Welcome back, friend. Per what I wrote in your yearbook back in June, I hope you had a nice summer and stayed sweet and cool. You look great. Did you lose weight or something?

Somewhere along the way over the past few weeks, I seem to have got my game on again here at 43 Folders. I wrote a few items that I'm proud of and that lots of people seemed to enjoy. I'm once again posting about stuff that means a lot to me, and I'm feeling good about the site and where it (and I) will be heading over the next year. (More on that soon)

But, if you were tanning on Ibiza or building houses with Jimmy Carter and missed out on my wordy comeback season, here's a few articles I hope you will enjoy.

It's nice to have you back; I found the Vette, and I'm pumped for Fall.

GrApple - Aronnax`s Firefox Themes

Dang, these Mac-o-phillic Firefox themes are yummy. I've actually been using "GrApple Eos Pro" for some time now, but I'd never realized just how many subtle variations were available.

I'm not sure if it's just a Mac thing -- or even whether it's necessarily always a good thing -- but I really believe the chance of a product's wider adoption amongst Mac users is greatly enhanced when it looks like something we're used to using. Thanks to the broad range of talented hands contributing to open source projects these days, we're starting to see more top-notch work like this from people like Aronnax; stuff that keep us snooty 5ish% very happy and visually dazzled. Good on you. (And a tip of the Mac to Jon for supplying their hosting and cool domain name.)

James Clarke – No Links Please!

Here's a fun one. Our old pal (and the coiner of "life hacks"), Danny O'Brien, passes along an extreme attention aid that might be regarded as the heir apparent to his wonderful "Webolodeon" script for GreaseMonkey.

No Links Please will do its part to keep you from mindlessly surfing the web:

No, I haven't yet interviewed Nick Mirov, but The Merlin Show's launch week juggernaut rolls on with interviews featuring two "JV"s: Google's Jeffrey Veen and San Francisco indie rock institution John Vanderslice (the latter of whom also has a show tonight at The Independent at which you should say hi if you see me). Clickable versions of both episodes provided after the jump.

Also, I've posted my first in a series of credit highlights, beginning with John Roderick, the man behind the wonderful music you hear over our credits (it's called "Blue Diamonds" and you can download it here).

Finally, if you haven't yet subscribed for free, it's a great time to hop in. Also, kindly note that, if you subscribe via iTunes, you can help me potentially overtake several popular public radio shows. Which would be really cool.

A few of the links that have been pretty popular on other sites, which I’d be remiss not to mention in passing here:

Back at work killing time? Sure you are. After all, it's nationwide "Thumb up your butt" week, right? You bet it is.

So, from the archives of 43 Folders (and the on-hiatus Merlin Show), here's four of my favorite videos of stuff I've done. Hope you like 'em.

OmniFocus Sneak Preview - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

Dan Lurie at TUAW has detailed notes on the OmniFocus Meetup yesterday at the Apple Store.

• OmniFocus, unlike its predecessor KinklessGTD will feature an instant data propagation across the app, thus doing away with the need for a "sync button," and ensuring your data is always where you expect it to be.
• OmniFocus will have a simpler and more streamlined interface than OmniOutliner, on which KGTD was built.
• Users will be able to view multiple or individual projects and contexts in either a single window or multiple separate windows.
• OmniFocus will support existing KGTD QuickSilver inbox-entry actions.
• OmniFocus will also feature a standalone proprietary quick-entry method via keystroke, similar to Yojimbo.
• Future versions will support user definable smart folders.
• The first version of OmniFocus will not require 10.5 Leopard, but all following versions will due to the use of Leopard only technologies.
• Like KGTD, OmniFocus will support syncing with portable devices through iCal.
• OmniFocus will be fully applescriptable.
• Future versions will support integration with OmniPlan.
• Future versions will support universal action creation from other applications (such as turning an email message or iCal to-do into an action).
• Future versions will support attaching or tying of files to actions and projects.
• OmniGroup is planning to release OmniFocus within the next few months.

It was great to hear Ken lay out OmniGroup's plans and progress on the Kinkless replacement. Thanks much to everyone who showed up yesterday.

Where Work Is a Religion, Work Burnout Is Its Crisis of Faith -- New York Magazine

This enjoyable article on burnout includes a bit that I love (and sympathize with):

Woo hoo. Re: An appendix to the principles of Jewish Buddhism. Saying hi. Re: Hey pal. Burnout. WHEN are we eating? Open Enrollment Info. Quick q. Arrrrrrrrrrgh.

You are looking at nine e-mail subject lines I received in a one-hour period last week. It was then that I realized I answer an e-mail once every 6.66 minutes. The very thought of committing this fact to paper has kept me crippled for several seconds. It doesn’t seem like the sort of thing my boss should know.

One has to wonder whether the developments of a high-speed world haven’t made burnout worse. First, the obvious: With the advent of e-mail, cell phones, laptops, BlackBerrys (or “CrackBerrys”—the argot here seems extremely apt), and other bits of high-speed doodadry, it has become virtually impossible, in senses both literal and metaphorical, to unplug from our jobs. As Schaufeli, the Dutch researcher, notes, one of the strongest predictors of burnout isn’t just work overload but “work-home interference”—a sociologist’s way of saying we’re receiving phone calls from Tokyo during dinner and replying to clients on our BlackBerrys while making our children brush their teeth.

I suspect that children will eventually support some kind of thin-client email-to-affection gateway. From an evolutionary standpoint, it may be the only solution that scales.

• Make It Stop! Crushed by Too Many E-Mails : NPR - I think somebody on Massachusetts Ave. must have called "Oy Vey, Email!" Week at NPR. Here's another one on email overwhelm, including tips and technology on "email organization." How 'bout that. At the risk of repeating myself, organizing your email is like alphabetizing your recycling! Call me, Yuki. Let's talk.
• Spark | CBC Radio | Episode 41 - June 11 & 14 - In my latest Spark segment, I shared some ideas on how to deal with annoying forwarded email from friends and family, or what I call "turkey bacn."
• lonelysandwich - Why Me? - Adam thinks "MobileMe" signals Apple's big move behind what used to be considered enemy lines. "Apple is removing the Mac from the Apple computer experience and laying the foundation for a browser-based OS..."
• Jonathan Coulton » The JoCo Primer - Jonathan has a really smart series of pages for introducing new fans to himself and his music, as well as suggesting where to go next. Memo to self, internet: steal this idea.
• Ars at WWDC: Exclusive preview of mobile NetNewsWire - Not only is my beloved NetNewsWire coming to iPhone, but let me also take this opportunity to congratulate Brent on his outstanding taste in demo web content.
• The $100 Distraction Device - "Why giving poor kids laptops doesn't improve their scholastic performance." I dunno. I respect that there's lots of sides to the OLPC debate, but this particular one's got a bit of damp straw and double standards to it.
• OmniFocus for the iPhone snags an Apple Design Award! - Congratulations to my OmniGroup peeps on their award. After getting lots of little sneak peeks from friends at WWDC [cough], I am so excited for the apps that are coming to the iPhone. This is going to be huge, people.
• Start! - I'm honored to be speaking at Jeff and Bryan's amazing-looking one-day conference for indie web folks, here in San Francisco. And, talk about a bargain. Register today.
• Word Spy - tweetup - "A real world meeting between two or more people who know each other through the online Twitter service." Kinda scared to try this; I'm pretty sure a lot of my Twitter friends are bots created by the influential Butt Joke industry.