There’s a lot that goes into buying my first home. Thankfully, the entire process at the beginning went really smoothly. From securing the finance to getting a real estate agent to checking out places to finding a place I loved to making an offer to getting it accepted to having the home inspection done and finally to lifting all conditions and making the purchase legally binding, it was all done within a few weeks and it was no stress at all. I think the big stress for me will be planning for the actual move and all the things I will need to get done in order to turn the new house into a home. Enter The Hit List.

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The last few weeks have been quite exciting for me. The next seven weeks should prove equally so because that’s how much longer I have to wait before I take possession of my very first home!!

Since the last quarter of 2008, I had been casually looking at buying my first home. I had my eye on the market and keep my ears piqued regarding the latest financial news. Finally, in mid-January, I decided to find a mortgage broker and see exactly what kind of a mortgage I’d be able to get. It turned out that I had an excellent credit rating and I was eligible for a pretty good-sized mortgage. It was definitely enough to allow me to look at buying a place in downtown Vancouver, which is really the only place I’d consider buying right now.

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I was one of those people that used the same password on many sites. You don’t need me to tell you that that isn’t the brightest of ideas. I had never used a password manager before, instead preferring to use Excel to keep track of all the sites where I had signed up to and all my login credentials. There were only a few sites where I visit regularly so having a common password to all those sites was the easiest. Recently, the good folks at MacHeist launched their Christmas Giving Tree and included as one of the free apps was 1Password by Agile Web Solutions. Having used it for a couple of days, I am now a big fan.

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Ever since I got my MacBook Pro, I’ve been looking for software to archive my entire DVD collection so I have it all digital and don’t need to fumble around with physical discs. I’ve seen various free applications out there that can rip the movie from the discs, but I was specifically looking for something that would allow me to make an exact copy of my discs, complete with the menus, special features, audio tracks, trailers, and even that (annoying) FBI warning at the beginning. I also wanted something visually pleasing, sort of like Delicious Library, where I could see all my DVDs by case cover and launch any movie I wanted to just by double-clicking the case. A couple of weeks ago, I finally found what I was looking for.

Drive-in (by Telestream) creates an image of a DVD and saves it onto your computer. What makes this program different from most others is that the program saves its files as a ‘DVD case’. If you input the UPC code from the DVDs (Telestream, if you’re reading, how about letting us use iSight to scan the barcode, a la Delicious Library?), it will look up the movie on Amazon and fill out a ton of information related to the disc (including movie summary, cast, DVD specifications, etc.). This may seem like information overload if all you’re interested in is just having a copy of the DVD on your computer, but with this information already available, you can perform a search (say you want to find all your movies starring Angelina Jolie) and Spotlight will spit out all the movies involving your searched term. Handy for those with huge libraries.

When you go about to actually making an image of the disc (which usually about 30 minutes), Drive-in will save the image within a ‘DVD case’. This feature makes it very easy to save and categorize DVDs with multiple discs (like TV series or 2-disc edition DVDs).

Once you have your DVD images created and saved, you can easily browse your DVDs in the folder you’ve saved them in. When you find a movie you want to see, double-clicking it serves the same function as if you’ve physically inserted the DVD into your drive. The DVD will appear as a loaded disc and you can do everything you would normally do with a DVD (Note that Drive-in is not a movie player; you’ll probably use the Apple DVD player to watch your movies you’ve imaged). Once you’ve finished watching the movie, simply drag the disc icon from your desktop to the trash and it acts as if the disc has just been ejected. Simple, easy, and effective. Because Drive-in saves movies as DVD cases, I use the brilliancy that is Cover Flow to navigate my library, which just pushes it a few more inches towards a realistic library I can practically reach out and touch.

Now, because Drive-in makes an exact image of your DVD (complete with copyright protection and region-coding), each disc image can be upwards of 7-8GB each. Unless you have ample hard drive space, I suggest you not backup your entire DVD collection and just backup the discs you want access to for the short-term (like for flights, vacations, business trips, etc.). Because I wanted to backup my entire collection, I went out and bought an external 2TB drive specifically for this purpose. Then I just copy the images to my MBP hard drive and take it with me when I’m on the go. Since I do go on a few business trips, this is super convenient for me.

If you’re looking for something much like this, I’d recommend you go over to the Drive-in website, watch the tutorial video, and download a demo version of the application, which allows you to make a copy of two discs. If you like what you see, you can register the program for $39 USD (I won’t give a link, but if you search around the Interweb, you should be able to find a $10 discount promo code floating around). Definitely a good price for a great program.

Note: This is a follow-up to a previous post.

After having used this new shampoo I bought (Redken for Men Go Clean), I must say I like it. It smells great and it leaves my hair feeling clean. Where my previous shampoo would demand I use conditioner, Go Clean lets me go without it. Granted, I’d still prefer to use conditioner afterwards and that’s why I’m on the search for Redken for Men Finish Up (although I’ve yet to be able to find it). I hear it’s really good and it doesn’t leave that “did I wash all the conditioner out of my hair yet?” feeling.

Although the stuff is a little pricey, I think I might stick with it since I really do like it.