I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned before that I use Markdown for blogging.
I love Markdown. It’s awesome. If I had my way, I’d use it for all my writing.
After spending years making web pages, I can’t be bothered writing HTML anymore. I hate WYSIWYG editors–they’re way too
fiddly and distracting and it’s all too easy to end up with inconsistencies.
The way it works is I type up my blog entry into Wordpress in Markdown and it saves it in Markdown, exactly as I typed
it. It only converts it to HTML when it’s displaying it. This is sane and reasonable and obviously the way it should be.
I’ve been trying to find some sort of offline blogging tool. Web apps are great and everything, but I don’t trust them.
I’ve lost too much work to closed tabs and browser windows.
Uh, hold on, there goes the point of this post. Apparently (as I’m reading that link, having just retrieved it), Semagic
supports the MetaWeblog API now. So I can use that. Or at least I’ll have to try it when I’m on Windows at work
tomorrow.
Huhn.
Anyway, this was going to be a rant about how while there are many, many offline blogging tools on Windows, including
and especially Windows Live Writer, and most of them have an HTML code
editing mode, they all very irritatingly strip the whitespace before saving.
Strip the whitespace! That’s outrageous! While HTML parsers have no need for whitespace, people coding HTML absolutely
do. And it’s part of the syntax in Markdown.
Semagic doesn’t strip whitespace, though. So I’ll have to give that a try.
Well, that turned out better than I thought it would.
I was going to do these things chronologically (more or less), but it all kind of weaves together, so there’s no reason
not to jump around.
Part of what prompted this series (besides needing filler for NaBloPoMo), was my rediscovering a page I wrote ten years
ago about why I was using the computer I was using. I concluded with a defiant
proclamation that I’d get my parents to get my sister a Mac for school.
They did, too. They got her one of the early PowerMacs running System 7.
That was fine enough, I suppose. After a few years, though, she got annoyed she couldn’t read MS Word documents or play
the games her friends were playing. Honestly, though, if she got a PC, it’s not like she would’ve upgraded the hardware
or Windows or any of the things she’d have to do to do those things anyway. But I got in trouble anyway for subjecting
her to a deviant computing platform.
I was probably more happy with it than she was. It was a little bit more capable than my Amiga at the time. When she and
I were both home one summer (me on co-op), I ended up commandeering her computer to do things like watch videos of anime
openings and playing games like Exile. Whatever I could download
on her super-fast 56k modem.
She eventually got rid of that machine and ended up getting a PC at Future Shop. And when it came time to pick a
successor to my Amiga, I never even considered getting a Mac.
I knew about Max OS X, though. It was a flashy, new operating system built on an open source BSD base. Unlike my
sister’s Mac, it had a command line. While I was mucking around in the dreary Windows world, it was gaining converts and
cachet. You could do more and more stuff with it. Firefox was ported to it and it finally had a decent browser. It
started looking like a viable platform.
I was curious. I wanted to see what was going on here. Plus, I kinda wanted a laptop for wireless networking, and I knew
PC laptops sucked for that. (This was four years ago. They did. Seriously). Mac laptops were supposed to be really good,
so I decided to get my feet wet.
I went to a Mac sales demo at the university. I really, really wanted the 12" aluminum Powerbook, but the sales guy said
that, with it’s plastic case, the 12" iBook had better wireless reception. I caught wind that a G4 iBook was coming out,
and I was sold.
And I’ve had it for four years. It’s what I’m writing this on right now.
I love my little iBook. There are a few little quirks that bug me sometimes, like jerky Flash animation and video, a
jumpy track pad, and the lack of a one-handed Page Down key. And I love Mac OS X, too.
I think if you wanted to spend all your time in the Mac universe, you’d be just fine. Actually, you’d be fantastic.
Everything works really well together. Not just Apple stuff, either. Third party application developers on the Mac are
fantastic. Quicksilver has changed the way I think about
computer user interfaces. Attempts to clone it on Windows or Linux are (for now, at least) only pale imitations. If
every computer I ever used had Quicksilver and Exposé, I’d be so
happy. It’s already ingrained in muscle memory. It eliminates so much command line and window fiddling.
There is trouble in paradise, though. Apple doesn’t play nice with others.
They do support things like Windows networking, but they by no means go out of their way to make it seamless.
My Airport Express is a lovely little device for getting podcasts over to my
stereo, but the hardware works with iTunes and only iTunes. My iPod is tied to iTunes. Data put into iTunes or iPhoto is
never coming out again. The new iPods are even more restrictive. And then there’s the iPhone.
You know those Star Trek episodes where some hyper-intelligent alien comes along and sticks Kirk in some exquisitely
beautiful paradise, where all his wants and needs are taken care of? But upon realizing this, he recoils and breaks out,
giving a stirring speech about how it’s man’s nature to be free, to strive and to seek challenges, even though
perfection could be handed to him?
That’s how the Mac and the whole Apple platform is starting to feel like for me.
I love the Mac. I really do. But the more I get into it, the more I feel like I’m being shackled to it with velvet
handcuffs.
For the record, a “day”, for NaBloPoMo purposes, begins when I wake up and ends when I go to sleep. So this counts as
Sunday’s entry.
I spent most of today (the parts that weren’t spent at Ellen’s, anyway) out in the back yard raking up leaves. Okay, I
took plenty of breaks, and really, I only raked up what was on the brick patio. That alone came out to eight yard waste
bags. I have a lot of trees.
I’ve decided that the leaves on the lawn are going to stay on the lawn. I have a mulching lawnmower, and it seems to do
the trick admirably. We’ll see how the lawn turns out. I’ve got a few bald patches, and I have a feeling that my
overseeding in September didn’t take. Apparently you’re supposed to water new seed. Every day. We’ll see if any comes up
in the spring, but I’m not entirely hopeful.
I’ve still got lots of leaves clogging up the eaves troughs. After last year’s roof leaking adventures, I’m definitely
going to get someone in to do it. I’m just a little bit too terrified of being up on ladders to do it myself. I was up
there doing a little bit–clearing out where the leaves clog things up the most: at the downspouts and at the one
corner. This really needs to get done properly, though.
Speaking of buying stuff, when iRobot announced their gutter-cleaning
robot, the Looj, I was all over it, putting in a pre-order. It came in about
a month ago, and I put it together and tried it out shortly after. The leaf-spewing spinny front thing works really
well, spewing leaves all over the place. However, it appears that my eaves troughs are slightly too narrow. The Looj’s
tank treads couldn’t get traction.
I’m planning on writing them a letter. I’m not going to ask for my money back, because I honestly think it’s a fantastic
idea. I’m just sad it didn’t work out for me. So I’ll have to hire someone instead.