My editor of choice for most of what I do on the Mac (when I’m not in the shell using Vim) is Textmate. I recently came across a neat plugin called the Textmate Minimap. Essentially this plugin opens a map across the side of your Textmate window (like another drawer on the other side) and allows you to scroll full screens. You can move the editing window screen by screen in the minimap. This is equivalent to a visual page down.
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Eric's Tech Blog Thoughts, musings, and other useless idealistic systems hoopla.
Textmate Minimap Plugin
25 Feb 2010 — ericApple Steps Up With Multitouch Mouse
20 Oct 2009 — ericA while ago I wrote about how Apple needed an external multi-touch solution and that you can use your iPhone until then. Apple did it and now released the Magic Mouse.
To quote Apple, “It’s the world’s first multi-touch mouse.” It’s a wireless mouse that attaches to any computer that has a keyboard, mouse and Bluetooth via Bluetooth. It’s sleek just like everything else Apple makes. But the best part is that (as of now), its only $69. Good work Apple.
I could go on and on about why I think its cool and what it can do, but why waste time on my website reading a summary, just check it out on Apple’s web site: http://www.apple.com/magicmouse/
What About An External Multi-Touch Trackpad For a Mac
28 May 2009 — ericI used to be a big fan of ergonomic keyboards (and I still am). But I am an even bigger fan of the multi-touch trackpad. I have even extended it by using MultiClutch (I know the link looks funny, but that’s the page title, I promise). MultiClutch allows you to extend the swiping and pinching of fingers to extend to other applications and key combinations (both locally and globally). This means that it is so much a part of my daily productivity that I have had to make due without an ergonomic keyboard.
If someone knows about an external multi-touch trackpad (either wireless or USB) that supports 1,2,3 and 4 finger multi-touch, please let me know. And if one doesn’t exist, please let Apple know 
. Ultimately what I would like my “at home” setup to be is a wireless ergonomic keyboard along with a wireless ergonomic multi-touch trackpad.
I’d like to hear everyone’s thoughts on this.
Things (Todo App)
20 May 2009 — ericAfter reading and commenting on these 2 blog entries by rbowen: iPhone Todo Apps Things and iPhone Todo Apps; I figured that I would throw my $0.02 on here.
Things by Cultured Code does come with a high price tag. But it is by far the most useful todo app that I have come across.
Let’s do a quick salient point pro/con analysis of this. One of my favorite parts of Things is the concept of context. When you create a todo item, you can tag it with what context it is in. Then you can sort or show your todo’s by context. You can sort by multiple tags. This can be shown with the following example, “How can I see what phone calls I have to make for work?” You can click on the items tagged with work and phone. Then you’ll have which phone calls to make.
The biggest con here is the hefty price tag. It definitely does cause some sticker shock. Between the USD $10 for iPhone app and the USD $50 for the laptop/desktop version, USD $60 can be quite a bit for the simplicity of a todo app.
I have found that since spending the USD $60, I have become a lot more efficient and productive. There are also a lot fewer things that fall through the cracks. I have to face facts that I have a pretty poor memory. So when I have something to do, I immediately put it into Things and then sync it as soon as I am in the same place as my laptop again.
One of the beautiful aspects of Things is its simplicity. It has a simple interface and a very succinct group of menus. The only thing that I believe that Things is missing is alerts. I like the iCal sync and iPhone sync, but I would like it to integrate into Growl. This would be even more useful if you could give specific times that you want the Growl notifications to pop up. I know this isn’t possible in the current state of the iPhone OS (until push notifications from the background are available). But this is certainly an available on the laptop/desktop setup.
I am a big believer in FOSS and Open Source in general. However, I am also a big believer in the right tool for the right job. Sometimes that tool costs a little bit of money. Although it may not be the right tool for everyone, it happened to be a tool that made me a more efficient worker and person.
