Newton Poetry

If you checked out today’s earlier post, you can tell I’m a big fan of April Fool’s Day. Always have been.

So last night I crept back into work after hours and installed a “new” computer for one of my coworkers. A Mac SE.

I came up with the idea months ago, but I originally meant to replace all of my coworkers’ workstations with vintage Macs – all four of them. The logistics, however, made me think twice. Lugging two Mac SEs, a Quadra, and an LC 550 up the office stairs didn’t seem worth it. So I pulled some other fun pranks instead.

I even made a “Punch In” alias on the SE’s desktop that mimics our timecard software. It was a MacWrite document, and said, simply, “Happy April Fool’s.”

They got me back, too:

Someone caught me in a woman’s hat at a recent event. One of my coworkers printed off 10 copies and posted them all over the office. It was like 1984, with Big Brother’s face plastered everywhere you went. The above spot was my favorite, however.

My boss, who was not spared in the tomfoolery, liked the Mac SE prank the best, which makes me feel good. For a minute, I thought I was going to walk into work in deep trouble. Thank goodness for good senses of humor.

Happy April Fool’s!  And happy birthday, Apple!

I took my first look at the “Most Popular Pages” feature on WordPress, and – to no surprise – a few poems were the most viewed posts here on Newton Poetry.

There are tons of people, myself included, who look for specific poems, analysis of poems, and collections of certain authors’ poems, and sometimes those searches land them here. Which is cool, but sometimes I wonder if the jabberwocky they’re presented makes any sense to them.

After all, my Newton 110 misspells words all the time. One commenter even asked me what the hell was going on, and when was I going to learn how to write correctly. He never took the time to see what this site was all about – namely, putting poems into the Newton and blogging what the MessagePad spits out. Put in “my heart breaks” and the Newton might read it as “my fart burps.” It’s one of the fun hobbies someone can play with on the Newton.

But part of this site has also turned into a “how-to” lesson for new Newton users like myself. As I discover tools, or try out new abilities, I like to share them. Just in case someone comes along (as someone recently did, on this 68k MLA forum posting) that is totally green to the Newton, I’d like Newton Poetry to be a handshake and a “welcome home.”

Take faxing. I tried it out, and it was super easy. Someone could definitely discover how to do it themselves (if Apple’s good at anything, its an intuitive interface). But should they do a quick Google or blog search on faxing with a Newton, I would hope Newton Poetry would pop up and help them out.

And like any Apple fan, I’m always interested in the wider world of Macintosh, iPods, iPhones, Apple history, and trends on where my favorite company is heading. No Newton is an island, and so from time to time Newton Poetry will touch on things that I find interesting. Like the iPod Shuffle announcement, or the decision over whether or not to wait and buy an iPhone.

The Newton community is still a sizeable group, and there are die-hards out there that keep the faith and keep the platform going. They’re very accepting of newbies (thankfully), mostly because they’re so proud of the product they champion, and they freely part with best practices on how to get the most out of the MessagePad. That means I don’t have to reinvent the wheel, and figure all this stuff out on my own.

DIY culture, however, says that you gain enjoyment out of the process and the end product, and few consumer electronics have inspired as much modding as the Newton. It was never intended to be a Twitter client – because it came out before Twitter was ever even thought of, natch – but I’ll be darned if someone didn’t figure out a way to make it work. That’s what makes the community so fun.

So there we go. Newton Poetry will highlight Newton Poetry, as always, but will also touch on how-to tips, Newton history, other Apple products (especially the portable varieties), and low-end tech culture in general. Call it a mission statement – whatever. I love poetry and literature, I love Apple products old and new, and I love playing around with my Newton.

If that’s not inspiration enough for a blog, I don’t know what is.

Welcome to Newton Poetry.

Check it out – courtesy of Thomas Brand, the same guy who does the amazing “My Newton Blog” (which I’ve heaped praise on before).

A neat daily “Newton Fact” twit-thingy.

Turns out it might be true:

According to Mindset Media, people who purchase Macs fall into what the branding company calls the “Openness 5” personality category– which means they are more liberal, less modest and more assured of their own superiority than the population at large. Mindset Media helps companies with strong brands develop ads targeted to people based on personality traits or people’s “mindsets,” and does research to that effect.

The story goes on to say that the Apple’s brand is very appealing to folks like us.

Read the rest of the story on Yahoo!

I was hoping that, after Tuesday’s Macworld keynote, I would be rushing to Ann Arbor’s Apple store to pick up my iPhone. But no such luck.

Why not? I’m one of those guys waiting for the 3G.

It didn’t come yesterday. What did come, however, were some pretty cool features: the where-the-heck-am-I feature, the new homescreen capabilities, the multiple-person text messaging. It all sounds great.

