Another great feature of Last.fm is the charts over a certain time period. Of course, the “Last 12 months” comes in handy on days like today. So, without further rambling:

My Top Artists of 2010

Rogue Wave had a new album in March and Arcade Fire had one in August. Both were incredible. I’m not surprised to see them in the top two spots. Teenage Fanclub and Mogwai are old standbys. The top five is rounded out by Gustafer Yellowgold, who I happen to be building a site for.

My Top Tracks of 2010

I’m a full album listener. So, this list isn’t really representative of my favorite tracks of the year. It’s just the ones I listened to the most.

The Top 19 tracks are all Rogue Wave (the entire new album!), Mew, and Manchester Orchestra. #20 is Gustafer Yellowgold’s incredible “Getting in a Tree Top”.

Okay, enough of the charts. Here’s the good stuff!

Top 10 Albums of 2010

10. Spoon — Transferece: I’ve been into Spoon for a very long time. While I like their entire discography, my favorite album of theirs is still their first (Telephono, on Matador). But they still put out solid material worthy of a Top 10 appearance.

9. The National — High Violet: This is a couple solid albums by them I’ve found myself listening to a lot. “Blood Buzz Ohio” is just such a ridiculously good track, as are many others.

8. The Album Leaf — A Chorus of Storytellers: I picked up a couple Album Leaf albums this year and they’re the closest I’ve come to something similar to the fantastic Low Level Owl albums from The Appleseed Cast.

7. Teenage Fanclub — Shadows: Teenage Fanclub is my most listened-to band of all time. They came back strong with this solid offering. “Baby Lee” and “When I Still Have Thee” are two of their best tracks in a long time.

6. The Wandas — New Wave Blues: This band won the local radio station’s Rock Hunt. I only started listening to them after the competition, but damn they’re good. “Bending Over Backwards” is definitely one of the best tracks of the year.

5. Band of Horses — Infinite Arms: This may not have been their best album, but it’s still plenty good. It was a lot more mellow than their past work (which did also have some mellow stuff), but they pulled it off.

4. Palmdale — Get Wasted (EP)
3. Palmdale — How To Be Mean (EP)
One of the best things to happen in music this year was the return of Kay Hanley (formerly of Letters To Cleo). Her new band is simply incredible. Palmdale is everything that is wonderful about pop music and nothing that isn’t.

2. Rogue Wave — Permalight: When this album came out in March, I thought for sure it was going to be the album of the year. This was the year that Rogue Wave jumped to a new echelon in my music library. Permalight was a bit of a departure from their previous work. It had a bit more pep to it. It was livelier. But, personally, I had a shitty 2009. Rogue Wave’s 2009 was probably even shittier. They needed this. And so did I. Remarkable album at the right time.

And finally…

1. Arcade Fire — The Suburbs: This album was so good that I’ve spent a lot of time wondering just how good it really is. With the release of The Suburbs, Arcade Fire has released two of the best eight or so albums I’ve ever heard (along with Funeral). Add in Neon Bible and they’ve released three of the twenty best albums I’ve ever heard. Simply remarkable.

This album also contains the best track of the year—Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains).

Late to the Party

Every year, I also pick the best album that wasn’t released in the past year, but I recently discovered it in the past year. In this category, there were four standouts. My first purchase by The Album Leaf was Into the Blue Again and it’s excellent. Manchester Orchestra’s Mean Everything to Nothing got a ton of airplay, too.

This is another case where I thought for sure the top album would be an easy choice. Then I stumbled upon the eponymous album by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. That album was simply incredible. Yet, it couldn’t knock Mew from the top spot. So, the Late to the Party Award goes to Frengers by Mew.

Happy New Year!

Hope you have a great one!

But this post is for documenting 2009. So, I’m going to throw some lists at you—everything from most viewed posts to most-listened-to music. Happy New Year!

Most Viewed Posts in 2009

1. Google Transit Comes Through: Best Customer Service EVER: Yeah, this post again. I wrote this at SXSW in 2007. Even in 2009, it brought in 4.5 times the eyeballs of my next most popular post.
2. How To Use Twitter and Not Be a Douchebag: How’s that for a linkbait title? This one generated some good discussion in the comments.
3. My Favorite CSS Techniques: This is probably my favorite blog post I’ve written. I’ve developed some new chops since then… perhaps it’s time for a “Volume 2”. This is a 2008 post that made it on the 2009 list.
4. The Blog is the New Resume: This one’s from 2007 and still generates a good amount of traffic. My most-commented post ever.
5. Using Fluid.app to Bring Google Reader for iPhone to your Desktop: Wow, another from 2008. I guess I didn’t write many posts this year that got eyeballs. In fact, only one of my eight most viewed posts this year were actually written this year. Which leads me to another list:

Most Viewed Posts in 2009 that were actually written in 2009

1. How To Use Twitter and Not Be a Douchebag: 2009’s greatest hit.
2. Emphasized Links: What comes first, the a or the strong?: My blogging shifted to geekier markup & style observations, tips, and tricks. I’m happier with the content, but the eyeballs dipped significantly. I think it’s quality over quantity, though.
3. Stop iPhone from (Incorrectly) Auto-Linking Phone Numbers: You know, if you have this problem. I love the Edgar Martinez shoutout here.
4. Fluid Images (and How to Make Them Look Nice in Internet Explorer 6 & 7): Nice little trick if you’re doing some fluid design.
5. The New MacBook: On the lack of FireWire and what that means for Migration Assistant: Seriously, people read this one?

And some that nobody read, but I wish they had

1. Selective Degradation of Modern CSS for Internet Explorer: Come on people, selective degradation? Cross-browser web development? This is good stuff!
2. Why Text on the Web is Getting Smaller: Short but sweet post. I loved this one.
3. From One Great Organization to Another: Moving on to PatientsLikeMe: One of my big news stories of the year—gotta include this one.
4. The Heart of the Redesign: CSS Pseudo-elements: I had a big redesign this year and this post documented the main theme—pseudo-elements!
5. Transparent Window App: Using Fluid.app to Compare Mockup and Markup: The few people that understood this trick thought it was pretty sweet. Good enough for me.

Finally, my favorites from the BatchBlue Blog

I used to blog quite a bit for BatchBlue. Here are my three favorite posts of 2009 over there.

1. Life by Design: The difficult one where I let the BatchBook user base know I was moving on.
2. With Each Sticker, a Story: I love this one. When I got a new laptop, I told the story behind each sticker on my old one.
3. 5 Things for the Small Business Owner to Look For in a Web Development Agency: Too often I see small businesses with sites that were poorly built. This post was meant to help this a little.

