:: Wednesday, February 27, 2002 ::

Holy moly!

Yikes, Batman! 110 Gigahertz? :: IBM has announced that it has built the world's fastest microchip running at more than 110 Gigahertz. That's 110 billion cycles per second, boys and girls. Whoa. They did it using a new variation of silicon called silicon germanium. It not only runs faster, but cooler too. It won't be available until the end of the year, and it won't be in use in Macs, anyway. But geez, it's fast!

More kudos for the Grand Poobah :: As if everything else Steve Jobs has hasn't given him enough of an ego, now he has a Grammy, too. The award comes for Apple's contributions to the advancement of digital music.

Get more out of OS X :: A reader turned me on to a great open-source PDF tutorial on OS X for beginners. Check it out on the Proof page. Why is it on the proof page? Couldn't think of which page it belonged on, and since I believe OS X is so easy to use for beginners, I figured it belonged there -- you know, as proof. Dial-up users be warned: It's a more than 3 megabyte download, but well worth it if you're new to the scene.


:: Steve 8:53 AM [+] ::

And we even have drama and intrigue :: A reporter at a British tabloid has helped nab the wife of a former British Apple executive. She reportedly wanted to hire the reporter, who masqueraded as a hit-man, to kill him. Wow, and we thought "The Pirates of Silicon Valley," with Noah Wyle and Anthony Michael Hall, was pretty exciting. I smell a new Apple TV movie -- at least on the BBC.

:: Steve 9:37 AM [+] ::

Coursey will give it back -- or maybe not?

PC columnist extends his life with Macs using flu as an excuse :: Our favorite pee-cee guy, David Coursey, will keep his loander Macs a bit longer, according to his column today. His official excuse is that he was sick for three weeks with the flu, so how could he possibly have gotten the full feel of the experiment. But if you read between the lines, I think he's starting to become a convert, slowly but surely.

Just listen to this: "I think Macs are, for the average user, much easier to use and manage than Windows machines. True, the Mac--especially OS X--is different from Windows, so it takes some getting used to. But if you have a computer-phobic friend, the best thing to give him or her is a Mac. No one who I have ever convinced to buy a Mac, or given one to, has ever called and complained."

I think we have a new brother in arms...Possibly...
:: Steve 8:17 AM [+] ::

The wait is officially over -- Or is it just beginning?

Photoshop 7 for OS X? :: Well, it's not quite here -- yet. Check out the new Adobe Photoshop 7 info on the Apple Web site. Just a taste:

"Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines: Adobe Photoshop 7.0 for Mac OS X is here. Arguably the most eagerly anticipated upgrade in Photoshop history, version 7.0 takes full advantage of the underlying strengths of Mac OS X and the PowerPC G4 with Velocity Engine to deliver a generational leap in graphics capabilities — and, by extension, the graphics capabilities of the Macintosh platform itself.
Adobe Photoshop 7.0 comes chock-full of powerful new features. Here, briefly, are five that alone could be worth the cost of the upgrade: File Browser, Healing Brush, new paint engine (with cool paint tools and art studio brushes), automation with data-driven graphics — and ironclad security. You also get enhancements and new features for Adobe ImageReady 7.0, which ships with Photoshop. ImageReady offers specialized capabilities for advanced web-production tasks and creating sophisticated web graphics and animations."

Unfortunately, though, it's not shipping yet -- not until April. But at least we have a confirmation that it actually exists and will ship now.

Dude, you're getting a laugh :: One of my favorite online cartoons, The Joy of Tech, takes on that annoying Dell kid, you know, the one with the pubescent whine who always tells us "Dude, you're getting a Dell." Check it out!




:: Steve 8:37 AM [+] ::

Proud to be an American

A lot of responsibility goes with being so free :: I was out with my sister in a crazy meat-market bar in Baltimore last night, and instead of being appalled by some of the outrageous, crazy and drunk behavior I saw, I was actually proud to be an American. For one thing, the variety of ethnic backgrounds all partaking in the festivities was staggering. It wasn't just a whitebread crowd. It was nice to see. And since I was sober, and hardly anyone else was, I ended up thinking about some of the cause and effect relationships that go into the makeup of a place like that.

