Newton Poetry

It was bound to happen. Now there’s a social networking site – like Myspace or Facebook – dedicated to Apple users.

It’s called MyAppleSpace, and according to Brian Floe, it’s the networking site “for the rest of us”:

iPhone, iPod, Mac or even AppleTV users now have a common home to explore the everything Apple, share experiences, network with other users, create usergroups within the community, create their own profile with their own private blog, upload Apple related video, photos and even music.

MyAppleSpace is pretty simple to start out. It has some customization features (my profile is “Bondi”) and the ability to comment and blog and share videos. All pretty standard stuff. I created a group called “Newton Users” (nach), and it was a snap. Now we’ll see if anyone joins.

Because that’s the power of social networks: the bigger, the better. But an Apple-themed site can stay just small enough to be comfy and familiar.

Check it out, and join my Newton group. I’ll see you on MyAppleSpace.

[UPDATE: Read my interview with MyAppleSpace creator Brian Flow.]

If I make that?

Newtonpoetry.com.

That’s my goal. At least 500 visitors a day (and hopefully a few more comments) and I’ll switch to a unique domain.

Here’s your chance, LinkedIn users: a Newton group to call your own!

Morgan on the Newtontalk list promoted the new Newtontalk group, which can be found here. Says Morgan:

The primary benefit [of the group] being that it can provide another avenue for such contact & discussions that would normally be off-topic here, but that most of us wouldn’t mind as we’re a fairly tightly knit community.

I’m not a LinkedIn user myself (I’m on Facebook and Myspace), but it makes me wish someone would do it on Facebook. Maybe that’ll be another project…

The United Network of Newton Archives – known to Newton users as “UNNA” – was down for a bit this weekend, but it’s back up and running.

During the crisis, Morgan Aldridge spilled this bit of good news:

I’m actually in the process of doing a redesign and migrating to a CMS, but life decided to interrupt that and all my other projects. I’ll let you all know when it’s ready for some testing.

Hurray! First Newtontalk’s site, and now the source for Newton software, too.

We’ll keep you posted.

Kudos to Grant on the Newtontalk.net facelift. Very clean and bloggy-looking (is that a word?).

I especially like the “Updates” bar on the right, like the post from April 20: “Ooh, look. Some changes to the site design are afoot.”

Check it out, and join the list for a daily discussion on all things Newt.

I wonder what the heck I’ll do with my MessagePad when I finally purchase my iPhone, and I’m sure I’m not the only one to wonder. Some still use their Newtons everyday even after Apple has given up on it. But what are some modern, practical applications for the MessagePad? Let’s take a look.

1. Get GTD with it. Pardon the ghetto talk, but the first thing I used my Newton for was a getting-things-done gadget. I use my calendar, my to-do list (although I still haven’t quite got the hang of it), and the Notepad to keep tons and tons of lists and reminders. There are Newton applications out there to help you get started, too, no matter what Newton version you use. I refer to my MessagePad 110 as my “memory box” because it really helps to keep my brain organized.
2. Take control of your finances. Apps like Pocket Quicken and ProCalc can take your financial information on the go. Spend, save, and track all with your Newton. Since it’s always with you, your MessagePad may help you finally slay the balanced checkbook dragon. If you don’t yet have a financial system in place, here’s your chance.
3. Read a book. Who needs a Kindle? Reading is possible with an eBook on the Newton using solutions like PaperBack or Newton Press. War and Peace, anyone?
4. Take inventory. In March, I got started on a big, nasty home inventory project – logging all my possessions for insurance purposes. Put your Newton to work by jotting down book ISBNs, music collection titles, or even comic books. Take a backlit MessagePad into the attic and finally get those dust-collecting collectibles under control, and use a program like QuickFigure Pro to organize all the data.
5. Keep a travel log. I’ve been thinking about this since I’ve started planning my big New England trip. What better use for a Newton than to store directions, sites-to-see, and helpful reminders as you travel on some adventure. With its faxing capabilities, I’ve even thought of using my Newton to keep co-workers up-to-date on where I’m at and what I’m doing.
6. Play a game (or two). Retro gaming is all the rage now – why not fire up your Newton to play some Newtendo or the tried-and-true games like chess. MessagePads are like a GameBoy, without the buttons!
7. Dig out your OS 7+ Mac. I’m a low-end Mac geek, and I look for any excuse to play around on my Mac SEs or Bondi iMac. There are tons of Macs in the world collecting dust; why not break yours out and hook up the MessagePad’s serial cable and relive days of yore? Gather the kids around and show them how good they have it now. Show them the MessagePad’s recharging station, and let them know how the iPod dock idea came to be.
8. Impress your co-workers. I’ve seen this one in action first hand. If you’re having trouble talking to a co-worker, start scribbling on your Newton. Questions are bound to come up.
9. Write your own Newton Poem. Break out that English Lit 101 textbook, or Perrine’s Sound and Sense, and see how your favorite poem looks all garbled and mistranslated.
10. Rescue yourself during emergencies. Just imagine: boxes of something fall on top of you. You’re stranded in your office or garage, and you can’t reach your phone. But you have your Newton on you, and a fax, and access to a phone line. Fax for help! Use your Names database to fax off a SOS, and relax knowing those fire trucks will be arriving any minute now.
11. Hold keyboard vs. handwriting recognition Olympics. If you can’t make it to Beijing to watch this summer’s games, hold your own competitions with keyboard fans. This thread in Newtontalk inspired an idea: set up a keyboard and a Newton, and race to see who can write a certain amount of words – say, a Shakespearian sonnet – the fastest. Then see which one has the most errors. Cut out tin foil medals for the winner.
12. Study! Someone recently asked the Newtontalk list about flash card-style apps for the Newton. A, B, or C?

