Well, I’m happy that Flash isn’t going to be such a crutch anymore. If a concept for a site can be executed with HTML instead of Flash, it should be built in HTML about 99% of the time.

Right now though, a lot of developers don’t do that though because they like making things in Flash more than they like coding with HTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript, and so on. To them, the important thing is the final product, and if they think it’s easier or more enjoyable to do it in Flash, and if Flash is perceived as an acceptable standard on the web, then that’s what they’ll use.

But now that their sites flat-out fail on the iPhone, they’ll be forced to build in HTML again. Frustrating for a lot of developers, but in the long run, it benefits consumers since they’ll get faster-loading, less buggy web sites. In the short run, it frustrates consumers too, but there hasn’t been much of a revolt since Flash web designers have always been supposed to at least build really simple non-Flash versions of their sites.

The trouble is that there’s a lot more than just web sites on the web, so while I’m happy to see this put the upcoming HTML5 into such a great position, HTML5 is just for building web sites while Flash isn’t. All the other things that Flash can do—programs, games, interactive animations, and so forth—aren’t really answered for by HTML5 because that’s not what it’s for. Sure, programmers can build programs and games for the iPhone, but what a hassle for all the people who learned to be Flash developers. It’s easier to make programs and games in Flash, and when completed, they’d work on any device that had a Flash plugin without any more work. I don’t consider myself a Flash designer, but I do feel a little sorry for my friends who are.

I can’t help but think that the biggest winners are people with phones running Android, WebOS, and other alternatives to the iPhone. They get to have their cake and eat it too. They’ll enjoy all the benefits of a web that’s built more on HTML5, and if Adobe’s latest press releases about plug-ins coming soon for them are to be believed, they’ll also get to keep enjoying all the cool things that will only ever be made in Flash. In other words, they get to eat the fruits of Apple’s labor while still being pampered by Adobe. And so to them, I say enjoy it.

It was my Fundamentals of Graphic Design class. For fifteen weeks, I’d been working as hard as I could in my quest to earn an A in Doris Harrison’s class. She was just about the nicest instructor anybody could ask for, but she told everybody from the start that she didn’t really give A’s unless all of the student’s work was truly remarkable, which happened “about two or maybe three times a year” between all of her classes. And remember, this is the largest private art school in North America, and she taught several classes both in-person and online. Furthermore, the head of the Graphic Design department, Mary Scott, was by now infamous for having been very, very displeased with the work done by the previous year, to say the least.

Anyway, she expected everybody to have a portfolio book (at least nine A3-sized pages long) as well as a process book with all our stuff. I’d been working on these in addition to the finals for my other classes for more than a week now and had only gotten one hour of sleep in the last 48 hours. Doris had made it clear that no books meant automatic failure, and I was not going to let that happen.

I’d wanted to get them printed no later than the night before, but unexpected complications with another final due that day in addition to complications with the books too made it so that I wasn’t done yet, and that was all on top of having to deal with some significant private things (one personal, one medical) that came up at the worst possible time (of course). So I worked through the night to make sure that I’d be able to print as early as possible in the morning. Not ideal especially since I was already so exhausted, but life rarely provides ideal circumstances, and I just had one more day!

The lady at the printshop gave me nothing but attitude about how I asked for same-day service. She was clearly having a bad day, yelling and groaning at coworkers and other clients over the phone. I needed her to do the job for me though, so I just smiled and waited nicely.

It was hard not to tell her how inappropriate she was being. It was even more tempting to explain all of the reasons for how things had come to require a same-day printing job. But I didn’t. It would have been both easy and satisfying to make her feel like a jerk for her assumptions, but it wasn’t her business and I just needed her to do her job.

But she wasn’t merely sassy and unprofessional. Oh no. She was outrageously incompetent too. Remember how I needed 9 A3 pages printed? I’d brought somewhere between 20 and 25 with me. First, she had to do the test page twice because she printed on the wrong side. A professional printer not knowing that some kinds of paper have a good side? Not a good sign, but I still had plenty more pages to compensate for any more problems, right?

She kept printing pages, and they kept being messed up. She’d mutter or turn around to patronize me with some kind of “See what happens?” as if her embarrassing performance would have been acceptable if it had been a day earlier. We had to use a particular type of A3 paper and it wasn’t cheap, so she was just blowing my money one page at a time. But honestly, I’d just be happy as soon as she got those 9 pages done.

She got 8 done.

In the most condescending tone possible, she told me there was a Staples a few blocks away that had my kind of paper. I smiled and hustled out the door, running all the way. They didn’t have the paper.

I caught a taxi (it was worth it to me to try to get this done as early as possible) and went to the closest Patrick’s paper supply store, but that particular one was small and didn’t carry it. Another taxi ride took me to the Utrecht near my school since I knew they had it, but they were out. I ran from there around the corner to the other Patrick’s, and the lady thought she had one left and pointed me to the right section. When it wasn’t there, she said she’d call another Patrick’s in the city to see if they had it, and while walking over to the phone, she stepped over the last elusive Epson Five-Star Matte A3 in the universe.

I caught another taxi back to the printer with the world’s most expensive sheet of paper in the world (I’d only needed one more sheet, but you have to buy the whole pack of 50, which is expensive enough without three taxi rides). Of course the lady that was printing my stuff wanted to finish doing something on a spreadsheet before printing the last page of that job, but whatever. Finally, it was done.

