Archive for February, 2006

Got a Mac? Get Quicksilver.

Quicksilver is a small “launcher” application – totally free – that I had checked out when I first got my Powerbook, but I guess I just didn’t “get it” at the time; I tossed it in the trash and moved on with life. As of today, it’s back on my machine and there’s no way I’m tossing it this time! It takes some getting used to, and a little imagination to figure out how it can serve your particular usage patterns, but once you find two or three short-cuts that you’ll actually use often, you’ll never want to be without it again.

Here’s the 10-minute-tutorial that got me hooked.

My favorite so far is the custom trigger I setup which lets me search iTunes by artist. In the mood for a little Bloc Party? No problem. I hit CTRL+SpaceBar, type in “bloc” and hit <ENTER>. That’s it – I’m now listening to all of my Bloc Party tracks. Looking for a specific Arctic Monkeys track? CTRL+SpaceBar, type in “arctic”, hit the right-arrow key and see a list of every one of their songs on my machine. Up and down arrows to find the one I want and hit <ENTER>. It’s all good.

Give it a spin, have fun and if you come up with any excellent uses pass them along.

Vacation: Day One

I’m getting bored. I’ve been “on vacation” all of four hours and I’m already quite certain I won’t make it the rest of the week. What in the world am I going to do for another four days when I’m bored after only four hours? I was going to paint my bedroom, but that’s not happening. I have no idea what color I want to use, and I have little interest in starting that project today anyway. I added some movies to my NetFlix queue last night, but they won’t show up until Wednesday. I could call someone I know who’s also taking today off from work, but that isn’t going to happen for several reasons I won’t get into just now (but stay tuned – if I get really, really bored I might start rambling in that direction). I’ve got a few books I could read, but I’m not in the mood for that right now. I’ve got quite a few ideas of work-related things to do or experiment with, but that would be “work” and I’m trying not to do that kind of stuff this week (or, at least, not on the first day). I could clean my house – Lord knows it could use some attention – but I’m more likely to paint the entire joint and write my own book before cleaning makes it to the top of the list. It’s too cold to do anything outside (attention non-Florida readers: I know it’s colder where you live, and I don’t care. It’s all relative, it’s only 53 degrees down here right now, and that’s too cold for me to purposefully hang around outdoors.)

What to do, what to do…

New Tunes

I grabbed a couple of tracks from Arctic Monkeys recently, and I’m all about “I Bet You Look Good On the Dancefloor” and “Fake Tales of San Francisco”. Check ‘em out on iTunes. While you’re there, buy some more Bloc Party – they still kick ass and have several tracks available beyond those from Silent Alarm.