Smile

I just thought I’d list a few things that have brought a smile to my face recently. Totally, completely random.

• Two finger trackpad scrolling on the MacBook is one of those “don’t know how I ever used a laptop before this was invented” kind of features. One finger stroking the trackpad moves the mouse. A two finger swipe scrolls the window—vertical scrolling, horizontal, diagonal. For the sinfully slothful, you don’t even need to move both fingers, as long as one finger remains in contact with the pad. With input revolutions like this, one could almost forgive Apple for all of their silly one button mice and that god-awful Mighty Mouse nipple.
• A small tray of ice cubes. A generous squirt of Nescafé coffee syrup. One-percent milk filling the rest of the cup. A Braun handheld wand mixer. A decorative drizzle of Hershey’s caramel syrup on top if I’ve been a good boy. I’m totally addicted.
• Yup, another Apple rave, but, really…the Airport Express just rules. The thing is the size and shape of a skinny power adapter. You plug it into an outlet; one end of the ethernet cable goes into the Airport, other end into my router (or directly to a cable/DSL modem); give it a name and password via software. Bam. Instant wireless. Then I’m on my back on my living room futon, browsing the web. (Thick magazine in between hot laptop and my belly, of course.) Total bonus…digital optical cable from the Airport Express into my stereo—and now my 3,858 song iTunes library can play out of my 6.1-channel living room system. Sweet. Flippin’ sweet, even.
• There’s this Javascripty/CSS thing called iBox that is an evolution of a couple of scripts that could load an image or an html objects as a dynamic “web 2.0” overlay widget. The implementation is clean, is unobtrusive, is super easy to add to a site, degrades gracefully, and is damn elegant. I added it to a client site. They were thrilled; I was thrilled. Cool.
• Free domestic SkypeOut. Free as in speech and beer. Sure there’s a bit of a time lag when talking (not sure if that is because of my Bluetooth headset or because the other party is on a landline). But it’s free. Free as a bird, it’s the next best thing to be. Free as a bird.
• ShaveEverywhere.com. ’Nuff said.