Less than four hours here till the dawning of the new year. On this date in 2006, I was reflecting on the challenges of the previous couple of years and hoping for better:

Not too long now, it’ll be 2007. And not a moment too soon. ;)

Last year on this date, I was looking back on a difficult 2005…

Instead of the Litany of Bad Things, I will just say that despite the bad stuff, some good stuff also happened. More than anything, seeds have been planted that might just make 2006 a good one.

Suffice to say that unfortunately, 2006 was even more trying, by a long shot. But I can also say that a lot of good happened this year as well. I can even mean it wholeheartedly when I say that 2007 holds a lot of promise. With some dedication and good fortune, it could be the best year ever.

Well, it wasn’t the best ever, containing as it did its own set of challenging events, but it was better by far than the previous couple. Sort of a transition/recovery year.

No matter what, I’m looking forward to 2008, and the hopes of continuing improvement.

Happy New Year, y’all!

Back in the days of NeXT, there was a bundled application called Digital Librarian. And as AppleInsider describes in this article, “Road to Mac OS X Leopard: Dictionary 2.0”,

Included with the system were the complete works of Shakespeare, The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Thesaurus.

With the new Dictionary.app, you have the ability to view other dictionaries, as well as all of Wikipedia — I’ve already been using this capability a ton. Combined with using the keyboard shortcuts under the “Search” menu, searching multiple places is very easy and quick.

An item that might go overlooked is in the “Go” menu — “Front/Back Matter.” Choosing that while the Dictionary is selected reveals various meta items like the people associated with making the included New Oxford American Dictionary, prefaces, introductions, etc. But there’s actually a massive amount of additional resources here. Check it out:

• American Voices by William A.Kretzschmar, Jr.
• How to Read an Etymology by Anatoly Liberman
• Key to the Pronunciations
• Key to the Abbreviations

Ready Reference

• Language Guide
  • Rules of English: Understanding Grammar
  • Guide to Spelling
  • Guide to Capitalization and Punctuation
  • Words: Making the Right Choices
  • Clichés
  • Proofreader’s Marks
• The History of English
  • Timeline
• States of the United States of America
• Presidents of the United States of America
• Declaration of Independence
• Constitution of the United States of America
• Countries of the World
• Chemical Elements
• Standard Weights and Measures with Metric Equivalents and Conversions
• Metric Weights and Measures with Standard Equivalents and Conversions
• Alphabets

Of course, in our always-online culture nowadays, all of this stuff is available via your favorite web browser. But if you happen to be offline (horror of horrors), these could be very useful.