Now she just had to print my process book. It was more than 100 pages, but it was just a collection of 300 DPI images sized to fit on regular letter-sized paper. If I hadn’t needed it to be nice quality, I could’ve just done it on my own printer at home. Not hard. But of course, she had to do it twice because she was confused by me having them be 300 DPI. After she’d messed it up the first time and printed them all huge, she tried to tell me how I should’ve sized them before I gave them to her, which required me to explain to her that DPI has to do with resolution, not size. I had to explain it for her more than once in more than one way because she was just refusing to acknowledge it. Finally, as she started to do it again correctly this time, she still tried to tell me how “it wasn’t her job to make sure each page came out right.” Um, yeah, okay, whatever lady. Just print.

Finally, the printing was done and I didn’t have to deal with her anymore. Other people at the print shop helped get the heavy railboard covers I’d brought cropped to the size I wanted and then wire bound the books. Everybody else at the place was professional, courteous, and efficient. Unfortunately though, I was probably going to be late to my class now. At this point, I even got a text message from one of my classmates that said that Doris was worried and wondering where I was. I responded with as little as possible, just saying that I’d had a medical complication but that I was okay and on my way. They didn’t need to hear about the personal issue, nor did they need to hear about my frustrations with a sassy printer worker having a bad day.

When I get there, my classmates are outside because Doris and Mary Scott herself were examining everybody’s stuff. One of my classmates turned to me and said, “Don’t go in there now! They’re not happy!” I gulped, took a deep breath, said that the school had a medical file on me that could be consulted if necessary, and stepped inside.

Doris and Mary were at the front of the class talking to each other quietly when I slipped through the door. I looked like a wreck, I’m sure. I hadn’t slept in days, the last ten hours had just been miserable and unlucky, and I probably looked a little bit terrified since I’d just been told that the two of them weren’t happy and that’s not exactly what I wanted to walk into.

They turned toward me slowly. I gulped again. Doris raised her hand gesturing toward me and said in her slow voice to Mary, “This is the one we were talking about who you wanted to join the Graphic Design department.”

I was stunned where I stood as I processed the words. Had I heard that correctly? I blinked and said, “Excuse me? You mean me?” even though there was nobody else in the room. The two older ladies grinned and waved me over to them. Apparently, Doris had been nice enough to at least put out two posters I’d made the week before that the class had loved, and apparently, Mary had really loved my work too. She couldn’t believe that I wasn’t already a Graphic Design major. I don’t remember the exact words, but she said something along the lines of, “They’d be outstanding work for a Graphic Design major, so when I found out you weren’t, I decided that I’d have to convince you to switch your major.”

Doris and Mary spent the next couple of minutes talking to me in the empty room, with me pretty much on the verge of tears since I was so happy. When the rest of the class came in and found out about them trying to convince me to switch majors, they all turned toward me as one and excitedly began to shout over each other to also try to convince me to switch to their major. I felt loved and respected. It felt great.

At the end of the class, Doris asked to keep more than half of the things I put on display so that she could use them as examples in the future. After everybody else left, she smiled warmly and congratulated me on earning an A in her class.

You can see a lot of my work over on my new portfolio site, including the posters.

First off, here’s a reminder of what programs I looked at:

1. OmniFocus
2. Things
3. Process
4. The Hit List
5. Inbox
6. Remember The Milk
7. Listo
8. Evernote

And here are their icons on the dock in the order they were mentioned:

My Grading

The programs are all compared to one another in the areas of intuitiveness, visual design, and functionality. Intuitiveness was judged by how easy and comfortable I was from the moment I first fired a program up, without pouring through documentation, online help forums, or anything of the sort. My findings on visual design are based both on usability and raw aesthetics. Functionality was assessed after I’d gotten to know how to use the program already, and is the overall determination of how well the program’s capability ended up satisfying what I wanted from it. Price was not a consideration at all.

To test them all consistently, I came up with a list of the same things to enter into all of them. Here it is in plaintext form:

FLIGHT
Print e-ticket
Pack bags

ART SUPPLIES
Exacto knife
Roller
Vellum
Sketchpad

VIDEO GAMES
Red Alert 3 – Soviet Campaign
Red Alert 3 – Allied Campaign
Red Alert 3 – Imperial Campaign
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
Bioshock
Left4Dead
Mirror’s Edge
Half-Life 2: Episode 1
Half-Life 2: Episode 2

LETTERS
Thank you note to Uncle Bill and Aunt Joan
Letter to Leila
Letter to Father Mike

UNSORTED
Send back Dr. Strangelove

As you can see, it’s actually four different lists with different kinds of tasks and items. Also, because I entered the same stuff into all of the programs, you can directly compare the screenshots since they convey the same information.

Without further adieu, here my conclusions!

OmniFocus

The biggest issue here is that it uses a specific terminology without explaining itself. The all-important Inbox is front and center, but what’s all this about “Contexts,” “Perspectives,” and the “Library?” That plus being daunted by all the example events basically paralyzed me.

I guess the developers knew that’s how people would react at first, which is why the first thing you’re supposed to do is watch this short video. Sure enough, it seemed simple afterward, and my paralysis was completely gone after I deleted all their example events.

Actually using the program was simple though. There are lots of advanced things users can do with this program that would probably require them to go through the documentation, but the most important stuff is actually very straightforward and easy. It looks nice when there aren’t a trillion things entered into it, and I only wish that it had a sexier icon. Oh, and what’s with not labelling its columns?

