Newton Poetry

Isn’t it wonderful how well the G5 and newer iMacs fit into a modular workspace like the one above?

Check out more great workspaces at The Shelby.

[Via ISO50 Blog.]

This is a small, personal victory, but I’ve always wondered how to network my lone OS 9 Mac, an iMac G3, with my OS X Macs.

One day, it just worked. And I still can’t explain it.

Let me tell you how cool it was, though, to have full access to all my iMac’s files – even access to the CD-ROM WarCraft game I had in the iMac. All through a simple AirPort Extreme base station.

In fact, the connection worked so well, I was able to run my iMac’s SimCity 2000 game on my OS X Mac. Now that’s a connection.

After my OS 9 iMac went to sleep, however, I’ve lost the connection and haven’t been able to network the two Macs again. But I’m going to keep trying, and do a little research to see if I can keep the network up for longer periods of time.

You know me: I’m always a sucker for a good iMac G4 appearance.

Back in December, I went to see The Verve Pipe play in East Lansing, Michigan (their hometown – about an hour north of me). A great post-grunge, straight-up-rock band, The Verve Pipe put on an amazing show. I looked up their videos on YouTube and found the one for “Happiness Is,” starring an old friend:

“Happiness Is” shows singer Brian Vander Ark wooing his lady friend with thoughtful gifts while she’s at work. The video, dating back to 2001 or 2002, would place the iMac she’s using in the brand-spanking-new category.

While not as classic as the Macs in the Tragically Hip video, this one holds a special place in my heart.

Just a fun heads-up: I created a bunch of Macintosh-inspired iPhone wallpapers over at my Flickr account and on the iPhone Wallpapers Flickr group. I took a bunch of recent Macs, like the G4 Cube above, and paired them with their marketing slogans, or a simple label, all on a clean white background.

Now you can carry around your favorite G3, G4, G5, or Intel Mac around with your iPhone. My iPhone is sporting the PowerMac G4 right now, just because I love the slogan so much.

Enjoy!

Macworld is hosting a “Best Mac Ever” roundup, with one model – the Mac SE/30 – getting the most nods. Andy Ihnatko, however, says the best Macintosh is always “the first one you owned.”

And there’s some truth to that. My iBook G4 is still my main computer, and I’ll probably never (ever) get rid of it.

But the best Mac? It has to be the iMac G4.

You, dear reader, probably saw that one coming, right? My time with Macs has been relatively short, but I remember the iMac G4 taking my breath away when I first saw it, and it was the first Mac to really get me thinking about switching to Apple.

Now I use mine every single day. The entire G4 line has been good to me, and they’re the fastest and newest Macs I’ve owned.

What do you think? What’s the best Mac ever?

Another example of an iMac used in an office, with great effect. Last time it was a G4 (my favorite). This time, either a G5 or an early Intel iMac.

The workspace, from Apartment Therapy, is an example of a “floating desk” design for cramped offices.

I like how the iMac’s screen seems to float in mid-air, too, with the white body of the iMac blending into the wall behind it.

Which makes me wonder: will we see computer screens hung on a wall, like high-def TVs are now? Would you run the cords through the wall, so it appeared to float? I’d love to see one.

Happy National Bring Your Mac To Work Day, everyone.

Wait, what? You’ve never heard of NBYMTWD?

Here’s how it started. I have some video projects to do at work, and Microsoft Movie Maker just isn’t cutting it. First, I’m new to video editing and codecs and file types. Second, Movie Maker will only let you edit movies in a certain format.

My solution? Bring my iBook to work. The MPEG files I have will work fine with iMovie (I think), and I can do some translating with VLC.

Plus, I can set aside the Dell and work with a real computer.

I almost brought my PowerMac G4, just so I could use my work LCD and keyboard, but the G4’s video card isn’t up to snuff – I got a warning that said transitions and the Ken Burns Effect might not work without a Quartz Extreme-compatible video card. Oh well.

January 9. Let this be a day we can revisit every year: bring your Mac to work to get things done. Make it a good one!

For history buffs, Apple is a natural attraction for how modern technology companies evolve, behave, and operate. Since its founding, Apple has attracted pirate programmers and designers, a dedicated fan following, and tons of media attention. In just 30 years, the company has ridden a roller coaster of success and near-death – multiple times – has today lives on as a super-successful electronics company.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Mac, and as Wired’s Steven Levy puts it, Apple will look forward instead of back.