For one, it takes a lot of responsibility to be free like we are in America. Some folks take this responsibility more seriously than others, but most of us feel it without even knowing or thinking about it. But just by living our lives and paying our bills and participating in our economy -- and yes, that includes drinking beer at a meat market bar -- we are doing our part. And all of that responsibility can be tough to bear sometimes. If any part of the house of cards falls, our freedoms could be in jeopardy. So why wouldn't we go out and blow off steam like we were last night? But there are people who have to fight just to draw breath and eat in other places in the world, you say. This is true. But just by being a part of something like a meat-market bar on a Friday night, we are actually taking part in a basic freedom and helping to further the reaches of it throughout the world. We can have fun, and we should. It's another part of the example that we can lead for the rest of the world.

All of these thoughts came about because I'm a journalist by trade, and I guess the reality of Danny Perl being dead was hitting me full-force. And also, another friend of mine was telling me about some of the people he knew who had not been Americans as long as we have. The first time they went to a grocery store -- an everday occurance for most of us -- they cried because of all of the food. We should not take all of our opportunities -- from our wealth to the things we do for fun -- for granted. Go out and have fun, but remember how cool it is that you're free to do so.

That's how we can fight this war.

Too deep and not Macintosh related? Sorry, just had to get it off my chest.

Piss on Windows :: Something a bit more on topic. I found the coolest desktop picture over at ResExcellence, the 800-pound gorilla of all that's related to the Macintosh GUI. Go check it out, it's called "Piss on Windoze XP." I've always hated these little stickers with the race car numbers on them, but this I can handle.
:: Steve 10:15 AM [+] ::

Photoshop for OS X?

The Mac-world rumor mill is working overtime :: Several sources, including Mac Rumors and MacNN are reporting rumors that Adobe Photoshop 7 for OS X will be released on Monday. This could be true, as I have seen and played with the beta a couple of times over the last several months, but it has not been confirmed by reliable sources. Although both point to PDF file from MacNytt, a Swedish site.

True? I don't know...
:: Steve 10:30 AM [+] ::

"Sweet dreams, Sam"

From a Mac e-mail list that I belong to :: "I got some really awful news last night. :( Sam Sharp, who many of you know from this list, through MacSoldiers, or through Brave New Mac, died just the other day in hospital.

"Sam was a very private kind of guy, but I know also that he appreciated honesty. I'm not sure how to strike the best balance between the two, but I'll try. Some of you may have known that Sam and I were quite close; we spoke almost daily on the phone, usually for hours. I worked with him, not just on website/list stuff, but with his own work. I came to admire and respect him, and I came to love him. I was going to visit him in the States this year. We were going to do beautiful things together. I have every belief that I probably would have stayed.

"Sam is one of the brightest people I've ever had the fortune to know. He believed that there was no such thing as an unsolvable problem. He loved to figure out interesting and even downright kooky ways to do things. He told me once that when push came to shove, life came down to clearing a circle around you and fending off the bad guys who were attacking you and the people important to you. He loved to surprise people. He liked making ridiculous jokes. He would take half a concept out of a list post and go off onto the most bizarre tangents, just writing what he thought about, because that's what he loved to do. He could be trusted with anything. He had a sense of wonder and a desire to learn as much as he could in the shortest possible space of time.

"I love him dearly and I miss him so much. He got very sick, very quickly. I'm not sure if he knew before he went to hospital that something was seriously amiss or not. If he knew, then I am sure he wouldn't have wanted anyone to worry, or for people to take an undue fuss. He would have tried his damndest to beat it. His family and friends were looking out for him and I am also sure that they and his doctors did their best for him.

"The Mac Conspiracy (over at the old Ambrosia Cafe) MacSoldiers, Brave New Mac, and Macintosh-Talk all meant a lot to Sam. These were things into which he poured a lot of time and energy and what we all did here was important to him. I
know he had a lot of fun.

"Sweet dreams, Sam."

:: Steve 4:26 AM [+] ::

Dream job?