User stats

Here are some numbers about the folks visiting this here blog in 2009:

Browser usage

1. Firefox (73.7%)
2. Safari (9.7%)
3. Internet Explorer (9.0%)
4. Chrome (4.8%)

Operating system usage

1. Windows (67.4%)
2. Mac OS (25.6%)
3. Linux (5.2%)
4. iPhone (1.2%)

My year in music

I listen to a ton of music while I work, play, blog, dance with my babies, etc. Here are some stats about the music:

Most-listened to artists on Last.fm

1. Mogwai (616)
2. Teenage Fanclub (551)
3. Rogue Wave (476)
4. Yo La Tengo (439)
5. MGMT (407)
6. The Airborne Toxic Event (406)
7. SteveSongs (326)

And the most-listened-to track of 2009 was “Time to Pretend” by MGMT. That one gets double credit for being on the Oracular Spectacular LP and the Time to Pretend EP, both of which received heavy airplay from me this year.

Best new album

Gotta go with the eponymous album from The Airborne Toxic Event. Really dig that one. Yo La Tengo, Silversun Pickups, Metric, and Doves all had excellent albums.

Late-to-the-party album

The best album I finally discovered in 2009 that was released before this year was Oracle Spectacular by MGMT (from 2008). I was also quite impressed with Etiquette by Casiotone for the Painfully Alone (which is from 2006).

Once again, Happy New Year!

The Ones with Legs

These three posts seemed to resonate with some and generated the most views…

URL as UI (3/16)
This was the biggest new post of the year (that damn Google Transit one from 2007 still out-pageviewed it, though). Where did the traffic come from? Well, that’d be Dan.

Using Fluid.app to Bring Google Reader for iPhone to your Desktop (8/14)
A couple blogs (like Web Worker Daily and Hackszine) picked up on this little lifehack.

My Favorite CSS Techniques (11/14)
This might have been my favorite post of the year. Most of the traffic for this one came through StumbleUpon, though Web Worker Daily also linked to it. I may follow it up with some more techniques eventually.

Milestones and Releases

Luckily, I documented some of the bigger things that happened this year (no new babies or anything—YET!—so it’s all techy stuff).

BatchBook Goes 1.0 (2/8)
Pretty big moment for me—the single project I’ve ever poured the most of myself into gets released to the world.

NewBCamp08 Presentation: Introduction to Web Standards (2/23)
I haven’t done much speaking before, and this was the start of it. It was a lot of fun and I hope to do it some more. With the second NewBCamp coming up in February, I just may get to do that…

Two Weeks: Two Redesigns (BatchBook & BatchBlue.com) (10/13)
Redesigns can be a major thing. Back-to-back, I worked on the redesigns of our product (BatchBook) and our website (BatchBlue.com).

New BatchBook Screencasts (and How-To Posts Coming Soon) (11/24)
I’ve done screencasts before, but I was really proud of this set. I also documented the process so I could write a series of blog posts about screencasting.

Announcing Tabigail: A simple, gray, one-column, socially savvy WordPress theme (12/15)
Earlier this month, I took the design of this blog and packaged it up as an open source WordPress theme.

BaseballTwit: A New Home for the Baseball Posts & Tweets (12/27)
Over the last few days, I’ve been doing some hardcore baseball research for this new project. If you’re into stats and the old personalities of the game, this is for you. If not, run far far away!

Off-topic (yes, baseball)

I also enjoyed writing these baseball-related posts enough that I just needed to start that separate blog…

Branching Out: Baseball Player Bio Writer? (2/26)
Yes, Pete Incaviglia is using the bio I wrote about him (years ago) on his own site.

“My Guys” Never Win MVP Awards (11/20)
In which I make my Dustin Pedroia mancrush public and reminisce about my favorite players.

Is There a Doctor in the Hall? (10/16)
I actually entered a contest to be a sports blogger for WEEI. I didn’t win, but this was my submission.

Misc

Here’s some more posts I’d like to highlight for various reasons:

SXSWi 2008: A Recap(3/13)
SXSW was a ton of fun. It’s also where I met Ira.

1000 Tweets (1/23)
I just thought it was funny that this year I hit the 1000 tweet milestone. Apparently, tweet #2000 or #3000 weren’t worth blog posts. I currently sit at 3,896.

Full-Time Designers Should Do (SOME) Side Work (11/3)
I thought this was an interesting topic that fetched a couple good comments. I would have loved to see more though. It’s not too late!

Some General Stats

Here are some stats I was interested in for the year…

Top Posts by Pageviews

1. Google Transit Comes Through: Best Customer Service EVER (63,927)
2. URL as UI (14,916)
3. My Favorite CSS Techniques (4,602)
4. The Blog is the New Resume (2,009)
5. Using Fluid.app to Bring Google Reader for iPhone to your Desktop (1,563)

Browser Usage

1. Firefox (82.32%)
2. Internet Explorer (9.60%)
3. Safari (5.18%)
4. Mozilla (0.88%)
5. Opera (0.72%)
6. Chrome (0.55%)

Looks like Chrome still has a way to go? IE is less than 10%, but what’s the version breakdown?

1. IE 7.0 (71.13%)
2. IE 6.0 (26.44%)
3. IE 8.0 (2.25%)

4 visits each from IE 5.0 and IE 5.5. They deserve whatever the heck they saw.

OS Usage

1. Windows (74.30%)
2. Macintosh (20.06%
3. Linux (4.99%)
4. iPhone (0.42%)

I guess nearly half a percent of all visits from iPhone isn’t that bad. What’s with just 20% Mac? Come on people! Also, the 5% from Linux was MUCH higher than I thought.

And the music

On my previous “End of Year” posts, I’ve picked an album of the year. Before I do that, let’s take a look at last.fm and see what the stats show I was listening to this year (yes, I have a thing for stats…):

Most Listened-To Artists of the 2008

1. Teenage Fanclub (They’ve always been my #1, so it makes sense.)
2. Mogwai (My all-time #2, and I have a thing for Glasgow bands, too)
3. Yo La Tengo (Yes, this is my all-time #3, too. The best US band in history)
4. Band of Horses (I was late to the party on them, but made up for it)
5. Rogue Wave (Liked them a while now, but just keeps growing)

Top song of the year according to Last.fm? That’d be “Our Swords” by Band of Horses.

This year’s choice

My best new album of the year? Well, that’d be Mogwai’s The Hawk is Howling.

Happy New Year!

I rescued this post from an old blog that I’m not updating anymore. It has become a handy piece to point folks to when I try to tell them about my baseball simulation league. This post was originally published June 16, 2006.