OmniFocus started out as a scary mess that I was sure I’d hate using, but ended up surprising me and becoming one of my favorites.

OmniFocus can be purchased from the Omni Group for $79.95.

Intuitiveness: 5/10
Visual Design: 8/10
Functionality: 10/10
Final Rating: 8/10

Things

There’s nothing scary about Things. The icon is polished and simple, just like the program it represents.

The moment you open it up, you can see how you’re supposed to use it. It doesn’t use any terminology that you wouldn’t, and everything you can click is immediately explained in a sentence or two in a way that doesn’t annoy you or require you to click more. Entering information was very easy and obvious.

With my first impression of it being so good, I was sure that this would be one of my favorites of the bunch. However, after I entered in the information, I realized that I didn’t actually like the way it did some things. I like to be able to look at all of my things at once, and while you can do this, it doesn’t use negative space very well in my opinion. It ended up bothering me more and more the longer I had it open. Things also isn’t very customizable in that you can’t rearrange elements or get rid of ones you don’t use, and the preferences it offers you are very limited.

Things can be purchased from Cultured Code for $49.95.

Intuitiveness: 9/10
Visual Design: 7/10
Functionality: 7/10
Final Opinion: 8/10

Process

I had a hiccup in the beginning when it didn’t save what I’d started to enter into it. Indeed, there is no general inbox, and since it allowed me to enter items and tasks right away, I figured that was good enough. It turned out that you have to make a project and then select it before you enter anything, or else it won’t save anything.

After realizing that though, it was simple enough to use. It also has some interesting features that let you link your tasks to files on your computer, web sites, and built-in notes.

Aside from the lack of an inbox, there were a few other frustrations though, like how I couldn’t have a due date without a start date or vice versa. But the biggest shortcoming of this program is that you can’t view all of your lists and upcoming tasks together. If I was a project manager and I was only managing completely separate groups of people, maybe that wouldn’t be a problem, but since I’d be using this program to manage events in my own life, I’d like to have the ability to see all of my upcoming tasks from all of my activities at the same time. Furthermore, the design of it was boring and made me feel like I was using a spreadsheet.

Process can be purchased from Jumsoft for $39.

Intuitiveness: 6/10
Visual Design: 5/10
Functionality: 6/10
Final Opinion: 6/10

The Hit List

Even though this program is still in beta testing, the attention to detail that has already been put into it already makes it stand out. It’s gorgeous and totally easy to use right from the start.

The keyboard shortcuts to the most important actions appear on buttons at the bottom, allowing me to get around and do things as efficiently as if I’d been using it for a long time. Very impressive. It also offers some unique features that I actually think I’ll use without feeling bloated. For example, I can have different lists open in different tabs at the same time. Nothing gimicky about that.

Entering in the information took noticably less time time then any of the other programs during my test, even after I added a few start and due dates.

The programs’s shortcomings are very few and were only encountered because I was specifically looking for them, and they they are obviously just part of it being in beta still. For example, the link to the FAQ web site that appears in the help menu doesn’t load anything yet since that web page hasn’t been made yet, so I ended up having to learn some of the hidden tricks from the user group.

The Hit List beta can be downloaded for free. The final version can be pre-ordered from The Potion Factory for $49.95, and after it’s official release it will be $69.95.

Intuitiveness: 9/10
Visual Design: 10/10
Functionality: 9/10
Final Opinion: 9/10

Inbox

This program is definitely designed for people who very, very strictly adhere to the Getting Things Done dogma. If that’s you, then you might appreciate how it ambitiously attempts to provide for all parts of the GTD program instead of just the to-do list part.

However, it makes no apologies for its utter lack of accomodation for anybody who isn’t totally on board, and even if you are, you might still be turned away by it’s complete lack of minimalism and simplicity.

It has some interesting ideas, like the iTunes-like timer that you have to see to believe, but I mostly felt like it was just trying to do too much. The interface feels chlostrophobic, and there’s a lot of questionable typographical decisions (such as making lots of things italicized) that make it even more frustrating to look at.

Still, it’s certainly innovative and deserving of attention, and since it’s still beta, there’s still time for the developers to make changes based on a heuristic evaluation before the final is released.

Inbox is available from Midnight Beep for $35.

Intuitiveness: 3/10
Visual Design: 4/10
Functionality: 6/10
Final Opinion: 4/10

Remember The Milk

This is a popular web-based application that uses Google Gears to make itself available for offline use. It’s straightforward, and the developers clearly kept it’s main purpose in mind.

However, you can definitely feel the limitations of being trapped in a browser when you compare it to some of the other programs. It doesn’t use folders, so you’ll have to make do with tags alone, and you can’t reorder very much of anything.

The lack of sophistication isn’t a problem for simple lists (like the kind that the name “Remember The Milk” makes you think of), but for anything more, it leaves a lot to be desired.

Remember The Milk is free, but you can upgrade to a Pro account for $25 for one year.

Intuitiveness: 7/10
Visual Design: 7/10
Functionality: 5/10
Final Opinion: 6/10

Listo

The only open source contender on this list, Listo accomplishes what it set out to do in a somewhat utilitarian way that makes it immediately obvious how to use the program. It doesn’t do anything groundbreaking, but it does cover all the necessary bases, and is certainly one of the more adapable programs.

It’s too spartan for me however, and I think that most people would feel the same way. For instance, when I look at my to-do lists, I appreciate seeing them more organized than just dumping them all together, which is what Listo does. The whole interface suffers from a wall-of-text feeling that holds it back. Also, it would be more useful if the numbers that appear next to the folders indicated upcoming events instead of total contents.