Suddenly my occupation doesn't seem like so much fun :: Apple is looking for employees to staff its new retail stores. Does this mean I can work behind the Genius Bar? That would be cool.

By the way, as a further addendum to the 10.1.3 update yesterday, it really seems to have made a big difference on my machine. There have been some minor issues reported by different folks, but I'm feeling that most of these (not all!) might be due to different hardware configurations or other anomalies. If you have a relatively *normal* installation of OS X, I highly recommend this update.

:: Steve 9:38 PM [+] ::

So far, so good

My kernel seems to be fairly calm :: Well, in the absence of (many) kernel panics or the like being reported on the e-mail lists I belong to, I went ahead and took the plunge this morning, updating to 10.1.3 before going to work.

So far so good. No problems, from a general "kicking the tires" perspective, it seems to be a sound update so far, at least for me. Different experience? Sound off in the forum.

PS: Actually, I believe that it did something right, as my Open GL seems to have improved, just like Apple said it would. iTunes visualizer has never looked better, and I have an older, unsupported graphics card (the ATI card that came with the Rev. B iMac). Wow.



:: Steve 7:39 AM [+] ::

Check your software update preference pane

If you dare :: Mac OS X 10.1.3 is out. If you check your update pane, it should be available if you're already running OS X 10.1.2. I, for one, am going to sit this out until the quick updaters get us through the kinks. I have no peripherals that don't work and my system has worked swimmingly for weeks now. Why mess with that? If you decide to do it, though, report your experiences in United Mac's new forum.
:: Steve 6:06 PM [+] ::

From the `Oh, my God, I love OS X' files :: The weirdest thing just happened. In the middle of surfing, M$ Internet Explorer unexpectedly quit on me. This isn't unusual (it quits like that about once a day), except that every time I tried to relaunch it, it quit immediately again. I tried to launch from Drag Thing, and then Drag Thing unexpectedly quit and wouldn't start again. In OS 9, I would be feeling a hard reboot coming on. Not in X. I relaunched the Finder and then relaunched Drag Thing, which fixed its preferences file. Then, I relaunched Explorer and it started up without a hitch and my whole system seems to be unaffected.

Welcome to the new UNIX world.


:: Steve 8:52 AM [+] ::

What are you looking at?

Are you a Mac voyeur? :: Our favorite PC columnist, David Coursey of ZDNet's Anchor Desk, who is in the midst of a six-week odyssey of using the Macintosh as his primary computer, claims he's found a new species, the Mac Voyeur, or voyeuristicus macismus (I don't know Latin -- I made that up).

He says he's met a lot of folks who always tell him how important the Mac is, and how wonderful it is, but they use PCs and seemingly would never buy a Mac. That's a bit like covering your walls with posters of Audis and then driving a Volkswagen, not because you can't afford the Audi, but because you're afraid of owning too much car.

And what's with the fonts on Anchor Desk? I'm just noticing this today, but every time Coursey posts, the first five paragraphs always have different-sized fonts. Is there a particular reason for this, or this is a quirk in my browser?


:: Steve 7:00 AM [+] ::

That's a big heatsink you have

MacSpeedZone gives us an inside view of the GigaMac :: Ever seen a heatsink that big? It's needed when you have two 1 GHz processors under the hood. MacSpeed Zone has posted a series of pics worth looking at that give us an inside view of the new speedsters.

I was wondering, if I bought one of those and hooked up an exhaust system from the processors' heat, would I be able to harness that energy for my stove? Just a thought.


:: Steve 9:29 PM [+] ::

The mistakes have you, Neo :: As also pointed out in the show notes for The Screen Savers tonight, there's a site called Movie Mistakes that is dedicated to the flubs of filmmakers. The movie with the most mistakes listed? The Matrix. Maybe that's because it's every Geeks favorite flick, and many of the folks who frequent the site watch it once a week?


:: Steve 6:14 PM [+] ::

Who let the Gig out?

ESPN for geeks reviews new double-processor gigahertz powermacs :: If you're like me, you probably watch more Tech TV than ESPN or CNN, much to the chagrin of my friends who know who know all of the latest international headlines. Believe it or not, I'm a journalist, but I cover education at work and my passion at home is technology, so it leaves little room for anything else (although maybe I'll check out which docklings available for OS X check headlines for me so I don't feel so stupid -- any suggestions? E-mail them to me at ssobek@stevesobek.net).

