Ever just have a strong desire to write something? I seem to be having that right now. My problem though is that I don’t know what to write about. I have a story that I’m continuing to work on, but I really don’t feel like writing fiction. For some strange reason, I really feel like actually researching something factual and writing about that.

I will probably end up writing about something history-related. And it will probably be for History Rhymes. I guess we’ll see though because, as I said, I don’t really know what to write about…

A couple of days ago I got an notification that there was an update to the software I normally use for keeping track of all of my various blogs and my journals. The software is called Journler. I have to admit that I really like the software, but with the update came a new license saying that it was becoming shareware. It used to be something they called donationware which is where a user can choose to donate if they like the software.
I donated some money because I really liked the software, but according to the new license, I will have to buy the program if I want to continue using it despite having already donated the same amount the program will cost me ($40). I don’t know about you, but for me that was enough for me to uninstall the program and start using Word and a system of folders in my Documents folder as my new journal/blog organizing system.
As such, I have removed Journler from my Mac Software list. I’m quite disappointed because I really liked the program, but I will no longer be using it.

I use Google Mail and I love it. I began using it when it was still called Gmail and was an exclusive, by-invitation-only ordeal. At the time, the 1 GB of storage was a little overwhelming as the other offers, such as Yahoo! Mail, offered only around 6 MB. I now have over 2 GB of mail which I never foresaw coming. But still Google Mail exhibits some absolutely obnoxious traits that I sometimes have a hard time working around or getting over.

One of my biggest petpeeves about computers is their habit to bring a loading application to the foreground. I know this sounds logical, but for users who constantly multitask on the computer like I do, it’s incredibly irritating. I continually will have one application open and be busy doing something with that application, then need another application. I click on the icon of the new application to open it, then go back to the one I was using to continue whatever it was that I was previously doing. Regardless of which operating system I am using, Windows, Mac OS X or Linux — they all exhibit the same behavior, the loading application inevitably intrudes upon my work some few seconds (or even minutes, depending on the application and computer) later by opening and becoming the active application. This is especially annoying when I am trying to type something.

Google Mail acts the same way by bringing the current window, tab or even the browser itself to the foreground. As I do with standard applications, I multitask when I am surfing the web. I make heavy use of tabbed browsing and quite often I find myself loading Google Mail in one tab, then opening a new one to go to another website. As soon as I begin typing the URL of the page I want to go to, my fingers seem to go into some sort of automatic mode and by the time I press the enter button to navigate to the URL, Google Mail has made a nuisance of itself and changed the active tab. That means that I find myself navigating away from Google Mail to some partial URL (when the tab changes, it brings with it a clear address bar) that I have no interest in going to. That is incredibly obnoxious.

I know I should probably slow down and just wait for either Google Mail or the newly launched application to load, but that just isn’t how I work. I have tried it and I am simply too impatient.

Your thoughts on it?

[digg=http://www.digg.com/odd_stuff/w00t_is_not_a_word]This flat out sickens me:

“‘w00t,’ an expression of joy coined by online gamers, was crowned word of the year on Tuesday by the publisher of a leading U.S. dictionary.

Massachusetts-based Merriam-Webster Inc. said ‘w00t’ — typically spelled with two zeros — reflects a new direction in the American language led by a generation raised on video games and cell phone text-messaging.”

I really don’t think that “w00t” is a word much less should be crowned the word of the year. The direction the English language is taking due to the use of words like this I find very saddening and for a prestigious institution such as Merriam-Webster to go about promoting it is just out right disgusting.