It would do the job fine, but the lack of polish makes it feel like another chore, and the lack of innovation hurts it too.

Listo is free, but plans for an optional syncing service are in the works.

Intuitiveness: 8/10
Visual Design: 4/10
Functionality: 6/10
Final Opinion: 6/10

Evernote

Evernote bills itself as the perfect note-taking tool that will never let you forget anything again. It integrates tightly with the web, but also has an attractive stand-alone program that can be used.

Unfortunately, the to-do list functionality seems like an afterthought, and basically consists of the ability to add clickable checkboxes to your notes. A clever user with a plaintext note program could just use symbols as ad hoc checkboxes and get the accomplish the same thing. But then again, Evernote is a note program, so perhaps it’s not even fair to expect more than that.

Evernote is a wonderful tool with all kinds of great features that makes it worth creating an account with (and sharp observers will see from that screenshot that I’ve started using it for lots of things), but when it comes to task management functionality (which is what it’s being graded on here), it just doesn’t really compare to the other tools.

Evernote is free, but premium accounts are available for $5 per month or $45 per year.

Intuitiveness: 8/10
Visual Design: 8/10
Functionality: 2/10
Final Opinion: 3/10

Final Rankings

Here they all are listed from from favorite to least favorite, along with the final numerical grade. Just to clear, even though some programs got the same numerical grade, the higher up on the list, the better. In other words, there are no ties even when the scores are the same, but there were close calls.

1. The Hit List – 9/10
2. OmniFocus – 8/10
3. Things – 8/10
4. Process – 6/10
5. Listo – 6/10
6. Remember The Milk – 6/10
7. Inbox – 4/10
8. Evernote – 3/10

Congratulations to the winners, and better luck next time to everybody else.

That’s not exactly what calendars were designed for though, and I don’t think I’d ever want to live according to a productivity dogma like some people choose to.

That said, there are programs that are designed specifically to make time management easier. They’re like self-organizing to-do lists, and the most important thing about them is that they have to save you more effort than you would spend without them, or else there’s no point. They must be mindlessly simple, trivially fast to use, and they have to actually be helpful even for the most casual users.

In short, they should enable people to be lazier without anybody else noticing. It’s as much about effort management as it is about time management if you ask me.

Since I enjoy experimenting with new programs, I’ve decided to demo several such programs. Here’s what I’ll be looking at:

1. OmniFocus (Mac, iPhone) – The old guard, beloved by many and famously used by lots of professionals.
2. Things (Mac, iPhone) – The most famous challenger to OmniFocus, which also has a huge following.
3. Process (Mac) – Another nice looking commercially developed task manager made famous by appearing on MacHeist. 
4. The Hit List (Mac) – This one is so new, it’s not even out yet technically. You’ll have to use the beta for now. But it’s starting to get some attention.
5. Inbox (Mac) – This product is clearly designed with the whole GTD method in mind, not just the to-do list part. And interestingly, it’s also clearly inspired a little bit by iTunes.
6. Remember The Milk (Windows, Mac, Linux, iPhone, Web) – It’s a web site, but it uses Google Gears to work by itself offline, and they also have an actual iPhone app.
7. Listo (Windows, Mac, Linux) – A portable free and open source endeavor by a small team of friends, with an iPhone app promised for the future.
8. Evernote (Windows, Mac, iPhone, Windows Mobile) – Not designed specifically for task management, but also can do much more and is very easy to use for that purpose anyway.

If there are any more worth considering, then let me know and I’ll add it. The requirements are that it has to work offline as a standalone program, and it has to be Mac friendly (or if it’s made for Unix or Linux, that’s okay as long as it’s available through Fink or easily compiled from source on a Mac).

I’ll let you know what I think after playing around with them. In the meantime, play around with them yourself, and then we’ll be able to compare our conclusions later.

Anyway, before it even arrived, I had spent almost a week just diving into various articles about Macs so that I would know all about the obscure, power-user programs that the savvy users had. I’m a geek like that. Then when the Mac actually arrived, I immediately grabbed all the programs that I had marked and began to test them and tweak them.

One of my friends also recently got a MacBook Pro, and he asked me to post up the results of my experimentation. So that’s what this blog post will be. You’ll notice that these are all free and most are open source too, so enjoy them without inhibition.

Web Browsers

• Firefox – This should be your primary browser. Safari is good, but I’ll go on the record as saying Firefox is superior. Not only does it have extensions and advanced options for power users to tweak, but if you frequently visit JavaScript sites like those that belong to Google, you’ll notice that it’s basically the fastest browser on those sites. The next version of Firefox is supposed to be even more crazy fast on those sites, too. Anyway, there’s a reason why Firefox is basically the premier example of why the open source development process produces the highest quality software. There are a few Apple zealots out there who will ostracize you for not using Cupertino’s products for everything possible, but for every one of these extra-extra-extra hardcore Apple fanboys, you can find a hundred Mozilla fanboys and open source fanboys to back you up. At the end of the day though, the non-fanboy will acknowledge that both browsers are very good.
• Opera – Another good free browser worth having. The thing you’ll notice about all the arguments and essays about web browsers on the web is that everybody basically agrees that Opera is impressive. In the Linux community, it seemed to me that it was pretty much everybody’s second favorite browser even though not too many people had it as their first favorite. In the Mac circles it seems similarly respected by all.
• Shiira – This is an interesting browser developed in Japan that uses the WebKit engine, just like Safari. Which makes sense since project’s ambition is basically to be a more awesome Safari. I say check it out. It’s different, but not in a frightening or confusing way.
• Flock – A Firefox-based browser with a lot of unique features specifically aimed at people who use social networks, blog, and that kind of thing.
• Camino – This is basically Firefox, but “more Mac integrated.” It’s nice, but it always seems to be a step behind the most current version of Firefox, and the truth is that with all the themes available for Firefox to make it look however you want, it’s not like you can’t make Firefox blend in, though Camino gets a few more points for integration since it actually uses your OS X icon libraries and whatnot. Nice to have. Notice how I’m a browser collector yet?

