Since I moved to the Boston area, the TomTom Go 300 GPS has been a real lifesaver for me. Actually, since before we moved – we drove across the country from San Francisco to Boston, and let me tell you it paid for itself just in helping us to find food and lodging along the way.

And then it paid for itself doubly and triply as I got my bearings in the crazy streets of Somerville, Cambridge, and other Boston suburbs in which I dwell. It’s just so handy to be able to type in an address and “go there.” I love it in spite of its sometimes quirky ignorance of one-way streets, etc.

And then they tooks it from me. Last night or this morning, somebody smashed in the passenger’s side window of my car and took the TomTom from my glove box.

Bastards!

I was a fool to leave it in the car, but that’s just sort of how I am. I tend to tempt humanity with trust until proven foolish. I’ve also gotten a bit of false security about my neighborhood because of crazy incidents like accidentally leaving the windows down with the TomTom in plain sight, overnight, with no repercussions! Coming here from the Mission District in SF, it does feel kind of like Candyland in many regards.

But my poor TomTom is still gone.

Scott Stevenson over at Cocoa Dev Central picked up on a couple good new blogs, which he’s included in his front-page summary of “Cocoa + Mac Blogs”:

Cocoa Samurai – Colin Wheeler is adopting an educational approach that I really appreciate. The more “Tutorials” the better, as far as I’m concerned. His article on Doxygen looks like it’s worth reviewing.

Losing Fight – Andy Finnell seems perplexed by his inclusion, claiming that he’s hardly writing about Cocoa at all. But the front page of his blog is littered with Core Data references, so I guess he might just be pertinent in spite of himself!

I’ve also noticed a few recent additions that are worth keeping an eye on:

Lap Cat Software – Jeff Johnson is one of the developers of the Vienna open source newsreader, who recently took the plunge into blogging. He’s on the right track with his detailed analysis of getting NSTableView to do the right thing in response to single vs. double clicks.

MacMojo – The official “multi-blog” of Microsoft Office Mac team. This is an example of Microsoft kicking Apple’s butt in terms of public exposure. I’m not suggesting this blog will be a completely transparent view of the inner workings of the Office team. There’s bound to be some self-censorship, at the very least. But they have a blog, and that’s a bold step. Where’s the Core Data Blog? The QuickTime blog, etc? Apple employees who blog do so outside the umbrella of their workplace, in a disjointed fashion and always carefully “not speaking for my employer.” All that effort is squandered, when it could be building Apple’s reputation as being engaged in the public discourse.

The Masked Blogger – speaking of Apple’s idiotic blog-stifling policies, this blogger decided to glorify the circumstances surrounding his or her anonymity. Not really sure what the gist of the content is – it seems to be specifically about the need to be masked, which could turn interesting. Judging from the Sainsbury’s references (perplexingly misspelled in the blog), I’m guessing the Masked Blogger works for Apple UK.

Erik Schwiebert and David Weiss – Two Microsoft bloggers who demonstrate that there’s room for both corporate and private blogging. These men contribute to the aforementioned Mac Mojo blog while still running their own private blogs outside the company. Notably – they are not secretive about their association with Microsoft, event from their private blogs.

Google Mac Blog – Add this to the list of “cooler than Apple” corporate blogging entities. Well, they haven’t really posted much here, yet. But the mechanism is in place for Google’s Mac proponents to communicate with their public. Go, Google!

I try to stay up to date with new Mac bloggers, but you know how it goes: it’s easy to miss out on things. So I’m sure there are some other recent developments that have slipped past my radar. If you’ve got something new to share, feel free to comment about it below.

Sumana Harihareswara on the Fog Creek Weblog explains how FogBugz plays a central role in customer management at the company. Especially impressive to me is the part about how incoming voice messages get automatically converted to tickets with a voice attachment.

Thought 1: I wish I had a dedicated server so I could run FogBugz in all its glory.

Thought 2: Would it be excessively eccentric for me to run Asterisk in my apartment?

I’ve decided to, at least experimentally, ditch my links blog.

That blog was born out of a fear that posting quickie links in here would drive away readers. But it was a major pain in the butt for me to manage two “blogs” just to achieve this artificial separation. The thing is, I don’t like the mental burden of deciding for myself whether something I’m about to post is a “link” or an “article.” I’m longwinded, so links often turn into articles just by virtue of me going off about them.

I’m going to adopt a “I’ll fix it if they complain loudly enough” attitude, and just put my links in here when I feel like it. Sometimes they might be aggregated into a single post per day, sometimes not.

If this ruins your day, please let me know and I’ll count your vote.