My PC blew up yesterday — spontaneous reboot, blue screen of death.

The good thing is that I’m finding it hardly irreplacable. Almost everything I did on the PC I can do as well or better on my Mac.

I do miss some of the programs I’ve accumulated from small independent software shops over the years. So, here is my love letter to applications I can no longer use.

TopStyle
This is the outstanding CSS editor from Nick Bradbury, who also was the mind behind HomeSite. I can use BBEdit to hand-code my CSS files, but I’ll miss the intuitiveness of Nick’s interfaces.

NoteMap
This is an outstanding outlining tool I’ve been using for a couple of years. It was originally made for lawyers, but it’s probably the best pure writing environment I’ve used. How did Microsoft Word ever make it this far without a “hoist” feature? Closest analogue on the Mac: OmniOutliner

TreePad
This is another outliner-style program. It allows you to stuff anything anywhere. I’ve been using it to manage my to-do list and projects at the Globe for the past year or so. Definitely worth a look. Closest analogue on the Mac: Tinderbox (in which I’m composing this, and all my blog posts and other writings)

I know I’ve said this before, but you’re far better off using a Mac than using a PC. Everything’s compatible enough at this point, and the Macs don’t “just break.”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 6th, 2004 at 7:38 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.