Email

• Thunderbird – This program and Mail are really almost exactly the same in terms of functionality and look-and-feel. Mozilla and Apple both obviously make outstandingly high quality stuff. The truth is that aside from just generally preferring open source software, I just always liked the Thunderbird icon a lot. There, I said it.

Instant Messaging and Chat Clients

• Adium – I’ve always loved Adium. It actually might be my favorite instant messaging client on any platform. It’s very customizable, so if you don’t go on the web site and check out some of the optional themes, then you’ll really be missing out. And admit it, the duck is adorable. The lack of audio and video chat is disappointing, but most of my communication is just regular instant messages…
• Skype – …and when I do want audio or video, the truth is that I’m probably using Skype anyway.
• Colloquy – After having used Konversation and Pidgin (depending on my mood) for connecting to IRC rooms when using Linux, I didn’t think I’d find anything I liked more for the job. Needless to say, I think that Colloquy might be my new favorite. I was not expecting a Mac IRC client to do that since I just don’t really think of Mac users as being IRC people, but there you go.

Office Suite and Text Editors

• OpenOffice – Your fully featured suite for the most comfortable essay writing experience. If Microsoft Office was free, I’d still opt for OpenOffice.
• Smultron – Your zippy, lite, speedy text editor. There were actually plenty of featherweight editors for Mac, but this was my favorite. And yes, it’s better than Text Edit in every way (not that Text Edit is particularly bad or anything).
• Bean – Your middleweight text editor. Nice to have, although I don’t actually use it very much to be honest. I usually use OpenOffice or Smultron. I don’t plan on uninstalling it though, and you might like it a lot. It has a rather enthusiastic niche community.

Quick Flowcharts and Brainstorming

• XMind – I started using these kinds of programs to quickly and easily make site maps, but there is a growing number of people out there who use these “mind-mapping” programs to seemingly turn every aspect of their life into an easy to read flowchart. So far, XMind is my favorite because I found I could do a bunch of cool things to change the way flowcharts look without having to actually study how to use the program. The whole point of this kind of program is basically to let convey information to others (or organize yourself) with the least amount of effort, after all.
• FreeMind – Another good, free mind-mapping program. I found it to be just a little bit less intuitive and pretty than XMind, but I think it actually has a larger and more established community. Also, it’s worth pointing out that there is only one version of Freemind with all the features enabled, as opposed to XMind, which has a “Pro” version that gives you functionality that you almost certainly weren’t looking for in a mind-mapper anyway. Anyway, I say grab FreeMind just to have it around.

Audio Players

• Cog – Alright, look. The fact of the matter is that iTunes is bloated and severely lacking in features. It’s obviously the most common player and has its admirable qualities, the truth is that elitist audiophile communities and mainstream technology journals alike agree that it’s not hard to do a lot better. The biggest thing that determines audio quality will be the format your music is saved in and the speakers or headphones you listen on. Obviously Cog won’t be able to do anything about your hardware, but it does support much better formats than the severely limited iTunes. My favorite lossless audio format is FLAC, so if you can, you should try importing from the CD directly into that format and see if you don’t notice a difference yourself. If you don’t have the hard disk space for lossless audio, then try Ogg Vorbis, or if you want to make sure it’ll play on any device or in any program, use the LAME encoder to make high quality MP3 files.
• Songbird – If you felt like the interface to Cog was a little too utilitarian, then Songbird might be for you. It also supports a wide variety of formats and offers a lot of cool features. And since the designers were inspired by the interfaces of Firefox and iTunes, you’ll probably feel pretty comfortable with it right from the start. The release candidate for the milestone 1.0 release was recently made available, so if you download it now, then be sure to grab that version instead of the silly 0.7 beta. Otherwise, just wait a little bit longer for the final version.
• Amarok – This is the king of all music players and I’m not just saying that (go ahead and find a negative review, I dare you), but right now it’s Linux only. A Mac version is coming very soon though, so I felt I should definitely include it on this list. You can get an unsupported testing version for Mac going right now if you can’t wait.

Video Players

• Perian Quicktime Plugin – This is a very easily installed plugin for the Quicktime player that allows it to play more video formats, and even supports SSA/ASS subtitles (which look amazing enough that I’m actually bothering to mention them). Grab it.
• MPlayer – This is a very, very efficient video player that deserves all the adoration it gets from the demanding ubergeek crowd. If you’re watching a video and it starts to get choppy, open it up in MPlayer and watch as it handles it better. And yes, it supports tons of formats.
• VLC Media Player – I have a lot of respect for VLC. It can play back lots of formats, has a very active developer community, and is praised by all the mainstream technology journals. However, if you really delve into the movie and anime communities, you might notice that the patriarchs and matriarchs of those communities actually look down on it a little. My conclusion is that it performs well and is worth having.

