That being said, not everything is hearts and flowers, but the negatives are third-party incompatibilities and not deal-breakers.

• Line 6’s most awesome Pod Farm AudioUnit plug-in isn’t yet compatible. I’m back to using real mics and amps for now, but as most of my work is mixing/sequencing right now I’ve got some time to spare for this to resolve.
• Xmarks bookmark sync (reasonably indispensible, but I know it’ll get ported quickly).
• When creating a new event in iCal using the Exchange integration, it doesn’t always invite the room I’ve specified unless I drag the event to a new time, and then back to the correct one. Weird!

All things told- still two thumbs up!

[From Best Places to Meet a Guy - Apple Store - Cosmopolitan.com]

And me thinking that Cosmo was completely worthless… sheesh.

However, it’s always nice to see a first-hand account from a former Windows user who took the plunge and kept an open mind about the experience. Developer Derrick Grigg recently made the switch, and his reaction certainly put a smile on my face as someone who’s been using Windows since 3.1/WFW and fighting it all along myself (right up to Vista- which I found a much prettier, yet reasonably non-essential upgrade from XP).

Have you recently tried a Mac again after a long hiatus? If so, whaddaya think? Heck, even I don’t care for the Mac vs. PC commercials, but if Derrick can change his mind there may be more to ‘em than I’d have given Apple credit for. May have to watch them all again, in fact.

So although I could be back in brushed metal by end of this week/beginning of next, right now I’m stuck with a hooptilicious ThinkPad running Vista. Which has to be the most disappointing part of the whole process- there were no loaner Macs to spare, just a bunch ‘o frankenhooptiesque PC towers – and this hulking black brick of a laptop. Now I don’t mind using Windows here and again in a nice contained box on my Mac screen, but being stuck with a Windows machine for the better part of a day now- quite frankly I can’t remember why I ever put up with it to begin with. I’ve never missed my Mac more, mainly cause on that platform shit just works. And smoothly. With Windows, no matter how skilled I am (and I do know my shit here) it always seems I’m struggling between what I want to do, and the fucked-up process one has to follow to make it so.

I just don’t understand why so many people put up with such a substandard user experience. Seriously. I think I’ve only marginally accepted Windows this long because it wasn’t my primary platform- there was always a better option. But for now it’s like I’ve been downgraded from a Ferrari to some Yugo-based, cut-rate monstrosity. I’m just going to try and think positively, and take this PC-only experience as a learning experience or character-building exercise- cause it sure isn’t fun. Ugh.

Widgets and code snippets like this aren’t quite breaking news, but given all the chatter recently about what Apple ISN’T doing with Flash today (most notably the iPhone, of course), I found this a rather interesting example of some cool things Apple IS doing with Flash.

I have no plans to move to the Mac platform for my personal use. That said, I have noticed that I’ve been recommending the machine to friends and neighbors when they want to know what kind of system they should buy.

I can see why the Mac is gaining market share, because the rationale for using one is simple. Do you want to deal with the agony of antivirus, firewall, antispyware, and other touchy software subsystems, many of which do not work well? Or do you want to boot Microsoft Word and write a document and be done with it?

Whoa. I’m stunned. Where’s the Mac-hatin’ Dvorak of old?

I tend to agree with Fake Steve in his post here – for a long time I’ve used the Dvorak Apple-bashings as a contrarian indicator – a false negative, so to speak – and considered anything he bashed as something I’d likely love. Now I’m all torn. What’s a Mac lover to do if all the Apple haters are drying up one-by-one?

• Hit the Quicksilver key combo (I use ctrl-space)
• Hit the . (period) key to go into text-entry mode
• Type your message… for example, “Stand up and stretch”.
• Hit tab, then ctrl-return to ‘freeze’ the message.
• Start typing ‘Run after Delay…’ (after the first 4-5 letters it should show up in the lower QS pane).
• Once Run after Delay is shown, hit tab (a third ‘lower pane’ in QS should now appear).
• Type the time interval. (10m = 10 minutes, 2h = 2 hours, 30s = 30 seconds, you get the picture)

Now, after the time interval has elapsed, you’ll get a big full-screen message reminding yourself of whatever it was you needed to do. It may seem like a lot of keystrokes, but it’s actually VERY fast once you get used to, and incredibly handy for setting a regular stretch/exercise if you spend a lot of time at the keyboard, or just reminding yourself of random daily tasks lest you lose track of time. I regularly use this trick as a ’surf timer’, to limit my random web surfing to a specific timespan, but the more you get used to it the more uses you’ll find for it. I’ve been using it a lot lately for ‘check on the baby’ reminders, for what it’s worth.

Enjoy, and happy Quicksilvering!

First iTunes itself started automatically downloading album cover art, and then I discovered the wonders of Quicksilver and it’s wonderful iTunes triggers. Sure, you always did both for me, but it was increasingly obvious that software was growing around us. And past our limitations. Heck, I tried to look forward to your big makeover and relaunch, but with all those ‘limited feature’ betas and no real facts as to what that makeover was going to entail, I couldn’t get on board. I wish I could have been more unconditionally supportive of your quest for personal growth- and for that I truly apologize. But I honestly wasn’t sure where we were headed.

To be fair- you really put your best foot forward with our relationship. I was ecstatic when you started to support Last.fm scrobbling – even though I couldn’t tag/love/suggest my songs on Last.fm through your sexy interface, getting my recent tracks updated was enough to keep me around for a while. God knows that horrid Last.fm application kept trying to flirt with me incessantly, but we both know it could never be what you were to me and my iTunes library.

But were I to choose exactly what was the final straw for me, it would have to be our conflicting real estate interests. It’s always a shame when such a rich relationship breaks down over property, isn’t it? But you just expected too much of my menubar for buttons I was rapidly growing out of. At the end, your faithful hotkeys were the primary way we interacted, and with Quicksilver’s triggers handy and capable of shouldering the load, I had to do some long and hard soul-searching as to whether or not we were still right for one another. And given that Last.fm integration was the only need that Quicksilver couldn’t cover, I decided to leave you in favor of Quicksilver and Audioscrobbler alone, and re-embrace the social features of Last.fm that you never really seemed interested in implementing.

I’ll always remember our relationship fondly, and speak highly of you, but as of today- it’s over. I’m sure you’ll find new loves in the future, but for now we’re just going to have to go our separate ways. This really is the best move for both of us, and I sincerely hope we can stay friends.

Best of luck… I’ll always remember the good times.