I got the following message while just sitting on google.com. This, of course, must mean that the internet is about to come crashing down around our heads….
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Essential Apps
Saturday, May 13, 2006
I think just about everybody does one of these posts sooner or later, so now it’s my turn. In this post I’ll list the applications that I use everyday, most of which I can’t compute without anymore.
At the pinnacle of the list are quicksilver, Desktop Manager, and WindowShade X. I mainly use quicksilver as an application launcher, but it is capable of so much more. It has an incredible plug-in library that allows you to interface with almost everything, from the Finder to Bluetooth to Google Calendar to…well you get the idea. Desktop Manager is especially dear to my heart. Since I mainly use a 12″ PowerBook, screen real estate is precious. DM gives you virtual desktops in OS X. I have it set up for 6 desktops, but I believe you can go as high as 99. WindowShade X is another screen real estate saver. It lets you roll up an application into its title bar. I loved this feature when I used fluxbox under Linux and am overjoyed that I can have it on my Mac as well.
While Desktop Manager and quicksilver are more or less the only apps I couldn’t possibly live without, there are some others that I use on a daily basis, which I will present in list format.
- MacIrssi – Graphical, OS X version of the *NIX irssi IRC client. I started using this when I noticed an update to X-Chat Aqua limited my scrollback. If these two IRC clients were cars, X-Chat Aqua would be an automatic, and MacIrssi would be a manual.
- Deer Park – A G4/G5 optimised build of Firefox. After a stint using OmniWeb, I decided to go back to Firefox. Then I read this BeatnikPad post about Deer Park and immediately installed it. I think that Firefox in general has some memory leakage issues, but overall, I’m very happy with it.
- Apple Mail – I know a lot of people don’t particularly like Mail, but I think it’s great. I actually prefer [blasphemy!] the new look that Mail got in Tiger as well. One day I may try Mozilla Thunderbird, but as they say, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
- Yojimbo – Mostly I use Bare Bones’ most recent offering to keep passwords, but it can also hold notes, web archives, bookmarks and serial numbers. It’s very useful and, I think, definitely worth the price.
- NetNewsWire – Probably the most well-known Mac RSS reader. Very well designed and easy to use. Check out my current feed list.
- Adium – I’ve only been using this IM client for a month or so. I was really quite happy with iChat, but Josh suggested I try Adium. I haven’t messed around with it too much, but it gets the job done.
Of course there are other apps I use daily like iTunes and Apple’s Terminal, but I figured they were so mundane as to not warrant special mention. I hope this list was useful and you discovered at least one new application you think you might use.
Die of cancer unless you CLICK HERE
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
This great piece of spam was posted on comp.lang.python the other day. Be warned, it has some rather vulgar content. But it’s funny as hell.
Some pictures today
Thursday, April 20, 2006
Steph and I were walking back to our apartment from dinner on Monday night and I saw this great sign. It made me laugh so hard I had to take a picture:
And yesterday we were in the Freehold Raceway Mall, and I felt obligated to take a picture of the Apple Store that’s being constructed:
I can’t wait for this baby to be finished. Now all I need is for them to open one in Princeton so I can get a part-time job there. I think that’s unlikely as there are three within a 40 minute drive of here. 
Found on reddit.com
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
A link to the Map Gallery of Religion in the United States. It’s quite fascinating and I highly recommend checking it out.
I’ve also been meaning to write about the incredible time I had with some GeekCulture folks in NYC last Monday, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. Look for that…eventually. 
Free Spam
Thursday, April 6, 2006
Is there a special someone in your life that you just can’t stand? Want to make their lives a miserable hell-hole? Then sign them up for SPAM!!! This page lists a slew of places to actually sign up for spam. What a valuable resource. 
I’m a little scared…
Monday, April 3, 2006
For the past week+ I’ve been reading Programming in Objective-C. That’s not the scary part. The scary part is that I’m thoroughly enjoying it and I might actually like Objective-C better than I like Python. At least so far. “How can that be?” you may ask. “Python’s syntax is so much nicer. And you can do so much with so little typing. And don’t even get me started on memory management. Are you insane???” Perhaps I am. The long and the short of it is I grok Obj-C’s object model better, even though it requires more typing and having explicit getters and setters. And if I use Obj-C, I can use Xcode [yes, I know about PyObjC]. I haven’t gotten to working with files or strings or lists yet, so my opinion my change at a later date [you really can't beat list comprehensions].
Python Playing
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
The other day in IRC, I was having fun with typing things backwards. I decided to write a Python script to automate my silliness. I came up with this one-liner:
print ''.join([x for x in reversed(raw_input("String here: "))])
Josh came up with this one-liner:
print "stringtoreverse"[::-1]
The main problem with my script is that it uses “reversed()”, which is a feature available only in Python 2.4.x, so it doesn’t work with my IRC client [it uses the Mac system Python which is 2.3.5]. Plus MacIrssi didn’t like the raw_input(). Josh’s is much simpler and works with all versions of Python. But I think mine looks cooler. 
Old Pic
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
I found this picture of me with what might be our first [an AST IBM 286 clone] or second [Gateway 2000 486] computer. The background and my age lead me to believe it is the latter. But I could be wrong. Note the dot matrix printer.
UPDATE: According to my dad, it’s the AST. But shortly before we purchased the Gateway, circa 1990.
St. Patrick’s Day
Saturday, March 11, 2006
So apparently here in New Jersey St. Patrick’s Day lasts for three weekends. Who knew? Last weekend was St. Patrick’s Day in Hoboken. This weekend is St. Paddy’s Day in Sleaseside. And next weekend of course is the “real” St. Patrick’s Day. Three weekends to celebrate a man who helped eliminate a perfectly good religion. Come on people. If you want to party, just party. Don’t pretend that you’re celebrating a holiday and use it as an excuse. I could go on about holidays drifting from their original meanings, but I won’t.