BitTorrent Clients

• Transmission – If you’re using something other than torrents for your peer-2-peer needs, then you’re silly. Anyway, Transmission is an attractive and efficient client with very healthy community and some features that I’ve come to demand, like a built-in automatically updating IP blocklist and the ability to ignore unencrypted peers. No matter what BitTorrent client you use, don’t forget to tell it to use a nice, high port number (like 34567).
• μTorrent – The Mac version of this program isn’t actually out yet, but it should be soon, so I’ll provide a link to where you’ll be able to get it (and where you can sign up to be notified when it is, if you want). But when it is, there’s a very good chance I’ll be switching to it. I actually have the privileged of being able to say that I knew one of the lead developers before μTorrent got big, and he’s actually the guy that taught me pretty much everything I know about tweaking torrent client settings for maximum performance.

File Transfer and Server Information Management Tools

• Cyberduck – Easy, friendly, good. A pleasure to use.
• FireFTP – Although I’ve come to prefer Cyberduck, this extension for Firefox is good to know about.
• Serverskine – This is not actually for connecting to servers. Instead, it’s for storing information about different servers, like usernames, passwords, port numbers, and so forth. You can see how potentially great this might be for web designers with lots of clients.

Utilities and Tools

• The Unarchiver – Mac OS X and Windows both come with very basic but functional compression and decompression tools built in. However, they leave a lot of cool features to be desired that once you start using, you won’t remember how you managed before. The Unarchiver is a must-have for any savvy Mac user.
• Temperature Monitor Widget – It’s always good to have an easily accessible temperature monitor. Hardware problems and instability almost always seem to be the result of high temperatures in my experience, so rather than wait for your computer to freeze or, worse, the hardware to get fried,having this little dashboard widget will let you know what’s going on. After you’ve familiarized yourself with the computer’s temperature when things are good, you’ll have something to turn to if things go wrong to help you find out of it’s a hardware or software problem. Note that you should grab the actual Temperature Monitor program too.
• OnyX – Alright, my honest feeling is that Macs really don’t need tweaking. But I’m a geek, and I’m compelled to optimize and intelligently customize whenever I can, even if the benefits are relatively tiny.
• TinkerTool – More hidden options for you to fiddle with, if you have the same compulsions as me.

Random Goodies

• Cappuccino – This is one of the most wonderful little things you can get for your menu bar. You click it, and your screen won’t dim or turn off. Click it again, and your computer will go back to automatically applying power saving modes when you don’t use your mouse or keyboard for a while. This is great for when you’re watching videos online.
• Dropbox – There is a reason why so many people suddenly seemed to go crazy about this. What it does is make a folder on your computer that is automatically synced with their servers. You can install it on a bunch of computers (Mac, Windows, and Linux!) and it’ll work to keep them all synchronized without you having to do anything at all. You can also access the files in it from their web site, and selectively make some files public if you want. Furthermore, it has automatic version control, which means that you can go back and look at old versions of files and restore them if you need to. It’s just a great program. Really, check it out. If you need an invite, just ask me.
• Last.fm – Like music? Then you should be using Last.fm. It actually can integrate into most audio players (many players even have it built in) to automatically upload to your profile what you’re listening to. Very cool and fun, especially if you’ve got friends that use it to since it’s always interesting to look at what they’re listening to. If you sign up, be sure to add me to your friend list. My username is “square_bottle”.
• AppFresh – I was spoiled by Linux’s package managers. The ability to update every single thing on my computer with a single click (or command), from the operating system itself to the drivers to the programs I’ve installed, is awesome. AppFresh sort of attempts to bring this functionality to Macs. It’s still in beta and isn’t perfect though.
• HandBrake – One of the most famous and friendly of all the DVD rippers. I don’t really backup DVDs myself to be honest, but I figure it’s still nice to have.
• Burn – A good CD and DVD burner. Disk Utility does a fine job of burning ISO files, but Burn has more features and is a bit friendlier to use. It’s most often recommended to people for how easily it can turn your video files into DVDs that will actually play in your DVD player, but it’s good for all kinds of burning, really.
• TrueCrypt – Rather than enable the FileVault feature of your Mac and thus sacrifice considerable performance, use TrueCrypt to protect your privacy. Not only do you not take the speed hit, but it’s much stronger encryption, and it’s open source (so you don’t have to worry about backdoors). If you have clients that you manage on your computer but don’t use any encryption at all, then not only are you kind of a dumb/naive/inconsiderate jerk, but you’re also technically breaking the law most likely.
• KisMAC – This is an advanced tool for sniffing out wireless networks and getting information on them, even when those wireless networks are set up to be invisible (you’ll have to tell it to use your wireless card in passive mode though). It’s based on the Linux tool Kismet, but I dare say that KisMAC is actually more easy to use. Perhaps a little too easy, given what this type of program is designed to do. It will even crack the passwords for networks if you tell it to do so with just a click. Be responsible and have fun with this, and if you can’t figure out how to use it or how to read the manual to learn, then you shouldn’t be using it. Seriously, when it comes to penetration testing tools, I don’t think it gets easier.
• PeerGuardian – In short, this is a specialized mini-firewall. More precisely, it’s an IP blocklist. It’s very well maintained, and once you install it, you can just leave it alone and it’ll update the lists of evil IP addresses all on its own. It has a couple different lists that it works with too, so if you want you can have it only block nosy anti-P2P groups, or you can have it also block known ads/spyware/etc. There are a couple other lists of bad IPs, and enabling and disabling particular lists is as easy as checking a box. I found the webspider and bots list to interfere with Thunderbird’s ability to check Gmail, so I have that one off, for example. And of course, it’s also easy to enable and disable the whole thing if you want.
• Tor and Vidalia – You know when you’re watching any movie with hackers how there’s always a scene that shows somebody trying to trace somebody else, and you see the little line go from city to city on a map of the world since the person was connecting through a series of random international proxies instead of a direct connection? That’s basically what Tor is, only Tor is actually does more. Vidalia is just the name of an interface that makes controlling Tor really easy, and it’s included in the bundle when you download it, along with an extension for Firefox that puts a little on/off button in the bottom corner so that you don’t even need to set up Firefox to use it (though you’ll still need to start up Tor or Vidalia in the background for the button to work). It all works very well and doesn’t really even require brains to use, but expect any activity you route through Tor to be slower.

