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Shawn Blanc interviews Brent Simmons
Brent Simmons, creator of the beloved NetNewsWire RSS app, is a talkative guy. We've chatted with him quite a few times about various Mac issues, and late last week he gave another interview to Shawn Blanc over at his website.The interview is mostly about NetNewsWire-- the inspiration for its various features, and the development process Simmons goes through (he writes way more code than he ever uses, and calls himself an "anti-packrat"). There's also a picture of Simmons' workspace (above)-- he works on a Cinema display hooked up to a 17" iMac, with a 17" PowerBook around for PPC testing. He also has a HappyLite Sunshine Simulator right there-- I would think shining a light in my face every morning would wear me out, but he says it helps his Seattle existence, and if it gave us NNW (3.1 is on the way, we're told), I won't argue.Always a good guy, that Simmons, except that he's a little indecisive-- he told us his favorite feature was the Attention Report, and now he says it's the spacebar. Make up your mind!
Do you play WoW at work?
This would actually make a good Breakfast Topic, but I figured it'd be more appropriate if I asked it right in the middle of the workday: do you play WoW at work?I've heard people do it, but personally I couldn't imagine how I'd pull it off. Most of my workday (when I'm not slaving away for the Weblogs, Inc. overlords here) is spent in an open office, and so even if I did find the time to squeeze a little adventuring in between my actual work, I have so many people looking over my shoulder that I'd get caught before long. Of course, when I am supposed to be writing for this site, I'm usually playing WoW anyway, so that evens out, I suppose.It seems, though, that if British cops can get away with playing on the PSP at work, WoW is just a sneaky laptop away. So some of you out there must be playing WoW at work right now (don't worry, we won't tell your boss), but how are you possibly pulling it off? Are you just letting it run while you do actual work? Or finding some time on your lunch break to level a little? Or are you all out hacking and slashing your way through Azeroth while a conference call goes on in the background? There is always the argument that playing WoW makes you more productive, but somehow I don't think my boss would buy that.
Widget Watch: MultiDash - workspaces for Dashboard
Looks like even Dashboard is getting in on this 'spaces' concept with MultiDash - a workspace manager for your Mac OS X 10.4 widgets. Flipping the widget over allows you to create separate workspaces, and it simply records which widgets are open, complete with a screenshot, when you create the workspace. Flipping the widget back over allows you to click the title bar to chose which workspace you want to see and potentially switch to. Clicking the button on the bottom... well, that's pretty self explanatory.After tinkering around with this widget, I have to say: this is fantastic. Setting aside the debate about widgets and system resources, this is a killer way to manage sets of widgets for different Dashboard uses, rather than compromising with keeping all your widgets open or dealing with the less-than-ideal widget strip in the Dashboard to re-open widgets as you need them.MultiDash is available from JBearTechnologies as donationware, and I highly recommend dropping them at least a buck (pound, etc.) or two for their slick work.
