Newton Poetry

I might be a little late here, with Christmas coming up, but if you’re still looking for the perfect gift for the Newton lover in your family, this might be it.

Here we have the Apple Newton plaque, custom designed by artist Cynthia Malaran that’s available for purchase (only $60!) at Shanalogic.com. Cynthia has all kinds of retro tech plaques (I like the Mac one) ready for the geek who has everything.

I’d venture to say Cynthia has crafted a mock-up of the MessagePad 2000. And I’m no art critic, but that stylus looks a little chubby, don’t you think?

You might not get it in time for this year’s holiday season, but there’s always next year.

[Via Geeksugar.com.]

Check that out: a field ranger with his holstered Newt, courtesy of Steventon Consulting.

Gregg on the Newtontalk list pointed out the picture, and it turns out Sonny Hung has a blue version by Covertec posted on his Flickr page. This is like Last Action Hero stuff: “Bring on the bad guys, my MessagePad is armored!”

There are still sites out there, like this one with pictures of “The Divider,” featuring Newton holsters (though some of those look more like Man Bags).

MessagePads are already tough. A holstered Newt? There’s no telling what warzones they have seen. How about you Newton users out there – what do you use to protect your green machine?

Holden Scott, over at This Old Mac, has a comprehensive round-up of Apple’s history and possible future in the tablet Mac realm.

Even before the iPhone launch, Mac fans have speculated about a possible tablet-style Mac. Holden looks at Apple’s history in this market (like the Apple IIe, above), both pre- and post-Newton, and gathers some of the recent patent applications from Apple that could forecast a Mac tablet.

Holden makes a fine case for the benefits of a potential tablet, including:

Making observations are just that much better since you can walk around and get close to the action with Tablet in hand, whereas a notebook would demand a desk of some sort, and would not allow you to interact with it as you walk around, etc.

It’s that kind of practicality that makes a potential tablet Mac so attractive. What do you think? Is Apple’s next big project the tablet Mac/bigger iPhone?

[Image courtesy of Uknet Gallery.]

Finally getting a chance to grasp what a fun and delicate beast WordPress.org-based blogs can be.

Here’s a little hint at what Newton Poetry might become, someday:

You can click for a larger image.

I’m finding that little things, like inserting Newton graphics next to the sidebar headers, is more difficult than I thought. Already I’ve noticed how different it is compared with my original concept. Part of it is the theme I chose to mess around with, but it also highlights my general noobishness when it comes to CSS. PHP? Don’t get me started.

Mark your calendar: 2009 is when it will happen. I’m close enough to my 500-a-day goal that I can justify making the switch to a full-on, self-hosted blog.

So – what do you think so far?

Of all the Newton connection utilities designed to sync your MessagePad or eMate with OS X, I looked forward to trying out the Newton Connection app the most.

NCX is an application designed by Simon Bell to mimic the original Newton Connection Utilities functionality in the pre-OS X days. As you can see from the home screen above, it offers tons of options for your Newton data, including backup, package installation, Newton Works import and export capabilities, and Mac keyboard functionality.

As with previous connection apps, you want to have a way to connect your Newton with your OS X Mac. NCX gives you the option of using Ethernet or serial-to-USB to connect. I opted for the serial option, using a Keyspan USA-28x serial-to-USB adapter. To get started, you need to download a Keyspan driver [Note: link updated] and restart your Mac.

Download NCX on Simon Bell’s page, and drop the NCX folder in your Applications folder on your Mac.

For this project, I’m using a Newton eMate 300 and an 800 Mhz iMac G4 running the latest install of OS X 10.4 Tiger.

More… »

If hosting a blog has taught me only one thing, it’s that people find your site through some very interesting search site inquiries.

Take the above listing – a snapshot of Tuesday. Notice a trend?

When you type in “christmas chick” in, say, a Google Image search, a post I did last Christmas on Macenstein’s “Mac Chick of the Month” comes up third in the list. Her name is Morgan Kennedy. Except, really, nothing comes up – I deleted the post.

I appreciate all the search hits Ms. Kennedy’s pictures brought me, but in the end I decided (a) that it really wasn’t my post that was drawing the attention – Macenstein did all the work; and (b) this is a site about the Newton MessagePad, not half-naked (but very lovely) women.

Even though that original post, dating back a year ago now, is gone, the picture remains. But not for long. I’m deleting that, too. That means that I’ll sacrifice several hits a day in lost search engine traffic.

Really, they weren’t here to see me, anyway. They were here to see Morgan.

“I suspect Newton is used as a name because the device can easily be dropped (and probably as easily broken) thus confirming certain precepts of gravitation developed by Isaac Newton.”

– John C. Dvorak, computer columnist, when the Newton was announced. Dvorak calls the Newton one of the “top ten tech turkeys.”

Maybe I should have waited to download a chess game for my eMate.

Daring Fireball author John Gruber says the Newton’s “best chess game,” Joachim Bondo’s Deep Green, will be available for the iPhone.

“Deep Green is the one indie Newton app that I was most hoping would make the jump to the iPhone,” Gruber says.

Deep Green for the Newton is still available and is freeware, which is why I wish I would’ve waited to pick my chess game. But I can still give it a try.

It’s nice to see Newton apps making it over, after a spit and polish, to the iPhone. Catamount’s PocketMoney is the one Newton app that I’ve tried on my iPhone, and I use it everyday.

Learn more about the iPhone Deep Green here.

Something to think about: if Apple were to come out with some sort of tablet, would you buy one?

Say you’re a Newton user, and this new iTablet comes with everything you’ve been dreaming of. Would you abandon your Newton?

Discuss in the comments section. It’s something I had to think about when I bought my iPhone 3G: would my Newton get much use when the Jesus Phone comes along (answer: it hasn’t)?

So what say you: would you buy an Apple tablet? What would you use it for?

Found a cool blog, System Folder, that highlights a technology called Mac ‘n’ Touch – a precursor to the finger-controlled iPhone. Author Rick Mori dug through an 1993 copy of MacUser and found this Mac ‘n’ Touch technology, developed by MicroTouch, was an add-on to monitors that allowed users to interact with software without a keyboard or mouse.

Unlike the Newton, Mac ‘n’ Touch used a “capacitive sensor” that worked only with touch, not a stylus, much like today’s iPhone.

As you can imagine, this kind of innovation was aimed at the education market. Kids love to touch, right?

Read the rest of Rick’s post for more details. Touch-screen Mac rumors have been around for a while now, especially since the iPhone came out. It’s nice to see that a touch-controlled Mac isn’t such a new idea after all.