I never understood fantasy baseball.

I have all the symptoms of a fantasy baseball addict. I love baseball. I love baseball statistics. I love tracking how my favorite players are doing. I love putting myself into the shoes of Major League general managers, debating what I would have done in a particular trade or signing situation. I love drafts. I’m web savvy and online a good chunk of the day. I enjoy making a deal.

But I have picked a different kind of poison. My drug is not fantasy baseball. Instead, I am addicted to baseball simulation.

There are very important differences between fantasy baseball and baseball simulation. One of my problems with fantasy can be summed up in an example that I often use.

Let’s say my brother in law is sitting at a bar with his friend, watching the Red Sox game. Their fantasy teams are facing each other this week. Jason Varitek lifts a sacrifice fly. David Ortiz tags up and scores. The friend shouts, “Ha! There’s a point for me! I have Varitek!” My brother in law replies, “Yeah, but I have Ortiz. We’re even.”

I have three very big problems with this scenario. The first is “this week.” A baseball game that is one week long? What is this, football?

Secondly, in fantasy baseball when your player drives somebody in, he’s (usually) not driving in a fantasy teammate. In simulation, when my player drives someone in, he is actually driving in a teammate and I am watching that run add to my score.

And finally, say I don’t have Jason Varitek on my fantasy team. Say I do have Kevin Millwood and he’s facing Varitek. I’m a big Jason Varitek fan. I could never root against him. It would just feel wrong. So, I’d find myself not rooting, just sitting there… torn.

Baseball simulation is, at the very least, a great way to avoid these problems. The games are not dependent on the Major League Baseball season. It is all run in a software program. In simulation, Jason Varitek is not the real “Jason Varitek”. He is a software model of Jason Varitek at one point in is career. From that point on, the simulated Jason Varitek can evolve differently than he does in Major League Baseball.

At this point, I’ll invoke the Back to the Future comparison. Remember when 2015 Biff finds the sports facts book in an antique shop, hops into a time machine, and gives the book to 1955 Biff? (Don’t lose me, now.) That action ended up creating an “alternate 1985″ in which all events after young Biff received the book deviate from the original history.

I am the Commissioner of a baseball simulation league. For my league, The Ted Williams Memorial League, our “1955″ (the point where the alternate history deviates from the original) is 2000. The league begins with the 2000 season and the players are generated from a database of all players and prospects from 2000. From the point that our league begins, however, players can evolve differently than they do in Major League Baseball.

Here are three examples:

In 2000, Rick Ankiel was the hottest prospect in all the land. He ran into post-2000 problems in Major League Baseball and has since given up pitching. In my league, he is looking like one of the best pitchers in history (certainly the best in our young league).

In 2000, Barry Zito was not a highly regarded prospect. So, in my league he never really panned out and recently retired with just three career wins.

Mark Teixeira was drafted in 2001. Therefore, he does not even exist in my league.

Trading is far different (and far more rewarding) in simulation. In fantasy, if you need a player, you trade for him, and his points are added to your totals. In simulation, you must find a player that appropriately fits into your lineup, into your payroll, and into your future. Many baseball simulation leagues span over multiple seasons (think “Career Mode” in console games). For example, in the TWML we are about to start 2013, our fourteenth season. Trading for a 37 year old star is great for the short term, but doesn’t make much sense if you’re not going for it all this year. With the exception of keeper leagues, In fantasy your roster is refreshed from scratch from year to year. Even keeper leagues only allow you to keep a few players.

Drafts are far more rewarding in simulation as well. In fact, this is the favorite aspect of many simulation owners. In fantasy, you draft a team of major leaguers from a pool of the top talent. In simulation, you have a very similar draft at the very inception of the league (in order to fill the rosters). Then, each year you have an amateur draft, just like Major League Baseball.

These drafts allow players to choose from a rookie crop of youngsters generated by the software model each season. Some rookie classes are better than others. Some prospects are studs while some are mediocre. Some will develop better than you thought—others worse. Where simulation drafts are really rewarding is when you draft a player, develop him in your minor leagues, and then watch him succeed. In fact, this one aspect of simulation is what I will base the rest of my article on.

After I took over a team in our simulated year 2000 (my original plans were to just act as Commissioner, but I adopted a team with an AWOL owner and dismantled it), I was inline for the third overall pick in 2001, our first rookie draft (our rookie drafts occur in the offseason). Right away, I knew who I wanted, and I got him.

Jack Gonzalez was a 21 year old catcher who was pretty much average in most aspects of the game. But Jack possessed two unique skills: a rifle of an arm and a bat with brilliant power potential.

Jack was sent to my Class A team to start the 2001 season (we have three minor league levels in my sim league). In 88 games, he hit 24 homers and drove in 58 runs while hitting .264 with a .873 OPS. He earned a promotion to AA. While in AA, he again hit 24 homers, this time in only 68 games. His average dropped to .250, but his slugging percentage skyrocketed to .617. His OPS was .934. He drove in 53 runs. For the two days of the season, he went to AAA, where he was 3-for-9 with a homer.

After hitting 49 homers at all three levels in his first minor league season, I wanted to see how my boy did with a full season at AAA. At this point, he was my top prospect and I had a very capable starter in Ben Petrick (.289, 12 homers, 61 RBI in 2001). There was no need to rush Jack.

My big league catching tandem of Petrick and Javier Valentiin was very good in 2002, allowing Jack to stay in AAA all year long. He showed he had nothing left to prove and blasted 57 home runs while driving in 138 in 159 games. He hit .269 with a .338 OBP and .596 slugging percentage (.934 OPS). Jack was ready.

At age 23, Jack was called up for the start of the 2003 season. Valentin departed as a free agent and Petrick would spell Jack and provide a solid bat off the bench, all while trying out some third base. Gonzalez, as expected, had some trouble with contact hitting, batting .230. He showed power potential, though, hitting 24 homers with 87 RBI. He even showed an element that wasn’t expected, stealing 11 bases. It was all a good start, but just a .285 OBP needed improvement and the low average brought his slugging percentage to just .399. Still, Jack ranked second in Rookie of the Year voting, collecting four of fifteen first place votes.

We hoped 2004 would build on 2003, but it didn’t. My team moved to our equivalent of the National League and the team average dipped from .272 to .247. Jack was one of the biggest offenders, dipping to just .193 with a .252 OBP and .373 slugging percentage. He did hit 20 homers and drive in 62 runs, but those averages were unacceptable. It was sad to see my homegrown “star” struggling like this. Alas, he was just 24.

