Being self-employed and working from home, I have the good fortune of using and running whatever programs I feel that I need or want to use or even just try out. While there are tons of programs installed on my Mac, everything from apps used to rip (MacTheRipper), strip (DVD2oneX) and burn DVD’s (Toast) to watching live TV (EyeTV), and more practical items such as banking (iBank) as well as Pages and Numbers, here are the ones that I am generally running at all times.

Beginning with the obvious first:

Firefox: Firefox 3 RC1. What else can be said here, a must have for web browsing. Within Firefox is generally Google Reader along with my blogging pages (Expression Engine and Wordpress).

Apple Mail: Standard Mail application for the Mac, while it may not be perfect it works well for my needs. I am not a fan of checking my mail within the browser and use IMAP for my many email accounts. I also store the important emails locally on my Mac, just in case.

Adium: In my opinion the best multiple chat program for the Mac, I have a few Google Chat accounts set up as well as a lightly used AIM account.

Skype: The standard for computer based VOIP calling, although I hesitate to call this daily as I am not always logged in, I tend to jump on to make a call and then disconnect after the call is over.

Twitterific: With an addiction to Twitter a dedicated app is necessary, however Twitterific is slowly being replaced by twhirl, which helps me follow the traffic on FriendFeed a little easier.

TextEdit: Basic bare bones text document creator. I do all my blogging with this and then copy and paste the post into either Expression Engine or Wordpress. I find that TextEdit is far less likely to crash then Firefox, this way I do not have to worry as much about any loss of work, while I am in the writing process.

Pixelmator: I used Photoshop Elements for so long and was comfortable and hesitant to switch, but I am so glad that I finally went ahead. Pixelmator is a wonderful tool, especially for those without the need for anything crazy like the full version of Photoshop.

TimeOut: A great app that simply reminds me when to take a break, its nice and customizable and allows you to schedule the frequency of full and micro breaks. Sometimes when I get into writing and editing posts or even checking my RSS feeds time can fly by without me even realizing. This is a life, well actually eye saver for me.

Snackr: A recent addition, I actually just installed this today and have it running up the left hand side of my second monitor. I am not 100% certain on if this will last as it may become more of a time waster than a useful app for me. Meaning it may distract me from getting my work done, time will tell on this, but first impressions is that its pretty cool. Of course being an RSS junkie I had to set it to display only feeds from the current day.

iTunes: I am a Mac user and this is iTunes, what more can I say, I have way more GB’s of music than I really need and I am subscribed to all of my podcasts using it also. I have however been listening to my Zune Marketplace tracks a lot more than my iTunes collection lately.

Zune Marketplace: Another recent edition, this one is just about a week old, and after some initial frustrations with Windows DRM issues, I am loving the Zune and wish I had picked one up sooner. The subscription model is great, I can listen to all kinds of cool tracks that I love and just do not want to have to pay for, I have been downloading all kinds of cool stuff that I used to listen to years ago. Sadly this is running on a second computer, a basic Compaq desktop PC running Windows XP, but to make me feel better about using Windows everyday, I prefer to call it a music player instead of a computer.

Well, those were my daily use apps, but like I mentioned I have and use lots more on a fairly regular basis. So whats your list looking like?

• WordPress Shop [Americas] › Home (powered by Indigo Clothing)
• Mozilla Store
• ProBlogger The Book - Readers Pictures Round 1

• Madonna: 2008 “Sticky & Sweet” Tour Concert Tickets - Dolphin Stadium Miami, FL | A Live Nation Event
• ProBlogger : Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income

After some initial aggravation and then some quality hands on time, I have my long overdue first thoughts on the Zune.

I guess, being it is “The Social” I should share my Zune web address, just in case you wanted to see what I have been listeing to.

http://social.zune.net/member/areyouageek

Now, moving on, I was able to get my Windows DRM issues resolved and transferred my Zune setup from the temporary setup on my Mini-Note to the desktop computer where I plan to use it on a regular basis.

The fix was not hard, and quite honestly I am more aggravated at tech support for not being able to resolve it or at least point me in a better direction, because after some online research this seems to be a fairly common issue, both with the Zune Marketplace as well as some other Windows DRM based music services.

The fix required me to…

Open a Windows folder and go to Tools > Folder Options. Once there I had to click on the View tab and check the circle for “Show hidden files and folders,” I also had to un-check the box just below that for “Hide protected operating system files.”

By doing this it allowed me to navigate to “C:\” then “Documents and Settings” then “All Users.” Once in All Users I was able to see my DRM folder, which simply had to be renamed to DRMbackup. After that I did a quick restart and everything was back and able to be downloaded and played, just like magic.

Of course I still feel that Windows DRM sucks, but remember I am a Mac guy.

So since I have begun to the Zune I can honestly say that I truly like it. Both as a player and also as a subscription service.

I have always had an interest in a subscription based service and used Napster for a while, but always felt that paying for the subscription was a waste of money and preferred buying and owning my music. However I just recently came to realization that I already pay for a subscription service and have no option of what I listen to. Its called satellite radio, I am, and have been a Sirius subscriber for years now and never minded paying for that, so what is the difference with the Marketplace? In my opinion — nothing, at least this way I get to listen to and choose a little more specifically what I listen to. First good, positive point for me.

