I need, need, need my finance management software. I like to know exactly where every penny is being spent and exactly how much liquidity/debt I have at any given moment. This is the accountant in me speaking. So to find out Microsoft Money was not available for Mac was very disappointing.

I’ve used Money to manage my finances ever since I bought my very first computer back in 1994. It was bundled with Microsoft Works (old school!) and I thought it was just the most useful little app this side of the Pacific Ocean. In more recent years, I’ve tried other programs, like Quicken, but in the end, I always turned back to Money.

Until I got my Mac.

I searched high and low for a Mac version of Money but the only thing I found was a disclaimer that Money was not available for Mac. What was I to do? How would I manage my finances? I needed a replacement app and I needed it fast.

I tried Quicken for Mac but it was totally foreign to me. Perhaps all those years of Money had tainted my view of any other finance software but I didn’t like the taste Quicken left in my mouth. I tried to find other apps (most notably Cha-Ching, which didn’t meet my needs) But because there was nothing else available, I begrudgingly accepted Quicken to by my finance app of choice for the Mac. That is, until I found Moneydance.

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There’s a lot of neat software out there for Apple computers. The latest one I found (and the one I’m having the most fun with at the moment) is Delicious Library.

Delicious Library - catalog software for all your books, movies, music, and video games.

Delicious Library allows you to catalog all your books, music, movies, and video games. Simply enter the item into the Library and it will automatically pull all sorts of details from Amazon (such as release date, author, actors, MSRP, images, etc.) and attach it to your item in your library. You can rate your items and attach notes and keywords. Since I like to keep databases and catalogs, this was a great piece of software for me (also because I have a lot of movies and music). Now, why I think this program is so cool is not the fact that it automatically gets item details from Amazon, it’s the fact that to enter items into your library, you simply use the iSight camera and scan the barcodes.

Scan items into your library with an iSight camera.

Isn’t that cool?? In less than 5 minutes, I was able to scan over 35 items into my library. And if you come across a certain item in your library that isn’t scanning, you can manually input the ISBN and it works just the same. Other features including syncing your library onto your iPod, printing out your catalog, and keeping track of what items your friends have currently borrowed.

Delicious Library is available as shareware and the full version is only $40. Who knew scanning barcodes could be this fun?

Images obtained from the Delicious Library website.

So I’ve had my new MacBook Pro for 5 full days now and honestly, I love it. I love laptop computers in general (what’s not to love?) but I doubly love my MacBook Pro. The fact that it’s shiny and an attention grabber makes it all the more better. But is it all just purely asthetics? No, it goes way beyond that.

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My MacBook Pro arrived today. I was so excited. I had been checking the FedEx tracking website every day and it said that it would be delivered today. The FedEx man arrived at my front door at 10am this morning with my shiny new MacBook Pro and I was just so elated. What follows is my live blog of this morning when I received and unboxed my brand new MacBook Pro. Read the rest of this entry »

About six weeks after when I originally expected it, Apple has updated their MacBook Pro lineup. The new stock MBP is updated with the new Intel Core 2 Duo Penryn processors, a larger hard drive, more memory on the graphics card, and the new Multi-Touch trackpad technology first introduced on the iPhone and MacBook Air. I, for one, am a happy camper because this update means I can finally go ahead and order my very first Mac (which I’ve actually already done). It’s been a long-time coming, but come March, I will finally be a Mac user. I’m too excited to even put it into words so I’ll just let you stare in awe at the glory that is soon to become my new computer:

Courtesy of Apple.