Mumbling Again

Saft Shortcuts

Since my switch back to Safari and adoption of Saft, I've added a number of useful shortcuts to my Saft configuration. This feature of Saft allows you to quickly return search results from a site just by typing a shortcut and search phrase into the address bar. For example you could type "wiki web browser" to return this page. Continued with examples...

Safari vs. Firefox

I've been teeter-tottering back and forth between Safari and Firefox. I'm recently back to Safari since I broke down and bought Saft for the ad blocking ability. By the way, the Panther version doesn't block ads—I already made that mistake. Over all I love Saft now and it was worth every penny. Plus I like to support small Mac developers who fill a much needed niche.

Now that I have the same capabilities of the Firefox Ad Block plugin inside Safari, I realize that there are so many shortcomings in the OS X version of Firefox. My biggest complaints are a lack of Cocoa functionality like built in spell check and GUI inconsistencies in the form buttons and inputs. Having the Cocoa spell checking in textarea fields is really helpful especially when editing webmail or creating blog posts. Plus its great to have an operating system level spell check because your user dictionary spans across multiple applications. Now only if Bare Bones would re-write BBEdit in Cocoa instead of Carbon.

Also Brad Rice is right about the sheer speed of Safari. It launches much faster than Firefox. This hardly seems like a fair fight though when you consider that the Apple Web Kit framework is probably already running in OS X and Firefox has to load all the libraries to render a website from a standstill.

However, there is one area of performance where Safari falls painfully short of Firefox. When rendering a large (100k+) page of complex table structure, Safari really chokes. Unfortunately, there are some really poorly designed web applications that cause this exact problem which I'm required to use in my daily workflow. I guess I'll stick to Firefox for these few cases.

The good news is that rumor has it Firefox 2.0 will support more OS X native functions like native form GUI elements. I'll keep my fingers crossed for Cocoa spelling too.

Street Art with Packing Tape

Mark Jenkins, a street artist who's preferred medium is clear packing tape, has struck again in Washington DC. This time he's created large surreal lollipops sculptures out of parking meters. I'm sure the secret service is trilled. If caught, they'll probably ship him off to Gitmo as a suspected terrorist. While the meterpops are funny and attract a lot of attention, I actually prefer his more subtle work. Check out the other gallery of outdoor installations with packing tape street art at Mark's website. He's definitely formed a unique take on street art that I have yet to see someone else emulate or build on.

The Importance of Using BCC for Bulk Mailing

Recently my cousin, whom I love dearly, invited myself and some others to a gallery opening he was planning. Unfortunately he made the mistake of sending the invitation via email with all the recipient addresses showing in the CC field instead of using the BCC field to hide them.

New Years Resolutions and a Clean Inbox

One of my worst habits is to procrastinate with personal email replies. I have no problem using email for business but this communication channel has been broken in my personal life for a while. So bad is this habit that I can go months before I give up—in disgust and disgrace—by finally filing away the original I never responded to so it's not cluttering up my inbox anymore.

Then I read Merlin's article Fresh Start: The Email DMZ and decided that I would reply to all the emails I hadn't given up on yet and resolved to try to keep my inbox clean from now on.

Now I just treat my personal email like my work email. I move those messages to which I've already replied, or those which need no reply, out of the inbox. That way the inbox is a list of tasks which need an action. The different is where in my business inbox I don't necessarily reply until I have an answer or I'm ready to present a new phase of the project, in my personal inbox the reply is most often the task itself.

This may seem like a small change psychologically, but its working for me so far. I realized that a short almost business-like reply to a friend is better than no reply at all. Now my inbox is clean and I'm able to manage it better.

New Ad Touts Macs with Intel Chips

While the Apple iPod has grown considerably in popularity, its advertising has followed suit with a slew of high profile iPod ads featuring celebrities such as Eminem and now Wynton Marsalis. Conspicuously missing is any advertising for Apple's flagship product, the Mac. That's all about to change. Yesterday at the MacWorld conference keynote address, Steve Jobs previewed a new ad featuring the iMac with an Intel Core Duo chip.

This ad gave me the chills. Admittedly, I follow Apple like a rabid cult member, however its not my affection for Apple, but rather the pure genius of the marketing message here that got me. They personify the Intel chip and make it so you can relate to it:

The Intel chip. For years its been trapped inside PCs. Inside dull little boxes. Dutifully performing dull little tasks. When it could have been doing so much more. Starting today the Intel chip will be set free, and get to live life inside a Mac. Imagine the possibilities.

I bet a lot of people can relate to that chip. Trapped inside a cubicle dull little box, doing a dull career little task. This ad makes you feel trapped and bored and then sells the idea of freedom, creativity and fun. Everyone knows that Apple is fun, cool and free-spirited from the iPod ads, so this isn't far to jump.

Winter Music Conference 2006

So WMC this year should be a blast. People traveling in our group include Mike, Daniel, Lauren, Fanya, Winter, Brooks, Yu Jin, Paola and myself.

Events
I thought I'd start posting the events I've heard of so far that spark my interest. Now is the time to start looking. Some tickets start to go on sale already. Feel free to email me suggestions or post in the comments below.

The M3 events are starting to be posted. You can find information about the M3 Sessions or search the M3 Masterlist.

I'm still waiting for the WMC people to post The List of events for 2006. That's where we found out about most events last year.

Glossary of Terms
Tramp Stamp – n. Derogatory slang phrase sometimes used to describe a tattoo (especially in the clichéd tribal style) on a woman's lower back.

Whale Tail – n. The appearance of a thong above the waistband.

Muffin Top – n. The bulge of flesh hanging over the top of low-riding jeans.

Flight Information
We're arriving at Miami Airport on Wednesday, 3/22 at 11:44am and departing on Sunday, 3/26 at 5:50pm.