This little arrangement could work out. I could go on Snow Leopard for work related activities and then reboot to Windows during breaks for games. Anyway I have now a fresh copy of Windows and so have the urge to populate it with software that I don’t need or did not get the chance to play with previously.

Windows Live Writer is one such software. It is available on Windows Live and I got the old version, the newer beta requiring at least Vista to install. I managed  to get the Windows Live Writer to publish from desktop to this blog very easily, and I simply wanted usability without all the bulk, so Windows Live Writer is probably going to stay around on my Windows partition.

Anyway, Hello Windows XP again. It’s been a while.

1. Learning to drive is still on my priority, and I have finally pushed off the procrastination to register for a driving account to start learning. I have also secured a private instructor, which i hear will eventually  be cheaper than that provided officially through the driving school, provided that I am disciplined enough.
2. I intend to learn how to swim correctly. I have no “official” training regarding swimming, and it seemed like one of those nice things to pick up on. Plus, I recently signed up for a membership for a club which has branches near Jolyn and my house, as well as my workplace. How convenient! I fully intend to go there for regular swims to train myself.
3. I also want to start running regularly. Train my breathing and running style, that sort of thing. It is also preparation for my annual physical test, a little thing called IPPT for every Singaporean man.
4. I just enrolled into the Apple Developer Program, so in approximately one month’s time I can actually roll out my developed apps (if any) to the App Store! That was one of the major reasons why I got a mac in the first place, and I do want to use this opportunity to make some nifty things to sell. There are some ideas in place and I want to see them through when I am still motivated.

I still have half the year to go, and since running and swimming fits into exercise here and there, I have a happy feeling that I can actually do them all.

I have heard a lot of things about Quicksilver even before i got the mac, being surrounded by enthusiastic mac users. It sesms to be such a powerful utility all by itself. Prior to Mac I used Launchy on Windows and while its good, I could not find a good use for it at that time.

Fast forward to today, when I find time to poke around with Quicksilver to find out why its so great. I have some of my answers within minutes.

1. It does common things spotlight can do, and faster. Now Spotlight is a cool feature in its own right, but it shows me possible files that I might be interested in based on the keystrokes that I enter. Quicksilver takes me straight to the file, period.
2. It allows me more “complicated” tasks that spotlight is not able to do. Open a file? Sure, Spotlight can do that. Write something that comes to mind and save it as a file in the Ideas folder? Not that easy. What takes several moves involving spotlight is accomplished in a few tabs by quicksilver.
3. It does what it does, then gets out of the way. Part of the reason why I stopped using OneNote and EverNote is that they hang around afterward in the form of a window. If I close them, when the next idea comes along I would have to open the file again and locate the place where I want to append the ideas to. Not very time consuming, but it is good if I just want to get it down so I don’t think about it anymore.
4. It makes me want to use it for more complicated tasks. Compose a quick email? Sure. Do a quick calculation? Why not. What does that word mean? Do a quick search. The word here is quick, and I find that I engage more, with much less time.

I shall put up more information when I find time to, but this should be one of the nice things to have for a first time mac user. Sure, It takes some getting used to, but it should pay off in terms of time and effeciency.

As I work with the Mac more and more, i find that it is usually a pleasure to turn on the mac and browse through some emails before heading for work. It is a clean interface, and it has a good trick that I appreciate – I usually do not like many windows open at once, because it clutters the task bar (for XP anyway) and leaves little reminders like the irritating flashing and beeping that keeps me from concentrating on my work. With the mac, when I click on the “close” button of some applications, the window disappears, but the process continues. So there is no physical window pestering me, or any big disrupting indication that I must always be kept known about. Mail, ICal, and ITunes are good examples of such a trick – Being a real time freak, I usually want to know if a mail comes in, but I do not want to keep the window open all the time. With Mail I can simply close the physical window and concentrate on my work – an there is no urgent flashing or sudden window pop-up that distracts me from working.

I think working on the Mac might actually improve productivity like all the fans say, because of all these clever user-interfaces that are built into the system. One of these things may be small and subtle, but together they might just work wonders.

Many things involving money, capital and personal finance management in general happened this week, making me sit down and think about keeping my personal budget tame. With my study loan due for repayment as well as the credit payments, a kind of pressure descended on me which feels familiar and yet has a tint of danger, the awareness that I am spending way too much and yet do not know exactly how much.

I will be doing my budgeting for the next month and set a few goals for myself this year. They will be manageable, challenging, and will likely to force me into managing money wisely. If only I have the financial sense of Jolyn. She always makes things seem easy~ even weight loss. Damn!

The mac is a wonderful piece of hardware that integrates design with performance. The one i got is a MacBook Pro 13″, one that is just updated a few weeks ago. I have been waiting to get this version so that i can have a go at developing Apps for iPhone and iPad. We consider this an investment.

Anyway, back to the mac.

The first look is impressive. It’s quite a piece of art, and the trackpad, although has me stumped for a moment, soon has me zipping along and scrolling, flipping windows and moving applications around. Its generous size is also a cool factor, although sometimes it’s not that responsive.

Keyboard is just nice, not squeezed together, and I can easily take to it in a few minutes.

Although impressive out of the box (the user experience is solid, as well as the sense of ownership), as a developer i have to go and find my own tools. A quick hunt revealed several web development tools available, little applications like CyberDuck, TextWrangler, and KeePassX. Online lists nudged me towards the commercial tools which has more capability and are more robust, but being a previous windows user, i do not feel the need to purchase software yet.

oh, i should warn potential buyers that the mac tends to get hot pretty fast. not sure why this is the case, but the time taken from the cool metal to become warm and possibly unbearably hot is pretty short, especially for a new computer.

Time to sleep. Let’s explore the iphone and ipad sdk sometime soon!

Here’s a picture of Jolyn’s little lab, I managed to smuggle her out one day and put her in colourful balls. See how happy she is!

Daily Squee
Just kidding, found the pic on Daily Squee.

bye for now!

It’s a good game. What makes it special is the fact that Jolyn likes the game. She’s actually playing the game much much longer and more frequently than all the other “mainstream-ish” games she encountered, like Left 4 Dead (which i like), and Plants versus Zombies.

Nevertheless, she has clocked so much time on the game itself that her heroine is now of a higher level than mine. That says a lot.

Well, why would I do that? I was out-growing the comics that I used to buy every copy of each month when I was young. Now, I realised that I have not been touching them since a few years ago. So they rest in plastic crates, away from where they should be – in the hands of an interested person. Anyway, I wanted my books to continue to be enjoyed by other people, not shut in a little box. I hope that my decision has been a good one.