Fresh Ubuntu

Nice "backwards tape" effect. I knew you were infusing subliminal messages into your podcasts.

Some comments:
Quicksilver: I love QS and I only use the functionality that 10 minutes of startup operation reveals. As you've said, there's more but I haven't needed to extend it. Here's why it's excellent: short adoption curve, powerful extensibility and reasonable licensing. It's not a steep learning curve, as Peter suggested. Shortcuts to apps are not the same thing as QS, almost categorically so. Also, QS is tightly integrated with Apple's Spotlight services, so, yes it is using OS-native APIs. Opening the code doesn't necessarily mean opening portability.

Latent DJ Admit it, Harlem, you're a closet DJ. You still have the best music mix of any podcast I get. Having said that, you really need to replace that intro bumper, er ”song.“ ’Nuff said.

Using an OS With no intended slight to Scott, running ubuntu in Parallels or vmware isn't the same as running it on its own and having to use it alone. I'm not a fan of switching to a single OS, which is like changing out your tools to "hammers only," because hammers are so awesome. I have found much more insight having an entire machine run a single OS (a very inexpensive laptop, in my case) than running the OS in an emulator. Recently, I have been forced (through repeated hard disk failure on my iMac) to go "cold turkey" on ubuntu and I am continually amazed and delighted by how well I'm continuing to get my work done. OpenOffice is great, by the way; a nice surprise.

Mac nostalgia Widgets: not missed, QS: yes, (but alt-F2 works for the most part) katapult isn't ready. Spotlight: Apple did this right and I haven't seen it done well elsewhere yet, including Deskbar Applet. Chat client? Trival, but then again, I like Pidgin, so that's why it doesn't matter. I only use iChat for A/V chatting. Gimp is a great replacement for Photoshop, by the way, but it is not professional grade, i.e., it lacks 4-channel (CMYK) support. You didn't mention iTunes, but I do dearly miss iTunes on ubuntu. Yea, it's all there, but Apple's usability studies really shines through on iTunes. Flame away.

BBEdit...and the wind cries "BBEdit." That is the deal-breaker for me; why I will not abandon the Mac platform. I am using their "persistent includes" functionality and I love it and can not find a mature and stable replacement for it. Their implementation of grep is great, too. As for other editors, I like quanta and, on Peter's recommendation, I'll have to check out kate.

Professional graphics apps GA on ubuntu is not at the maturation of Mac or Windows. I could go tech in my reasons (not a "mac fan boy" assertion) but I'm already leaving a lengthly post. Found myself checking out the Inkscape program. I found it very compelling -- but it has lousy postscript support (or appears to, "out of the box") and you have to output to bitmap. Pro Graphic Apps guys LOVE postscript support -- it is non-optional. A fatal ommission.