Launchers, the continuing saga

Ok, I tried Butler first and really, really liked it. But, in the interest of science, I turned it off and loaded up Quicksilver. Despite it's whizzy spinning cube graphics during installation, it just doesn't seem to have the ease of use of Butler. I particularly got used to the ability to open a URL with a specified browser, with a combination of letters, instead of just a hotkey combo. I'm going to try LauchBar now.

Launching into fun

I've decided to try out the various launcher-type apps for the Mac. There are 3 to choose from: Butler, Quicksilver, and LaunchBar. I'd tried out LaunchBar a while back, and had liked it, although not enough to actually buy it at the time. When Mac OS came out with Spotlight, I had hoped that it would eliminate the need for a separate launcher utility, but Spotlight is just tooo slow to be really useful.

I'm trying out Butler first. There's a nice review at MacWorld about it. There is also review of QuickSilver at Macworld, and a review of LaunchBar here.

So far, Butler seems pretty nice, and very, very customizable.

Snow time

First words off the bus from DS: "Oh no, I hurt myself on the playground. I fell down and my leg realllly hurts." So, we limp home from the bus stop, talking about the day. We walk home very, very, slowly, so as not to futher injure the vaguely pointed to area of his leg that hurts. And then we get home, and he tries to walk in the 9 inches of crusty, crunchy snow. And he discovers the fun of walking along, and suddenly having your foot go all the way down. And so he played, happily throwing snowballs, climbing up a mountain, sledding, knocking me over, taking snowballs in the face without crying, and his leg is mysteriously "better". And such are the miraculous healing powers of a really good snow.

Curvy tree

Curvy tree
Originally uploaded by The Mac Momma.

We've had fun exploring the woods behind our house. With just a little bit of snow on the ground, and no bugs or ticks to worry about, it's a great time to poke around and look for footprints (usually our own!). We found this weird tree. It's like it was supposed to break, but just decided not to. It may also be next to a sinkhole (even though the sinkhole may actually be where DH took out some dirt to fill in other parts of the yard).

New Mac Stuff!

MacWorld was last week, and lots of announcements made. It wasn't as earth-shattering a show as they sometimes are, but we've already ordered our family license of iLife '06. New in that package is iWeb, so we'll see how long I keep this blog on blogger.

In other computer news, I spent the weekend playing around with ripping and creating DVDs. My ultimate goal is taking the two-sided Riverdance DVD, and creating a single-sided DVD containing only the "fast" songs (ie. only the ones DD likes!). I've managed to get one number on the iPod, but haven't burned a DVD yet. All steps of the process go very slllooowwly, as ripping and encoding are not speedy. So far, I've used HandBrake for ripping, and Quicktime Player and iMovie and iDVD for creating. We finally just paid the $30 and upgraded our Quicktime Player to Pro (grumble grumble for having to do this AGAIN), but it does make editing sooo much faster and easier.

Snow place like home

Well, another nice day out today, so DS and I played outside in the fast-melting snow. DD was exhausted by school, and opted for a nap. Well, we built Mr. Snowman:
. We named him Karate Chop Snowman, since that's what his mittens looked like. And, boys being boys, this is what Mr. Snowman looked like just a minute later:

Barber-ella

Everyone needs to understand just how hard it is to make a 3yo's hair look like Cinderella's hair on the cover of the Cinderella DVD. I've been trying for about a half an hour to make DD's hair look just right. My efforts have been met with much skeptism and criticism. It's rather amusing to see her get so mad, and to be able to tell, with just a well placed hand to the top of her head, whether or not it looks "just like the movie". Of course, once I get her hair periously balanced just right, she dances, or gets somewhere near her brother, and it all falls apart, and she comes screaming back to me. "I'm going to show you the movie. If you don't know how to make it, FINE. You'll never have to make anything ever for me again." "You can't do it your way. You HAVE TO LOOK AT THE MOVIE." Well, here are the results. Judge for yourself.

Don't give up your day job..

And to balance out the kids/tech mix, here's a neat article on how someone was able to quit their day job and support himself by developing his own Mac software. Wouldn't that be fun? To date, my own shareware efforts have netted me about $40, so I'm well on my way! :)

Winter Beach

To give equal screen time to both kids, here's a shot of them at the beach, where we got to check out the winter surf and beach in the week between Christmas and New Years. Many rocks were collected, and were even brought into DS's classroom as his first "sharing bag" item (ie. show and tell). He was suprprised to learn that many of the kids were interested in driftwood, but as predicted, the girls liked the little tiny clam shell he had found.

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had fun and relaxing holidays! We had a nice week off from school, and fun celebrating with family. Gifts were opened, toys played with, and a generally good time had by all. There was the small matter of strep throat, pink eye, and the flu, but better not to dwell on these things. :)

Among the new and well-loved new toys, some low-tech favorites stood out. Both kids had asked for doctor's kits (DS a regular one, DD a vet one), but their favorite part was playing with cotton balls, q-tips, bandaids, and gauze. Next year, I'll just go to CVS and stock up on first aid supplies! Their own 4-pack of tape was also popular, with DD going crazy taping everything, including her own mouth shut.

It's nice to get back to our usual routine, even though it started a day late due to even more snow.

I'm having fun playing with my own new toys, including a new KitchenAid mixer, which mixed up a batch of chocolate chip cookies Christmas day, and the first loaves of homemade bread. The bread is yummy, and pretty easy to make, so sticking to any low-carb New Year's diet resolutions is going to be tricky!

Neat mac tech site

I'll post about our fun holidays in a bit, but this site has been a bit low on the Mac tech content, mostly because I haven't done much Mac or Tech with the hectic times of Christmas. Just found a new fun site: Mac Zealots. They have a nice list of the best shareware of 2005 on it.