I’ve finally put down the $19 necessary to become a member of Daring Fireball. Ever since John Gruber, creator and sole contributor to Daring Fireball, announced that he was quitting his job to write full-time for the site, I’ve been thinking about joining to support his work. His writing about all things Apple is some of the most cohesive and eloquent prose that can be found on the internet.
All of the content on his site is free, so the membership is more of a donation to support his writing. However, with the membership comes a subscription to the RSS feed of his “Linked List,” a separate blog of sorts where he posts really insightful links about a number of different topics. Last week there was a free trial period for this feed, and I was disappointed when the time ran out, and was considering purchasing a membership. But it was this post that I read this morning that finally convinced me.
One of my favorite articles that John ever wrote was Windows: The New Classic, right after Apple released Boot Camp. While most people were still scratching their heads trying to figure out why Apple would ever want to allow you to run Windows on a Mac, this article made it seem like it was the logical next step. He writes, “This is a move of supreme confidence — Apple relishes the comparison between Mac OS X and Windows XP.” Clearly some have seen the light, as recent market share gains have shown.
You really don’t have any street cred with other Apple fans until you read Daring Fireball. The RSS feed for the full posts is free, so I urge you to try it out.
TextMate, the best Mac text editor out there, received an update a few days ago, and it is now Halloween compatible. Check out its awesome new icon at right. There are at least two other thematic surprises hidden within the application that I won’t spoil… 
Update: Halloween is over, and TextMate has reverted back to the normal theme. Apparently some people didn’t like the implications of the picture. They probably still live with their parents. Luckily the icon is still available.
I’ve been trying OpenDNS this weekend and it seems to be quite fast. It’s extremely easy to set up using their clever instructions for any type of router or computer, and it starts working instantly. Usage of this service has been steadily growing over the past few months.
For those who care to know, DNS (Domain Name System) resolution is a service usually provided by your ISP (Internet Service Provider). When you type in a site name in your browser, the first thing it does is to query your ISP’s DNS server to find out the IP address of the computer that hosts that site. Once it has done this, it can load the page. OpenDNS claims to shorten the time that this IP address lookup takes by having a huge cache, meaning that they usually can return a result to you without having to ask another nameserver, which would take more time. In addition, they have servers at the main crossroads of the internet. Whenever you see “Looking up (example).com” in the status bar of your browser is when DNS resolution is occurring.
So maybe give OpenDNS a try, if you have access to your network settings. You may be pleasantly surprised at how fast your internet goes. They also claim to offer phishing protection and will block known phishing sites. The service corrects spelling errors, too, so if you type in something like “google.co” instead of “google.com,” you will be instantly redirected. Pretty cool!
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