What a difference a day makes.
Yesterday’s post on MyAppleSpace.com garnered some welcome attention from MacSurfer.com. We’re pretty small-time around here, resting easy in the 50-75 visits per day.
But 280? Cripes! That sets the new record for one-day visits at Newton Poetry.
This is the second time MacSurfer has graced us with their linkage (the first from my environmental piece), and we appreciate it.
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.]
Like it hasn’t happened before, right?
This time, our green friend made Wired.com’s “Lamest Fetish Items” list. Gear lust gone bad? Says Wired: “Most misunderstood gadget ever? Or biggest flop? Both.”
Flop this. Newton seems to appear on every list ever made by a technology-based site, for good or ill.
Enough’s enough already, folks. We know the MessagePad was both cool for the time and a big commercial flop. We get it.
Happy Memorial Day.
Nothing lasts forever. The Buddha taught us that. So what happens when, someday down the road, all the Newtons currently in operation cease to work?
It’s bound to happen. MY MessagePad 110 is now about 15 years old; that lifespan is probably way longer than Apple ever intended. Consider that versus most iPods, which last a few years at best. They’re made to be replaceable.
How will MessagePads operate 10 years from now, or 20? Will there even be a point in owning one that far down the road?
It’s not like Apple is going to make any more Newtons. All that exist at this moment in time are all that will ever be. What we have is it. Sure, someone may discover a lost hoard of MessagePads locked in some corporate vault someday. But eventually, even those will stop working.
Is this discussion even worth having? Will we care if there are working Newtons in operation 20 years from now? Will our kids? Will their kids even know what a Newton is/was?
Deep thoughts on this night. Perhaps too deep for rational thought, but worth bringing up if only because rumors of a new Apple tablet are still floating around. The Newton is probably being replaced, philosophically, by the iPhone and iPod Touch. What comes after that? Will there ever be a Newton 2.0? What will the Newtontalk list discuss in 2018?
Let me know what you think in the comments.
by Rob Weychert
There once was a defense contractor
Who was defilij patrayled by an actor
Ruguy from “Less Than Zero”
Is how a snperhero
Who weishs maze them sixty fine factors.
[Read the original. Rob is hosting a great blog on his month-long trip across America. Found it by getting ready for my own trip. Find out why this poem is misspelled here.]
by Jane Kenyon
The dog has cleaned his bowl
and his reward is a biscuit,
which I put in his month
like 4 priest ofainy host.
I can’t bear that trusting face!
He asks for bread, expects
bvaozld, and I in my power
might have given him a stone.
[Read the original. Poems about dogs are always winners.]
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.
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.
This week marks the tenth anniversary of the Apple iMac.
I’m lucky enough to own one of the Bondi Blue beauties; it’s mostly my finance and gaming (WarCraft II) machine. I like to mess around with Photoshop on it, and I also got a copy of Adobe’s proto-web WYSIWYG editor PageMill to play with.
I’ve got mine running OS 9, but they originally shipped with OS 8, I think. It’s my truly “classic” machine, and also my Newton MessagePad hub. It still runs like a dream, humming along at 233 MHz with 160k of RAM.
So thanks, Steve Jobs, and thanks, Jon Ive, for bringing such a wonderful machine into being.
What did I tell you?
Apple investors and those they associate with are bat-shit insane. That includes me.
All this after reading the news from CNNMoney.com today. More specifically, it’s that Shaw Wu of American Technology Research that’s driving the crazy bus to Looneyville. Turns out, AAPL stock may be worth purchasing after all. To wit:
In a research note, Wu said he may have jumped the gun in cutting his rating on Apple’s (AAPL) stock just one day before it delivered its second-quarter earnings results…Wu added that Apple’s stock is likely to remain “extremely volatile despite being universally loved,” by investors.
Universally loved by those that actually buy from and use Apple’s product line; extremely volatile by one-man bullhorns like Wu.
“May have” jumped the gun? These people have way too much power. When has this stuff been remotely predictable? Okay, maybe sometimes. But still.
While I’m glad to see AAPL sitting at $180+ after this winter’s skydive, all the stress that comes with these peaks and valleys is enough to make one consider a drinking habit. There’s no sense or order to this business news racket. Jesus, even Fox has a business network now. What does that tell yoU?
This experiment has its consequences. I’ve got to come to grips with that fact. Even Einstein said, “Uh, maybe The Bomb wasn’t such a good idea.”
Too late. Poobah Wu says a product “vacuum” in Apple’s lineup could still suck us all under its collective madness. He even adopts his prognosticator garb to mention “a radical redesign” of Macbooks and Macbook Pros since, you know, we’re due any day now.
Maybe this is a lesson in the fallacy of objectivity; for me, it’s been like riding piggy-back on a manic-depressive yet excitable hunchback. I’m holding on, but I’m wondering about the wisdom of the prospect. My goal is to make it to WWDC in June.
After that, all bets are off.