It has begun. Georgia has begun to list a little. Her confidence is shaken. She has less bounce in her step. Or maybe its just my thoughts as I look at the MacBook Pro. MacBook. Like I’ll confuse this piece of sculpted metal with a Wintel box. Thanks for the reaffirmation, Steve. Ilife ’06, iWork ’06, iTunes, and more…I cringe to think that my kick ass Dual G5 has just become seriously obsolete. I mean, in a year, will there be any universal binaries left? I’m thinking very few. So, that is why I’ve got a new computer coming. It’s a Shuttle but has 2GB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive. I’m excited to see it in action and experience some BSODs of my own. Now, this machine is dual purpose. Not only is it for my future Mac software, but I needed a recent system to practice Win Server 2003 installs upon, so look out world.

Ralph and Judy are on their way soon. I have some pictures from Brenda and Sarah’s visit before Christmas, but I wanted to wait until I had taken pictures of this upcoming weekend and then post them all at once. So, picts are in the future.

I’ve split the difference. I find myself becoming browser agnostic – I have certain browsers I use for certain kinds of browsing of the web. For example, I want to go stealthy, well, I fire up NetShade and Safari. I want to browse certain websites that I know will have funky javascript or plugins, I start Opera. I want to just fuck around, well Firefox is great for that. If I want to see all my news sites ready to go, I just open OmniWeb and go to my News Workspace. Done. This interoperability is made possible by Quicksilver, of course. (Thanks to SmkViper, for convincing me of its superiority.) Yes, this means I need to have five browsers open, but I have a 19″ screen at 1600×1200. That is a lot of screen real estate. I also like the idea of hiding a set of windows based on my mindset at the time or the type of information I’m mining. This multi-browser approach also limits my risk of crashing.

For those of you who don’t know, I work on a Mac. This is important because Yahoo’s Widget Engine (YWE. Pronounced like ewe.)was once Konfabulator, which was for Macs only. They branched out to Windows and then Yahoo bought them recently, so now Yahoo it is. My point is that I was running this great app religiously and was starting to experience some unexplainable freezes and slow performance. Well, I blamed it on my browser, which is open all the time, but I think it was some widgets in the YWE. I took the YWE out of the equation and I think I’ve found the culprit. My point is that even a tech guru, such as myself, has problems now and then with complacent programs and an even more complacent attitude when it comes to computing health.

After a week of work, there is nothing like sitting down and looking at several days of rest. Ralph and Judy are due here next weekend so I’ll have to do some sprucing up…perhaps a gargoyle in the kitchen? May I direct your attention to the right of these words? I have added some interesting sidebar items. The Friendly Blogs are links to real people who I read on a regular basis. This is shown to you because they are a part of my life and so is this blog. If you’re reading this, then, you are too. If you want a link to your blog, let me know. As well, the Random Thought of the Moment may be changed to Cool Moment in Thought or something of that ilk, but its pretty self-explanatory. Other than those items, I’m contemplating a current book section or recently read section. Perhaps I’m just trying to create more work for myself. Whatever.

I resolve to dissolve all ties to the sandwich-of-the-month club I’ve been a member of for the past ten years.

I resolve to read more coffee cans in the store.

I resolve to understand more bathroom scribblings.

I resolve to tell people my unbidden opinion more often.

I resolve to use the word “smarts” when I experience pain.

I resolve to use my blog to post more frequent rants.

You decide which resolution I’ll keep this year.