timkl

So I had to do a fresh install of Snow Leopard. This post is about how I tweaked my Macbook Pro after installing Snow Leopard.

Quicksilver http://qsapp.com

This is key. I can't use a computer that don't have Quicksilver or an equivalent like Launchbar or Butler installed. I tried out Launchbar for a while, but Quicksilver is back in development and Launchbar has some annoying quirks. And when you point out the annoying quirks their support team belittles your fair points.

If you're anything like me, you don't like to touch that peripheral rodent that lurks by your keyboard too much. So navigate with your keyboard like the tech warrior you are.

Snow Leopard's default wallpaper is the one with the galaxy. The Apple team assume that we're all Carl Sagan hippies, but I don't want to stare into the galaxy when I'm on my computer, I want to focus, people. Focus!

So I use a dark solid gray as my background. Also this reminds me of my Autodesk Smoke days. The UI was dark gray and the whole thing looked like the cockpit in a Klingon spaceship:

Look out, K'tan Torath! News anchors at 12 o'clock!

I don't care too much for the browser that ships with OSX: Safari. Many people despise the surfing metaphor, but going on an internet safari is even worse. It stems from a time when the internet was wild and exciting  - and you stumbled around the digital savannah looking at Czech soccer cheerleaders, perusing through geology papers and didn't have a clue. 

Nowadays people use their browser with a purpose, namely to check if their Facebook icons has turned red. I would advice Apple to call their latest iteration of Safari: Redwatch. Don't know if it holds too much of a McCarthyist connotation, though.

Anyhow, I use Chrome as my main browser. Remember to install Xmarks.

Gleebox is like Quicksilver for your browser. It does some absolutely amazing things, and when you get the hang of it people will be impressed and you will feel important.

Apple's default color scheme for Terminal.app is bunk. Who fires greps and traceroutes in a Terminal with black on white text? You're being 1337 here, you're not writing an essay .

Size up http://www.irradiatedsoftware.com/downloads/

If find you find yourself dragging windows around the desktop like you're a frantic digital glazier, then this is for you . Windows has something like this built in. So that's one good thing about Windows. Put it in your diary, Bill.

Marco from Instapaper is hating on TextMate, and he's right. The odds on TextMate 2 arriving any time soon is better than the odds that Jesus will return to Earth and win Wimbledon. 

Trouble is I've invested so much muscle memory in TextMate, so I can't easily switch to BBEdit or any of the cool programming suites like Espresso or Coda.

So I'm sticking with Allan Odgaard's TextMate. He's also danish like me, and I'm a crazy nationalist, if I could only use danish applications I would do that. I wonder what a danish OS would look like? There would probably be wienerbrød instead of glossy buttons like this:

You would have to memorize that the wienerbrød with the yellow goo in the middle meant "Yes" etc. - but I actually think this could work. I'm calling the patent office as we speak.

Again why does apps like Textmate and Terminal use black on white as their defaults? What the hell is next? Bodoni as your code font and Verdi's Four Season on the stereo? We're geeks, people - not Chardonnay sipping socialites.

Hey, look - Hoefler Text in Textmate, horrid stuff, right?

When you're pushing the deadline, a watch that shows every goddamm minute can be torturous. FuzzyClock writes the time out in words like "twenty to three".

Maybe you're one of those cool kids that adore whatever Panic spits out, hey I'm one of those kids - but I don't like two-pane FTP-apps, like Panic's Transmit. Reminds me of Norton Commander.

Cyberduck very capable and it's also free - so it's my choice when it comes to FTP.

And on the seventh day Brett Terpstra made NValt. This is what I use instead of TextEdit. It syncs with SimpleNote so you can access your precious documents anywhere.

I think there is this guy at Apple who wants every Apple UI to be cute and novel. He wants iCal to look like Indiana Jones' diary. And Xcode should look like iTunes, right? Here's your Final Cut iMovie ten, child. I'll be at the bar. 

I'm afraid of that guy, he wants to take my computer away, and leave me with some kind of useless toy. I think Apple should fire that guy. Out of cannon. Into the ocean.

That guy came up with the Dashboard. I don't need it.

You want to use Automator and be like the beret guy from this episode of MacBreak? Don't be that guy. Get your Keyboard Maestro on. Keyboard Maestro lets you automate and assign shortcuts to just about everything. The app logo features the severed hand from the Addams Family, but that shouldn't scare you from buying it. 

Dan Benjamin ok'ed this app, and he's a buddhist, so he's bound to be right, no? Ok, the former Dalai Lama was in cahoots with the nazis, but most buddhists are good people, I believe, 

DropBox http://www.dropbox.com/

A box you can drop stuff in. What's not to like?

defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool YES

Adobe C$5

As the last thing you can install Adobe CS5. If you're lucky the IT guy where you work might even trust you so much, that he hands you the serial. What is the deal with IT guys and trust? Seems like they think that you will turn the company into a vessel for LulzSec if you get your hands on the Adobe CS5 serial. Trust me, IT guys!

I also installed a bunch of AppleScripts, but this post is pretty longwinded as is. I will do a post on my lovely AppleScripts in the near future. Promise.