Here is a quick and dirty list of applications that I installed after receiving my MacBook Pro from Amazon.

In no particular order:

Gimpshop - Once it is released as a Universal Binary.

iTerm - iTerm is a full featured terminal emulation program written for OS X using Cocoa.

Cyberduck - OpenSource FTP/SSH application.

Unison - Commercial Usenet reader.

FlickrExport - Flickr extension for iPhoto.

Desktop Manager - virtual desktops for OS X.

QuickSilver - Launcher.

Adium - Instant Messaging Client.

Firefox - Duh.

VLC - Awesome video player.

Senuti - Get music off your ipod.

Handbrake - Rip DVD's to Divx.

Abiword - Wordprocessor.

Tomato Torrent

Seashore - Image editor based on Gimp.

I got an iPod nano the first weekend they came out, it coincided perfectly with my birthday so who was I to tempt fate! I’ve been very happy with it ever since. You can't beat the price for a flash based mp3 player that holds 4GB. However it has gotten pretty badly scratched, and I haven’t been too hard on it. This isn't critical for me since I care more about functionality than looks, but it is still a bummer. 

After reading through many similar complaints, I came accross this great post from Todd Dailey's blog - Restore your iPod nano to new condition with a $4 can of Brasso. I am shocked that something like this would actually work but he includes some pretty convincing screenshots. I figure it is worth a shot, but I don't plan on going the 'ziplock baggy route'..

When converting a PDF to an image, I noticed the quality always seemed to be lacking. Here is a command line example that seems to produce better results..

> convert -geometry 850x -density 300 sourcefile.pdf newfile.jpg

digg.com
wemakemoneynotart
boingboing
metafilter
waxylinks
techcrunch
furl
43folders.com
lifehacker.com
moleskin notebooks

I am still holding out on starting my home brew PVR. Maybe it is because there isn't anything worth recording lately but that should change pretty soon when ABC's Lost returns next month..

Matthew Gast has a follow up article on his attempts to build a MythTV box.

I have been looking for a new business idea for quite a while now and here is my latest thought. First, it needs to be something that I am interested in if I have any hopes of it lasting. 

With that in mind, I am thinking about doing something with trading cards. I had thought about selling supplies for trading cards in the past (boxes, covers, etc..) but now I thinking about writing an application that can inventory someone's card collection. I have seen a handful of existing ones and they all seem to be windows based applications. My thought would be to make one that is web based instead.

A web based solution has a few benefits:

1. remote archiving in case of a fire for insurance purposes
2. accessible from any computer whether you are at home, work or a collectible's show
3. works with Mac and Linux instead of just Windows
4. possibilities to share your inventory with other users. this could be useful when trading with someone else since you could see a list of everyone who has a certain card you may be looking for.

Things I need to find out:

1. are there any places on the internet that have a database of all the past checklists for any given sport  or card vendor?
2. would it be feasible to leave the checklist up to the user? and then slowly build a master list based on the community?

I may branch off on this idea and start a 'wiki' type site for people to help build a definitive checklist resource for anyone to use similar to what Sean Lahman does for baseball statistics at http://baseball1.com..

As for revenue, my initial thought on either one of these sites would be to subsidise it through Google Ads or offer a premium service that is free from ads for a minimal annual fee..

I have been getting more and more motivated to build my own PVR lately despite the fact that I already own two Series 2 Tivos. I guess a big motivating factor is that I want something that can do HDTV instead of just standard definition television. 

I personally do not have a High Definition television but I have had a chance to see plenty of shows in high def from my computer and I am impressed! Anyway, here are two new resources that can be valuable additions to the normal places for information (like http://mythtv.org and various discussion boards).

The first is a 15 minute video from former TechTV host Kevin Rose on his new site called Systm. Their second episode is somewhat of a HOWTO for building your own MythBox.

The second resource is an O'Reilly article called "Building My MythTV Box, Part 1: Hardware" that has very sound advice and does a great job of making some of the tough decisions on what to use for your HTPC.

Well it has been a full week and so far the diet is going well. I usually have 2 eggs for breakfast with either turkey bacon or occasionally real bacon (even though you aren't supposed to during the first two weeks). I then have a snack around 10:30am which typically is a stick of string cheese.

For lunch, I will always have some sort of salad and either a chicken breast or tuna. I have been going to Wendy's alot and ordering the grilled chicken combo with no bun and a side caeser instead of fries. I haven't really limited soft drinks either although they are always diet drinks.

I then will usually scarf down some cashews or pistacios for an afternoon snack to hold me over until dinner, I don't bother counting them out like the book reccomends.

For dinner, I generally make another salad with either chicken or tuna on it and I use regular ranch or blue cheese dressing since they say not to use the fat free ones. I still haven't found a good dessert yet which is starting to get to me. I have caught myself staring at the pantry shelf with malted milk balls thinking "how bad could one malt ball be?". Anyway, I have resisted.. so far.

Maybe next week I will do some searching at the grocery store for a good dessert/snack. I have heard that you can get sugar free pudding pops so maybe that will be the ticket.

I have been telling myself for the past 6 months that I need to start some kind of diet and exercise routine. Well today is the day that it starts! I figure if I put it on here then I will be much more likely to stick to it. I just borrowed a book called "The South Beach Diet" that naturally explains the South Beach Diet.

It seems like a much more realistic diet than most of the other ones out there (I could never make it 2 days on something like the Atkins diet). Anyway, I expect be posting my progress on the diet over the next few months (hopefully) so stay tuned.

Google today announced the first major change to its understated homepage since its launch. Visitors to the site can now choose to personalize their Google page to create a Web portal uniting many of Google's different services. The traditional Google homepage is still available, now called Google Classic, and users can toggle between a personalized view and the classic search pane.

I'm not sure why this is such a shock since google news has been brewing for so long. Normally more competition is considered good for consumers, but I can see why both Yahoo and even MSN would be a bit uneasy about Google taking aim at more and more what they do. I mostly use Google but my view of Yahoo has changed in a positive direction over the last few years due to what seems to be a newer culture / attitude.

The options are pretty basic so far (especially compared to others like Yahoo!) but the one "cool" feature so far is the ability to drag and drop the content blocks on the fly to re-arrange the layout of the page. Yahoo can also dynamically re-arrange the layout but they choose to use an "edit" button where the user can decide from pre-defined choices on where they want the block moved to.

I will probably use it for a while since I use Gmail as my primary email client and the page lets me view my inbox but I am still going to stick with MyYahoo for the time being since I have more control over things like custom RSS feeds.