.S. Tourists

The scoop at LGF.

Dangerous time to visit Palestine, in my opinion.

My Desk

Yes, I know the concept it terribly contrived, but I have always had a certain pleasure in seeing others’ workspaces when they post photos online. And so I have done the same.

Knowing the author’s environment lends the reader a sense of that person’s organization, integrity, and lifestyle.

If you’re wondering what the hell that blazing lamp is on the left-side of my desk… it’s the Small Japanese lamp from Crate & Barrel (bought it last year, not sure if it’s still there or not). There simply wasn’t any room for my other C & B desk lamp. I know – dammit.

Oh snap.

(Click only if you’ve been keeping up with the latest news surrounding Big Media’s dishonest reporting/photography/everything)

Application Icon Lecture

I was perusing Jasper’s Blog (a Mac programmer, currently working on this thing), and stumbled upon a rather stimulating read about computer application icon design and philosophy. While the entire lecture is understably an opinion (and should be treated as a simple philosphy for design in general), I like to think of the man’s dedication to an application’s icon (sounds small, but those things are integral to any application’s aesthetic and user interface) as something to commend.

Godspeed on your future endeavors.

The New York Times Mystifies Me Again

The American Thinker has a great snippet about a co-op piece recently published in the New York Times.

I just don’t understand that publication. If it’s Big Media I am going to read, I prefer this.

I tend to agree with this. Cell phones really are everywhere, used for everythig, and as a result, may as well become the norm.

Okay…

I am not so sure about this.

Thanks Freedom Folks. You guys make subtle posting an art.

Wickedly Useful Mac Apps

The Mac, as we all know and love it, is the perfect platform for many software enthusiasts to jumpstart their products. This means consumers benefit from the Mac’s magnficence, too (naturally). A great deal of my enjoyment comes from terrifically useful third-party applications (mostly utilities). The following are some that I believe to be indespensable (some free, the others definitely worth the price):

Tjark Derlien’s Disk Inventory X – Freeware
An awesome disk usage utility that generates everything on your hard drive (catorized by size) in a visual display. Must be seen to be understood.

Panic’s Transmit – $29.99

Though many say FTP applications aren’t very fun, Panic makes uploading and downloading files a beautiful, exciting, and snappy experience. Even if you only have a .Mac account (and I know your woes), it’s completely worthit: upload and download times completely smoke Finder’s worthless effort, and just navigating around your hard drive provides geeky pleasure.

 PDF Lab – Freeware

This little app, while not apparently much use, is invaluable if you save a lot of websites or receipts (or anything else, for that matter) in the PDF format. Archiving my receipts by dates has never been better: PDF Lab simply imports the user-selected PDF files and makes a “book” out of them, so they are all binded, in the order you choose, as one PDF file.

Cocktail – $14.95

The best maintenance utility for Macs (some will argue with Macaroni, but this has a plethora of better features). Not only does this guy run maintenance tasks, it also offers you easy-to-select interface changes to the Finder, Dock, Safari, and other built-in OS X apps. Plus, it features a nice auto-pilot scheduler. Very nice.

Shiira – Freeware

As they say, every has their own preference for an Internet browser. After I went download-crazy over several web browsers for the Mac (I like Camino the best), Shiira was an exceptionally unique one. While still in beta (Version 1.5 is stable, version 2 with the new interface is still under development), it’s alarmingly fast, loads virtually all the sites perfectly, and has an amazingly cool interface. It looks beautiful, operates flawlessly, and has a great name (that counts too, you know).

Bare Bone’s Text Wrangler 2 – Freeware

The all-powerful text editor / word processor. A great deal of web designers seem to prefer this app for coding, and I can see why: it’s a terrifically fine-tuned, operatable, and extensive text editor that is free. Worth every second of download time.

zomg – The Phantom is Dead

While the actual news isn’t very surprising (the two-years delayed video game console, Phantom, has been terminated from production), the gaming peripheral — a laptop keyboard and mouse — is awesome, and would be terrific for not only its obvious use (couch-playing), but on a bed (if you’ve got your PC close by, like me) or around the house. Very cool.