Sometimes I would go so far as to try to vaguely plan tomorrow. “Mom, are we going to the grocery store tomorrow?” Yes. “What time?” Um .. I don’t know yet.

It proved difficult to prepare on paper for a predictably bland future, and no-one was much help in coming up with things to for me to do. Except, you know, like chores and junk. Bo-ring.

When I was a teenager and got my first job, I followed my dad in graduating to a checkbook-sized DayTimer, with my initials etched in a little brass plate on the leather front. I mostly used it to keep a log of the hours I worked, which did not exactly justify the $50/year or whatever it was for calendar inserts. (And, honestly, I was always rather frustrated at actually having to write things down on every page. Where was the copy-and-paste?) So I gave up and kept my hours in VoodooPad (which was new at the time), and my erstwhile to-do list in a text file.

Meanwhile, I became an adult, and here-and-there acquired some responsibilities.

Fast-forward a few years. I’d been a fan of Merlin Mann (who has since thrown off his mantle of Productivity Prophet) for a bit, and he was now talking about something called GTD. What was that? He kept talking about these index cards, and this David Allen fellow, and it sounded to this kid like the organizational Magic Bullet.

But I could never wrap my head around it. I bought the book, but (quite ironically) never got around to actually reading it. I watched as people fawned over Things, OmniFocus, KinklessGTD, TaskPaper, etc., and wondered how somebody could actually use one of these things without a secondary Personal Productivity System, just to teach them how to use the first one.

That-was-then. This-is-now.

I may have mentioned I’ve recently become an adult. Turns out those predictable days of schoolwork and leisure only last so long; before I noticed them waving and walking away, my job(s), family, responsibilities, and some other things that I Shouldn’t Have To Deal With In A Civilized Society were jumping up and down in front of me and saying HEY WHAT ABOUT MEEE DON’T FORGET! and, frankly, whipping me into a constant state of mild panic.

Occasionally I would think, “Boy, I wish I could write all this stuff down somewhere so I don’t forget any of it.”

Well, I’m glad you asked.

Today I discovered — what I think — is the One True GTD App. At least it is for me: The Hit List, currently in “Public Preview”, soon to be published by Potion Factory (wonderful name!).

It’s like a glorified legal tablet. But it’s also like iTunes. And it has Tabbed Browsing. And /tagging, and @contexts, and a system-wide, QuickSilver-like task creator (with hot-key), so that when something hits your brain, you can type it in quickly and get back to real work.

I love the user interface. It’s colorful and easy-to-use, and makes julienne fries. It just makes sense .. but what’s more, it gets out of my way and lets me work with my to-do list just the way I’d expect it to.

According to the developer, it will be $69.95 upon final release ($49.95 pre-order). I’ll be taking some time to see if The Hit List fits into my workflow, but so far it looks like I’ll be buying a copy very shortly.

I learned a lot in 2008. A lot of stuff changed.

More on all that shortly. But I sincerely hope just as much education and change comes my way in 2009.

In iTunes 6.0.3, Apple seems to have put a band-aid on the problem by making all the speaker outputs obey the main iTunes volume. Once again, that just lowers the volume everywhere, including on the computer. It’s not a perfect solution, but I’ll accept it for now. Thanks, Apple!

It’s really cool to be able to sit on the couch with the stereo behind me (which has less-than-stellar tweeters), and my computer in front of me (without any bass whatsoever), together playing full sound, in perfect sync. My only gripe is that whenever I use multiple outputs like this, my remote speakers are always set to the highest volume possible, with no apparent way of changing it. The iTunes volume slider controls the computer’s speakers, but has no effect on the remote ones. All I get when choosing multiple speaker outputs is a window like this:

The Rogue Amoeba folks (who also implemented syncing of remote speakers - I’m not sure if they did it before Apple, or if Apple included library support for it first) have got the right idea. They include a little volume slider for each speaker (only one shown in my screenshot, since I don’t yet have more than one Airport Express; another screenshot is on the AirFoil site):

I propose that Apple do something similar. I’ve even mocked it up for them below. It doesn’t seem like it would be that hard, since they already have a list with widgets in the cells. I know it would be way easier with Cocoa Bindings, but iTunes isn’t built with Cocoa, and probably never will be.

Right now, I’m successfully not deafening the neighbors by lowering the pre-gain on the iTunes equalizer, but that just lowers the volume everywhere, including the computer speakers. Yes, I know I could go over and change the stereo volume, but not really, because it’s an old one with a lid (see lower-right of this picture) and it’s behind the Christmas tree at the moment. Besides, I shouldn’t have to, because it should be built-in. And I don’t feel like paying for Airfoil to fix a feature that Apple broke.

“Unfortunately Daniel has ADHD and spends more than 40 hours a week playing computer games or watching cartoons.” I’ve got to get that down to at least 35.

“Unfortunately, Daniel could not take that time.” Or maybe 30. That might work.