Which is just as well. While doing research on some design work for my day job, in the design archives of AIGA, I stumbled upon Jeff Goodell’s Rolling Stone article, “The Rise and Fall of Apple, Inc” (part two is here). Goodell writes in 1996:

The story of Apple’s decline is a morality tale for the Information Age. It is not, as one might expect, a story about how quickly the technology moves, or about how unforgiving and brutal business has become in Silicon Valley. In fact, Apple had many, many chances to save itself. But it didn’t. It was the company of the future that failed to see what was right in front of its nose. And while Apple will no doubt reinvent itself in the years to come, the central idea that animated the company for so long – that Apple is a revolutionary force, that it could change the world – is dead.

Not any more, it’s not. But there is a weird feeling of dread and uncertainty, not unlike what a lot of people are feeling about the economy, or about Steve Jobs’s succession plan, and a lot of it stems from what we don’t know about Apple. What’s the “next big thing?” What effect will the economy have on Mac, iPod, and iPhone sales?

“There is no happy ending here,” Goodell writes. At the time, it must have seen certain. But soon after Rolling Stone published that article, Steve Jobs returned, and things turned around. Taking the long view, Apple has been in far worse situations (coincidentally, mostly when Jobs was absent).

One thing hasn’t changed, with or without Jobs. The theme struck me, after I watched an interview with Bill Atkinson during the launch of Apple’s HyperCard “erector set” programming application, was that Apple truly puts the power to create in peoples’ hands. As in “for the rest of us.”

Think about it. HyperCard was designed as a application builder for non-hackers. As Atkinson put it in the interview:

A whole new body of people who have creative ideas, but aren’t programmers, will be able to express their ideas – or their expertise in a certain subject.

The original Macintosh was designed to be intuitive. Its design and interface has functioned as the standard since 1984. VisiCalc, on the Apple II, gave people the power to create spreadsheets. Apps like Garage Band and iMovie and iWeb give users a simple way to be creative (actual talent helps, of course). PageMaker was the app that launched an industry, and my very profession. iTunes and iPods give us the ability to manage and enjoy our music library like never before. It’s music, or design, or information, or programming “for the rest of us.”

Even the Newton was a product ahead of its time, giving business professionals and regular folks the ability to manage their day-to-day data in a simple and intuitive way.

As a history buff, I like reading about Apple’s early successes and tribulations. It shows a company constantly growing, constantly in flux, and – for the most part – learning from its mistakes. The common thread that runs through Apple’s story is a company setting out to make machines and applications that make our lives easier.

I almost typed “better” there, but I don’t think that’s true: if we didn’t have the iPod, we may not miss it.

But simple. Easy. More intuitive. Even fun. That’s what Apple has given us the past 30 years. The success of the Mac is a testament to that ideal.

So while Steve Jobs and Apple in general may not celebrate the Macintosh’s birthday this month, us Mac fans can in our own way. We do, everyday, when we wake our iMac up from sleep, or scroll through our music library on our iPhone, and live our lives a little easier.

Tons of books and all. I wish my own office were that clean and tidy.

Happy Macworld Keynote Day. I’ll probably be catching the live blog feed somewhere (Gizmodo usually does a nice job) and hoping for some kind of cool announcement. I actually thought about going to Macworld this year, and just as I was about to hit the “purchase tickets” button, the news hit that Steve Jobs wasn’t going to be there.

Much like Apple, my decision was financially-based: can I really afford a trip out to California?

So I may have missed my chance to see Steve Jobs deliver a “one more thing” announcement forever. But hey, there’s always WWNC.

[Courtesy Remodelista.]

Dan Knight over at Low End Mac posted a great article on how to make a G3 iMac useful. It’s no surprise that I’ve used Dan’s site as a tool ever since I got my own second-hand Bondi Blue iMac, complete with original keyboard and puck mouse, at a recycling e-waste drive.

This happened right after I got my first Mac, my iBook G4, and it gave me a chance to play around with OS 9 and the original Mac interface. It also kick-started my love of classic Macs. The Bondi and I go way back.

Mostly, it’s just nice to look at. The sloping curves, the aqua-green shading, the gum-drop shape – sometimes it’s hard to resist waking it up out of sleep to log on and play around with the OS.

In fact, it’s the one classic Mac I use on a regular basis. At least once a week I fire it up to do several things, both for business and pleasure.

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