This is going to get exciting, and I didn’t want that excitement to be limited to those that I personally encounter over the next 2.5 months.  Thus, I will be documenting the growth of my facial hair daily for all to see.

I have absolutely no idea how this is going to work out–I’ve never let my facial hair run wild, particularly on the upper lip.  Additionally, I’ve never let the upper lip grow solo.  All signs are pointing toward a very interesting 2.5 months, stay tuned.

Without further adieu, Day 1:

Peep this for some more deets: http://www.rianflynn.com/

I don't read comic books, but I'm sold.

This is the “Reveal” watch by Daniel Will Harris (via Yanko Design). I have a thing for watches, and this is definitely one that I could rock. In addition to great design, it’s tagged as “time is always in the present. This timekeeper reveals the current time through a looking glass while fading the past and the future. If you are a person of the present, this watch is made specifically for you.” If you don’t like that concept, you’re probably really boring.

Similar to the “Reveal” the “Past-Present-Future” watch by Daniel Will Harris is equally aesthetically pleasing and functionally cool. Reference previous discussion of liking cool concepts.

This is a magnetic spice rack from Zevro. I love the idea of having a magnetic spice rack to organize my kitchen. Not my current kitchen, but eventually.

City Rain Concrete glass is awesome looking, and apparently there is some science involved. That’s pretty cool.

Chair/Bookshelf. Enough said. Anybody have $745?

Google has released a tool for visualizing large sets of public data (essentially a static GIS client, only way more user friendly). As a proficient “GIS-er” this could have a pretty large impact on how we visualize data and data sets (Planners and Geographers take note).

Iron Man 2 Trailer is up on youtube. Looks pretty baller.

This has been an installment of Adam Runner’s “Cool Stuff.” Back to the grindstone.

1) Stacks.  Stacks are seriously bananas.  I’m not sure how I lived without them, actually.  I’d estimate that stacks alone have upped my productivity by about 2%, as I can “stack” my most commonly used folders right there in the dock.  Plus, so long as you have few enough folders or items in there, the display from the stack is extremely elegant.  Nay, boner elegant.  When you get too many the window navigation is a bit janky, but atleast I don’t have to open a finder window–and that my friends, is the bomb-dot-com.

2) Time Machine.  Time machine is probably going to save my life/academic career much more soon than I’d care to admit.  Anything that allows you to visually navigate your backup system is a fairly amazing concept.  Of course, it’s “apple simple” in its execution, which is a big plus.  But the biggest advantage of the Time Machine is its integration with Migration Assistant.  If you ever have to format your OS, or if you buy a new mac to which you want to transfer your existing files, settings, preferences, etc., Migration Assistant can access your time machine files and transfer them in about half an hour (depending how many files you’re transferring).  If that doesn’t jack your shit up, you clearly haven’t had the pleasure of manually restoring your files and system after an OS install.

3) OmmWriter.  Holy Shit OmmWriter.  In fact, I’m writing this post in OmmWriter because its the best thing ever.  Sure, when I had Tiger I used WriteRoom, but lets count the ways in which OmmWriter makes WriteRoom look like a fool with its pants on the ground.

#1 OmmWriter is five-finger discount FREE.  WriteRoom is all up in my biz telling me I gots to pay 30 bones for a distraction free writing environment? Please.

#2 WriteRoom is nothing BUT a distraction free writing enviroment.  A blacked out screen with type.  To be fair, you can change the color of the type.  OmmWriter is not just distraction free, it keeps all your senses distraction free.  You can choose between the default snowy landscape background, the sensible linen-patterened off-white, and a whited-out screen. Is whited-out proper English?  It is now.

#3 Averting my eyes is childs-play.  This thing has soothing music that is conveniently lyric free.  I know everyone thinks they work better when they’re listening to music, but you’re wrong.  Your music slows you down when you’re writing.  THIS music provides a background.  A soothing one.  Even more awesome, you have like 8 different soothing options to choose from (including a mute).  On top of that, you get to cycle through a bunch of different noises that the program makes as you type, which may sound annoying, but is in practice extremely gratifying.  I know I’m not the only one of us out there who didn’t begin his word-processing on a computer.  I often think many of today’s youth would write much more methodically (and gooder) if they busted out the typewriters in grade school.  But I digress, you can hear your progress, and it reminds me of a simpler time.

SCREENSHOT FTW!

Seriously guys, not to wax poetic on you, but if you’re in any kind of writing biz, if you have trouble writing efficiently, go and get this program.  This of course, is only possible if you’ve got yourself this Kitty-Cat OS upgrade. Check the vid kids.

OmmWriter from Herraiz Soto on Vimeo.