My favorite primetime companions at the The Screen Savers have reviewed the new 1 Ghz dual-processor PowerMacs, and it's a positive article. How could it be any different? Check out what they found.

:: Steve 5:45 PM [+] ::

Good morning, Kari!

:: Steve 5:05 AM [+] ::

I see a trip to half.com in your future :: I opened a fortune cookie tonight, and would you believe it, there was actually an advertisement on the back for Half.com? What is the world coming to that they are advertising on the back of fortune cookies? "Save a FORTUNE ... at Half.com! ... Enter code 'FORTUNE77' in Shop.Cart" it said.

At least my fortune was good: "You will soon be honored by someone you respect."
:: Steve 9:01 PM [+] ::

Need a bigger hard drive? Try 160 gigabytes!

Maxtor pushes the limits of digital storage :: I remember when a 5 to 10 gigabytes was a lot of hard-disk space. Wasn't that last week? Now, Maxtor is pushing the limits with its 3000XT 160 gigabyte drive. From Maxtor's Web site:

"Designed for users who demand maximum capacity and great performance. Each easy to install 160 GB unit stores up to 13 hours of DV format video, 40,000 MP3 tunes, 160,000 high-resolution digital photos, or 4,000 video games. 1394 (i.LINK or FireWire) is the interface of choice for many of today's speed intensive applications that demand fast data transfer rates. The 3000XT allows you to run applications, play videos, listen to music, download files, or play games without the worry of filling up you system's internal hard drive."

You could probably digitize and store a human being on that hard drive, I think...




:: Steve 2:56 PM [+] ::

Havening som laff we are at expsen his

The worst IT technician of all time? :: I simply cannot stop laughing, now that I have found George.

Apparently, the guy who runs this site used to work with this IT help desk guy he likes to call "George" who was one of the most incompetent folks to ever be given a job. He kept a ton of George's help desk tickets and has posted them on his site, The Chronicles of George.

One example: "...she is havening problems connecting to the z drive ,she told never i will figure it out on her own."

Huh?
:: Steve 9:46 PM [+] ::

New desktop :: I've been so inspired by the newfound speed on my iMac, that I've created a desktop picture in honor of the Sonnet Harmoni upgrade. Go to the Desktop page to check it out.

:: Steve 3:04 PM [+] ::

Could you drop your pants and show us your source, Bill?

Gates and Micro$ofties left naked in the breeze :: A federal judge is giving the nine states still fighting the good fight access to Windows source code. Check out the story at The Register. Quoth Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly: "It seems to me that if your side has access to it, then the other side, frankly, should have access to it."

According to The Register, "The States want access to the code in order to confirm that Windows can be customised, and can operate without the presence of IE." I have a sneaking suspicion they're probably right...
:: Steve 11:12 AM [+] ::

Ooooooh, so much faster

Seatbelts fastened, Harmoni makes OS X a roller-coaster dream :: Wow. Finally got my Sonnet Harmoni G3 upgrade card for FrankenMac II (a Rev. B Bondi iMac 233 Mhz). It's been a Hard Day's Night-Neverending Journey to get into my squeaky little hands (Sonnet has been way behind in production on these babies; and it's taken me weeks to get it), but the wait has totally been worth it. I'm finally getting the full potential of OS X on my machine, and the spinning beachball has become a thing of the past (for the most part).

FM is twice as fast now (500 Mhz), and with my somewhat respectable 512 mb of RAM (about all that can fit in the thing, unless you start experimenting -- my checkbook doesn't experiment) I've got just about every program I can think of running in the dock and iTunes blasting the Fight Club soundtrack in the background, and nothing's hiccupping or falling apart or anything. Cool. I don't think I'm going to close any of my programs anymore, just for kicks. I'm just going to leave them all open forever, see if they ever crash. :-)

If you have an early iMac like me, I highly recommend this upgrade. You'll be amazed at the transformation. It also comes with a FireWire port, but I don't have anything to plug into it yet. Anyone have any good suggestions on a reasonably priced FW CD-RW that's compatible with OS X? Drop your suggestions to me at ssobek@stevesobek.net.
:: Steve 10:40 AM [+] ::

Alert!