Honorable Mentions

• NeoOffice – Sort of like how Camino just takes Firefox and integrates it more by having it use your system’s icon and widget libraries, NeoOffice is a native port of OpenOffice. And as with Camino, it always seems to be a step behind the most current OpenOffice. I say just use OpenOffice, but I figured I’d include it on my list for you.
• Quicksilver – Alright, look. I installed this because so many power users swear by it. Maybe it’ll grow on me. It’s not that I dislike it, but rather that I feel like Spotlight already does exactly what it does, and less obtrusively too (not that Quicksilver is exactly the most obtrusive program as it is). Yeah, Quicksilver can definitely do more advanced things, but all I wanted was something that would let me type the name of a program and hit enter to launch it.
• Xee – This is a fast, lightweight picture viewer. Preview really does work very well though, so it goes unused.
• TextWrangler – It’s a lightweight text editor. Lots of people like it, and it’s nice and all. But I decided I liked Smultron.
• WikiNotes – Another lightweight text editor. This one is remarkable because it uses wiki formatting, so if you use wikis a lot then maybe you’ll love it.
• Skim – Really, I feel that Preview does a wonderful job dealing with PDFs, but Skim is nice to have too since it has more features. It’s designed to let you take notes while looking at PDFs mostly.
• MacLibre – I already mentioned how I was spoiled by the package managers of Linux, but I only talked about how great they are for updating. Obviously, they’re also for easily installing programs in the first place (and in fact are the best, easiest way to install programs on any platform). MacLibre brings this concept to the Mac. The only thing is that it doesn’t seem to be super actively maintained.

Recommended Reading

• A Few Handy, Hidden OS X Shortucts – There are plenty of shortcut cheat sheets out there, but they all seem to just list the same obvious shortcuts that you already knew. You know, the ones where you just substitute the CTRL key when on Windows for the Command key on the Mac. This very short list by LifeHacker has some handy shortcuts that should be mentioned on the other lists, but aren’t.
• 5 Most Useful Terminal Commands – These are nifty and all, but I’m mostly putting this on here in the hope that it’ll get you to open up the terminal. Us Linux folk are always talking about how easy the command line is, and that’s exactly what the terminal is. No, seriously. It’s the same thing. We call it a terminal too, and it uses the same console-based programs and everything. The point is that when we say there’s really nothing to be afraid of and that it can actually do a lot of things faster and easier, you should listen to us instead of dismissising us as being hopelessly nerdy and clueless. Of course, you can do more with a terminal on a Linux system, so you probably won’t use it very often on a Mac, but it’s there for you to see and fiddle with!
• 22 Useful Lists of Mac Applications – Just in case you want to experiment with even more programs than I’ve recommended, here you go! I’m not just linking you to a single other list here, people. This is a list of lists, so you should definitely be able to satisfy any lingering needs to really explore what’s available for you to play with.
• Triple Booting Your Mac The Right Way – Anymore, Linux is the easiest operating system to install of all (seriously). However, I will grant that it’s a little bit different and thus slightly harder than normal to do on a Mac. You can just use Boot Camp to install it super easily if you want instead of Windows, but every time you turn on your computer the little button will say Windows since that what Apple thinks you’re using Boot Camp for. And what if you want to have Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux? Well, you could use Boot Camp again and just have the Windows button go to a second boot loader to let you choose between Windows and Linux, but that’s lame. So here’s a guide on setting it up so that your computer will present you with the options that actually say Mac, Windows, and PC. And it has pretty icons to go with them, too. That’s important, right? Right?

If you’ve got any other programs that you think I might like to see, then by all means, please do leave a comment with a link to it for me!

Anybody who knows me knows that I love technology though. I think that the current electronic systems are terrible (enough that I voted early as a permanent mail ballot voter), but I also think that they offer the potential of having elections that are more fair and verifiable than old fashioned hand-counting. Here are my ideas for how to do it.

