After waking my computer up from a long night of sleep, the monitors starting looking kind of fuzzy and then, a few moments later, lots of lines and dots and dashes in patterns of many colors and sizes started appearing, out of nowhere, all over the screens. I have two monitors, side by side. And they typically work wonderfully, providing lots of visual real estate for my Photoshop and email habits. But today, well, it looked like techno-Santa came to roost in my machine. It’s kind of pretty. Lines moving across the horizon, vertical greens and pretty reds on one monitor dancing along with black dashes in bunches of ten flickering on the other monitor. Through the haze of the digital miasma I could still see my desktop and look at my files so I knew that the underlying hard drive was okay. I called Apple (I have three months remaining on my AppleCare insurance, which gives me about, oh, twelve weeks to start looking for a new computer) and, after having to speak the words “PowerMac G4” a number of times into the phone and saying twice that I’m not an educational customer, was put through to Raj in India. At least, I assume it was in India. It could have been Pakistan or the Phillipines. My assumption of geographical identity is based on the last telephone call I had with AppleCare about one year ago. I recall asking John where he was located and he laughed politely and said, “India, sir.” I didn’t feel like knowing more. Today I didn’t feeling like knowing anything except how to get the linear test patterns off my flat screens. I had a feeling it was a dead video card and, indeed, it was (or is). (FYI, yes, I ran Disk Utility from the startup disks and then used DiskWarrior to rebuild and nothing would take care of it so I was pretty sure it was non-disk hardware.) Now, and until tomorrow, I can’t use the computer unless I want to squint through the linear maelstrom.
Luckily, I’ve got my little backup laptop and that’s where I’m at.
Actually, I was at the parking lot of a supermarket just an hour ago and learned something. I’d like to buy a truck. In particular, I’d like to get a Ford F-150 pickup. I know what you’re thinking: Andy with a fricking truck. Yeah. It would be great. I watched a man step out of his F-150 in the parking lot. By the look of him, he was probably going to go purchase some steak and a few loaves of bread and some apples. But that truck, man, it was nice. Lots of height in the cab. A nice sized, black cargo box situated at the rear of the cab, perfect for holding tools and whatever else I needed to keep protected from the elements. A large but not pretentious wheel base that wouldn’t throw other vehicles off the road. Couple that with a 4.2L V6 and 17″ machined aluminimum wheels and you’re talking lots of possibility. It would suit my new personality, which is all about expedience, certainty and manufactured optimism. And it would allow me to haul things, whatever those might be and whenever they might need hauling. The best part of owning a small pickup is that you’re riding high and no one can fault you. No one knows whether you’re a cowboy, a farmhand, a machinist or a Rotarian. With a car, people know you’re a wuss. In an SUV, people assume you’re a waste of natural resources. With a minivan, they know someone calls you dad. With a large truck, they know you’re in heavy industry. They just know from your pickup that you have a need for hauling some shit. Sure, if you got one of those Cadillac pickups, it’s easy to tell who you are. But with a regular pickup, no one knows. Pure anonymity and the likely perception from afar that you’re tougher than most. I realize I might have to change my appearance some, bulk up, and lose the glasses, but I’m into it.

I can’t stop researching the subject of Yojimbo as a new means of collecting and organizing information. For those 3 other geeks who have been Googlin’ Yojimbo-related arcania, here is a list of relevant links about Yojimbo, its feature set, interface, and functionality and whether it’s a Mover app, a Replicant, or a Dud:
John Gruber: Mover.
Nat Irons: Mover.
Macworld News: Unknown, but forum visitors say: Mixed.
Various Hog Bay forum folks (many, if not most, of whom unsurprisngly prefer Hog Bay’s Mori, which has real “Smart” folders that assign categories intelligently based on your keywording and which I like a whole lot as do others, in part because the developer runs an active user community site): Mixed.
O’Reilly Mac DevCenter’s Blog: Replicant. But, interestingly, Yojimbo uses a SQLite database to store its information, which I understand is actually better than StickyBrain’s Openbase database.
MacUser’s Derik DeLong: Mover.
VersionTracker’s forum: Mixed.
For those who don’t like to click on links for some reason, here is a brief summary of information about the application that I’ve found are relevant to my workflow and the question of shelling out for Yojimbo:

• .Mac sync is a huge value add; Yojimbo is the only application of its kind that truly integrates with .Mac syncing
• Drop Dock tab is very useful for getting information in quickly
• Pop-up data entry is very useful for getting information in quickly
• Creates embedded webpage archives
• Does fast encryption (but I question its simplicity)
• Overall ease of use (DevonThink and StickyBrain are too complicated to learn and maintain)
• It’s smart folders aren’t that smart; they can’t “read” data on the fly
• Search functionality is good but it only works upon hitting the “Return” key, a very un-Mac feature; additionally, is Spotlight searchable
• Does not do hierarchical lists
• Is stable
• Is overpriced at a $39.95 introductory price

i just spent a few too many minutes trying playing with some very fine new software by old OS X friends at Bare Bones Software. It’s called Yojimbo and it pretty much rocks. It can do a lot of fancy things like saving web pages, bookmarks, text, emails, pictures, menus, ideas, foot odors, and even passwords. It’s new and novel and pretty and has a good interface that appears pretty intuitive, to me. (Critical to this last sentence are the words “intuitive, to me.” Intuition should never be a universalized assumption, despite what some usability experts want to think.) Mostly, I really like the floating tab drawer that you can position on your desktop that allows you drag and drop content you want to save directly into/onto the application.
Jojimbo has some good competition out there, including the old but recently very renewed Sticky Brain, which looks a lot like Yojimbo, or should I say, the other way around. And then there’s the sweet, but odd and oddly named Circus PoniesNotebook, which is fey and pretty much allows you to do all of the above as well and a bit more. Lifehacker featured the latter application today, ironically, as Jojimbo came out, like two days ago and Notebook has been around a long time.
As I mentioned before, there’s ol’ DevonThink which I know my old college chum Steven Johnson uses and swears by. He’s in Davos today.
Jojimbo. It has a nice name to it. It’s kind of funny. Say it with me: “Jojimbo.” A search on “Yojimbo” comes up with a entry that has led me to review and re-view the well-named application VoodooPad by Flying Meat. (I really like the drawing of the voodoo’d boy on this page. You can even do some similarly ept drawings in VoodooPad, which is unlike all of the rest.)
These note-taking applications are not to be confused with outlining applications like OmniOutliner, which I quite like, though it’s pricey for a thing that makes lists. Nor are these apps to be confused with Website tracking software like Webstractor nor its little sister (more like “cousin”), Yoink.
I don’t know what the hell is going on. Maybe I need Jojimbo. Or Sticky Brain or Notebook. Then there’s good old Stickies, which come with OS X in both Dashboard and desktop flavors. Or you could just use Notepad, and copy and paste all your shite in there in one huge list and click command-F whenever you wanted to find something. The other possibility is to save all of your stuff on your blog, kind of like I’m doing now.

I’ve been catching up on my technology readings lately, having been given the excellent Joel on Software book for Chanukkah this year as well as getting a few late tech subscriptions all at once. It’s fun. But the enterprise technology ads, I’ve noticed, have taken a more luxriously minimal design take and a more frightening content look. The designs are all very refined, lots of minimal space and clear, scary text that are geared to make heavy-duty information technology folks frightened about their data, their email, their systems, their networks, their hardware, software, or connectivity.
I looked for a few online examples of these fear-mongering ads but, interesting, corporate websites don’t look anywhere near as compelling or frightening as the print ads. It’s as if the print marketers figured out that magazines catering to tech freaks best serve their clients by taking a page from Homeland Security. it makes me wonder whether the actual threats to the U.S. national infrastructure and the private technology companies are similarly overvalued. There’s no doubt that viruses, adware, malware, spam, breaching, etc. are huge headaches and major financial drains on companies which then need to pass their security costs on to consumers. Similarly, the federal government needs to assess real potential threats from national and non-state groups and individuals which then passes on its costs to taxpayers (or, more accurately, these taxpayers’ children). But in both cases, the costs are pretty severe and one can see the logic of fear and fear-mongering in those print ads more clearly than one can via the newspaper.