The possibilities are almost endless. The point is that the Newton is a viable monochrome platform in today’s millions-of-colors world. Think of something I forgot? Let me know in the comments!

With the death of Dungeons and Dragons co-creator Gary Gygax, what better tribute could a Newton user pay than to use the MessagePad as a tool during games?

Thankfully, Matt How (aka, “Papa Duck”) has developed programs for that very purpose.

Matt has created Newton Dice Roller and a Newton D&D spells ebook – both are available, with source code, on his Papa Duck page for free.

Matt was kind enough to e-mail me more information about his Newton D&D projects.

“I have used electronic devices to support my role playing games since pretty much the beginning,” Matt told me. More… »

On the web, the Newton community used to be a very vibrant one. Before Newted crashed, Grant Hutchinson was able to post tons of web pages of MessagePad developers, modders, and tweakers.

Now? Most of those pages are gone. Dead links are everywhere.

So I’ve started a project of sorts: keep a list of actual, working Newton web sites that are still maintained. Barring that, they have to at least be functional.

I’ll probably post another page to this blog (next to the “About” one, above), and add to the list when I discover new sites.

So here’s the call: if you have a site, blog, or community online, I’d love to see it. I’d love for Newton fans and newbies to be able to check out sites that are still up and running.

I’ve got the standards, like UNNA.org and Kallisys and Grant’s Newted site (hopefully it gets up and running again), but I’m sure I’m missing tons of others out there – lost in Internet Land.

After the iPhone SDK was release, I wondered whether it would make sense to throw a Newton emulator in the mix. Shucks, I wondered whether it would even be possible.

Leave it to Newton programmers to actually do the digging.

From Jason on the Newtontalk list:

Well, I started out by ensuring that Einstein would build on the new
SDK. Then tried changing targets to see what would happen. I did this for KLibs as well as Einstein. K Libs seems to build fine as a static library using the new target which was sort of surprising to me but since the BSD subsystem can be installed on the iPhone I thought perhaps it would work. When building Einstein for the new target I run into complications. There are two at the moment that I am facing. One is with missing X11 header files and the other with the K Libs dependency. Not sure why the compiler isn’t finding the X include files since I am certain the X11 SDK is installed and Einstein did build cleanly before. I am sure it’s just a configuration problem in the project that I’ve caused. So far I haven’t had any luck trying to resolve the dependency with K Libs that Einstein has by creating a new target, one that depends upon a new K Libs target for the new target device.

And a reply, from Matthias:

Do not build the target based on X11. X11 is not part of the iPhone
and so it is not part of the iPhone header files (they are different
headers than the system header files). Einstein for iPhone must be built using the special iPhone version of Cocoa, which is quite similar, yet not the same. You have to use UIKit to generate the basic UI and emulator surface.

I don’t know about you, but there’s hope to be found. Newton developers are working on the iNewton as I type this – and that’s a neat feeling. Give them all the support you can!

Newton Connection, one of the applications that lets you sync your Newton MessagePad to modern OS X Macs, released a 2.1 update that allows for screenshots.

Newton Poetry covered apps like NCX, and it’s nice to know Newton developers are still working hard on viable connection solutions. NCX does everything the old Newton Connection Utilities did, but runs under OS X.

// Via Cult of Mac