The meaning of iPod
The Economist has a noteworthy article on how the iPod has changed and is changing the way we listen to music. Rumormongers of the video iPod should take note of the article's conclusion:
Are video iPods next? Strikingly, none of these shifts in usage patterns applies to video. People do not watch movies while walking the dog, make playlists of their favourite movie scenes, or clamour to buy individual scenes online. Portable video-players, which are already starting to become available, undoubtedly have their uses, such as providing entertainment during long journeys. But they seem unlikely to be the kind of industry-changing products that the iPod and its imitators have unexpectedly proven to be. (via The Iconfactory)
Tempting
GigaDesigns announced today a 1.5 GHz G4 upgrade for the Power Mac Cube. However, at six hundred smackers, I believe I'd rather put that toward a new G5.
Dock? What Dock?
From my days of working on 15-inch LCDs, I have long hidden Mac OS X's Dock. After all, I wanted to maximize my screen real estate. I still do this on my 12-inch PowerBook, for the same reason. On my Cube, however, I have a 19-inch Princeton LCD and my Apple 15-inch Studio Display. Plenty visual expanse, right? Yet old habits die hard, and I have found that I do not miss the Dock at all. I am not one of the many whom have not cared for the Dock since OS X first rolled out. On the contrary, I rather enjoyed having it. But the addition to the operating system of cool switching via Command-Tab, and my usage of--nay, addiction to--LaunchBar, has rendered for me the Dock irrelevant. If the current beta of LaunchBar 4 is any indication, the final release of this new revision is going to ensure my hands stay on the keyboard even more. Finder usage will not be going away any time soon. I still need that for moving files about via drag-and-drop, and I have customized my Finder toolbar with various apps for such drag-and-drop operations. One example would be opening archive files of various denominations by dropping them on Stuffit Expander. I know the command-line junkies will tell me that I can do all of that from the Terminal, thus ensuring my hands stay on the keyboard even more. However, for some operations, such as the example above, I believe I am faster with the mouse than typing in pathnames to drill down to the file I want.
ATPM 10.06
The June issue of About This Particular Macintosh is out. Matt Coates discusses online offers and gives us a glimpse of his personal network. Andrew Kator has a wicked cool tutorial on combining the power of Blender with Xgrid. Paul Fatula reviews Mariner Write 3.6; I last reviewed version 2.0.5 in January 1999. The second part of Lee's desktop pictures from Puerto Rico are available. Other columns and reviews fill out the issue, and as usual, it is available in different formats for your reading pleasure.
Sterling at Microsoft
Bruce Sterling spoke at Microsoft last week, and someone was nice enough to transcribe it for him, since by his own admission, Mr. Sterling had no idea what he said.
iMac G5
No, Apple hasn't made any new product announcements, but Peter Kellner resurrected an old iMac in new clothing. (via MacInTouch)
Mac OS version builds
This handy chart of Mac OS version builds that shipped with various systems since 1998 is incredibly valuable. (via MacInTouch)
World's Fastest Man Remembered
The world's fastest man has left this earth for the last time. William J. "Pete" Knight became the world's fastest man on October 3, 1967, while flying the X-15 hypersonic rocket plane. He died of cancer on May 7. His record-breaking Mach 6.7 (nearly seven times the speed of sound) flight remains the highest speed ever attained by a manned aircraft.
Welcome to the 21st century, Mr. Gates
Six years after Steve Jobs and Apple declared the floppy disk dead, with the release of the iMac, Bill Gates states the same:
In some ways, I think this is the first time I can say that the floppy disk is dead. You know, we enjoyed the floppy disk, it was nice, it got smaller and smaller, but because of compatibility reasons, it sort of got stuck at the 1.44 megabyte level, and carrying them around, and having that big physical slot in machines, that became a real burden. Today, you get a low-cost USB flash drive, with 64 megabits on it very, very inexpensively. And so we can say the capacity there for something that's smaller, better connectors, faster, just superior in every way has made that outmoded. So I suppose now that the tech industry pundits will proclaim Mr. Gates as a tremendous visionary for getting rid of the tiresome floppy disk, when in fact, Mr. Gates' company is one entity responsible for extending the floppy's life. (via RAILhead Design)
Color Showcase
My favorite iPod carrying case is going color on May 15th. The Contour Showcase will be available in six different colors, as well as black and the original white. Personally, the only one that interests me is the black Showcase. Contour is doing a buy-two, get-one-free promo with the new Showcases, but I doubt I'll be buying a new one when they're $39.95 a pop. Now if a couple of people want to go in with me and split the cost of two Showcases three ways, I wouldn't mind... Eric reviewed the Showcase for ATPM.
