One of my favorite things about going on vacation is the fact that I always seem to have time to read books. My trip to New York was no exception and I ended up reading the first volume of Neil Gaiman's Sandman Series Preludes and Nocturnes which is brilliant (as expected) and deliciously creepy and moody.

I also read Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn for the first time. I've read some of his other books, The Fortress of Solitude and Amnesia Moon are both great books but there was something about Motherless Brooklyn that just blew me away. It's a play on the typical crime novel/murder mystery/detective story in that the narrator is completely unexpected and Lethem used an amazing blend of humor with the more typical crime novel drama. First off, the main character has Tourette's syndrome and the book, written in his voice, is both hilarious and fascinating as a result. Seriously, everyone should read this book. Jonathan Lethem is a literary God. ( an excerpt: )

I was just compiling a list of useful programs and info for people new to Macs (and osx in particular) and thought some of you might find it useful as well so here's my list.

Best bittorrent program: Azureus

Good bittorrent websites:
btefnet
tvtorrents
novatina
torrent reactor
torrent spy
isohunt

best video player (plays all forms of video files): mplayer

peer2peer downloading (for mp3s and whatnot): Acquisition

best web browser (has tabbed browsing!): Firefox

best random utility programs:
Windowshade (lets you do all sorts of cool stuff with your open windows)

Quicksilver (the BEST program EVER helps you open applications/folders/songs in iTunes/whatever using only a few keystrokes)

Notational Velocity (much better than the sticky notes program)

Konfabulator (a program that uses tiny miniprograms called widgets which do any number of useful things) and the kofabulator widget gallery.

Growl (a notifier program (ex. it pops up a small info box whenever a new song starts in itunes that lists the song title and artist.))

useful keyboard tips and shortcuts:
Pressing the command key (the one with the apple and pound sign on it) and the tab key at the same time pops up a window with all of your open applications in it. If you continue to hold down the command key and press and release the tab button, each program will highlight. It allows you to switch programs without using the dock or your mouse by tabbing over to whatever program you want to switch to and then letting go of both the tab and the command key.

Pressing command and the h key will hide any program you have open.

In firefox command t will open a new tab and command w closes either a tab if you have multiples or the window if you don't. Actually command w will close whatever window you have open in all mac programs.

Also, pressing the command key and the key directly above the tab key (I forget what those symbols are called) will switch you between multiple windows in any one program.

ashlle1 posted about this the other day and it's by far the coolest thing ever if you're into computer geekery and awesome Firefox tricks. So, we all know that Firefox (and Camino) are the coolest browsers out there, right? Well, they just got that much cooler, check this out (completely copy-pasted from ashlle1):

The TIP is for Firefox users. I don't know if this works in Mozilla or Netscape, and it likely doesn't work (the same way) for any other browser. But! Ye olde Firefox users, hear me! Have you learned the magic of the special bookmark keywords? Here's how it works:

You bookmark something, as normal. Let's say the LJ Update page, for giggles. Then you go up to the Bookmarks > Manage Bookmarks option. Click on the entry of the page you just bookmarked, and click on properties. It should give you a dialogue giving you options for name, location, keyword, and description. You can name it however you like, but hey, typing in the HTTP address is too hard. Soooo, let's give this a keyword. Mine is "lj.update", but yours can be whatever you want (and will remember). Type it in, press okay, and go back to the main browser. Now anytime you want to make an LJ entry, you simply type "lj.update" or your keyword of choice in the address bar, and bam, there you are.

Too hard to get to your friends page as it is? Save time! Bookmark it with a keyword of 'fl', and in no time you can be hitting the refresh key, waiting for updates.

Let's make this a step more advanced. Oftentimes I like to look up things on Amazon or the IMDB, but entering from the main page just takes far too long. Granted, you can download a plugin (at least for Amazon.com) that'll allow you to search the site, but what about the other sites? Let's use IMDB as an example.

Go to the IMDB site, and perform a search for anything. Let's say Adam Brody. [note: just search for adam for this example] When the search page comes up, bookmark it, and follow the same procedure as before to get to the properties of the bookmark you just made. Now, look in the location string. You should see, somewhere in that HTTP, Adam. Replace Adam with %s. No quotation marks anywhere. Then give it a keyword - 'imdb', say. Now say okay, and go back to your browser. In the address bar, type in 'imdb Viggo Mortenson' or who/whatever you'd like to search for. You should immediately be taken to your search results - no extra steps necessary.

A similar process applies for any site you like. %s refers to the text string you enter after your keyword. For example, I have http://www.livejournal.com/users/%s bookmarked with the keyword 'lj', and from there, I can go to any LJer's journal (lj ashlle1) or their friendslist (lj corialis/friends) or their friendsfriends list (lj ashlle1/friendsfriends) or their archives (lj lestrange/calendar) or what have you. I have a similar search string at Half.com, Amazon, IMDB. You could do it for Schnoogle, where you'd simply have to type in the author name. Basically, any site that has a regular search string or hierarchical structure can have this applied to it.

In other news, I saw movies this weekend:

Finding Neverland is a wonderful movie. I loved Johnny Depp; and the movie was really well shot. Also, Dustin Hoffman played the least Hoffman-like character I've ever seen. So yeah, go see it, it's a great story.

I also saw National Treasure this weekend. It was, well, not necessarily a good movie, but it was damned entertaining and good fun. Sean Bean was wonderful as always. And if you can ignore the historical innaccuracies and concentrate on the fun, you'll enjoy it. Then again I'm a huge sucker for psuedo-archaelogical, adventure stories.