A few of my favorite things today:
- jEdit: I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. If you can’t afford BBEdit, use jEdit. It’s open source, has a ton of plug-ins, does a great job with all kinds of code (works really well with AOLserver’s ADP’s even), automatically closes HTML tags for you, can be trained and tweaked beyond all recognition and just plain works in every platform I’ve tried it on so far (RedHat 8, OS X, Windows XP). It supports anti-aliased text even, so I can edit in the sublime Lucida Grande and have it look mah-vel-ous.
- TypePad: I love some of the new features (which I’m not going to tell you about, because I agreed not to), especially the mobile stuff. I may stick around after the beta just for that (and then find a way to include them on this site). The photo album design is very nice (and very configurable)
- My Color Sidekick: I’ve had it for a little over a week now, and I love it. It’s easy to use. The controls and interface are very well designed and easy to master. The keystroke shortcuts are easy to pick up and remember, and the camera is just fun. AIM is very nice, and the e-mail’s solid (I love being able to get new comments on my site on my handheld). The auto-correction in typing is great (auto-capitalizes lone i’s, and fixes a lot of contractions so you don’t really need to shift or alt as much as I did on my old pager). The only problem so far is the vibration when muted isn’t very strong. With the case that came with it clipped to my belt, I can barely feel it. If I’m driving or watching a movie, I don’t even notice it.
- AOLserver: So flexible. It really is the contortionist of webservers. Yes, Tcl’s a little weird and can be hard to pick up, but once you’ve got it, you can do pretty much anything with it. Give me AOLserver and PostreSQL, and I can build almost anything. That’s not braggin’ if it’s the truth, baby.
- The Wire: This show gets better and better. It’s the best cop show since Homicide, and they’ve got the time and freedom to do the stories with the depth and power they could never do on network TV. If you have HBO and haven’t been watching it, don’t start. Wait until HBO replays the whole series later in the year (they always do it, so I’m assuming they’ll do it again). It’s too far along to try to catch up now.
There are more, but being an instant internet celebrity keeps me really busy. For those of you who are new here – that was a joke.