King Content

A lot of people have asked me about the insanity that is my Mac. For their (and your) benefit, I am listing here some of the applications that I use to make my Mac more awesome. As a disclaimer, I learned about a lot of these from Merlin Mann and my one of my favorite podcasts MacBreak Weekly.

• Quicksilver - Calling this an "application launcher" really doesn't do it justice. It is something you have to try for yourself. Quite possibly the most important application for the Mac that doesn't come pre-installed. Follow some of the helpful getting started tutorials and poke around in the plug-ins. I found that if you start using it and think to yourself, "How can I do this with Quicksilver?" every time you do some task on your Mac, you will quickly overcome the learning curve. It now drives me crazy when I am on someone else's Mac and they don't have this installed. Stone knives and bearskins.
• Desktopple - I usually keep a huge number of applications open at a single time, with many, many windows open. When doing so, things can get messy, confusing and distracting. Desktopple is an application that hides unused windows, dims your menu bar, and hides your desktop. This gives you a clean, distraction-free workspace so you can focus on the task at hand. Merlin has some other methods to do this in a posting on his blog, but I find this single application does all that I need.
• Growl - When working, there are certain things you want to be notified of: new mail messages, Skype messages and people coming online, new iTunes tracks, etc. Growl gives these and many more applications the ability to notify you through subtle on screen messages about what is happening. So instead of hearing a noise when you get a new mail message, you will also get a small box pop-up with the sender, subject and first line of text, which then disappears. It's another application that you would expect from Mac OS X itself.
• Mozy - I used .Mac backup until I ran out of space on it. I have a lot of things that I SHOULD be backing up (like music, photos, documents, mail, etc.) but don't have the time to do so on DVD once a month. Mozy gives you 2Gb of back up for free, and unlimited for $5 a month. It runs in the background and uploads everything you need. Thus, giving you some peace of mind.
• Undercover - For further peace of mind, take a look at Undercover. This application hides on your Mac, and if it ever gets stolen, can be activated remotely to take pictures of the new user and report information back to the Orbicule Recovery team, which works with law enforcement to get your stuff back. You only have to pay a small one-time purchase license and you are covered. In a way, it almost makes me WANT my Mac to get stolen so that I can use this software. (Obviously, you need to install this BEFORE it gets stolen.)
  
• iGTD - I have become a convert to David Allen's Getting Things Done. If you have not heard of this, there are several sites that have plenty of information and tips. The iGTD software helps implement GTD using your Mac. Even better, it integrates with Quicksilver to make things faster.
• Adium - The main thing that this IM application has over iChat is that it keeps all services and contacts in a single window. It just needs the Quicksilver integration worked out.
  
• Other stuff - I use Apple Mail rather than Entourage. (Why would you befoul such a great computer with such TERRIBLE software?) For a web browser, I am currently using Camino, but have been known to use Firefox and Safari as well. On the social networking side, I have Twitteriffic (and Tweet) installed for Twitter and the iPhoto Facebook exporter for photos.

I think that about covers it. There is other stuff that I have lying around, but the above applications really make my Mac what it is... (besides OS X, of course)

This past weekend, I congregated at London Business School. (Congregation is like the graduation ceremony, but I don't officially graduate until the Board of Examiners meets at the end of July.) To make it extra special, I was also given the Alumni Student Award, which is a big honor. After congregration, Bethany and a bunch of our friends and I went to Taqueria, a taco place in Westbourne Grove. Delicious and definitely on par with Mercadito in New York. We also managed to polish off a bottle of excellent tequila.
On Saturday, Bethany and I went to a cooking class at Leith's Cooking School where we made soda bread, lamb with gremolata, jersey royal potatoes, a pea and mint soup, and a gooseberry and elderflower fool. At night we went to the London Business School Summer Ball which was a great time, even if I didn't completely fit into my old tuxedo.
I leave tomorrow for a week of sailing around Croatia with some friends. Definitely going to be a good time. I have tried to get some pictures on Flickr (accessed through the bar on the left of the page), but they now charge for the iPhoto export thing, which is really annoying. Instead, I am spending more time on facebook.com and posting photos there.
It's been busy, but also a lot of fun!