1. Do not have any external ports (like USB, firewire, and memory card slots) on the machine, and make sure that all internal ports and necessary cables are physicially soldered to prevent any tampering. Just to be safe, also do not allow people to bring memory cards of any kind into the voting booth.
2. Give voters a paper card with the source code for the voting software printed on it. Then, when users approach the voting machine, have the computer display the source code for the program it is running. Voters will be able to hold the card up next to the machine and compare to make sure it’s the same, even though most people won’t know what the programming means.
3. Also, put a unique, randomly generated identification number on the card. After voting is done, allow them to log on to a web site, enter that number, and see whether or not their vote was counted and what it was recorded as.
4. Do not have the machines connect to any other machines outside the building they are in. As an added level of safety, incorporate modern, strong encryption into the machines.
5. Print a paper ballot receipt, just like ATM’s do, and have poll stations collect these printed ballots. Let the computers count the votes for the first tally. Then, if a candidate challenges the results, use the printed ballots that you collected.
6. Do not store votes on the voting machine itself, even temporarily. Have the voting machines connected to multiple tabulation machines, which will each store redundant copies of data.
7. Immediately prior to voting and again the very minute voting ends, allow people from the major parties as well as some independent non-partisan watchdog groups to examine some of the voting machines and some of the tabulation machines. Allow people to watch (from behind a line or something, sort of like how people are allowed to come and watch court rooms), and also film it and make the footage available.

Does anybody else have any ideas to make it harder to corrupt electronic voting?

The Department of Homeland Security has expressed great interest in making everyone that wants to get on an airplane wear a special bracelet that can be used to shock you so badly that you won’t be able to move for several minutes per shocking. It also features a built in GPS, so they can monitor you and shock you from anywhere. It will have all your personal information stored in it, and can be used for “interrogation purposes” as well.

Expressing interest isn’t the same as seeking implementation, but with stuff like this combined with President Bush pardoning himself against potential war crimes, I’d almost bet that you thought about George Orwell before I even mentioned him in this sentence.

We need January. Immediately.

Also, you might want to bookmark it so that you can have something on hand to show people that ask you how they should secure thier computers, or when they ask for recommendations on the first things they should install when they buy a new computer, or whatever. It’s nice to be able to just have one thing to link them to so that they can help themselves.

Sure, I’m partial to my own article, heh. But I really do hope that you find it helpful whether you use it yourself or save it to give to others.

In particular, I’ve put Windows back on my machines for Civilization 4 and its expansion packs, but I’ve also got a copy of Half Life 2: Episode One, and I may get the Orange Box for PC as well. All of this is done through Steam, which is a pay-once-per-title-forever package manager, and this is nice since I can put all my Steam games on all my machines very easily. Apparently Steam is very popular in the Windows gaming crowd, which is kind of amusing to me since I can’t help but wonder how many of its users know that the idea behind it is pretty directly inspired by the way that most people choose to get software on Linux.

Anyway, it’s interesting. I’m still using Linux most of the time, but when I am logged on to Windows, it seems a little bit quicker than I remember it. Of course, this is probably mostly because it’s such a minimal configuration (it’s pretty much just Steam installed and nothing else). But hey, I’ll give credit where I think it’s due. I also think that the updates and bugfixes they’ve released in the nearly two years have helped as well. And I noticed that now, you only need to download an update and restart to download the validator and restart to download the updates and restart, which is an improvement in the sanity department (it used to be that the chain went on even longer, hehe).

A few people have asked me why I didn’t just use Wine, a free library that allows Unix users to natively run Windows APIs, or one of the commercial spinoffs of Wine, like Cedega or CrossOver. These are great projects and often work well for regular applications, but the fact of the matter is that they aren’t perfect. Wine always seems to be several steps behind the current generation of Windows software when it comes to support and is kind of a hassle to use. Cedega and CrossOver are really good at staying current, but they do cost money (which is questionably legitimate since they’re derivatives of Wine, which is published under the GNU license), and since I’m a miser and have enough Windows discs to legally install on my machines, that was the way to go for me.

Again though, I still use Linux almost all the time because it really is faster, prettier, and way more full-featured. I don’t know that I’ll ever be anything more than a casual gamer, but if I ever do take it to the next level, I’m pretty sure that I’d still use Linux for everything else because frankly, I’m spoiled now. I only wish that most of my friends could play with Linux for a while and see what the big deal is. Good thing I’ve got plenty of Ubuntu discs to give out, if they ever ask.

Update: Well, it’s back to being slow and kludgy compared to Linux. Still not as bad as it could be, but certainly noticeable. Naturally.

The first case accuses the Oxygen Project, which is associated with KDE, of not being open because two of their developers complained in their blog about some guy publishing their icons before them. The second case is about the GIMP, which is sorta-kinda associated with Gnome, not being open because they apparently told somebody that they didn’t have any spots on the team available for them.

With the KDE team, I don’t actually see the issue. They did not demand that it be taken down. They simply pointed out that in a more decent world, they’d be the ones who would get to release first, and that it was kind of an asshole move to take away the first final publication privilege. No actual demand though. See, just because you can take advantage of something, doesn’t mean you aren’t being annoying if you do. The KDE team didn’t actually do anything but say that they thought it was annoying. There is no clause in the GPL or CC license that says they can’t post to their blog when people do annoying things, even if those annoying things happen to be license compliant.

As for the GIMP thing, we’d definitely need more information. No FOSS project that I’m aware of gives final commit abilities to anybody that asks, not even Kernel.org, which is the most famous. However, most of the better ones will still definitely allow people who give a contribution to be on the team, most likely with their own separate SVN or CVS branch or something until they earn commit access to the big thing (notice all the small fish on Kernel.org). So if the guy was flat out turned away and told that they didn’t have room for him as a contributor, then that’s no good. But if they merely didn’t give him commit access, or if he didn’t actually contribute anything but still wanted his own SVN or CVS or whatever branch, that’s also understandable. The article really should have told us exactly what the person offered those GIMP developers.