The next season, Jack seemed to wake up a bit, getting his career highs in batting average (.234), homers (25), OBP (.309), and slugging percentage (.439). In a truly proud moment for me, he was selected as an All Star. At that point, he was just the second player ever created by the software to be an All Star.

In 2006, Jack gave me the type of season that makes a general manager proud. He hit .254—not stellar, but a career high again—and bashed 34 home runs. He slugged a robust .535 with a .312 OBP. His 26 doubles were a career high and his 82 runs batted in were his most since his rookie season. It is worth noting that Jack turned 27 in July of this season, essentially hitting his prime.

The team underwent a big change in 2007. After 2006, the team’s eventual Hall of Famer and franchise cornerstone Mo Vaughn opted for an early retirement at age 38. (It’s worth noting that MY Mo Vaughn had 2510 hits, a .295 career average, and 521 homers in his illustrious career). Vaughn homered 31 times and drove in 119 in his final season. His retirement sent the team into a tailspin and, eventually, a rebuilding phase.

During 2007, Gonzalez appeared to regress. He tied a career low with 20 homers and drove in a career low 53 runs as we fell from an 89 win team to a 72 win team. He hit just .224. Topping it all off, this was a contract year for Gonzalez. He was resigned at the beginning of the season for $1.6 million per season for six years. One thing to keep in mind is that the software’s financials look a little different than MLB’s. A good rule of thumb is that the software’s figures are about a third of what MLB’s would be, so Gonzalez was to be paid about $4.8 million per season—a bargain for a 34 homer hitting catcher, but a 20 homer, .224 hitter?

In 2008, he went from a .224 hitter to a .214 hitter, but he raised his home run total back to 25, making it a bit more acceptable. But still, it wasn’t enough. I was starting to wonder if Jack would get better. I was getting defensive of cracks on Jack’s hitting made on our league’s forums. One thing I did have was a great pitching staff all along, and Jack was one of the reasons. He was an excellent defensive catcher and always threw out a lot of runners.

2009 was an important season for Jack, as he turned 30 years old that July. The Battle Cats were a struggling franchise, but we got a boost when Jack got off to a huge first half. He was an All Star again for the second time. Unfortunately, his second half started off miserably. As we slipped even further, I did a lot of studying of our box scores and game logs. I found some interesting patterns.

I noticed that though I was resting Jack because his hitting was slumping, we were still losing. We actually seemed to do better when he was in there, whether he was producing or not. So I put him back in, and I put him in every day. He finished a bit better and posted a career high .255 average with 25 homers and 74 RBI. He slugged .459, his second best mark yet. And we won more.

It’s one of those things where you really don’t know how much goes into the software model. Astros pitchers love throwing to Brad Ausmus, so he always plays even if he’s not the best hitter. Could my digital pitchers feel the same for Jack? He seemed to have built the trust of my star pitchers. So, I decided to never take Jack out again.

In 2010, Jack started all 162 games of the season. He hit just .230, but he belted a career high 35 home runs and drove in a new career high of 103 runs. The season included his 200th home run.

We went from an 80 win team to a 93 win team. We won our first division title since leaving the old DH league. Though we were smacked around in the first round of the playoffs, it was a great step.

2011 was more of the same. Jack started all 162 games and we improved to 96 wins (winning the division again). Jack hit .234 with 34 homers and 100 RBI. We made it all the way to our very first World Series. Unfortunately, we lost both our top starters to injury in a dramatic 7-game LCS, so we were stuck calling upon a reliever, Billy Koch, to join the rotation. We went six games, but fell short. However, it was another big step for the franchise.

Gonzalez received one lone third place vote for Most Valuable Player. It’s not much, but it was another owner recognizing that while Jack didn’t post the average and OBP of some stars, he provided plenty that was valuable to his club. Teammate Billy Marty, a computer-generated star teammate of Jack’s, took the MVP award. The Battle Cats swept the awards that season (a league first).

I was starting to realize something. Jack hadn’t missed a game since August 25th, 2009 and we were about to start 2012. He had started every game since 8/31/09, as well. And we were winning like the old days. It was fun.

Then came 2012.

Jack was even better.

I’m the father of a toddler, so I’m not going to go overboard and say that watching what Jack did in 2012 is like watching your baby grow up, but man… I’ve experienced the sim baseball equivalent.

Jack was off and running right out of the gate in 2012. He had nine homers and 23 RBI by the end of April. Nice start, but I’d seen this before. He had just a .250 average in June (even that’s not terrible for Jack), but he gave us eight more homers and (get this) 29 RBI for the month. That’s 17 home runs and 52 RBI by the end of May. That’s okay… he’ll slow down at the All Star break, right?

Wrong. June came and Jack had his biggest month, hitting .309 with ten homers and slugging .778 for the month. He became an All Star for the third time. At about the statistical mid-way point of the season, Gonzalez had 27 home runs and 75 RBI. July came and so did ten more home runs and 22 more RBI. This was starting to get a bit crazy. Jack, with 37 homers, had already eclipsed his career high in homers. And there were two months left of the season.

In August, Jack “dipped” to eight homers, but hit .316. During the month, I decided to go ahead and extend him even though he was not due for a contract until the end of 2013. For $2.3 million per season (remember, about $6.9 million in MLB money), I had Jack signed up for five more years (six including 2013). He would be a Battle Cat through age 39.

Finally, in September, Jack showed signs of slowing down. He hit five homrers, giving him a grand total of 50 on the year. He hit just .238, but that only brought his average down to .275, still a career high. He still drove in 21 (meaning that in all six months, he drove in 20+ runs), giving him 141 on the year. He posted a .338 OBP and .590 slugging percentage, both career highs, and also reached new highs in hits (167), doubles (34), runs (97), and triples (4), while tying his high in walks (53).

In September, he also passed the 500 consecutive games started mark, simply remarkable for a catcher. His current totals are 515 consecutive games played, 511 consecutive starts. This season was also his tenth straight 20 homer season from the start of his career, a feat no other computer-generated player in the league can boast.

In addition to his gaudy numbers, Gonzalez posted numbers with runners in scoring position of .301/.343/.613 with 12 homers in 163 at bats. His Close/Late numbers were .311/.373/.622 with 6 homers in 74 at bats. These numbers, and his league leading home run and RBI totals, helped him win his first Most Valuable Player award. Gonzalez was named first on twelve of the twenty ballots. Needless to say, I was ecstatic.

