Last to last weekend we went for a drive on Merritt Parkway. You can ask, "How does that matter to me?" :) Keep going, you may find the answer....

Well, its a scenic drive which proudly enjoys the enlisting in "America's Most Scenic Drives" published by Life Books (Time Inc.). This book has pretty good details of 40 most beautiful highways and byways.

Why I am posting it here? Because, if you come to tri-state area (NY-NJ-CT) some time, you can include this drive in your itinerary. We loved this and so will you (hopefully).

As per the book mentioned earlier: "Those in hurry choose to boom along I-95 highway and other take Route 84. But the poets always opt for the Merritt Parkway. ... ... Built in the 1930s and 37.5 miles long, the Merritt - one of the few American roads listed on the National Register of Historic Places - is a classic, and ever will be."

Here is the information you can use:

Wikipedia: Merritt Parkway
America's Byways: Merritt Parkway Overview & Maps & Directions

Enjoy!!

I have something weird (or may be not weird but innovative ;) and interesting thing to share with you. Last night I had a dream. Well, everyone do that. All of us use dreams to achieve whatever we die for (you know what I am talking about ?). But this time it was a lil different.

So, what all I can remember, I entered in the house from somewhere. I had a device with me. After some refreshment, I started using that. Whoa, I saw all my daily activities on the screen. Something like this….
3 hrs… Movie
4 hrs… Social Gathering
2 hrs… Traveling
…
…

I know a day has 24 hrs but that’s all I remember. So, now I am thinking if I ( or all of us) can really get a device like that, how amazing it will be. It will be with us all the time and will keep an eye on our activities. I know what you are thinking. How will it be amazing? Well...
It can give us an idea where we are wasting our time.
It can tell us where we should spend time but we are not.
It can tell us how our sex life is going :)).
All the wives will really get to know how much their husbands love them.

The list can go on. I am not saying I am the next Kekulé (he discovered the ring shape of the benzene molecule after dreaming of a snake seizing its own tail, a common symbol in many ancient cultures known as the Ouroboros) but it was fun, really.

So, do you see a device like this in near future?

First thing first. Notepad sucks. It adds zero value to (read decreases) your productivity. There is only one reason to use it... its light.

I tried couple of options available but Notepad++ wins for sure. This is open source project, straight forward and easy to use. This can do whatever a normal editor is supposed to do. Adding to that, it supports syntax highlighting and syntax folding for C, C++, Java, C#, XML, HTML, PHP, JavaScript, makefile, ASCII art, doxygen, ASP, VB/VBScript, Unix Shell Script, BAT, SQL, Objective-C, CSS, Pascal, Perl, Python, Lua, Tcl, Assembler, Ruby, Lisp, Scheme, Smalltalk, PostScript, VHDL, FORTRAN, Ada, Caml, AutoIt, KiXtart, Matlab and Verilog. Couple of these I didn't even heard of :(.

It has rich set of features. Such as:

• Syntax Highlighting and Syntax Folding
• WYSIWYG
• User Defined Syntax Highlighting
• Auto-completion
• Multi-Document
• Multi-View
• Regular Expression Search/Replace supported
• Full Drag ‘N' Drop supported
• Dynamic position of Views
• File Status Auto-detection
• Zoom in and zoom out
• Multi-Language environment supported
• Bookmark
• Brace and Indent guideline Highlighting
• Macro recording and playback

For me, the best use is when I say "View Source" from IE. To open source in notepad++, change your default program to open text files in notepad++ using Folder Options.

I know there are are more advanced editors than this. I haven't tried them all but most of them are kind of real resource hog or complex. If you haven't use it, give it a try. :)

All that said doesn't mean I am saying notepad++ is advanced editorthan Vim or Emacs. But I really can't think of a text editor for which I have to read tutorials. Really, tutorials for using a text editor. Am I missing something?

PS: There is a basic comparison of text editors at Wikipedia. If you can spare time, try as much as editors from the list. :)