Moving on I want to touch on the headphones, the ones that ship with the Zune 80 are “Premium” and honestly I have no idea what makes them premium, but can say that they are really nice. As compared to the Apple earbuds they are much more comfortable and in my personal opinion have a much better sound quality also. My only disappointment with them is that I cannot use them in my iPhone without a special adapter, but that is just an iPhone issue and nothing that is wrong with the headphones themselves. The magnet that holds to two earbuds together is also (albeit really useless) but still a neat little option. Second good, positive point for me.

Well I have rambled enough for now, more Zune thoughts on the player itself and Marketplace to follow shortly.

Something that really bugs me is having to wear a seat belt, well actually its the fact that I am told without any choice that I MUST wear one. Without getting into any argument over just how much safer you are with a seat belt, we can save that for another day. However I will say that I know someone first hand who was in a horrible crash without a seat belt and walked out with minor scratches because they were not wearing one (the roof above their head collapsed down to the steering wheel and had they been buckled in they would have had their head crushed). While I fully admit that scenario is most likely the minority, I just want to be given the option to choose my fate.

My rationalization for this is that (as a Florida resident) I am given the choice, as long as I meet certain requirements to go without a helmet on a motorcycle. I must ask…Which seems safer, a motorcycle without a helmet or a car without a seat belt? Also keep in mind I am in favor and support Florida’s helmet laws, I believe it should be the riders choice.

You see Florida law allows me to choose not to wear a helmet as long as I am “over 21 years of age” and also have “an insurance policy providing for at least $10,000 in medical benefits.”

“a person over 21 years of age may operate or ride upon a motorcycle without wearing protective headgear securely fastened upon his or her head if such person is covered by an insurance policy providing for at least $10,000 in medical benefits for injuries incurred as a result of a crash while operating or riding on a motorcycle.”

To make my point simple and clear, I am required to have insurance on my car, whether or not I choose to wear a seat belt, all I am asking is that I be given the option to choose whether or not I wear a seat belt. It should ultimately be my decision.

•   ROFLCon Keynote Released For The Masses by (jeff)isageek.net
• jkOnTheRun: The Dragon contest is still going strong
• Great People Live Up to Their Word - eXtra For Every Publisher

• Microspotting | Sarah In Tampa | Channel 10
• Explosive Tips For Great Web Content Writing
• Making Money from 2nd and 3rd clicks with the Amazon Affiliate Progam

• The Minisite Flipping Business Plan
• Picnic Island Adventure Runs, Tampa FL
• Read me first: Taking your laptop into the US? Be sure to hide all your data first | Technology | The Guardian

So I have been wanting to do a blog theme update for a long time now, but I was using a wide theme that allowed me to use images 500 wide and larger without affecting the sidebar. This was causing an issue with choosing a new theme, as most will allow for 425 wide or slightly bigger without affecting the sidebar.

Needless to say I could not find one, and had almost given up and just lived with what I had, after all it was not horrible, just not what I wanted. Well Disqus, in an indirect way convinced me to change my theme. After seeing a lot of people (namely jeffisageek & tw3nty3ight) mention it lately I have been wanting to get it added, however it would not work well with the theme I had, go figure, but at least it forced me to make a switch.

After a good deal of searching I decided to go with this theme (take some time and check it out), which is called “Illacrimo” and it was courtesy of Design Disease.

So I added the theme, got the Disqus comment system set up, updated my sidebar and all those goodies, and then set out to go back through old posts and begin the challenge of resizing images. Sucks, but I am almost all of the way through, the rest will have to wait till later tonight as I have some real work to do now.

Overall I am happy that I made the move, I hope the theme looks good, I like it. Now I also realized one other important item, I need to do more blogging here and get some regular content coming. I also need to get some more commenters so I can fully test and use really Disqus, but with more posts I suppose more comments will come in time.

Its been almost three wasted hours now just attempting to be able to get my Zune setup. Its funny because I understand computers and this should not be so hard, I almost feel bad for those who are not quite as computer literate.

First off, it took me forever, at least a dozen attempts to get the Zune Marketplace software installed, for some reason it kept stopping. Finally got that all set, plugged in the Zune, updated the software to the current 2.5 and I thought I was ready to download music and sync. Oh how wrong I was.

With little time, I gave up last night and picked up this morning. I have spent way too much time and am considering a return. It comes down to an issue with DRM on my computer, which is funny because its a Windows XP Home machine with SP3 installed. I have used it for nothing other than some basic web surfing, in fact the only other program installed, other than what came with the computer, (its a Compaq) was Firefox.

In my attempt to download music, I was greeted with this error.

Naturally I went to the “web help” but was not given anything useful, in fact I was given nothing.

After this I called tech support, only to spend an hour on the phone with them attempting all the same crap that I already tried. I finally told him I had enough when he began asking me to uninstall and reinstall numerous items.

I just want to download and listen to music.

Well that is enough for today, I may try again tomorrow, but until then it looks pretty bad for the Zune.