Newton Poetry

Head to my eBay listing to bid on my baby – an iMac G4.

Please, give it a good home.

After the new iMacs, MacBooks, and Mac Minis were released yesterday, I couldn’t but notice Apple posted an evolutionary progression of the iMac models. The all-in-one, Apple says, was a “great idea.”

Except it was missing one: the poor iMac G3 line.

So here it is added. I also celebrated the iMac relaunch with a new iPhone wallpaper. Enjoy.

“If you look at the some of the work done in the early to mid-eighties you can see the limitation. We finally got a 512k machine, the Mac Plus, which is how Design Quarterly was done. We used MacVision, which was a little beige box that hooked up to a video camera and ported right into the Mac. You could scan over an image and it was tiled out. We kept moving the camera, scanning and repeating.”

– April Greiman, designer, in an interview on idsgn.org.

Perhaps the quality wasn’t all there, but Greiman’s interview shows that even the lowest end of the low end Macs were capable of design work. Great two-part interview.

The original idea behind the One Used Mac Per Child was to take classic Macintoshes and give them to underpriveleged kids who could use a computer.

Recently, though, I’ve learned the idea can apply to anyone who needs a capable computer to get things done: word processing, e-mail, basic Internet surfing.

I was finally able to put my idea into practice with Mirza, my new Pakistani neighbor. Mirza moved to Michigan from Karachi, Pakistan to pursue a career in physical therapy. He earned a work visa with our local hospital and is spending two years in America learning the trade.

Mirza left a wife and three kids back in Pakistan. He tries to talk to them every day, but the phone bill is getting expensive. E-mail is much cheaper. But first, he needs a computer and an Internet connection.

He asked me to go “laktop” shopping with him. He balked when I told him the price of a decent laptop, so I remembered that I have a very useful PowerMac G4 sitting around my apartment looking for something to do.

Finding a modest high-speed connection in our area is easy. Connecting the Mac to the Internet will be simple. But now I’ve learned that Mirza has virtually no experience with computers. He doesn’t know how to type, or how to navigate the Web, and doesn’t even have an e-mail address.

At least now he has a used Mac to get him by. For his simple needs, the PowerMac – running OS X 10.3 with a bit of TextEdit and Firefox – will suit him just fine. A combination printer/scanner, to scan family photos and print driving directions (once he gets his driver’s license), is all that’s missing.

For everything else, the PowerMac is perfect. Sure, it’s an older Mac lacking the latest and greatest web browser and software package. It’s not the quietest machine anymore. And the giant CRT Apple Studio Display cramps his small apartment. But since he won’t be doing any video transcoding any time soon, the 400 MHz, 768 MB RAM machine will carry his workload with nary a sputter. After he buys an DSL connection, he’ll be up and running in no time.

In fact, he won’t know any different, and I saved him from being soured on computers with some cheap Windows Vista laptop.

I was just glad to have an extra, useable Mac hanging around for Mirza to use. In the end, I saved him several hundred dollars (at minimum) and handed him the best operating system of its time. If he wants an different computer, then I’ll take him “laktop” shopping.

Teaching Mirza to type? That’s another project entirely.

Here’s an Intel iMac caught in the wild – held up by a cool modern table. IKEA, maybe?

Thanks to Thomas Brand for reminding me what the different is between an iMac G5 and an Intel iMac: the iSight camera at the top.

The new, aluminum iMacs are gorgeous, but I’ll always be partial to the gleaming white iMacs, starting with the Snowy White G3s, of the PowerPC era.

[Via Ffffound!]

Low End Mac’s Dan Knight on whether to go with a new iMac or 15″ MacBook Pro:

Now that Apple has an “antiglare” option for the 15″ MacBook Pro, I think it could be the perfect production machine for me at some point in the future. The size and weight aren’t an issue, and even the entry-level 2.53 GHz dual-core model has vastly more power than the 1.6 GHz dual G4 upgraded Power Mac I work with…The perfect desktop computer would take the current iMac design, move some ports for easier access, and offer an antiglare option.

It’s a decision I’m going to make in the next few weeks as well. I’ve been working on a new MacBook Pro for a few weeks now (I’ll post something here soon), and it really is the perfect laptop. I can’t imagine one any bigger or smaller.

However, I’m a consumer Mac guy, and the new iMacs offer tremendous appeal. I always said, once Snow Leopard comes out, I’m finally going to spring for a new Mac.

And while I assumed I would get a new iMac, the new MacBook Pro has me questioning my original assumption.

Another entry from the “iMacs in the wordspace” desk – this time either a G5 or Intel Mac.

Love the chair, but I wonder how comfy it is?

[Via Design Sponge.]

An iMac G4 makes the perfect addition to any workspace, even ones with chill-inducing dog decorations adorning the wall.

It looks like a modest 15″ edition running OS X 10.4 Tiger, the same as mine. Here’s another workspace featuring an iMac G4 that’s a bit more my style. Love the chair.

[Via Desire to Inspire, courtesy of Fffound!]

Okay, maybe it’s just me with a tear in my eye.

Apple is listing the iMac G4 series as “obsolete” as of September 15. This means Apple won’t make repairs on the beloved iLamp.

The iMac G4, as I’ve said time and time again, is my favorite Mac design ever. It’s so great that I went and bought one last summer, and now it serves as my main web surfer, e-mail, and blogging Mac.

[Via Cult of Mac.]

The news of Jeff Goldblum’s death were greatly exaggerated.

But the hoax did get me thinking about Goldblum’s Apple commercial run during the late ’90s and early ’00s. The iBook G3 clamshell, my favorite of the Mac portables, featured Goldblum in its initial commercial (above).