It’s interesting that today, as many have predicted, Microsoft announced that the online software model will be pushed by the company. It’s a massive response and acceptance of the immense power of Google’s online-based email tools and its most recent embrace of Sun’s OpenOffice. In plainer language, Google wants to make PC-based Microsoft Word server-based Net Office. As long as I can remember, Sun has promoted the idea that the “network is the computer” and there are many, many unparalled features (like online collaboration and real-time version tracking) that only network-based applications can handle. Sun, in partnership with Google, could ultimately win the office productivity and workflow market if there is a serious desire for users to go ahead with online apps.
Despite many open source arguments for online application development and marketing, I have serious reservations about both the model and the privacy aspects of this purportedly new approach. There are a few very good and very serious online applications (like 37 signals’ excellent Basecamp, which I use daily) that provide a very solid and responsive application environment for simple tasks such as ordering and maintaining lists and messages and documents. The speed of these apps are fast, almost approaching the speed of a PC-based text editor or Word processor. The brief delay in responsiveness because of the network is a small price to pay for the collective nature of these applications.
But if, suddently, Google allowed me to transfer all of my Word documents to an online Word-like repository that could archive, search, and recognize my documents, would I step up and sign up? No. There are two key issues of trust that I could not readily accept:

1. What will Google do with the content of my documents sitting on their servers? What are the real legal responsibilities that Google has toward me and my business documents? What legal repercussions are in place if, for example, they decide to share even aggregate data about my archive? And what would happen if someone at Google or a smart hacker could suddenly access my business, personal or other agreements, proposals, and personal information?
2. As worrisome, what happens if Google shuts down? If Larry Page and Sergey Brin get the avian flu one day and the company shuts its doors, do I lose all of my documents and my business flies away the day after? And what happens if, for whatever reason, Google’s (albeit superbly redundant and stress-tested) servers go down? Will they assure me that I can get my documents back in an hour, a day or a week? And, most apocalyptically, what happens if the whole Net goes down? Granted, as a Web designer, I’m out of business anyway. But what about my mom’s documents?

[Google’s Gmail (email) is an exception rather than the rule here. Gmail, which is a powerful and highly usable online application, can also be used on the desktop by programs like Microsoft Outlook. And Gmail, despite its cool factor, has raised numerous legal questions about the privacy of content stored.]
I think it’s wise for all of us, if, in the long run, Google and Microsoft battle it out in the online application arena. It will mean better overall application development, stronger user interfaces, and more thoughtful engagements with customers. But, unless Google and Microsoft have a way to create real-time syncrhonicity between desktops, networks and server clusters, I doubt the real prospects of massive migration to online apps. This means, by the way, that Bill Gates’ vision of an Office on every PC is the long-term winner.

I’ve been looking for a babysitter here in Winnipeg for a few days. I’ve asked neighbors, friends, colleagues, strangers, and even casual bystanders how thye would go about finding a regular babysitter in these here parts. I got the following answers: post a piece of paper in the community center, ask “XYZ” because they know about these things, see if you can find a nice grandmom in the neighborhood, and take a classified ad out in the community newspaper. Others thought I should use the Yellow Pages, which I actually did, and the babysitting service that I called said they probably wouldn’t have anyone available for those days but that they would get back to me in a few days or weeks. The woman owner said she was about take out an advert in the city newspaper herself to start attracting more babysitters for her business.
I went online. Used Google. And then found Babysitter.ca.
I’m not sure it’s going to work but the model is pretty excellent. Essentially, a parent signs up for the service, pays a fee for a few months and then can search the qualifications of various sitters who have also signed up on the site. Sitters do not have to pay a fee to join the site which is wholesome and fair. What I think is brilliant about the system is its ease of use as it allows you to post an ad within the secure confines of the site and you can read reviews of the babysitters posted by other parents. But it’s not one way. Parents, too, can get reviewed by babysitters so that they, too, will know if they or their children are holy terrors.
This is not to say that the backyardigan nature of gossip and personal connections is over and done. But it does make me think that the Web has become, even in smaller cities (Winnipeg is 700,000 strong), a crucial component of social infrastructure that is more or less unexploited. No one in my initial conversations with residents here noted this website. One person mentioned Craigslist but the user base here is not large, yet. I know I don’t need to be a booster for the Web’s business-to-business foundation; but, this is a small-scale case for the power and efficicacy of the Web’s ability to solve real problems in real time via human endeavor.