“Unfortunately, Daniel missed the event cause he had a little problem in the train station. ” Yeah, I don’t like to talk about that one.

“Unfortunately, Daniel never fully recovered from that fiasco.” It still haunts me every time I close my eyes.

“Unfortunately Daniel delays a full explanation of his inventions until far too late in his book.” I knew I should have moved them up a few chapters.

“Unfortunately, Daniel never got back to us, so we made some assumptions and proceeded anyway.” Serves me right. Now the world will never get to see my invention.

“Unfortunately, Daniel has had to reduce this program. ‘I have run out of research funds, and it is too expensive to commute to Zimbabwe,’ he says.” I’ll say. I thought it was expensive to commute to South Carolina. (worth it, though)

“Unfortunately, Daniel begins to believe his own lies, and the results are disastrous for both himself and Peachy.” Oh, no!

“Unfortunately, Daniel developed blood-poisoning and died three days later at the young age of thirty-eight.” How tragic. I don’t like the way this story ends. Maybe I should try it again.

Not only do search results give you the option to remove pesky results from this and any future searches, but they allow you to jump directly to useful links within a site. Is this the realization of the until-now-misunderstood Google Sitemaps? I’m guessing Pizza Hut used Sitemaps to specify what those links should be.

And contrary to my currently-cynical expectations of modern adolescents, a few kids are apparently listening and thinking about it.

<input type="text" onblur="this.type='password';" onfocus="this.type='text';" />

View an actual crashing field (don’t if you have open tabs that you want to keep).

Type and tab away:

FireFox handles it just fine, though some internal JavaScript errors show up in the JavaScript Console. IE just complains of an error … it doesn’t know how to set the .type of an input type="text".

I should submit a WebCore bug, but I’ve never done that before. Looks like I have to search for the issue in BugZilla first.

Can anyone confirm this?

I have Time to kill-
What ever shall I do now?
Play some basketball.

So I countered with my own:

My work is postponed.
Sitting at the computer
I am eating lunch.

And the following conversation ensued (edited for punctuation and IM line order issues):

Me: I may do all my away messages in haiku.

Tim:    you do that
Tim:    i'll match you

Me:  Every single one.
    All of them will be haikus.
    You may if you like.

Tim:    ha.

Me:  (that was one, too!)
Me: plural of haiku = haiku?

Tim:    I noticed, I did.
    You are very clever now.
    I don't think so, no.

Me:  I suspect something.
    Are you counting on your hands?
    'Cause for sure I was.

Tim:    Haha, you are right.
    I need to stop this now, yes.

Me:  One more line you need,
    Then your haiku will be done.

Tim:    I play AOE.

Me:  Go play your game now.

Tim:    This is so much fun.
    I do not want to stop, ever.
    But we must sometimes.

Me:  I know. Isn't it?
    I must tell Jennifer.
    She will do it too.

Tim:    She will love it much.
    She won't be able to stop,
    Just like we cannot.

Me:  Stop starting haikus!
    I think you are too smart, my friend.
    You are just like me.

Tim:    I am cracking up.
    This is not good at all.
    I am leaving now.

Me:  I am laughing too.
    I can't keep from making these.
    One more line I need.

Me: There.

Tim:    haha.

Tim:    Enough of that junk.

Me:  AUGH
Me: stop it.

Meme’d by the lovely Aelki. One can never have too many books (much like toilet paper).

Number of books I own: Well, there are 220 on the two shelves pictured (not counting the books in the reflection). I have a bunch more in boxes, and five more are sitting on my desk right now. See above philosophy.

Last purchased book(s): The Complete Peanuts 1955–1956 (Vol. 3)

Last re-read: Started reading my updated copy of The Illuminati. Fell asleep before I got very far.

Five books for a desert island: My NASB, This Present Darkness, The Lord of the Rings, an empty journal (with attached pencil), and … hmm … maybe How to Build a Wooden Boat. That one might be helpful.

Book I’d thwack someone on the head with: Core PHP Programming, Second Edition. 769 pages of high-performance, cross-platform pain. Nice and thick and heavy.

Book I’d like to burn: The Da Vinci Code. Bleh. Not linking it. And yet I might go see the movie, which I am also not linking. Isn’t that sad?

Book that is overrated: Left Behind, volumes 3-12. Not linking them, either.

Fun classics: The Chronicles of Narnia, any and all Sherlock Holmes stories, Treasures of the Snow, and 34 MORE Tested, Ready-To-Run Game Programs in BASIC. Good for laughs, especially since I could never really get any of them to run properly. Maybe one.

Last book read: White, by Ted Dekker, I think. I haven’t had much time to read of late. That doesn’t mean I’m not in the middle of Monster, Obsessed, Mostly Harmless, and probably six or seven others that I can’t think of right now. And I still plan to finish A New Brand World.

Five people that I tag to answer these questions and post a photo of their bookcase: Tim, Steve, Pete, Andy, and Guy. You all are it. Be there or be square.