April 12, 2005 [LINK]
On the heels of Tiger Woods' long-overdue triumph at the Master's this week comes the announcement from Apple that the next generation of OS X, code-named "Tiger," will be released on April 29. It includes new versions of Safari, Mail, and other "system applications," a major oxymoron if you ask me. (Bundling Web browsers together with operating system software is what got Microsoft into such legal hot water, but it doesn't matter if you've only got five percent of the market.) My four-year old iMac apparently meets the system requirements, so I'll have to give that serious thought. See apple.com. What most impresses me most are Exposé, a more orderly way to manage open windows, and Dashboard, a new graphical interface that "is home to widgets: mini-applications that let you perform common tasks and provide you with fast access to information." Among those widgets are a multilingual translator (!), a real-time airline flight map (!!), a simple iTunes controller. Awesome.
Speaking of iTunes, this comes from conservative blogger Patrick Ruffini. Given that our Prez is a Texan, the heavy dose of country music is no surprise, but what about Z Z Top, Willie Nelson, Jerry Jeff Walker, or Chris Izaak?
*: I've got it. !: I should get it. ?: I'll think about it.
Almost since the beginning (early 2002) I've relied upon BBEdit from Bare Bones Software for doing all my Web site text work. It has served me very well, and I would dearly love to upgrade from the freeware version (which is now called "Text Wrangler"), but I don't need the pricey full-blown version, and it appears that no intermediate-level version is in the offing. That puts folks like me, who need features above entry level but are not professional programmers, in a dilemma. Fortunately, I just discovered a new (freeware) text editor called Taco HTML Edit, thanks to Mac Home magazine. It has almost all the features I need, and so far it's performing very well...