A Dialogue With K

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Originally uploaded by: akubo

Seriously my favourite softwares in my laptop are downloaded from the many Mac sites, most of them are simply “free”. And how do we define “free”? There are lots of software out there that is “free” but not “open”. Some people say “free as in freedom”, but freedom from what? Cost? Patents? Usage limits?

Ok a tag from Pao. Without a doubt, I’ll consider gratis as free, so here are some stuff (of many) which I basically use for blogging, checking emails, photo filings and ok, chats. Nothing work-related, banking online, whatsoever.

Browser: Safari - Admittedly, I used to be a big fan of Firefox on my other laptop, IBM. But that’s really more a pick because it’s a terrific alternative to the tired, insecure Microsoft Internet Explorer browser, if you know what I’m saying. Now that I have a Mac, I never really open my Firefox. My default browser will always be the Safari, with its elegant implementation of tabs, speed and tight integration with the rest of anything from Mac OS X - not to mention that it’s included with every Mac OS X system around so it doesn’t need to be downloaded. I just find Safari works really well for me. And believe it or not, all your blogs looks better in Safari, it’s clean and nothing fancy. Good news, there’s now a beta release of Safari browser for Windows.

Audio: Last.fm - I love exploring tag radios. It is my kind of music library to find good music that I’d frequently use for my entries. For example, this morning, I woke up listening to jazz music. And I just listened to love songs after-a-while, see how it affects my emotion and put them into writing. You’d think that people would’ve had enough silly love song, but even Paul McCartney have actually looked around and saw it wasn’t so. I also find some good ones from alternative rock. Now I’m listening to Pinoys. Hey wait, do you notice why I am blogging at 4:30am and not sleeping? Well because I’m hooking up with people who shared their music tastes on Last.fm.

Email or Chat: Adium - Which IM do you prefer? I personally pick Adium. A fast and free open source instant messaging client which supports AIM, ICQ, Jabber, MSN, Yahoo!, Google Talk and many more. Adium supports beautiful WebKit message display, tabbed messaging, encrypted chat, file transfer, and more. If you’re on a Mac, give it a try, you won’t look back. I’m giving a huge props to Earadriede (IF YOU ARE READING, THANK YOU) for introducing me this apps.

Disk Utilities: Parallel Desktop - A good friend of mine who works for a Mac Authorized shop have downloaded Windows Parallel to my Mac absolutely free. When it was first launched, I already liked it.a.LOT. Not that I’ve missed Windows, the ability to use both of these Operating System in an Intel-base Mac is such an incredible idea to run Windows altogether. “Parallels Desktop for Mac empowers users with the ability to run important Windows programs like Outlook, Access, Internet Explorer and all other applications without having to give up the usability and functionality of their Mac OS X machine even for a few minutes”. Neato.

Entertainment: iTunes - For me, it’s actually a good deal to use because I listen to music a lot. My iTunes library and iPod have a couple of thousand songs. There’s also a few dozen playlists, mostly mix and match. It’s so easy to organize and play everything on your Mac or PC then sync it to your iPod or iPhone (I can’t wait) and bring it along. I only have two nominal issues with iTunes, it is nifty and the second is a must have. Need I say more?

And of course , Thank Yee.

Pao, I think this was the most challenging meme I have ever received. It gave me a nosebleed (as what Chuvaness used to say) because I am not a tech-savvy like you. Seriously. So now I’m going to tag someone again. No. I’m just kidding.

Album: Closer | Song: Closer
Artist: Better Than Ezra - Like many bands in the then-burgeoning alt-rock movement of the mid-’90s, Better Than Ezra enjoyed their period of greatest chart success immediately following their debut major-label release (Deluxe), Read More.