We won our third straight division title and tied our club win record of 98 (originally set back in 2003). After dropping the first two games of the LDS, we unfortunately found ourselves with our backs against the wall in the playoffs. Jack had enough in him for one more dramatic showing. We pulled off Game 3 on a 2-run ninth inning homer by Jack’s teammate, Billy Marty. In Game 4, with our season still hanging by a thread, Jack hit a pair of two run homers to power us to an 8-0 win. However, we dropped Game 5, 3-0, ending what should have been a much better season.

As we’re heading into 2013, Jack’s 11th season with the club, he is 33 years old and is starting to build some impressive career totals. He is only batting .235, but with 1229 hits so far, he seems to have a good shot at 2000 (especially with playing every day now). He has 292 homers, making 400 for his career seem very likely. If he keeps hitting homers at a 50 homer pace, of course he could get more. He is under contract for six more seasons. If he averages 30 in those years (a dropoff of 20 from last season), that would put him at 472. Can’t complain about that.

This article was not meant to be a biography of Jack Gonzalez. But I think his story really illustrates my point about baseball simulation. In fantasy baseball, there certainly is some sense of pride if you draft a Justin Verlander and he dominates. But how much pride can you take? It was the scouting director that found him and the general manager that drafted him to the pros, not you. With simulation, you can take more pride in this because you did it yourself. Nobody did the dirty work of getting the player to the big leagues besides you.

There are many reasons why I prefer baseball simulation over fantasy baseball. But I have to say that #1 on the list is definitely Jack Gonzalez, and all that goes along with him. He’s my baseball pride and joy—the guy I’ve brought up. Can you get these types of feelings in fantasy baseball?

I never did.

My BatchBlue staff photo, December 1, 2008.

I blame the kids.

I went to SXSW with different goals this year than last year. Last year, I was meeting a lot of my web superheroes for the first time and trying to “get out there” so I might be able to work in this swell field. This year, it was more about learning, business networking, and handing out sweet BatchBlue tee shirts.

Then something happened on the way back to the hotel just now. I opened the elevator door.

There was Ira Kaplan.

Okay, I love all the cool web kids to death. But this is Ira Kaplan of Yo La Tengo. This is the man who fronts the band that I, in all seriousness, will always and forever call The Greatest American Band (here’s proof, my top two are Scots!). The door wasn’t even opened yet and I said “Mr. Ira Kaplan”. He gave me that “wow-that-sounded-formal-should-I-know-this-guy?” look. I reassured him with “I’m a huge fan.” and off he went. His wife and drummer Georgia came out of the other elevator, but they looked like they needed to get somewhere, so I stopped playing stargazer.

But man… Ira Kaplan.

If you don’t know them, please… go ahead and enrich your life:

Why do I like Twitter?

• I can stay in touch with people in a more laid back manner than constantly pinging them with “what’s up?” messages and phone calls. Not only is it less intrusive, but it is far more efficient.
• I can see what industry folks I really care about are thinking about. I don’t follow a ton of web celebs, but I follow the ones that provide the most value to me—folks like @factoryjoe, @bokardo, @simplebits, @brianoberkirch, @missrogue, etc.
• I can keep in touch with the local web community. A lot of Providence web geeks are on Twitter. Good to know what people are up to, who’s going to what meetup, etc.
• I can lighten my blogging load. Sometimes 140 or less is just fine. Blogging can be intimidating if you only have something quick to say and you’ve got that big old text field with a scrollbar looking at you.

But most of all, if I page through my own tweets, it is basically my biography of the last year—in bullet points. Twitter feeds tend to contain a lot more personal information than blog feeds, and that’s okay. I like reading back at my tweets about when Ella ate Play-Doh for the first time or when I was working with Nolan sleeping on my chest. And call me crazy, but I like to see when others tweet about that too.

So, in closing, here are some “landmark tweets” from my past year…

My first tweet:

Now with BatchBlue:

Nolan is born:

Got the iPhone (yes, it really has been a landmark moment…):

BatchBlue going to DEMOfall07:

World Champs. Again.

I haven’t been blogging long enough to settle on an “end of year post” strategy. Last year, I did a basic roundup where I set some goals. I hit most of them—guess I still have to work on writing and speaking more.

This time around, I wanted to highlight some posts from the year. Some were the most trafficked and most discussed. Others got nary a pageview but are among my favorites.

So, here they are (in chronological order):

Digital Preservation of Blog and Profile Data (1/31/07)

The year started off… pretty morbidly, I guess. What happens when bloggers and members of social networking sites… pass on? What happens to the data? Who is responsible for what?

CogBlog Live! (3/1/07)

In March, I completed one of my pet projects—a corporate blog for Aptima. The CogBlog was an exciting combination of strategy, design, and development.

The Blog is the New Resume (3/6/07)

Ah, the big post of the year. It started as a harmless observation, but Josh Porter blogged about it and that brought a ton of great conversation (archived here).

Google Transit Comes Through: Best Customer Service EVER (4/30/07)

This was a big traffic fetcher. I bitched here about Google Transit screwing me up when I was at SXSW. Turns out, Google is listening. This is my favorite customer service story ever.

Calculated Informality: My Approach to Job Hunting (5/21/07)

One of my personal favorites, here’s where I highlighted how exactly I went through my job hunt that brought me to BatchBlue. Good stuff about stubbly beards and product development.

Sparky232221 is My New BFF: A Foray into Social Networking, Not Just Social Media (6/7/07)

One thing social networking is good for is finding that one person in the world that has the taste in music most similar to you.

WTF Happened to Customer Service? (8/6/07)

An all-out rant.

I’ve Been Interviewed: Thoughts on Small Business, Virtual Companies, and My Workflow (8/10/07)

A friend of mine interviewed me for a class project but I posted the transcript here. Lots of stuff about working for a virtual company as a home-based web-worker.

More Users Isn’t Always Better: Specialized Social Networks Have a Better Chance of Survival (8/29/07)

I just don’t see much value in these generic social networks (MySpace, Facebook, etc.). There’s no content that holds the users there. They could leave and switch to another service and really not feel a thing.

Last year I also chose Mogwai’s Mr. Beast as my album of the year and The Arcade Fire’s Funeral as my “Late to the Party” Album of the Year (older album I finally found out about this year). So, this year’s choices? Picking one album was tough. The Arcade Fire, Iron & Wine, The Shins, Silversun Pickups, Spoon, and Travis each had new albums this year that I would call excellent. If forced to pick one, though, I’m going to go with Neon Bible by The Arcade Fire.

