Evaluating MacJournal

I haven’t been updating this blog because... well... I have been busy. Other than that I find the blogger editor/manager to be frustrating. It seems that all of Google’s software has seen a lot of improvements over the past few years yet Blogger is hopelessly out of date. Why don’t they make it like Google Docs? I’m hoping that MacJournal will help me blog more often.

My initial thoughts are that this is a nice piece of software. I have it set up like a 3 pane email application with the folders on the left side, entries at the top and the main editor pane taking up most of the screen in the bottom right.

The good

• Very Mac like. It has been designed as a modern Mac application so it’s easy to pick up
• A visual rich text editor make it simple to do formatting.
• Easy integration with existing blogs like blogger and wordpress. Set up is easy and you can download all the blog entries.

The not so good

• No way of previewing the journal entry at Blogger. You can select “View Blog in Browser” but it takes you to the index - not the selected entry.
• Can’t figure out how to wrap images.

These are my initial impressions after using this software for about 20-30 minutes. I’m going to try it for the 15 day evaluation period and see if i use it enough to warrant the reasonable $35 price tag.

The Interweb knows who I am...

I was listening to Talk of the Nation on NPR and the discussion was on life blogging and user generated media. One of the guests made the remark "who with a computer hasn't Googled themselves or their ex...". Well, I haven't Googled myself in years and my hit hit count isn't really great since Mark Davidson is hardly a unique name. However, I was quite flattered to see that someone blogged about a document I wrote.

I was impressed that he read my Component Assembly Manifesto and he felt compelled to comment on it. I wrote this document during the post boom years when I was a software rock star. I was on a flight to Rochester on a business trip and the movie was Sweet November and it totally sucked so I wrote the manifesto in a fit of inspiration.

This manifesto had a pretty good impact and impressed a VP at a major New York investment bank that he flew me out to the Big Apple under the auspices for me to give a private talk to his staff but his real motive was to recruit me. This was a few months after 9/11 and Eve was pregnant with Jade so I didn't want to relocate. I was afraid of "dirty bombs" and didn't want Jade to be raised in New York City. This was a bit of a missed opportunity since the bank is doing doing awesome since then. The compensation structure at investment banks is based on results so half-million dollar annual bonuses were not out of the question for talented Engineers who lead strategic technology initiatives. If I had made the move then I could have had Google type wealth. I like to think that the type of tools that my document inspired may have contributed to those stellar earnings.

I'm no longer a software rock star - just a working stiff punching the clock humbly in obscurity. I think I made the right choice at the time. I love living in California and I just have to solace myself with the fact that I'm living in paradise with my wonderful wife, child and mountain bikes.