Green Like Gitgan

I have a buddy that is purchasing his first Mac this weekend and it got me thinking about the kinds of applications that I recommend should be on his machine in order to have a smooth switch and get the most out of his new Mac. Here are a few apps that always find a home on every Macintosh I work on:

Quicksilver – absolutely essential. Once you learn to use Quicksilver to launch your apps and you’ll never dig through the Applications folder in the finder again. And that’s just the beginning.  Find out more about how to use Quicksilver by watching Episode12 or Episode 17 of Macbreak.

Flip4mac – Nobody that owns a Mac really wants anything that has anything to do with Microsoft on their machine.  Thankfully this app isn’t made by the boys in Redmond so it works really well.  This app makes QuickTime work with Windows Media files – a video format which is used by many, many Web sites.

Perian – the Swiss Army Knife for QuickTime – meaning it’ll make QuickTime play files that it normally wouldn’t, like FLV.  What this means is that you can download flash videos from Google Video & YouTube and actually be able to use them almost anywhere you can use QuickTime.

Firefox – Safari is a great, fast browser, but Firefox needs to be on your Mac.  I use it as my everyday browser and with plugins for web development, del.icio.us bookmarks and ad blockers it makes browsing productive.

Cyberduck – I know a lot of Mac users love Panic’s Transmit application for FTP but I’m a big fan of Cyberduck.  It works consistently and plays really nice with many of the other apps I use day-to-day.

Growl – Growl is a system notification app. It alerts you to various events that are happening on your machine.  I use it to alert me to new mail and inform me of ftp upload completion (it plays really nice with Cyberduck, Mail.app, Adium, iPhoto (w/FlickrExport) and NetNewsWire

NetNewsWire – NetNewsWire is an awesome RSS reader. I use it to keep up on the news sites and blogs I read. It uses NewsGator to sync what I have and have not read between the various machines I use.

SuperDuper! – SuperDuper! is a painless backup & recovery software.  During the mess that was the upgrade to OS X 10.5 I used SuperDuper to backup and restore my system more times than I wish to remember.  It creates a disk image that  is bootable from any firewire drive.  It’s basic functions are free but it’s well worth the money for the extended functionality.

Handbrake – A DVD, ahem, backup tool. You know, for all those DVD’s you have that you’d like to have digital copies of so you can, um, watch them on your computer, without actually having to use the discs.  It’s really great if you have an AppleTV, like me.

Adium – Adium is a multi-protocol chat client- meaning it works with AIM, Google Talk & Yahoo! and many more. It can be buggy, but it’s great for having one place to chat with everyone.

Widgets

Technically these aren’t really applications, maybe web apps, but most are just graphics with javascript, HTML and CSS.  I don’t use them a ton but these two have found a special place on my Macs.

• Delivery Status Widget – works with all kinds of shippers and notifies you of updates via Growl
• Jared: The Butcher of Song – every once in a while you need to be serenaded – this is not for those times.

What about you?

Do you have any apps that are must haves on all your Macs? Have a widget you can’t live without? Drop me a comment and let me know.

Design & Coding Rap “Make it easy for the spiders to crawl what you provide – Remove font type, font color, font size.”

Zombo.com – turn up your speakers and realize that you can do anything.

Muxtape.com – upload and share music with your friends. I did – check it out at gitgan.muxtape.com Drop me a comment if you make one.

Misheard Creedence Clearwater Revival Lyrics – you’ll hear the words on screen. When its over sew the sea.

Geni – an awesome way to build your family tree. Simple, easy, clean. Try it!

Monoprice.com – need HDMI cables? Please don’t ever buy cables from a big box store – they’re overpriced and the sales people will try to sell you Monster cables which aren’t any better than the one’s you can get from Monoprice.com. I got my cables for $4.73 and picked up a Wii Component Cable for under 5 Bucks! Beat that BestBuy.

Ernest Hemingway once bet his friends $10 that he could write a novel in 6 words. He wrote:

For sale: Baby shoes, Never worn.

His friends paid up.

Jeff Kirk recently challenged me to write a memoir in 6 words – no $10 though. I couldn’t settle on one so I did two. Six words each, here they are:

Here are some others I thought of but didn’t quite make the cut. Obviously with 6 words I wasn’t trying to get too deep.

A giant among short-statured men.