For the Late to the Party choice, I just picked up Everything All the Time by Band of Horses and Picaresque by The Decemberists. But they are so new to me that I can’t pick them yet. I have to pick the album that made me get Picaresque, The Crane Wife by The Decemberists.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Working from home has been huge. I started working from home full time in May and my son Nolan was born in June. So, I’ve gotten to be here for everything. I’ve adapted to a bit of a weird work schedule now because of it, but nothing beats getting up with the kids, playing with them during the day, and putting them to bed at night. If I work until 2 am, that’s fine. It’s much better than wasting four hours a day in the car, like I used to.

BatchBlue, of course, is the company that allowed me to do this. Not only do I get to work on an innovative new product full time, but I get to take part in all aspects of the company, and work with some awesome people. And you can’t beat the commute.

WordPress is still my weapon of choice for just about every project. I’ve gotten much better at working with it this year. WordPress is my Photoshop.

That said, Twitter has changed how I blog. Not only that, but it is the only social networking site that’s going to make this list.

Okay, I guess Last.fm can be considered a social networking site. Personally, I love it for the wealth of stats. Yes, I love assigning statistics and metrics to art. Like baseball.

If Twitter changed the way I blog and communicate, then iPhone changed the way I do everything else. Some people view the “always connected” thing as bad. I dunno. I don’t have a problem with that. Maybe that’s because I love what I do. But maybe it’s because I can also be “always connected” with things like Twitter, personal email, and my sim baseball league. I also love having hundreds of photos on me at all times as well as video ranging back to when my daughter was born. Piggybacking on iPhone, I’ll say that iPhone plus Google Reader has changed how I consume information.

Going back to working from home, I’ve loved the connections I’ve made with the Providence Geeks community. I never felt like part of anything in Boston. Now, I totally feel like part of an up-and-coming, vibrant community.

2007 rocked. Bring on 2008.

I’m hoping this post proves to be therapeutic.

I’m not afraid to say it. I’m a cat guy. Particularly, I’ve been a MY cat guy. Since 2002, Erin and I have had the best cat I could have ever imagined. Today, we had to the hardest thing we ever had to do. We had to put Abby down.

We thought we were just adopting a pet. But Abby turned out to be one of those remarkable animals that becomes a member of the family. She moved with us from an apartment to our first home. She helped us welcome two children. She was Ella’s best buddy. She let that kid do anything to her. She slept with us every night. She spent every minute of Erin’s two horribly sickness-dominated pregnancies sitting by her side. In many ways, she really was our first child.

I am an absolute wreck today. Erin is, too. Ella really doesn’t understand yet. Nolan… I’m just sad Nolan will not remember her.

One of my fatherly duties is taking thousands of photos and videos of our kids. I had practice with this task by doing the same for Abby. Below are a couple of video clips I really liked.

Abby Six Months

This is a compilation of clips from our first six months with Abby.

Abby Meets Fred

Abby was particularly interested when Erin decided to get a fish.

We also have a slew of photos of Abby, many in the very interesting poses she used to decide to sleep in. Here’s one of my favorites.

I don’t know what else to say. This really hurts. She was just an amazing cat. It feels so weird to be sitting here with Erin watching TV and me on the computer and Abby’s not with us on the couch. Something is missing.

So, here’s my list:

1. My wife.
2. My kids.
3. Our families. We have people who are there whenever we need them—and very closeby.
4. My livelihood. I’m thankful we have our own home and that I can provide for my family. It hasn’t been easy, but we’ve made it happen.
5. My job. Loving what you do is kind of rare, I guess.
6. My office space. I work from home. I used to commute 141 miles in Boston traffic every day. I’m thankful for getting my life back. Playing in piles of leaves with Ella is better than sitting in the car.
7. Theo Epstein. Come on, gotta have a fun one in there.

So, now I need to tag others to reply. Hmmm…

1. Connie Bensen
2. Ed Zbinski
3. Sara Streeter
4. Adam Dziki
5. Markitude

Tag, you’re it! Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Disclaimer: I do have a home computer (an eMac) that I copied any new photos I took or music I purchased to. But still, the photos and music are not work-related. You would think that a work computer that I used like mad for three months would have something irreplaceable on it.

Nope. Here’s all I can find that I lost:

• My password to our wiki/bug tracker. This is the only password of mine I didn’t set. A quick email to Riley and I got the password.
• My cheat sheet of how to set up Rails and PostgreSQL locally after I restart. But Sean wrote it up again as he set up my temporary iMac.

And that’s it. Easily replaceable stuff. Maybe I’ll think of something else, but if I haven’t yet, it couldn’t have been that important. This just shows that in the era of Google Documents, Subversion, and Trac, I can pretty much sit down and work at whatever machine I’d want. (Well, except if I really wanted to check out/modify/check in code, I’d obviously need to set up Rails and PostgreSQL on that new machine). But hey, it can be done.

What would you lose if your work machine crashed RIGHT NOW?

Well, there are two things I like about my name now—one for each name.

First name? Blogrolls.

One nice thing about having the name Adam is that you see yourself getting top billing (alphabetically, of course) on blogrolls. For example, here’s Jeremy Harrington’s:

And here’s the one at Providence Geeks:

Can’t complain about how that shakes out, huh?

Last name? Easy Googling

Now, I think it is great to have a unique name. I’m trying to carve out a name for myself in the web world and it sure comes in handy being named “Darowski” instead of, say, Jones. If you Google “Adam Darowski”, you pretty much get me. I’ve found a couple Adam Darowskis out there, but I’m sure they’re pissed at me for stealing their Google identity. Jim writes more about “Just Google my name” being the new business card.

So, there. I’ve come to accept my name—Polish jokes and all.

Happy Monthday, baby boy!

Here’s my new bio. I wrote it. And I like it.

Adam Darowski, User Interface Designer

As UI Designer, Adam—BatchBlue’s newest addition—provides user interface and user experience support for BatchBlue. An open-standards, open-source, and open-communication advocate, he strives to produce software that stays out of the way and allows users to simply get things done.

Prior to joining BatchBlue, Adam spent seven years with Aptima, Inc. and Mazer Digital Media where he developed user interfaces for end users ranging from Air Force observers monitoring training missions to grade school students struggling with fractions. Adam has been creating web sites and applications since he brought his band online with a gaudy Angelfire site in 1996.

Adam and his wife Erin live in Massachusetts with their daughter Ella, cat Abby, and a little baby boy on the way. When he’s not pushing Ella on the swings, blowing bubbles, or trying to convince Ella to play baseball with him, Adam spends his free time blogging or running his baseball simulation league.

Welp, looks like the cat is now out of the proverbial bag. I think this is the first time I’ve mentioned on this blog that there’s “a little baby boy on the way”. Well, it’s true—and the due date is June 22nd. The times they are a’ changin’!

