sugarenia.com

…give it cherries!

It’s all work work work these days, both at work (duh) and home. So I decided to give myself the luxury of this awesome looking delicacy tomorrow, because hey, I’ve been working hard all week.

My advice: do the same.

Photo courtesy of yummy web place opensourcefood.com, member gingerslice.

chocolate, brownie, cherries

I didn’t really get too much into Friendfeed until recently - eventhough I have my Twitterrific on (and checking) all of my home computing time, I never thought that *everything* my net pals do would be interesting enough for me to watch obsessively.

So I decided to give Twhirl and Alert Thingy, the two major AIR FriendFeed apps, a go the other day. And boy I was confused, and disappointed, and pissed.

First of all, Alert Thingy just won’t work for me. It will load but it won’t connect, it just sits there stuck in a “connecting” state. I updated my Adobe AIR, I restarted, I did everything I could but it wouldn’t get unstuck. So long, much-hyped-about Alert Thingy.

Twhirl, well… Twhirl Twhirl. Aren’t you a looker (not). Well, it works, but, meeeeeh… *any attempt of proper argumenting ends here - I just don’t like the way it looks*

Then I was prompted to MySocial 24×7, which is a Firefox extension for keeping an eye on Friendfeed. I never use Firefox but I installed to check it out, and there it was. A nice little subtle extension, with likes and comments right from the sidebar, with a pretty and cosy interface and, well, right where you usually socialize: in your browser. I loved it. Plus, it works in Firefox 3.

So I won’t be a cool kid and won’t use AIR applications, for the time being. I’m perfectly fine with most apps in my Mac, and AIR applications are just so off its usual interface it’s off-putting. I’ll stick to extensions and native applications, thank you very much, kthnxbai.

P.S. Please notice that I don’t actually use Firefox for my day-to-day browsing, Safari is my browser of choice. But MySocial 24×7 is a cool extension, nevertheless. Just don’t install it on your work PC, huge time waster!

twhirl, alert thingy, friendfeed, mysocial 24×7, adobe air

If you read my blog even a little, you’ll probably have guess by now my unhealthy obsession with the 37Signals way of thinking, working and doing. To be frank, this wasn’t always the case.

When I first approached a 37S product, namely Backpack, I signed up for a free account and used it for about a half hour. Then I dropped it. Smacked it, to be precise. I was in the “trying-every-app-that-moves” era, so I didn’t like it, because it was too restricting, it was lacking features, it was too simple and yada yada. Or so I thought.

After a few months I decided to give Backpack a second chance. It had matured, it had collected raving reviews, it was holding a high rank among the GTD crowd, so I succumbed. Then I found out, in my surprise, that Backpack works, after all.

Just give it time. Sure, it seems to lack features. And Ruby on Rails can be laggy at times. But it has found a niche in my digital life that no other online tool has managed to fill.

Interesting links that pop into my screen while at work and need some “private” time: Backpack Inbox for later. Work todo lists and notes and drafts and mockups and files I want to share, @Work. Stuff that I wanna buy someday, an image gallery @Shopping. Blogs posts and drafts and ideas, @Blog.

A sample Backpack page

It’s a terrific tool for the day-to-day digital notetaking, while the new multi-user features that were recently added make it a solid small company Intranet solution, with calendars, whiteboards, shared editing.

Thing is, I don’t think I ever fell in love with this product. I never had an infatuation that faded after time (I tend to do that a lot with applications, both online and offline). My Backpack love grew after quite some time of working with it, so I don’t see us getting a divorce anytime soon.

It’s not only the finished product, it’s the 37S way of thinking: declutter, simplicity, straightforward are some of the words that pop in your mind while using its products, be it Backpack, Basecamp or Highrise.

Give Backpack a try.

P.S. The Backpack links above are affiliate, but what I wrote are my true feelings on this product.

37signals, backpack, basecamp, highrise

EngraveYourBook.com offers a neat service. They can accept your designs and custom engrave your Moleskine with the design of your choice. You can choose among the ready-made designs or send your own. You can also choose a binding engraving - which looks seriously cool.

The design I liked more was this, by Jow Mansfield:

A perfect topping for these little bundles of joy.

moleskine, custom, engraving

What tools do you use to blog, dear readers?

Are you a hardcore Microsoft Live Writer or ecto fan or do you stick to ole trusty Wordpress Admin interface?

Do you stick post-it notes to everything blog-worthy or do you trust the long, long list of potential blog articles that float around your head?

Myself, when offline, I carry around a oh-so-hip Moleskine Ruled Notebook with a simple pen and I take notes on anything that may become a nice, juicy blog post. When online, I copy my blog notes to my Backpack @Blog page, which features a long list of potential blog posts and miscellaneous notes.

When I decide to sit down and write something (that is, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday night), I open up my list, select a subject and add a Writeboard to my @Blog page. I love 37Signals’ Writeboards because they’re really the most distraction-free wiki-like writing space I can find online, plus they are included free with my Backpack account. And the typing starts.

When my draft is completed, I copy the post text to the Wordpress Admin interface, insert links, images, tags and whatnot, hit Publish and tada! Blogged.

Any similar blogging procedures out there?

backpack, blogging