1. wunderlist. How is this beautiful? They crammed a wood-styled UI into OS X's standard window chrome. The toggle switches at the bottom are not the OS-provided ones and look like they're intended to match the iPhone app more than the OS they're running on. Things is a far better example here.

2. Reeder. See http://danielkennett.org/blog/2010/12/analysing-a-touch-to-d...

3. Sparrow. These are not OS X toolbar icons -- they're UIKit icons! They look as out-of-place on OS X as OS X ones would on an iOS device.

5. DaisyDisk. The UI here is very unique and usable. The mouse-over support on the file graph is actually very, very useful for determining where storage space is being used.

6. Transmit 4. I personally found Transmit 3's favorites interface and syncing interface to be more usable. The animations they've added slow down use and some buttons (e.g., disconnect) are far harder to reach than in T3.

7. Courier. While the interface is novel and interesting at first glance, I have to question how useful it is for repetitive tasks. I have not used the app, so I can't comment there, but more often than not fancy graphics get in the way of speed.

8. 1Password. This one I love. It's useful and very usable. I've used multiple versions of this program and the UI changes they've made with the current one far outshine the previous versions both in terms of appearance and usability.

My only gripe still would be with the browser plugin. I've tried setting up other less computer-savvy people to use it, and the menu does not make it immediately obvious to them which item to select to log in -- the top several options are too crammed together visually.

Your website needs to have a one sentence explanation of what it does, e.g. measure sleep and wake you up when you're in a light sleep. You pretty much have to read the FAQ to figure out that's what it does. Not saying this makes it seem like a quack magnetic bracelet or something. Just a suggestion.

For any layperson who wants to understand what mathematicians think about math, I cannot recommend _The Mathematical Experience_ highly enough.

It is accessible to a high school student. Yet has insights for a PhD in mathematics. And more than any other book I know, it captures the experience of mathematics. Both good and bad.

I like to say that I went into mathematics for reasons given in that book. And I left it for reasons given in that book.

Look, I know it's Product Blogging 101, but it always amazes me when I see a product blog like this one that has:

a.) No description of what the product is

b.) No direct link to the product website

So now, after visiting that site, I know that Wakemates are ready. But I have no idea what a Wakemate is, and short of manipulating the URL by hand, I have no way to get to a website that will tell me anything about them.

Since I'm on an iPad, it's orders of magnitude easier to simply hit the back button and write this comment, before forgetting about whatever this product was forever.

Why are comments disabled on job postings?

I would advise you not to go looking for what others think you should do but to start looking at this from a 'problem oriented perspective'.

Find something that you would like to have but that is not currently available and then build that, that in turn will decide for the platform and associated toolchain.

It is much better that way because you can't really make the case for what is 'better' for an aspiring programmer, web programming, tablet programming or any other 'kind' of programming per se. It all depends on what you want to achieve and programming is just a means to an end.

Also, under the hood all 'kinds' of programming are essentially equal (in spite of many religious arguments to the contrary), it's in the end just a way to very specifically tell a computer what you want it to do and in that respect any programming will serve as a way to get better at every other kind of programming.

The more you do it, the better you get, just like with every other skill.

Good luck!

This title got pruned back too far; put the word "Free" back into it.

HN pro typosetters: some expert critiques of these faces --- particularly the ones that aren't just offering a teaser weight, and aren't display faces more appropriate to deviantART than a magazine --- would be awesome. Are free typefaces improving, starting to break out of the foundry system?

I've been using WakeMate in beta for a couple months. As an engineer, I love checking the sleep analytics and comparing tags to try to determine factors that affect my sleep.

At first I was dubious that I'd be less groggy when waking up with the device, but now I'm absolutely convinced. I even bring the WakeMate when I travel, to ensure I wake up in a fresher state (which also revealed to me that my sleep quality is better from hotels).

I can't help but feel that while the treatment is severe and terrible that this isn't an appropriate post for Hacker News. This type of thing is a shining example of something that belongs on Reddit, where there's greater exposure and it's more on-topic. Is it interesting, yes (to some, although I'm sure there's plenty that could say not on hacker news as it's tied to wikileaks).

I would say that while the treatment of him is terrible, it meets the off-topic criteria (crime, politics, TV news). I'm posting this separately to my engagement in the discussion.

node.js is a way to get people to click on an article. If it said "new editor" no one would care. But the buzzword fashionable 'node.js' means people will assume it's earth changingly awesome.