Next Windows OS requires non-existent PCs
Microsoft Watch is reporting that the next verison of Windows, codenamed Longhorn, is going to require a PC that doesn't yet exist. That's okay, since Longhorn isn't due until 2006, plenty of time for Mac OS X to steal market share as the Redmond monopoly struggles to catch up. Longhorn will purportedly require "a dual-core CPU running at 4 to 6GHz; a minimum of 2 gigs of RAM; up to a terabyte of storage; a 1 Gbit, built-in, Ethernet-wired port and an 802.11g wireless link; and a graphics processor that runs three times faster than those on the market today." I'm sure Intel and AMD have 4 GHz CPUs waiting in the wings, but I wonder if we'll see 6 GHz in 2006. Hard drive sizes are increasing expotentially, to be sure, and I can see a terabyte being available in the next two years, but I'm not sure if it will be available in such quantities as these specifications would assume. Gigabit Ethernet is a reality here and now, especially for Mac owners, as is the 802.11g wireless spec, so those aren't any big surprises. In a nutshell, I imagine you will see Microsoft having to blunt Longhorn for lower-end systems than what is currently called for. I simply don't believe that those systems will be available, in mass quantity, by the time the OS ships. (via MacMinute)
Book return
Thanks to the newly-introduced PowerBooks, and getting back some of our hard-earned dough from Uncle Sam, there is a new phischbook in the house. I was able to score a now-previous generation PowerBook G4 12-inch 1 GHz system, with a SuperDrive, from my local Apple Store for a song. It was one of their demo units, refurb'ed by one of the in-store techs, most of whom I know from my previous employer, and trust to be thorough. I carefully inspected it before finalizing the purchase, and it appears immaculate. Along with the three-year AppleCare, a must-have with portables, and an Airport Extreme card I purchased, it was still less than a brand-new PowerBook in the same part of the line-up. A 512 MB SO-DIMM purchase from the fine folks at Other World Computing brings it up to 768 MB of RAM. This purchase settled three wishes I've had since being laid off this past October: (1) a PowerBook; (2) a faster Mac in general (my Cube is still at the original 450 MHz); and (3) a way to burn DVDs. I love the ultra-portability of the smallest PowerBook!
ATPM 10.05
The May issue of About This Particular Macintosh is out. Ellyn makes a wonderful observation on social contacts on the Internet, which I know has been positive for me. I have a local friend whom I met online first, and like Ellyn and one of her friends, I have doubts on whether we would have become friends if we had met in meatspace first. I know Lee, Michael, Raena, and Eric through our meetings online. Granted, all are part of the ATPM staff, but our friendships have developed beyond this commonality. These are people who have come to me for advice or my opinion, and I have sought the same from them. (And likely the latter moreso than the former!) Eric is the only one I have met (twice!) in the physical world, meeting at the New York Macworld Expos in 2001 and 2002. My various web sites wouldn't be where they are, design-wise, without Raena's expertise. Michael's SpamSieve, for which I was an original beta tester, has made my online life immeasurably better. I'm assisting Eric as a tester with a kick-butt product he is developing, and I get to tease him when the Rangers sweep his beloved Red Sox, as happened this past weekend. Thinking of all the people I know solely from my online journeys, I would have to say that Lee is my best friend in cyberspace. Ellyn's point is well taken with yours truly. Wes has yet another extensive round-up of the latest Mac blogosphere happenings, Paul always finds something that makes me laugh, and Sylvester discusses the latest in the cloning front. Lee's friend Andy McConnell has a report from this year's National Association of Broadcasters Convention, and Ted takes NoteTaker and Notebook head-to-head in an eagerly anticipated match-up. Lee contributes desktop pictures from his very recent vacation to Puerto Rico, the latest Cortland and iTrolls toons are accounted for, and we have a plethora of great reviews. Available in the usual fruity flavors.
On wish lists and recommendations
Why is it that Amazon.com's recommendation system isn't smart enough to figure out that it doesn't need to recommend something to me that's already in my wish list?
ElleBook
My eyes! My eyes! Just because you can do something, doesn't necessarily mean you should do something. (via Kahney)
Gmail privacy concerns
Declan McCullagh discusses his reservations about Google's in-private-beta Gmail system. His privacy concerns are well-founded, but I'm sure a lot of people are willing to give up a bit of privacy for something that would have as much perceived value as a free gig of e-mail space. Should Gmail open to the public as is, I can still see myself signing up for it, though my usage of it would be limited to a certain scope. In other words, I would be my own privacy protection, and that may be the best users can hope for.
NASA Space Flight Patch icons
Maury McCown of RAILhead Design has released a massive, 146-icon collection of NASA space flight patches. The patches range from the Freedom 7 flight in 1961 through 2003's ill-fated Columbia mission. Maury obviously put in a lot of work on this icon set, and it is a must-have for NASA/space fans. Sorry, Windows users, for Macintosh only.
VZW to carry Treo 600!
w00t! So perhaps I won't switch wireless carriers after all. It's not like I can do anything right now anyway, being unemployed and all...
Buttoned up
So looking at Lee's setup had me thinking that my blog could use a little more color, so I jumped on the button bandwagon. You can see my own button-mania in the link section to the left. Huge kudos and thanks to my favorite code babe, Raena, for the buttons for my own web sites, as well as the buttons for Michael's SpamSieve, ATPM, John Gruber's Markdown, and Darwin. Feel free to steal and use on your own sites.