As we pass from one year to another, I’m hoping for all the best for those folks who contributed to making my life a little more enjoyable every day.
Writer
Fellow Kansas City dweller Shawn Blanc made a big decision this year. He left his 9-5 job to write full time. His writing is top notch, and he seems to be a genuinely nice guy. He covers Mac in the same way as many others, dropping links to interesting articles, talking about the industry at large and writing some of the best hardware reviews I’ve read on a while.
Read more and subscribe at ShawnBlanc.net
Writer – Honorable Mention
I couldn’t do a post like this without mentioning Dr. Drang. I enjoy his writing because he spends little time writing about the same things you hear in the typical echochamber focusing instead on stuff that makes his Macs work for him.
Podcasts
Dan Benjamin has taken podcasting to a different level. The attention to detail that he’s put into his recording setup and choice of co-hosts made my beloved XM Radio almost useless in the past year. Merlin’s Back to Work is consistently funny, entertaining and enlightening.
Coffee
Every year there’s something that you find that changes your daily routine in an incredibly positive way. 2010 proved to be an expensive year to accomplish that with the iPad, but this year things are different. A $25 pice of molded plastic that I’d known about for years finally came into my life and made my days at the office much nicer. If you can’t always be around decent coffee, then do yourself a favor and buy yourself an Aeropress.
Software
2011 saw the quasi public release of TextMate 2, but it’s not a text editor that proved to be my favorite of the year. That honor goes to Alfred. The folks at Running with Crayons have put out the best replacement for Quicksilver available today. It clearly shows you what it’s capable of without being too obtrusive. It’s powerful, but doesn’t hog a bunch of system resources. More than anything, it’s as fun as any application launcher that I’ve used. Pick up a copy and buy the power pack.