You see, I was already in a great situation. Aptima was a great gig. I was a Team Lead. I worked on some cool projects. I kicked off our blog. In this job hunt, I was looking for a gig that was special. Specifically, I looked for a job that filled quite a few criteria:

• A small company
  Aptima is a small business. But they are over 100 people now. That’s just not small enough for me. I’m looking for small. Like, less than 10 or 15 people. Why? I like to have my hand in everything. I love the responsibility. I love having your voice not only heard, but actually be a driving force in a company. At Aptima, I was certainly heard, but with a company that size there is inevitably red tape.
• A local company
  For the past seven years, I’ve commuted ridiculous lengths to work at exciting tech jobs. Moving is not an option. I live in an idea situation—small children and very close to family support. So, at Aptima, I commuted 70 miles each way, all by car on the brutal MA Rt. 128. Mazer was also about 2:15 each way, time wise. That one was a conglomeration of drive to commuter rail, commuter rail to Boston, walk to Red Line, Red Line to Orange Line, walk through death-wish-of-a-rotary to get to building…
• A product company
  I’ve done the agency thing. Time to work on something where I don’t have to worry about securing work, filling out timesheets, or coordinating labor plans. I want to bust my ass on a product of our OWN. Something that won’t leave my hands and die.
• A flexible schedule
  I have absolutely no problem putting in tons of hours doing the work I love. I just want the ability to pick and choose what these hours are. I want to be home to play with Ella before bed. I have no problem pulling out the laptop after that, though. Chances are, I’ve got it open anyway.
• A forward-thinking company
  It was important to me to work for a company that embraces open source technologies, open standards, and a open communication through corporate blogging and other means.

Not too much to ask, huh?

So, what is this calculated informality thing? A few things.

1. Appearance

Part “forward-thinking”, part “flexible”, I looked for companies that didn’t care about—shall we say—appearance. Let’s just say, I’m not a groomer. I’m a t-shirt and jeans kind of guy… and preferably a shave-every-few-days and wait-way-too-long-to-get-a-haircut kind of guy. I made a point of making sure some of this was “on display” when I interviewed. Why would I do that? Wouldn’t that hurt my chances of getting a job?

I made the conscious decision that if a place was going to hold wearing sneakers to an interview or meeting with them sporting some stubble against me, it probably was not going to be a place I would be comfortable working.

2. Software & Skills

I also made a conscious effort to leave the proverbial software and skills list off my resume. This means that I didn’t include a list that says I know XHTML, CSS, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, etc., etc. Instead, I wrote about how I do “interface design” and develop with “web standards”. Those should convey that I know how to get the task done and that the tool is irrelevant.

A colleague asked me, “but that’s not a good idea because a lot of companies’ HR departments won’t accept a resume if it doesn’t have Photoshop.” Again, my response was—I don’t want to work there, then.

3. Don’t Be Generic

Every company that I took the time to pursue got their own cover letter… not of this “swap out the name” crap. I would take a good amount of time looking them up, looking them up on Technorati, seeing if they blog (if so, reading that), and seeing what types of projects they’ve done. Then I could find tidbits of why I honestly, truly wanted to work for them.

If I didn’t find those tidbits, I didn’t bother sending them anything.

Every single word of the “cover letter” (just an email, for me) was customized to that company. Every once in a while I found a few paragraphs I wrote that I could reuse (my background, for example). But other than that, I was talking directly to them and not the field as a whole—and they seemed to appreciate that.

4. Let Your Passions Be Known

I made a point to let potential employers know exactly what is important to me. By the end, I was using this paragraph fairly often:

I am completely obsessed with XHTML/CSS, semantic markup, Microformats, “designing for data”, “bulletproof web design”, “letting go of pixel precision”, cross-browser/platform/device development, simplicity, cleanliness, transparency (in information sharing, not so much the reflective Web 2.0-logo-type), social media, usability, user experience, and my two-year old daughter.

I thought this paragraph summed up pretty well what I’m all about and what I’d really need to be doing day to day in order to be happy. Plus, I got to throw the “two-year old daughter” in there to let them know that work/life balance is very important, too. Once in an interview, I could elaborate. But I at least got it on the radar.

5. Be Honest

Many people embellish on resumes and in interviews. I can’t stand that. I don’t want to lie to a potential employer and then end up screwing up. I don’t like to disappoint people. So, I set the expectations in advance, say what I do… say what I don’t, and then kick ass at those things.

Here’s an example from the very first CSS-based position I went for. I hadn’t been developing in CSS very long, but I was offered the job (I didn’t take it, though). This job was 100% CSS, and the first thing I did was say I’m not a CSS expert.

I’m not going to lie and say that I’ve been developing in web standards for years. The standards movement is a relatively new passion for me, but that’s what it is—a passion. I have been developing validated sites with CSS formatting for years, but using CSS for layout, writing semantic markup, implementing and contributing to Microformats, and studying community marketing are more recent extensions of that—and I can’t get enough of them.

Hell, I even said “I’m not going to lie.” I think they appreciate that.

6. Cutting Out the First Step

There’s no sense in wasting anybody’s time. So, I put as much about myself as I could on my blog. As I’ve written about before, The Blog is the New Resume. And I really ate my own dog food on this one.

I hate portfolios that are just screen shots. So, on my Featured Work samples, I wrote a page-long description to explain what the heck my role was. That way, potential employers know what I did. How often do you have people say that they had this huge customer… and you wonder what exactly they did? For me, quite a bit.

I directed potential employers to blog posts they may be interested in (or categories). I told them about the projects they may want to check out. If they didn’t see a match, cool. I would rather have that out of the way now than later.

Did it Work?

Absolutely. Let’s go back to the five criteria I set out and see how BatchBlue matched up.

• A small company
  Check. There’s only five more BatchBlue folks. A small good thing.
• A local company
  BatchBlue is located in Rhode Island, with the founders ranging from eight to ten miles from me. To top it off, there is no central office yet, so I’ll be working from home.
• A product company
  BatchBlue is working on developing BatchBook, their first product. More will follow.
• A flexible schedule
  There’s something in the water at BatchBlue. Everyone has little ones. They work around their family schedules. In my opinion, that’s the way it should be. Like I said—I have no problem working long hours. I just want to pick the hours.
• A forward-thinking company
  BatchBlue is a Rails shop that develops using web standards. The Blue By You User Group program really attracted me. They work hand-in-hand with users WHILE developing the software, not after development. Plus, they’re blogging and want me to be a big part of that as well.

Five out of five ain’t bad.