Please, God, no ... :: Hopefully it's just one of those stinking rumors, but JAGfn is reporting that IBM might try and buy Apple?

For all of our sakes, I hope not.
:: Steve 8:23 AM [+] ::

Just to see if anyone is watching

Microsoft this :: Wanted to share a little Terminal hack that came through on one of the list-serves I belong to. It apparently disables the network check that keeps Microsoft Office v. X users from installing the software on two different machines on the same network, although I haven't been able to test it out totally because, well, I only have the one computer. Although I have tried it in my Terminal, and at least it didn't crash and burn my machine, so at least it doesn't appear to be dangerous.

Open a Terminal window (for X newbies, the Terminal.app is in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder; it allows you to directly interact with X's Unix underpinnings to do stuff that you wouldn't normally get to in the normal OS X environment) and type:

sudo ipfw add drop udp from any to any 2222

The system will give you a warning and you have to enter your administrator password. After that, hit enter.

And for Micro$ofties who may have found my little piece of the Web today, my e-mail address is ssobek@stevesobek.net. I'll remove the hack if you ask me...:-)
:: Steve 6:43 AM [+] ::

Have you hugged your BSD today? :: Little-known to many users, Mac OS X is actually based on a flavor of Unix called BSD. Apparently the BSD "tribes" are having a pow-wow out in San Francisco, and Apple big guys are telling the chiefs that because of OS X, the BSD flavor of Unix is now three times more popular in the world than Linux. So hug your Mac and imagine it kicking the crap out of the Linux penguin.
:: Steve 4:40 AM [+] ::

Various updates and tidbits

Well I finally got my Web host in order, and I have FTP access again, so I'll continue updating and improving the site as I go.

Sweetest Geek Valentine :: Who would've thought the folks over at Slashdot were so sweet? Read Geek love, Internet marriage proposal.

Is everything easier on a Mac? :: Apple is apparently finally letting go of its "Think different" advertising slogan and unveiling a new strategy for taking on the Redmond monster. The new campaign is apparently based on how easy Macs are to use, and finally starts taking on some of the myths PC users have about the platform. Right on!

My hero, the trash :: Here's an interesting thought from one of the e-mail lists I belong to: isn't it ironic that when you have a crash in OS 9, any temporary items you may have in memory are moved in a folder called "Rescued Items" when you restart the machine. Which is fine, but the folder is put in the trash. Are they really "rescued" there. Something to think about.

I feel the need -- the need for speed :: A friend of mine has a new iMac, and I'm going to get to play with it this weekend. I'll report here the results, but I can't imagine they would be bad. He has 768 mb of RAM in it, so I'm sure it screams. As for "screaming" on my poor 233 Mhz Bondi blue older iMac, my Sonnet Harmoni upgrade card is apparently supposed to arrive tomorrow finally. Sonnet has been very slow in getting them out, and it's been kind of frustrating. But relief is finally coming.

Just because :: And finally, I want to thank Kari for the smiles...:-)
:: Steve 9:35 PM [+] ::

There's a lot of talk on the discussion lists about Apple's new ads for the iMac, if they are in fact ads. There's been some doubt about that, too.

Anyway, they were made by our good friends over at Pixar, you know the company also owned by Steve Jobs that made the movies "Toy Story" and "Monsters Inc." The new iMac has been compared to a character called Luxo the lamp in a short film the company made years ago, so it only makes sense that Pixar came on board to make these cuties.

The only problem is, if they are Apple's ads for the new iMac, they're a bit too cute. These are serious G4 machines with Super Drives, much more of a machine than most computers have ever had on their desktops yet. Sure, they look cutesy when they dance, but I sure hope Apple has some more serious advertisements planned, also...
:: Steve 5:34 PM [+] ::

A guest columnist for ZDNET Anchor Desk, who also happens to be a teacher, offers an interesting perspective on how much harder it is to keep up a network of PCs thans Macs. Check it out.
:: Steve 3:44 AM [+] ::

Well, in this economy, it was bound to happen. The mother ship cut some jobs late in 2001 as part of a restructuring and plans to cut more.

