I could have gone with my iPhone or my Macbook.  I could wax rhapsodic about either device.  The phone has become almost an extension of my soul, I use it for so much.  And, the elegance and utility of both devices certainly gives lift to my desire to break out of my corporate “box” and  strike out on my own.

However, I think the gift that has given me the most this year is not something tangible.  My gift that has kept on giving is to live my life simply.  To make do with less and to live in a smaller space.  This life style change won’t happen all at once.  It will take some time to implement.  But, my goal is to have a smaller home and fewer possessions.  The goal is to free up time for what is important to me.

So, on this day of giving, celebrate with family and friends.

Enjoy and be thankful for what you have.

May you all be blessed with good friends, good family, good health and good cheer!!!

Peace to you all.

This post will be short and sweet.  And, I can’t really narrow it down.  There are several that I will list.

1)  Tweetdeck – this tool allows me to manage my Twitter life.  You can have any number of columns so that you can divide your twitter followers into whatever groupings you like.  This means you won’t miss valuable tweets from friends or people you follow minute by minute and also allows you to find the gems buried in the “noise”.  Also, you can manage multiple Twitter accounts with ease.  You can send tweets to multiple accounts, shorten URLs and insert pictures via your favorite Twitter picture service.  And, this software runs on both my Mac and my iPhone and the columns/lists can be synced between the platforms so that no matter which device you use, you can manage everything just the same.

2) Read It Later – this tool allows me to save interesting websites to a “cloud” repository for reading at a later time.  It’s like a web based bookmarking service.  I use it via the various Twitter applications I use on my iPhone as well as thru the bookmarklet I have set up on my Safari browser.  Basically, you simply navigate to the page you wish to read later and select the “read it later” option from the Twitter app menu or browser bookmarklet button I have set up on the Bookmarks bar in Safari.  Then, when I have time, I can visit the Read it Later website or see my list in the Read it Later iPhone app, log into my account and select the website(s) I wish to review, and bam! there they are.  There is even an option for saving the webpages for offline reading.  How cool is that???  Oh, and it’s FREE although, for the iPhone, the premium app was a couple bucks.

3)  Lastly, I have to say that the iPhone “online” tool I use the most is Tweetie 2.  It supports multiple Twitter accounts, managing users and lists, has a drafts feature and even integrates with Read it Later, Twitpic and other popular services like Bit.ly for URL shortening.

As an honorable mention, I will add the Facebook App for the iPhone.  It lets me check on my friends and do most of the things I would do with Facebook but when I’m not at a computer.

If you’ve been following my posts for the Best of Blog Challenge 2009, then you might already guess where I spent my “mad money” this year. And, actually, it wasn’t one place, but three places: an AT&T kiosk at the Cool Springs Galleria in Franklin, Tennessee, the Mac Authority store, also at the Cool Springs Galleria and the Apple Store at the Mall at Green Hills in Nashville, Tennessee. Yes, almost all of my mad money went to Apple Computer.

Yes, on Tuesday, December 15th, I posted about the best packaging I’d encountered this year and mentioned the iPhone, Macbook and iPod Nano that I purchased this year.  Apple wins hands down as the primary benefactor of my mad money spending.  In fact, I could even include music purchased thru iTunes as well as the apps purchesed thru the Apps store on iTunes.

Call me an Apple fanboy if you want.  I am unapologetic about this.  Apple makes fantastic products.  They are designed, engineered and built to be both visually stunning and insanely powerful and simple.  For instance, after bringing home my Macbook, it was simply a matter of plugging in my Wndows USB mouse and the Mac not only instantly recognized it, but required no software to be loaded to make it work.   The new Nano, in the same “foodprint” as the previous generation NOW includes not only a video camera, but also a pedometer for tracking calories burned and steps taken and an FM radio tuner so that should you desire to listen to regular radio, you can!  Then, of course there is the iPhone.  The only drawback to my iPhone is that I bought it 2-3 months before the newest version was released.  Therefore, I can’t shoot video with the iPhone.  But, aside from that one bummer, the iPhone has met or exceeded all of my expectations.

So, yes, I definitely gave Apple the lions share of my mad money this year.  I don’t anticipate a similar spending spree in 2010, but who knows?  I could hit the lottery or get an inheritance from a long lost relative but this is unlikely.  At this point, I’m not worried about next year’s online/offline shopping strategies.  It will be whatever it wants or needs to be.

Peace!

For the best packaging for 2009, the winner, in my book, is Apple Computer. They have mastered the art of packaging such that they use less material and design the packaging to be both elegant and functional. In fact, they reduced the size of their computer boxes so that they can ship the same number units using a smaller space, thereby reducing, if even by a little, their carbon footprint for shipping.

This year, I purchased an iPhone, a Macbook and an iPod Nano. In each case, the packaging was surprisingly small and elegant. The size of the packaging was inversely proportional to the size/quality of the product inside. The various parts of the packaging nestled together neatly with neat little tabs designed so that pulling each “layer” out of the box was quite easy.

There were no bulky styrofoam inserts that often make it difficult to remove the device from the box. Plastic coverings and wrappers were there but minimized. And, all accessories and printed documentation were designed to fit snugly in their own separate layers and compartments. There is little or no wasted space inside the packaging.Another reason I love Apple packaging is that it fits my new penchant for a minimalist living experience. I have come to understand that size does NOT always matter. Their packages perform the perfect combination of product protection and product presentation.