Leopard's Web Clippings

I am not a big widget user, but I just found a very practical use for Leopard's web clipping capabilities. I went to the web page that has information about snow-releated school closings in our area, and clipped the relevant part of the page to my desktop.

Now, in the morning, I can simply hit F12 on my computer, and see if the school has a delay or closure. And, at work, I can monitor the weather and see if the school is going to close early, and make any necessary arrangements. Because I work an hour south of where I live, the weather at work is often significantly milder than the weather at home. So, using the web to monitor the weather is the most practical way to stay aware of what the school is up to.

Save gas; don't make left-hand turns.

Save gas; don't make left-hand turns.

WiseBread posted an article today about how UPS saves a ton of money on gas each year by reducing the number of left turns they make during their deliveries.

Somehow, it figures. Just about every turn I have to make on my way to work each day is a left one.

The USDA Food Stamp Nutrition Connection

The federal government has been kind enough to produce a web-site that may help with my quest for truly frugal meal plans and recipes. The USDA Food Stamp Nutrition Connection. I'm going to have to spend some time on the site before I can determine how frugal, healthy and good the recipes are.

(Via Get Rich Slowly.)

Free Coke as part of a "Class Action Lawsuit"

Free coupon for Coke and Coke Zero. File a 'claim' against Coke for Taste Confusion and receive a free coupon for both for taste comparison.


I love this little gimmick! Check out the name of the law firm.

(Via Money Saving Mom.)

Good Deal on Mac Shareware

Macintosh Applications in Bundle

Mac Update Promo

I know I shouldn't be getting myself anything at Christmas-time, but I just couldn't resist this bundle. I love Yep from what I've seen of it, and am also a big fan of the aquarium screen-saver.

I'm hoping the mind mapping software gets unlocked. I really expect it will. These bundles seem to be popular. I don't need iStabilize; so could care less if that gets unlocked or not.

I'm also looking forward to playing with memory miner.

"MemoryMiner MemoryMiner is the award-winning Digital Storytelling application used to discover the threads connecting peoples’ lives across time and place. It lets you zero in on the stories depicted in your photos by linking them to each other based on people, places and time. Using simple drag and drop actions, you specify who is in the picture, where the picture was taken and when."

For some reason, my mac is turning me into a data hoarder.

(Via Usingmac.com - Home.)

Wonderful Free Location Switcher for Mac

MarcoPolo is an open-source location switcher for the Mac that I'm utterly infatuated with.

When I get to work, I have to do several things every day:
1. Mute my sound so I don't drive my office-mate batty.
2. Turn off my OS X firewall so that Parallels can correctly connect to my network shares. Otherwise, I can't access Visual Source Safe.
3. Flip my network location to work.
4. Connect to my network shares so I can work on my files in Coda.

Before finding MarcoPolo, I would manually flip my network location to work, turn off my sound, turn off my firewall, and connect to my drives.

Now, MarcoPolo can do this all for me. It sees that I've connected to my work wi-fi, and based on that connection, knows I'm at work. It pops up a notification telling me it's doing its thing, which I find reassuring.

When I go home, MarcoPolo recognizes that wi-fi network as well. It flips my location to home so that I now have a static IP address on my home network. It turns on my firewall and turns on my sound too.

MarcoPolo can do things like change my desktop wallpaper, run scripts, start up my screen-saver and more based on my location.

Furthermore, it doesn't just use my wi-fi connection to determine where I am. I can set certain rules for it based on triggers such as ethernet connections, bluetooth, bonjour and more. For now, I'm content with it tweaking my settings based on wi-fi. But, I may investigate bluetooth triggers to see if it will perform certain actions when I come near the computer with my iPhone.

Frugal, Healthy Cooking

I am so weary of frugal living websites that have suggestions for saving money like - grow your own vegetables or raise your own chickens. Sometimes, I think the authors of these suggestions forget that not everybody lives in the country, and the startup costs for starting a garden or raising chickens are high. Not to mention that if you suddenly find yourself in a financial tight spot, you're not going to be able to instantly plant a vegetable garden and haul in the crops.

A truly good frugal cooking site will be realistic. It will understand that not everybody has a pantry stocked with a variety of spices, fresh herbs and essentials like rice. It will show the true cost of cooking a recipe, and not skip over ingredients that the recipe creator has on hand.

Furthermore, frugal recipes need to pay some attention to be satisfying and nutritious. Living on generic macaroni and cheese and ramen noodles will only get you so far.

So, I'm wondering if I could put together a collection of inexpensive recipes that meet my own rules.

I think I'm going to start playing with the idea and impose a few simple rules on myself.

1. No sales prices. Readers won't necessarily find a super sale on the ingredients. If they do, they can chalk it up as a bonus.

2. Meal plans that meet nutritional requirements.

3. Meal plans for individuals and families.

4. Portion sizes should be realistic.

5. My family has to actually eat it and like it and think it was enough food to be a satisfying meal.

With those rules in mind, I think the game is on. I'll start collecting the recipes and when I'm ready with a week or two of meal plans, I'll post them in the Domestic Policy forum at EA.

Coda 1.1

Panic updates Coda to 1.1

"

Yay! An update. From my limited trial, the spaces bug I complained about the other day seems resolved. Now, if only they would get multiple file search and replace, Coda would be just about perfect.