Use the tools you've got

For a long time there, I was convinced I needed a tool like Espresso or Coda to write my HTML and CSS. It had all these whizz-bang features and looked all pretty. That is, until I discovered I hadn't even scratched the surface of the capabilities of an application I already owned: TextMate. I had never explored the power of bundles and the shortcuts it enabled.

[caption id="attachment_108" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="My two tools"][/caption]

Now my workflow consists of two applications for my front-end coding: TextMate and CSSEdit. And that is purely because it helps my mental model of keeping content and presentation separated. There was no need to buy expensive fancy new applications to get work done. Which is an important lesson to learn: try to make do with what you've got first, before you lust after the greatest and newest thing. Unless it's an Apple product, of course.

Inspired by minimalmac and minimalswitch.

Manic optimists

[caption id="attachment_103" align="alignleft" width="240" caption="A CC-licensed picture from Flickr"][/caption]

I've often been called a pessimist and a very negative person. I have to disagree. I have such high hopes of humanity that I'm continually disappointed, hence coming across as a negative person.

I do believe we live in a world of people who are manic optimists. They take a futile "fake it 'till you make it" attitude to happiness. That approach might work when you've got a case of the Mondays, but it doesn't do anything if there are fundamental parts of your life you are unhappy with. And rather than tackle or approach those, the manic optimists stay on the surface, obsessively convincing themselves they are not as miserable as they are feeling.

That is where the clash with people like me come, when they suggest that things could be better, the manic optimists are confronted with the fact that the status quo is not as satisfying as they try to believe it is. So, to maintain their own delusions we are branded as pessimists and troublemakers.

And I think this conflict  is the very reason there is so little change and improvement happening in the world. The manic optimists are clinging to the present state of affairs, preventing the "troublemakers" from doing their thing.

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