Newton Poetry

Gorgeous iMac G4 shot from Pedro Moura Pinheiro on Flickr.

It definitely has a place in my iMac G4 gallery.

Dave Caolog on breaking out his 20″ iMac G4 (my dream machine):

As my MacBook Pro slowly dies, I’ve called my old G4 iMac back into service. Years ago, that machine was wiped clean and given an install of Mac OS X 10.5 before being boxed in the basement. On Friday I will wrap up one week of using it as my primary work machine. In that time I’ve found that it’s slow, beautiful and perfect. Here’s why.

Caolog notes that things run a tad slower on the iMac, but “waiting a half of a second isn’t the end of the world.”

Even better? “This is the most beautiful computer Apple has made,” he says.

Not only do I agree, but after using a 15″ iMac (and at a paltry 800 MHz) for an entire year as my main workstation, it more than served its purpose. Caolog kept his needs simple: TextEdit, Preview, and a few other apps. That’s it.

When your needs are simple, a simple (and gorgeous) Mac is all you need.

[Via Shawn Blanc.]

Matt Pearce, the guy behind Matt’s Macintosh, takes a look back at the revolutionary iMac G4 design.

I like that his YouTube videos are both well-made and show an appreciation for all the old Mac and Apple hardware. He’s got a lot of great new and older stuff to show off.

Matt also took my retro Apple.com idea and ran with it, mocking up five designs ranging from the original Apple, complete with the old Newton-under-a-tree icon, to the QuickTake camera.

minimalmac:

simpledesks:

Nouveau (by mαxsmith)

There are several things I love about this. The old “Luxo” iMac. The tin cans for office supply holders. The 10 dollar task lamp. But something about the composition and lighting are so full of win that I am forced to reblog.

Indeed. I’d get another G4 just to do this. Or do the eMate version.

Drool.

Here we see a great switcher message, and a kick-off to the “digital hub” strategy Steve Jobs laid out at Macworld the year before.

[Via David Kendal’s tip.]

Just created a gallery over at Flickr in honor of my favorite Macintosh, the iMac G4.

Enjoy. I sure did.

[Image courtesy of Splorp: http://www.flickr.com/photos/splorp/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 He gets thumbnail-of-my-gallery honors.]

Want.

[Via Pomme C.]

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.]

I love this Areva commercial: the head-bopping music, the fun motion, the 3/4 viewpoint.

But I love the iMac G4 I nabbed even more, so I’m glad I caught this super-short video on the iMac internals.

Enjoy!

Since grabbing a like-new condition 15″ iMac G4 off eBay a few weeks ago, it’s become my main web browsing, e-mailing, and iChatting Mac. It’s held up like a champ.

My wandering eye, however, has been shopping for a 1.25 Ghz 20″ model – the last of its kind, the ultimate incarnation of the G4 iMac. A 20″ would fall just below the power of my lowly 1.42 Ghz iBook G4, which is just now starting to show its age.

I have updated the iMac with the latest install of OS X 10.4 Tiger, the newest Firefox, iLife ’06, and iTunes 8 (networking my iBook’s music collection over a shared library). I can access my iPhoto library through an external hard drive, and my Airport shared disk works just fine – even without an Airport card installed.

The iMac handles everything I throw at it. My only wish is that it had a USB 2.0 card installed so I could sync my iPod and iPhone 3G. It would become my primary machine, in fact, if it weren’t for the lack of high-speed USB ports and an Airport Extreme card. This won’t stop me from synching my Newton, however, once I get my hands on an eMate or an affordable 2×00 model.

As I mentioned before: owning an iMac G4 has been a dream of mine, and this one doesn’t disappoint. The G4 series will go down as my favorite of all the Macs (although the G5 PowerMac looks like a badass), and the iMac helped kick-start my fascination with Apple. That, and everyone who pays me a visit asks about it.

This iMac has taught me that a desktop Macintosh is the way to go. My iBook G4 has done a fantastic job since I bought it in 2005, but to be able to sit down at the same spot everyday, with a full-size keyboard and mouse, and an adjustable screen – the iMac has spoiled me. When it was released, it was called the “digital hub.” If only that were still true. But I may look in to doing some of my own upgrades in the future.

I still haven’t made a firm decision on what to do with it. It’s either sell it and surely get all the money back I paid, hang on to it until I find a bigger, better version, or just be content with my good fortune and enjoy it. Maybe all of the above.

Until then, here are a few fun iMac G4-based links:

• iMac TV/movie appearances: there have been a few comics I’ve seen a G4-inspired PC. Any missing from the list?
• Introducing: the iMac G4 (video): I love watching the Steve Jobs Mac introduction videos, and this one is – besides the iPhone intro – my favorite.
• Mac Mini stuffed inside an iMac G4?: heck of an idea, eh? The size of the Mini makes the project theoretically possible, but I still haven’t found evidence that it’s been done.
• iMac G4 cooling hack: What happens when your iMac keeps crashing because of heat? Build your own cooling system. Way cool.

[Image courtesy Glen Scott.]