As a yearlong user of LaunchBar, I've tried QuickSilver, its free-software competitor, several times -- the most recent time being today. I still can't stand it.

LaunchBar lets me choose any track in my iTunes library by typing its name in part. QuickSilver forces me to go to iTunes > Browse Tracks > (type track name), though it then lets me play the track in Party Shuffle while LaunchBar cannot.

LaunchBar lets me visit any URL in any browser: (shortcut key) > CMD+L > type/paste URL > TAB > (browser name). I haven't figured out how to do this in QuickSilver yet.

LaunchBar has been released and is supported. QuickSilver is in perpetual beta mode and succumbs to the open-source mentality of "if a developer shouts you down, you're down." For example, too many QuickSilver users have 20,000 tracks in their iTunes library and as such don't want tracks listed in the main listing.

Blog blog blog. Blog blog blog blog blog, blog blogger blog blog. Blogosphere blog! Blog blogging blog blog blog. Moblogging? Blog blogging? Blogger. Podcast.

TrackBack?

This morning I had a "Shot in the Dark," or a cup of coffee with a shot of espresso mixed in. All that caffeine went to my head as I posted an inflammatory comment in an IE7 article and responded to many of the repetitive responses I received.

Sorry for the flame-inducing post. That'll teach me to overcaffeinate myself in the morning.

What's with the people on Slashdot who can't read a joke and take it at face value?

A line from "Office Space" brings a vitriolic look back at high school.

A joke about the sheer size of the Internet attracted some guy who decided to opine about backup storage methods. This reply was moderated to +4, sadly.

They're jokes, people. I know there's a way to automatically deduct points from "Funny" comments, but what about "Didn't get the joke" comments?

How about that. I'm being mod-bombed. Some poor soul is wasting his (or his) mod points to knock all my comments down to zero. Whatever, I've got karma to burn.

Slashdot now displays my e-mail address properly. Of course, I've already had to modify my killfile to get rid of some spammers.

Earlier this year, I chose to change my displayed e-mail name to "slashdot@weill.org", an alias which was very successful in trapping a lot of SirCam-related e-mail that I was getting. However, when SlashCode was "upgraded," I was surprised to see that "slashdot@weill.org" is now my official e-mail address and "jweill@cmu.edu" is my displayed name. Needless to say, this is the exact opposite of what I wanted.

I submitted a bug on SourceForge. Any response? Not really. Jamie casually pointed out that this was done on purpose, and that I couldn't change my display name (except to something incomprehensible like "jSwPeAiMlIlS@BAD.cmu.edu.NOSPAM.STOP") without making a whole new account.

Saying that something was "done on purpose" doesn't justify a bug like this.

Hello, world. Journals are fun.