I’m a big fan of Seth Godin, though I don’t always or can’t always, follow his superbly written and presented e-book advice. He has a new venture called Squidoo. The goal is to create little pockets of expertly written information (like Wikipedia) but with a metaphor of lenses to allow better information to rise to the top. It’s informationally slick – and there’s a lot being written about it. You can sign up for a maybe limited beta account.

The other day, I purchased the Omni Group’s OmniOutliner. I’ve been looking for a user-friendly, simple and powerful little toolbox that can sit on my computer and take the abuse of a hundred to-do notes. After looking at a lot of other Mac-based applications, this one easily fits the bill. You’d think that, because I have so many items to take care of, that I don’t have time to do the research into what application will act as a container and database for my to-do items. You might even think that, by researching ad nauseum the many applications that exist out there, that I’m also procrastinating and not making the most of my time. You may even presume to think that I just want a new toy to play with and explore, finding new ways of organizing information and learning how others might associate different kinds of important information. You’d be somewhat correct.
I am now using OmniOutliner and, after 3 days of loving it, entering all of my list items (including “put up wire holders in kitchen,” and “move files out of Entourage,” and “organize office file system”), I hate the f*cking thing. It’s really no fault of the application. It’s me. I hate having all of these open check boxes sitting around, mocking me, telling me how inferior I am and that I’m an incompetent, time-wasting, and inefficient SOB. I hate the fact that, when I check one little item off its pretty little face, the others scream out laughing and tell me to get my sh*t together because I only have so many more days in this world and people are waiting for this stuff to get done. Then, I close the application and the crappy little icon sits on my computer and I know I need to open it again, because there, in all of its fricking glory, are the things I need to do, unreviewed, unchecked, undone.
F*ck.
Postscript: I must not be the only one thinking about the need for good To Do lists. I just received an email for beta testing a new online application that sounds good but looks only average from the goog folks at Good Experience. Sign up for a trial.

These are things are good:
Martha Stewart publicly renounces the use of and the wearing of fur. It’s impressive. Martha says: “So much violence in the world seems beyond our control,” says Martha, “but this is one cruelty we can stop by being informed consumers.”
Opera, the browser manufactory, released its product completely free today – it used to be $39.00, believe it or not. It’s a great browser – fast, slick, smooth, and pretty. It’s a great alternative to Firefox and especially to Internet Explorer.
I finally installed the new Mac OS X on my desktop, which hasn’t been used in a few months. It’s nice. No big deal, but nice. BTW, I was greatly helped by Joe Kissel’s well-written and well-documented e-book Take Control of Upgrading to Tiger.
T-Mobile finally released my Brooklyn cell phone number for my Vonage line. That’s sweet. Vonage is great for the price, but like all inexpensive things, it’s not perfected yet as voice clarity is less than transparent. T-Mobile will now get to bill me $200.00 for cancelling my service contract. Lucky them, too!

I’ve been using My Yahoo! since the day it launched (or perhaps a few days later). I’ve found it an undeniably helpful homepage resource for so many years that, if it actually disappaered one day, I think I’d be in trouble. It contains all my lead stories, a lead photo that always has an emotional punch to it, and top-line weather in Brooklyn and Winnipeg (previous incarnations revealed weather in Krakow, Poland and Troy, New York). The map functionality on My Yahoo! is unparalleled and, yes, I can search through the top search bar. Yahoo! really knows me, pushing ads lately for stock photography, laptops and miscellaneous but uninteresting software.
While Yahoo! just pushed out it’s new Mindset tool, Google gave birth in July to an elegant, if too simple, customizable personalized homepage that I’m actually considering switching to. Why is it so powerful. Because of all of the RSS readers and content feed delivery systems, Google’s just works nicely. Using drag and drop trickery, I can load up my favorite blogs, websites and other thangs and then place them on the page where I want and leave out the decoration that My Yahoo! provides and, unfortunately, overuses. You can also customize the screen at any time without having to go into a special “customize” mode as you do with My Yahoo! Finally, your recent Gmail Inbox can appear, which is no small feature, especially when I’m waiting for something important to be sent to me. One feature it’s missing – the ability to box out, through colors or borders, the various kinds of content on the page. That would make the totality of the interface strong.
I’m not convinced it will change my online behavior but it might. Right now it’s a bookmark directly under my homepage button. More information about customizing Google’s homepage can be found at WikiHow and