There are a few programs that I really like and are OS X only. The first one is Watson. It takes the Web out of the Web. A new program just popped up called Konfabulator! It's really a cool program. Not really a program but a way to make programs. Check out the web site at www.konfabulator.com. It will blow your socks off.

Wow, what a day. I was woke up by my network alarm at 6am. The net was off line. I was thinking it was just my router again. Nope. The net was really down. I had to wait until 8am to call my ISP. My contact there said everything was working fine. So thinking that my ISDN router finally blew up, I decided to reinstall the firmware. I found the floppies with the firmware and installed it. The router would not boot up. After messing with that for awhile I called my ISP back to see if I could get a rental. When I call, I found out that they were down. There was a problem with the lines coming in. SBC said they got wet and they were trying to dry them. Anyway, now my ISDN is busted and the net wasn't online after all. So I start searching for contact info to order a new ISDN router. After a while my ISP called me and told me that they should be up now. I got on my modem and downloaded a new firmware ROM. Looking at the two files I noticed that the one I had was 17kb and the one I downloaded was 906kb. Wow, I must have been correct thinking that my floppy was corrupted. I installed the new ROM and now I'm back up and running. What a day.

There is one thing that really, really gets under my skin. That is peoples refusal to switch from MS Windows to something that actually works.

Everyone knows how bad MS Windows is. I always hear how MS Windows crashed and someone lost their work. I hear how friends and family were infected with the latest email virus. I hear my business partners can't work for more that 3 hours between reboots. I hear all this stuff yet none of them will switch to something better.

Since 1993 I have been pushing other operating systems that are clearly better. It started with OS/2. OS/2 was a really great system. When OS/2 died because of lack of market share, I switched to Linux. Linux is a great OS that works like a dream. It's just a bit hard for desktop users to use.

In the middle of 2002 I switched to the Mac. With the release of Mac OS X being a Unix system, I just had to try it out. I got on eBay and found a Mac G4 Cube for $1200. You may think thats a lot of money, but you don't know the specs yet. 400MHz, 1Gb Ram, 20GB HDD, DVD, Firewire CDRW, 15" LCD Monitor, Speakers, Mouse, Keyboard, and OS X. I seen the same setup going for $500-$1000 more than that. I quickly upgrade the processor to 800MHz a few months after.

I have been using my Mac for about 6 months now and I will never switch to anything else. It is easy to use, yet very powerful. I can do everything I was doing in Linux and also have access to a really great GUI and tons of professional software. The Mac has never once crashed on me for no reason. Something that MS Windows does all the time. In fact my Mac can run for months without a reboot.

It's just mind boggling to think that people are locked into Microsoft Windows simply because they are afraid of change. For the people that say Mac's cost to much, your time and peace of mind must not be worth much.

I just found a USB Wireless adapter with a external antenna connector. Hyper Link has them. This is really good because I can setup end users a lot easier now.

My suggestions for the Safari web browser.

* Allow me to turn off the auto complete URL.
* Get rid of the brushed metal theme.
* Make a standard, customizable, toolbar with plenty of tools.
* Get rid of the load percent highlight in the URL.
* Make separate reload and stop buttons. (Or put them as customizable tools)
* Graphics (banner ad) blocking. When you right click on a graphic, show the url the graphic is from and allow block. IE: "Block images from www.doubleclick.net."
* Get Info for graphics on the page. I like to see stuff like height and width.
* Don't let javascript pop-up windows effect my window size.
* Let me keep spell check as I type on.
* Give me CSS control over buttons and text entry boxes, like Mozilla and IE.
* Tool tips for title and alt in links and graphics.
* Tab browsing. (duh)
* Keep window placement. I don't like them opening up all over the screen.
* Auto form fill using the Keychain.
* Quit warning me about Flash not being installed. I don't want to install it.
* Fix the page caching. It's a bit on the strong side.
* Copy email address or url when highlighted and right clicked on. Like in Mozilla.
* Regular expression match to block graphics and or cookies.
* Default block all cookies unless I enable for the site I'm at. I don't like clicking block for every cookie I come across. Just block it and let me enable it from the menu.
* Get rid of the download pop up status. Or at least give me the option to auto-close it.

Thats about all I can think of for now.

Here's a funny one. I was using the Turbo Tax Web $20 version. I switched to the $60 one and now I get a $4 refund. Everything is the same except what version of Turbo Tax I'm using. Thats crazy.

I worked on my taxes some more. Now its down to $439. Gesh, still too much. I added all my WISP stuff in. I just feel like I'm doing something wrong. It shouldn't be so much.

Still waiting for the wireless equipment that I ordered on Friday. I guess it was back ordered because I just got a shipping notification saying they will be here this Friday. All well. Maybe it will be nice this weekend and I can install it all. I really want to get this stuff setup so I can start paying back my investment. I also want to order my T1 this month. I really want to get that setup very soon.

Well, so far I owe $574 to the IRS. Gesh. I still do not know for sure if I can to file a CA state return. I don't live there, but I get paid from there. I thought for sure that I would be getting back a bunch of money because of all the expenses that I have. This sucks. I payed $3720 for my internet connection for work last year. That didn't even make a dent in my taxes. I have to pay more than $8k before it starts taking money off. We only make $39k last year. You would think that we would get a tax break for not making anything. I made $50k in 1998 and got back over $1000. Since then, I've been paying. This year is going to be different!

Wow, 10 hours in a car today. Thats a lot of driving. Well, we are back from the bay area. I got to see Jane's skateboard park today. It's really nice. I love the half pipe. Its really good. like 7 foot with 7 foot tranny. I was a bit freaked out on it. I didn't do much. Finally I got a few sweepers and smiths in on it. Crazy slick coping. Anyway, I'm going to bed now.