It just doesn’t sound great enough. iTWire.com feels me – saying that Apple isn’t listening to its fans like it should be. And if it wants to hit that magic 10 million number…:

According to Apple, the company has sold 4 million iPhones in its first 200 days. For any other company, this would be a phenomenal figure. However, at Macworld 2007 Jobs envisioned sales of 10 million units in the first year, so Apple has some work to do over the next 165 days. It is beginning to look as though Apple has to release a 3G iPhone very soon in order to move 10 million units [by the end of 2008].

Right. Even if Cupertino wants to sell just one, to me, it better make the speed bump.

I have a cellphone, and a good cellphone carrier, that I like. I have my Newton. I have plenty of Macs. In reality, I don’t need an iPhone. But boy… I’ve already been in situations where, standing in the grocery line or waiting for someone, I can imagine whipping out the Jesus Phone and wasting a bit of time.

At work, we had an annual goal, and I reached it, and got a hefty bonus. I was going to use that money toward the purchase of an iPhone, pending the 3G announcement. But no 3G came.

Salon.com’s Farhad at the Machinist says that past and current iPhones are all created equal because they keep getting updates via free iTunes software. The phone is evolving, and it doesn’t cost any extra. But the actual hardware I’m waiting for can’t be downloaded via Software Update. I need a whole new phone.

So the wait continues. I’m thinking of putting a time limit on the 3G iPhone announcement – say, this spring. Maybe April, or before I head out on my New England driving tour at the end of May.

So there you go, Apple. You’ve got $400 sitting in the credit union with your name on it. All you have to do is deliver.

My GCal countdown says “1 day until: Macworld.” The time is almost here, and every Apple fan knows it.

But unlike last year, there’s no oh-my-dear-sweet-Jesus news waiting for us. At least that’s what everyone, like John Gruber at Daring Fireball, thinks:

And so what I’ve noticed over the years is that in the week or so prior to a keynote, if expectations are running too high, word somehow gets out, at least to the press. What made last year’s pre-Expo prelude so electrifying is that while speculation was rampant that Apple would announce a phone, there was no one — no one — saying “Well, that’s not what I’ve heard.” When, in the face of white-hot speculation, Apple goes totally silent both officially and privately, that’s when they have something big.

Things were dead quiet last year. And they seem pretty quiet again this year. Donning my Cupertino-Kremlinology hat, I can’t help but see last week’s week-before-Macworld debut of brand-new Mac Pros as a hint that their keynote announcements plate runneth over. But there’s a big difference this year — last year, speculation was running rampant about one particular thing, “the phone”; this year, not so much. The consensus rumors and guesses are interesting but not earth-shaking.

In a mild/medium/hot scale, where mild is a lame keynote that’s mostly a “state of the Apple Union” address and hot is a major new product along the lines of the iPhone, my gut feeling is that we’re looking at a medium — spicy enough to be enjoyable, but not one for the ages.

Meanwhile, over at AppleInsider, the Newton drumbeat goes on. They say “Newton 2.0” won’t be coming at Macworld 2008, but it’s “remains a work-in-progress, according to people familiar with the matter.” I think the Newton 2.0 rumor is still pie-in-the-sky mythmaking, especially considering that Apple has two items that could serve as light-weight PDAs. The iPod Touch and iPhone may lack the handwriting technology, but they’ve got just about anything else you’d need.

Anyone want to place bets? I already have. I just plunked down about $850 for five shares of AAPL, courtesy of ING’s buy-out of ShareBuilder. Apple’s stock was over the $200 mark for the first time about a week ago, and now it’s dipped to about $172 a share. Well I’m putting my money where my mouth is, and investing in a company I have great faith in.

Even if this Stevenote isn’t as big as last year’s, my money says it’ll be enough to keep Apple in the spotlight.

Today I tried out another iPhone at the Deathstar store (aka, AT&T).

But lately I’ve been trying to revive the Newton by getting some old macs to work again. I’ve got an LC II, a Quadra, and a PowerBook 5300 – all sitting around unusable, and all because I don’t have a proper display with any of them.

The PowerBook’s screen seems to be DOA, and the two desktops are missing a monitor.

So the Newton has helped me build this blog, but not much besides that. What I’m scared of is entering all the information by hand, which would take forever. My contacts, calendar, to-do items, etc. – that’s what the Newton was built for, but without a proper information input system, it’s damn clunky.

Not like the iPhone: I could plug it into my G4 iBook and be all set. iTunes does all the hard work for me.

The Newton? A poetic brick. The MessagePad came with a Connection Kit, but I need the proper Mac (or, really, any old school PC would work – but who wants that?) to manage it.

Any suggestions?