At least the CNET article referenced above points out that Apple's cuts were far less than those of PC computer makers.
:: Steve 3:40 AM [+] ::

I suggest subscribing to Bob "Dr. Mac" Levitus' Tip of the Day mailing list from his site, www.OSXFAQ.com. I've only gotten two tips so far (yesterday and today), but they've both been useful.

Can you believe that I had to get up at 5:30 today? I'm a journalist and I have an assignment an hour away that happens to be early. Ugh. I'm not a morning person.
Are you?
:: Steve 3:10 AM [+] ::

I've finally added something to the Pride page. If you're a Mac OS X user, head over to get the first hacked splash for Internet Explorer X that I've seen, entitled, "Under New Management."

:: Steve 10:23 PM [+] ::

From the Macintosh News Network:

"Circuit City will no longer carry Apple products effective this month, according to Circuit Cirty representatives. The company has already begun phasing out its Apple products and has directed stores to remove marketing displays, but will continue to sell the remaining Macs in its inventory. Representatives told MacNN that the decision to terminate the relationship happened earlier this month. "The decision was made by our buyers and we have no further information to release to the public." Circuit City said it would honor all extended warranties."

Heck with them, anyway. We don't need Circuit City as a platform. They didn't do a very good job of promoting the machines, anyway. And with Apple's new stores and actual Apple employees being trained to run the Apple departments in CompUSA stores, this is a decision that makes sense for Apple.
:: Steve 8:36 PM [+] ::

I'm using a handy new Mac OS X utility that I'm trying out right now to post this morning. BlogApp allows you to simply post from within OS X without having to go to a Web page. Let's just see if this works, shall we? If you're reading this, it must have!
:: Steve 4:53 AM [+] ::

I've posted a tidbit on the Propaganda page illustrating some of the biggotry we can face as Mac users from those in the world of IT. It came from an e-mail list-serve I belong to, and was posted with permission here at UnitedMac. That's my ultimate plan for the site, to pick up as many platform specific tidbits and tips as I can. Hopefully, one day, we'll have quite a database. I've also begun the United Mac discussion board to further that goal. It's a place for you to post your own Proof, Pride and Propaganda, without having to go through me. I know we still don't have a ton of traffic through yet, so it could take some time for it to catch on. Whether it works or not, of course, is up to faithful viewers like you. :-)
:: Steve 3:50 PM [+] ::

So what does your desktop look like, anyway? It's no surprise that Hollywood has always seemed to be more Mac-centric than the real world, but there's an interesting piece on Macs being used by the good guys on Fox's "24". Apparently, the bad guys use PCs, including characters who turn out to be traitors on the good side. Our heros, of course, use Macs. Anyway, check out the link on the 24 site to "Kimberly's desktop." I got a real kick out of it. It's a halfway functioning Mac desktop done in Flash, and even shows you her latest e-mail in Entourage. Hah. Not to be outdone, at right is a snap of my actual desktop at this moment in time, which of course is always changing. Click on the pic to get it full-sized.

Got a cool looking desktop? Snap a screenshot and send it to me. I'll post it.
:: Steve 9:06 AM [+] ::

I love spam. Got this e-mail about a "great business opportunity" today. They're selling some sort of home-based thing, which sounds like Amway to me. But the e-mail said "the average home based business pays its owner between $50 and $250,000 per year." Wow, that's quite a range -- and that's the average! Does that mean some folks make like 10 cents a year? I don't know about you, but I'm pretty excited by the prospect of making $50 for a whole year's work.

