Eric Mills

• installing latest boxee release, really want to learn its API http://developer.boxee.tv/ #
• wishlist: button to easily add a Google search result to my to do list #
• just witnessed the most depressing thing: “unemployment camp” at the local coffeehouse. #
• @sethladd: did you ever get the twitter search bar on your twitter page? #

Your first stop should be open source mac, where you can load up on the essentials. I’d choose Firefox over Camino, because even though Camino is “more native” there isn’t a noticable speed increase or any shinier chrome. The next three on the open source page, Miro, Adium, are a must, and I find that Mac’s built-in Spotlight works well enough as an application launcher that I don’t need Quicksilver (although 99% of mac users swear by it). Add Handbrake, Burn, and Audacity and you can do just about anything.

Next up, I’d skip all the open source html editors, and get yourself a copy of Adobe CS3 or 4. To help with this, you can look for torrents in all the usual places, and a little app called iserialreader will assist in your serial activation. If you go this route for adobe or any other software, you’ll want little snitch, which is essentially an outbound firewall or whatever the proper term for such a thing is. Get version 2.0 or 2.0.1 because the newer version has a nagging feature. Use serials from iserialreader.

Because I’m the kind of guy who likes to see what’s going on underneath the hood, I install iStats from iSlayer, and activate the cpu, memory, and network montior in my menu bar (kind of like in Linux distros). This is a shot of what it looks like. That’s really it, because OSx is pretty cool.

Here’s the deal, I was at version 2,7,0 and wanted to upgrade to 2,7,1 but the auto update within Wordpress kept failing to connect, and once I finally logged in to Network Solutions account manager, and sorted through their pile of unorganized crap to find their upgrade option, there was no active link to upgrade because apparently they don’t support incremental upgrades.

Here’s what worked: I reset the file permission in the FTP manager and then Wordpress was able to upgrade automatically from within the site’s account settings (not Network Solutions settings). Lame.

Yay!

After a recent fiasco, the Rose site appears to be up and running again.

Fried Noodles (Not noodle soup)

In the microwave: cook just the noodles for 2-3 minutes. Let soak for another 2-3.

In the wok, with peanut oil, fry 1/8 white onion and 1/4 red pepper on med high until onion starts to brown slightly. Kill heat, toss in some freshly chopped basil or cilantro. (Basil). And, 2 pinches of whatever Ramen packet you have near you.

Drain & Rinse noodles. Crank heat to high, add noodles, more peanut oil, and 2 more pinches of ramen flavoring. Don’t wait, stir, crack one egg over wok mixture, stir, etc., kill heat. While killing heat add 2 small dashes of soy sauce.

Yum

Have been waiting for a while to export and import filters in Gmail. Hopefully it will be available for Google Apps users. We’ll see.

UPDATE: it works — don’t forget to hit “Create Filters” at the bottom of the uploaded filter list to “save” your imported filters into a new account.

Unexpected bonus: it creates new labels for you if your filters have labels associated with them. Nice.