This new version of Windows is awesome! Only a few BSoDs to speak of, and the interface is much less cluttered than a real Windows desktop. And the error messages are much more entertaining. Thanks go to SU for the link.
Haven’t seen this mentioned very many places yet but the update to Mac OS 9.2.1 is available via the Apple Website. It updates 9.1 and 9.2 to 9.2.1. Its 80+ Megabytes and supports only G3 and G4 machines (read as: not *any* of the older PPC 60x machines). Here is a direct download link.
I cannot believe how fucking retarded this is. It’s a flash animation/movie presented by the Business Software Alliance about a girl graphic designer who happens to be a malicious evil software pirate by night. And one night (apparently via Hotline) she downloads ‘a virus that steals her design portfolio.’ Then she’s transported inside her computer to fight off the virus. She magically picks up money on the road video-game style and uses it to buy liscenced software, which both kills the virus and enables her company to become a giant corporation. Where, I’m assuming, her young slave-like underlings who make minumum wage must illegally copy her software for their own freelance gigs on the weekend. Or something similar, I’m sure.
Don’t get me started on how making money for a real designer isn’t just like driving down the road, let alone that the tiny amount of money our heroine pays and the massive library of software she ends up owning don’t even come close to matching.
“My keynote will focus on Mac OS X v10.1, the super-fast new version of Mac OS X, and our revolutionary new iDVD 2 software, which lets users create their own custom DVDs that can be played on consumer DVD players,” Jobs said. “This has been an incredible new product year for Apple, so we don’t plan to launch any new hardware products in Paris this year.”
So Apple’s trying to keep Mac users’ hopes from getting too high for the Apple Expo in Paris this year, but you know that those morons on MOSR and the MacNN forums are going to say that this is just a ploy to get us down so that when they announce the Dual 1.7 Ghz G5 Platinum Powerbook with SuperDrive and 200GB hard drive running MacOS XI, we aren’t expecting it.
At any rate, Jobs decided that he wanted to bring a team of Appleniks into PARC to see what was causing such a buzz – but again, the idea of Jobs coming in like a kid on tour at Epcot with a tape recorder hidden under his shirt is far from the truth. Apple negotiated a deal with Xerox; in return for a block of Apple stock, Xerox allowed Jobs and his team to tour PARC, take notes, and implement some of the ideas and concepts being bounced around at PARC in their own creations. I’m not sure how Xerox felt about Apple subsequently hiring half — the better half — of PARC’s staff away from them, but the process was relatively above-board no night kidnappings or bribes under the table at Jack In the Box. Xerox allowed Apple to use their ideas in Apple machines.
This is a really great article/narrative about the history of the GUI and why the simplistic view of Microsoft stole it from Apple stole it from Xerox really isn’t all that true. Just skip the first part about the cavemen.
PowerMac Cube inducted into MoMA in NYC. Insert quote about art not always being marketable – here – . At least Jobs knows that:
It was a wrong concept fabulously implemented.
NYTimes registration required for link to article.
This is old news, but we’ve been down, so shut up. Palm Purchases Be for $11 million (in stock). In the case that you don’t know who Be is, they’re the maker of a rather languid operating system called the BeOS. They made hardware for it in the early nineties as well, called the BeBox and it ran on PPC processors.. Apple passed them up for purchase and bought out NeXT instead, and the rest is history. Historically, the one thing BeOS can do pretty well is handle large/multiple mutimedia files with relative ease, which is why it was popular with video editing people for a short time. That, and its error messages are presented to you in haiku format if you wish. I’m not kidding. BeOS has always been an interest for me, and most geeks as well. It’s a kind of an interest/hate thing. You’re interested in it, but get frustrated when a. there are no apps for it (all you PC weenies can stop snickering right now) and b. you’d have to sometimes write your own device drivers. So that ain’t happening any time soon, but maybe Palm can use Be’s know-how and expertise in multi-threaded environments to develop a relatively new and interesting use for the PalmOS. But the first time I see an animated banner ad on a Palm, it’s going out the fucking window.
…well… Damn, we suck. But the site works now. So fuck you…. blah blah blah, Anyway, were back.
Please bear with us while we get our new server working… Thanks. Comments and new posts will be up soon.
Okay, so that title is a stretch, but Jen and Christina are looking for IA/webdesigner types to fill out a survey for their new information architect site, BadPractices.org. So. In an attempt to employ the right architecture (seeing as how its for IAs and all), they’re polling around and looking to see if their ideas are the right ones. If you’re an IA or something similar, go fill out the form and help ’em out.
