Apps I Absolutely Love
It has been a really long time since I have done anything with this blog. While I really need to be doing some work, I realized this evening that there are some fantastic Apps that I use constantly and absolutely love using. There are a lot of great lists like this, and some of these applications I found out about through such blog posts. But, without further ado…
Fluid
My thanks have to go to my friend Duke (@dukeboles) for introducing me to Fluid. I had seen the name of the app show up every now and then on different Mac sites, but I never really investigated it. It takes your most commonly used web-based apps and turns them into a desktop app by limiting the browser aspect of the program to a single website but also gives you an icon in the Applications folder to give you instant access. I am using it with Google’s Mail, Calendar and Docs apps. Mix in a little Google Gears and those Google apps are almost like any other app on your Mac. Get it, use it, love it.
Growl
Know what your Mac is doing. I’m a web designer, I make pretty pictures and then magically turn them into functioning bits of code. Growl makes this process easier by letting me know in a slick UI that I have new email or that the crazy huge file a client put on my FTP share finally finished downloading. Simply put, Growl gets you info you need quickly and unobtrusively.
Twitterific
There are a lot of different desktop utilities for accessing and viewing yours and your friends’ tweets. But, Twitterific is free, integrates with Growl and is made by the cool folks at The Iconfactory.
Dropbox
My brother introduced this to me when he was going to school in Chicago. We needed to get some files to one another, but they were a bit on the large side. So, we just through something in our Dropbox folder on our Macs and it begins to sync with each other. Works great and cross-platform, which I haven’t had to experience yet…but its good to know its there. Also, integrates with Growl to let me know it finished downloading a file and the better part is its free.
Teleport
Have two Macs you need to use but don’t want to switch back and forth between two keyboards and two mice? Teleport allows you to move your mouse cursor from one Mac to another and control two Macs with one keyboard and mouse and no additional hardware. Just a free download that gives you a new System Preferences pane to arrange your two Macs just like they are two displays on a single Mac. This thing even allows you to drag and drop files between computers.
elé and West Carrollton
elé Cake Company, formerly A Taste of Elegance, has been at its new location in downtown West Carrollton for about a year now. Today is my first time here. A friend of mine just got a job here as a barista, so I decided to make my way on over. This is a great blend of contemporary design, coffee, cake and party supplies. There is a café area in the front with the cakes (their staple product) going across the wall in the back. Then on the side there is an area with cards and party supplies. The party supplies are contained in one of the most orderly displays I have ever seen for a product that tends to over-power the eyes.
Then there is the food. They make the treats here, so its not like Starbucks that opens up the box of pastries and puts it in a display. But, as said before the staple product here is cake. As A Taste of Elegance they became known throughout Miamisburg and West Carrollton as the place to get a cake. And then they expanded eastward to take the name further into the southern Miami Valley area. But now as elé, there is a feel of a large established business but made up of some good hometown folks.
Check out their website, www.elecakeco.com, and then check out the storefront. Also, enjoy some free wifi and they have a really great Chai Latté.
Pepsi with Sugar
I never thought I’d be so excited about a soft drink. But I think I’m more excited to see the old Pepsi and Mountain Dew logos floating around again. Plus its made with sugar, not the American-fattening High Fructose Corn Syrup.
Coldplay on 60 Minutes
It is very cool to see that despite their fame, the band seems to remain fairly level headed. Although they have some interesting quirks, but what would an artist be without those.
Coda
Coda is easily the best tool I have seen for website development since I had discovered DreamWeaver so many years ago. Coda takes a great text editor, a simple FTP program, and a project organizer and wraps its all up with a WebKit-based preview mode to make editing code that much faster. Check it out, Panic has a 15 day trial.
To Find You
I met Phil Wing last May when I started down the crazy and wild ride known as House Church. He and his wife and their two precious kids had been well involved with the HC and they were very excited about the adoption process they were in. During the first few months of getting to know them, I became very excited too. And about the time I met Phil, he had just started recording an EP for the purpose of selling it to raise money for the adoption.
I’m amazed at how God has been using Phil and his wife, Amber, to do what He has laid on their hearts. They are seeking ways to raise the money to support this adoption by using their talents and changing their lifestyle. They have been greatly encouraging to me, and Phil has been a great friend. His album, To Find You - An Ethiopian Adoption Benefit, contains seven inspired songs that have a fantastic audio quality added to the wonderful lyrics and music. I encourage everyone to go to Phil’s website and purchase the EP. It’s $10 (+$1.50 S&H) and all the proceeds go to bring a little child home from across the ocean and into the arms of two loving parents.
Selling My PowerBook
I’ve had my 12-inch Apple PowerBook since October 2004. It was the second Apple computer I had ever purchased (I had got a used TiBook the year before). When I bought the PowerBook I also got the 20-inch Cinema Display, which was a fantastic combination of desktop use and portability. Later I found out that the 12-inch PowerBook/20-inch Cinema Display was a very popular combination.
That amazing era of a small, light-weight powerhouse computer started coming to an end last summer when I got an iMac. The iMac has become my design studio and my video editor, and has replaced the PowerBook for web development since I can run the ever evil Internet Explorer on the iMac.
Anyway, the 12-inch PowerBook. Amazing machine for what all it can do, it’s suprising Apple has come out with a true predecessor. But I suppose the latest MacBooks come the closest (sans the NIVIDIA 9600M GT). Oh, well. It’s been a good four some odd years.
Philip vs. Blogs
A blog has always seemed like a trend I should try out, and I’ve tried on a number of different occasions to do so. I wrote a post on my despised MySpace account, I created and tried to write a blog through Blogger…but that didn’t last much more than five minutes. Then I wrote a Note on my preferred Facebook account. Then I installed Wordpress on my own website, and now almost five months after installing it…I’m writing a post. Go me.
That was a fun overview of my failures at blogging. Oh, well. I suppose we will see what happens here. I have a real desire to try and put stuff up here on a somewhat regular basis. Maybe get into telling some of the stories I promised I’d tell in a Facebook Note. That’s for you Cindy 
Anyway, that seems good enough for a first post…we’ll see how it goes.