Word to the wise: Run the other way...
:: Steve 7:09 AM [+] ::

Everyone knows that Apple's iMovie software is extremely easy to use. But it's also very powerful. Check it out: a film made in iMovie gets noticed at the Sundance Film Festival. Pretty cool.
:: Steve 7:45 AM [+] ::

Finally, a day filled with some good news! I just got an e-mail from the company I had ordered my Sonnet Harmoni upgrade card from -- Macs4all. It finally came in! For those of you who don't know, the Harmoni will upgrade one of the original iMacs, which is the machine I use, from 233 Mhz to 500 Mhz, and adds a Firewire port! It's going to make OS X run soooo much faster. I should have it by Tuesday night. I'll report the results here and let you know how well it does.

Plus, I've met a girl, and I really like her. :-)
:: Steve 5:31 PM [+] ::

And darned right, you gotta watch out for the Mac militia...
:: Steve 3:56 AM [+] ::

A guy on one of the list-serves I belong to (okay, I belong to a lot of them!) has posted pictures of his new iMac, which arrived this week. If you haven't seen this machine, you have to. If anything will stop the Wintel masses from blindly marching into oblivion, this will...PPP!
:: Steve 3:49 AM [+] ::

Now this is a shame. Just another example of PC-huggers not knowing what they're talking about. Got this in an e-mail on one of the list-serves I belong to:

"A friend just emailed me saying someone he knows someone who works in public relations at HBO who just yesterday said that HBO is replacing all their Macs with PC's. The logic: 'AOL software runs on PC's'... That was the logic the company handed down."

I was a Mac AOL user for about a year before I saw the light. They, of course, do support Macs. In fact, a version for OS X was just recently released. Could they have come up with a better reason? I was going to go watch a movie on HBO since I'm home sick today, but now...
:: Steve 10:43 AM [+] ::

Take a minute and head over to David Coursey's Anchor Desk over at ZDNet today, and vote for whether or not you think OS X will be successful as a Unix variant. The total when I checked was 83 percent yes, which is pretty damn good, and a lot less than I'd expect from viewers at a PC-hugging site like ZD. But Coursey probably has a lot more MacNuts visiting these days since he started his experiment of using a Mac for a month. This makes me laugh! Experiment? Millions of people use a Mac for everything everyday, and it's not an experiment for us. Ha. We don't even think about it. Just the fact that he has to look at it as an experiment shows that so far he doesn't get it. But he's about halfway through now, and I expect he'll look at it a lot differently when it's over. I have a feeling he may not go back. But for some, those PC-hugging roots grow deep. We'll see...
:: Steve 4:20 AM [+] ::

Hallelujah! It seems that Apple is finally making sure CompUSA is up to speed in selling its computers. According to Right On Mac, our friendly computer maker is sending Apple-trained folks over to head up CompUSA's Mac departments. This is a change in the right direction, and will hopefully stop the bait and switch practice of steering folks over the PC section when they really came to see a Mac. Right on Mac!
:: Steve 2:10 PM [+] ::

I am terribly disappointed in DirecTV, my satellite television provider. I didn't expect them to practice Macrimination, but they do! Just go to their Web site, if you are a Mac user. It's all in Flash now, and the first part is a script meant to detect whether you have Flash. It kept telling me that I did not have Flash, and that I was to go to Macromedia's site to get it. Now, never having any trouble with my Flash plug-in before, I decided that maybe there was a new version. I went to Macromedier's site and dutifully downloaded the installer. You know what it said? You already have the latest version. Restarted the computer, tried again. Same thing.

So, I decided to try an experiment. I fired up my Virtual PC with Windows 2K and started Explorer for Windows and went to the DirecTV site. It worked fine! Except when I tried to sign in, as I'm just trying to pay my bill, the idiot's are doing some sort of software upgrade to their login server and it was unavailable. Guess they don't want my money today. And if this is the way they're going to treat Mac users (the only thing I can think is that their Flash detection script somehow looks for the Windows plugin and discriminates against the Mac), then maybe I don't want to give them my money today! If anyone experiences anything different than I did at their site, drop me a line.
:: Steve 12:27 PM [+] ::

Welcome to United Mac! It's all over now for the PC weenies. The militants are here, and we have no fear. And Microsoft is already falling apart, just check out this link from their site. Oops. How did that get through? That's because like all regimes built on power and deceipt, eventually those inside start to understand the truth and they implode from within.
:: Steve 11:44 AM [+] ::