Living in text files
Giles Turnbull on the O’Reilly network has an article about Living in text files. I’m going to try it.
You put all your data in one big text file, and then use your text editor’s search command to find what you’re looking for. Your To Do list, your bills, things to blog, contacts, notes on anything at all. It doesn’t matter how big the file gets, because it’s still just one big text file. Easy to back up, easy to sync with my iPod or web site. More here: Plain text - 43Folders Wiki.
And I think Jennifer does something like this, too, only in Word.
It’s all part of the ongoing simplification of my whole computer experience, something I read about here: Reducing Friction.
Since I do all my application switching via Butler anyway, I’ve finally given in and hidden Mac OS X’s Dock. And I feel a sense of relief, oddly. I can now stop fighting it for vertical space, and can finally use the entire area of the widescreen that I paid for when I bought my PowerBook.
I also hid my Safari bookmarks bar, and I wish I could get rid of the Google field. Saft provides me with quick Google access in the URL field (“g whatever”, or even “gl whatever” if I’m feeling lucky). My links are accessible via Cmd-# hotkeys anyway.
And now that I have a decent scrolling mouse, long text files don’t frighten me as much. Even though I’m going to search rather than scroll most of the time.
We’ll see what happens.
Update: I’ve hacked ToolbarItems.nib in Safari’s package to remove the Google search field. 
Yay.
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