He figured it out—well—eventually

Here are a few from wired magazine. Having completed my memoir, per the meme – I must now name 5 others that I’d like to see:

1. My wife, Kirsten
2. Keith Haynik
   
3. Andy Pull
   
4. Gary Underwood
5. Jeremy Bear

Okay – so if you read my post from last week about my NCAA bracket picks you saw that it generated a bit more interest than I ever thought it would. If you haven’t read it – you can see it below or click here to view it on my espn.com blog. Well over the weekend a post that I wrote on espn.com was promoted to the front page of the site. I of course didn’t actually get to see it there but when I logged in to check my email on Monday morning I saw this:

So I figured something must have happened. When I logged in and checked my messages on ESPN.com I saw that the same editor that considered promoting my 1st entry to the front page of ESPN had posted this message

From: MattFriedrichs
Sent: 03/30/2008 at 1:19 PM
Subject: 64, 32 blog

Message: Nice work. It will be featured on the front of ESPN.com until about 2:20 p.m. ET.

The post that follows is what made it to the front page of ESPN.com for about an hour on Sunday March 30th. Click title in bold to link to the entry and comments at ESPN.com

32 & 64 to Boycott 2009 NCAA Tournament – want “Special Names”

Manhattan, New York, NY — Having recently completed their portion of this years Men’s NCAA Tournament the numbers 32 & 64 called a joint press conference this morning @ 10:30, on Sesame Street next to Mr. Hooper’s store announcing their intention to boycott the 2009 tournament season if they were not given “special names” like their counterparts 16, 8 & 4.

Their spokesman, Count Von Count stated that “If the NCAA doesn’t develop nicknames for my clients, they will have to look for other numbers to fill their place next year, ah ah ah ah ah.” After some concluding statements 32 & 64 took questions from the press.

Q. You both seem quite committed to this idea -but as of yet offer no solutions or compromises – why shouldn’t the NCAA simply pick two other numbers divisible by two?

A. 32 – “I’ve been around since 1975, 64 since ‘85 (1985), we put in hard work and longer hours than our counterparts 16, 8 & 4. We’ve thought long an hard about the decision to announce our intentions regarding the tournament. We are prepared to walk away if necessary.”

64 – “I would like to add, however, that we are willing to work with the NCAA should they decide to come up with special names for us. We will not, I repeat, we will not make suggestions as to what we should be referred to as. That’s like coming up with a nick-name for yourself and forcing it on others.”

Q. Isn’t that, in fact, what you’re doing by putting the NCAA in this position.

A. 64 – “No it’s quite different. Look – we know we’re not what everybody is coming to see. We know that, but you cannot have 16, 8 & 4 without us. We’re part of the Big Dance too!”

32 – “I’ve got a buddy that is a nutjob about Superman. He’s considering doing a Superman theme bathroom in his basement. He wears Superman t-shirts, watches all the movies, reads the comic book, has a Superman symbol belt buckle – like I said, he’s a nutjob. He claims that people refer to him as Superman, specifically the sushi chef at the Golden Dragon, so he claims that Superman is his nickname. I personally have never heard him referred to as Super-anything. So when he says ‘people call me Superman’ I think – No, people call you ‘juvenile and a bit arrogant.’ Don’t get me wrong, he’s a super guy but he’s no Superman. ”

“What I’m saying is that we can’t be a part of the nick-naming process. It wouldn’t be right.”

Q. What is your deadline for knowing whether you’ll be a part of the tournament next year?

A. 64 – “We don’t want to put a firm deadline on this. But we’d love to have the whole thing resolved before the end of this year’s tournament. Just letting the public know that we’d like equal treatment with 16, 8 & 4 is sure to get them thinking – I would guess that the big brains out there could come up with something great. I’m talking to you Musberger.”

At that point Von Count ushered 32 & 64 away. They were later seen signing autographs and having their picture taken with Big Bird & Elmo.

When asked to comment on the announcement 4 (Final Four) stated that he’d love to see parity in the nicknames and hopes the NCAA can reach an agreement with 32 & 64 quickly. 8 & 16, however did not share his feelings.

16 (Sweet Sixteen) – “64 – you’re a punk, you need a few more trips around the block before you can start making demands like that – and 32, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. You’re an important part of the process, but there is no “I” in team dude.”

8 (Elite Eight) added, “I’ve been here since the beginning – but I didn’t go begging for a nickname. Know your role and shut your hole”

8 & 16 were brief in their comments stating that they still had work to do for this weekend’s games.

Noticeably absent from todays events were 1 & 2, both who play what is considered the most important of roles in the tournaments. The famously arrogant #1 declined to comment stating “Who cares – it’s all about me anyway.” and Number 2 has avoided the public eye ever since he became a euphemism for defecation.