Monthly Archives: November 2007

Train Vs. Car

The train sat, unmoving, about 20 yards back from the crossing on Hadley Road. It was dark, and it was time to get this long beast moving. The engineer knew that the approaching car couldn’t see the train, so he thought he’d have some fun. He waited until the car got just the right distance from the tracks–close enough that he would need to screech the brakes to stop. Wait, wait…now. The engineer blared the horn and turned on the headlight at the same time, knowing he had just scared the crap out of the hapless driver.

I was that hapless driver last Thursday night, coming home from music practice with my wife. Following the script, I stomped on the brake and came to a stop just a few feet from the tracks. Then the crossing guard lights began flashing, and I felt like they would come down on my hood.

The horn, the headlight, the flashing lights, the mere presence of that mighty train a few yards away–yeah, it was a multiple whammy. Enough to cause Post-Traumatic Stress.

The train moved forward, gradually gaining speed. As the engine passed, I nodded toward the man sitting in that darkened window and acknowledged, “You got me good.”

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Useful “Little” Mac Programs

I’ve been using the Macintosh since 1988, when I switched from an AT&T computer with two floppy drives (no hard drive) running DOS. Still makes me cringe. Suddenly I found myself with a huge hard drive (40 gigs!), a mouse, and a wonderful graphical user interface. In those days, the Mac was way way WAY ahead of the PC world (and still is, BTW).

While I’ve always used the heavy-duty programs (Photoshop, Pagemaker, Word, PowerPoint, etc.), a number of very useful utilities and miscellaneous programs have come and gone. Right now, here are some of the “little” programs that I find useful.

  • DefaultFolder makes quick work in dialogue boxes.
  • iTunesRating, a menubar item, lets me rate songs while working in other programs.
  • BBEdit, for writing and editing blog posts (I’m using it now), and writing and editing HTML. Will read most any text file.
  • Fetch, my FTP program. I’ve tried bunches of others, but always prefer Fetch. Especially the integration with BBEdit.
  • Databackup, for backing up my stuff.
  • Disclabel designs and prints DVD/CD labels.
  • Dragthing, a launcher, stays on tbe left side of my screen.
  • FontAgentPro keeps my zillions of fonts organized.
  • Microsoft Expression Media (formerly iView) for viewing gobs of photos (when I don’t want to import them into iPhoto).
  • SnapzProx takes my screenshots.
  • ThumbsUp (freeware) is great for making thumbnails.
  • Art Directors Toolkit continually helps me out in Photoshop and Dreamweaver.

Got any other little program that have stood the test of time for you?

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