This ends an exciting (nearly) four years with Aptima, a company that allowed me to follow my interests the point that my interests simply outgrew my position. BatchBlue is a tiny startup that is close to home and allows me to exercise all of these crazy web ideas I’ve had lately.

Pamela O’Hara, BatchBlue’s president, prepared a post to the BatchBlog that not only mentions that I’m now onboard the BatchBlue team, but also pins the tail on the “Blog is the New Resume” donkey. My blog—simply put—was my new resume.

Here’s a teaser of what Pamela wrote:

My job as a small business owner is to find the person with the right skills, the right attitude, the right personality, the right temperament and the right passion to work with all of the other personalities and temperaments in my company. Not easy when all I have to go on is a one page resume. While Adam’s cover letter and resume provided a telling introduction, his blog was the real page turner. I learned he thinks beyond the immediate problem, he self motivates, he aggressively educates himself, he aggressively educates those around him and he’s a Red Sox fan. I would have discovered some of this eventually from the interview, the references and various other communications. But in the blog, it all became part of the first impression, helping him stand out from the crowd early on.

Good stuff.

I wrote a separate post that talked in detail about my approach to this latest job hunt (Hint: I have dubbed it “calculated informality“). The short version: BatchBlue simply offered me everything I was looking for.

I’ve wasted no time contributing to the BatchBlog, as well. I have written a post that sums up yet another aspect of BatchBlue that attracted me—the fact that they are creating Web Apps for the Rest of Us.

Time to put the head down again and get initiated.

A global community of friends and strangers answering one simple question: What are you doing? Answer on your phone, IM, or right here on the web!

It’s great for something like SXSW. Wanna see where everyone is headed for lunch? Look at their tweets. Wanna know what Jeremiah really thinks of that panel? Find out in real time.

I guess it’s kind of like a public IM that is permalinked like a blog. You can easily “subscribe” to people and get their latest updates to whatever device you want. It’s really device agnostic, since it is just plain and simple text. Do it from your phone, your browser, an IM client, whatever.

Twitter is brought to you by Evan Williams, the brain that brought you Blogger and Odeo.

Here is my Twitter feed.

While in Austin for SXSW, I was able to attend my very first BarCamp. I was only there for a couple of hours, but it was a cool experience. It had been going on all day, I believe, but I only went after my panels were done (got there around 6:30).

I’ve really got to get into this “rawking SXSW” mood. I was back at the hotel too early tonight. I know there are a few evening events the next two nights I’m planning to go to, so I should perk up. I’m greatly enjoying the panels and hallway chats, but man… I’m a 2-year old’s daddy. I’m used to just crashing at the end of the day. I’m going to do my best to mingle the next couple nights, though. I know a lot of it has to do with how freakin’ far away my hotel is. I can’t drop anything off, have to figure out ways to get back, etc. But I’ll do better.

The photo above is a t-shirt mashup. You pick one of three colors (wasn’t feeling up to orange and the green was… awful, so I took grey) and one of a few logos (I chose WordPress). I’ll rawk the shirt tomorrow.

So, as you can see via the proof above, I finally met Brian Oberkirch in person. Amazing how you can meet someone for the first time (really), but you know (just about) everything that has been on their minds lately through their blogs. Quite awesome.

Jeremiah Owyang, who I didn’t even know was attending, took the photo. Was nice to see him again. He said he liked the new blog design.

I also met Tara Hunt, a total starstruck moment. I’m like… “you rule.” She’s just… brilliant. While waiting in line to meet Tara (yep, rock stars have lines), I saw Gillian Carson silenty sitting in the front row. So we talked a bit. I love the Carsons, I’ll tell ya. I also chatted with Ryan a bit later. Talked nothing about tech. That was pretty nice.

After meeting Tara, I also met Chris Messina for the first time in person. At least I think it… yeah, it was. Tough to remember sometimes.

Good times.

Yeah, that’s right. Just (finally) booked the flight and registration to SXSW Interactive week in Austin. It’s March 9–13 and all the cool kids are going to be there.

And me.

At work on Thursday morning, I was presented with my shiny new MacBook Pro. Unfortunately, it was a busy day so it wasn’t until Friday that I got to work on transferring files and playing around with it. Then I took it home this weekend and got to play. It looks like could compete with Darcy for my favorite Mac ever.

First, the stats. It has a 2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor. It’s got 2GB of RAM. It’s running Mac OS X 10.4.8. It has a 160 GB hard drive. It’s got a dual layer DVD burner and a 15″ screen.

It’s sweet.

Some observations:

• The big speed improvements are, of course, more noticeable in the larger tasks. The Finder is noticeably more responsive, but the real power is shown when doing something like opening a 90 minute, multi-clipped iMovie file. Zippy.
• Front Row may just be the coolest thing ever. The attention to detail is impeccable. For example, I love that when I go into Front Row and start some music, then escape out of it, it all keeps going and I can still pause/play/skip ahead all from the remote (while Front Row is not active).
• I also like that if I’m in Front Row and show off the video playing capability, I can go back into the music screen and it remembers where I was in the current song. iTunes by itself won’t do that.
• The built in iSight is just addictive.
  • QuickTime Pro can record 320×240 video from it. It is highly compressed, but decent in a pinch.
  • Photobooth is as slick as they say. It’s an app with no point, but it sure is fun. Ella loves it too.
• It came bundled with ComicLife (never got to try that out before—initial impressions are quite nice) and OmniOutliner (which I love). No OmniGraffle, though. Bummer.
• As I’m typing this, the fan kicked on (importing some stuff into iMovie). It sounds different… a little less intrusive.
• Transferring data was effortless. The Migration Assistant is top notch.
• Our IS guy watched in amazement as I simply dragged Microsoft Office from one machine to the other, fired up Word, and had it work.
  • My preferences were copied over by Migration Assistant and I wanted to do fresh installs of all my apps.
• The MagSafe power adapter is far cooler than I thought it would be.
• Whoa, on that page I just linked above, I found out that using two fingers on the trackpad makes it into a scrolling trackpad. Nice.
• No modem. Interesting…
• The keyboard lights up, just like Powerbook G4. But the MacBook Pro is much brighter and seems to be more consistent with the lighting conditions.

In short, this thing rocks. Looking forward to playing with it some more. Perhaps this week I’ll get Windows on this, so I don’t have to bug neighbors to do IE testing…

Photo courtesy of mdamli via Flickr.

So, I just sent off the spec sheet to our Information Systems department for my new DUAL BOOT MacBook Pro (with Parallels Desktop). Score! It’s replacing the nearly three old PowerBook G4.