:: Wednesday, March 26, 2003 ::

And I never got to go!

Now I've got to go 2,000 miles just to get to a Macworld! :: Yup, IDG has finally decided to pack up shop on Macworld New York, after tons of infantile bickering with Apple over where the show would be held, in NY or in Boston. Now, it's going to be called "Create," and will be targeted at creative professionals such as graphic artists and musicians. Since I'm both of these things (amateur on count one, somewhat professional on count two), I'm divided and have bittersweet feelings about this decision. On the one hand, it will be nice to have a show targeted at this crowd, and the training and products available at the show could be quite useful. And Apple is still co-sponsoring it. But, on the other hand, I mourn the fact that I will never be able to take a quick train to New York to see Stevie J. weave his magic.

I'll go more into this in a future column for OSXFAQ.com. In case you haven't noticed over the last couple of weeks, my ancient topic from Apple Lust, Macrimination, has been revived and I'm now writing it weekly for OSXFAQ, a great site with a lot of great resources. It's also pretty cool because this is the site Dr. Mac is calling home, for the most part, these days. You can read last week's edition of Macrimination here. It will come out every Friday. Hint: I'm writing this week's right after I finish updating United Mac!

Things are still crazy in the world, therefore, things are still crazy at work for me. I won't comment much on the war here, since I am a journalist by trade and am in a way covering it, so it would be irresponsible for me to reveal any of my personal feelings on the subject at United Mac. However, just know that updates to UM will continue to be sporadic as events continue to be crazy in the Middle East.

One more thing: RIP original iMac :: Yup, I know everyone knows by now, but I wanted to say about the passing of the original "gumdrop" iMac, a machine that is very dear to me. Up until last month, of course, my main machine for nearly two years was an original Bondi Rev. B, updated with many of my "Frankenmac" modifications. I have a new Frankenmac now (#3), but it is not forgotten. To the left, you can see some of the ways I made fun of the computer on my old site (which predates UM), SteveSobek.net. If anyone is still around who remembers, my rant was called "The Daily Rant," and then "The Macdown" in those days. You can read one of my favorite poking-fun-at-the-iMac pieces here.
:: Steve 12:04 PM [+] ::
And I never got to go!

An interesting time in my life...

Trying to keep up with the shifting sands ... :: As my favorite actor, Edward Norton, told Helena Bonham Carter at the end of my favorite movie, "Fight Club": "You've met me at an interesting time in my life." It's been hard to keep up with everything going on over the last couple of weeks! For those of you who are wondering, yes, I've started the new job at Internet Broadcasting Systems, a company that does Web sites for TV news stations. I spent last week training in beautiful and cold Minneapolis. If you're interested, you can also look at the pictures on my .Mac site. I'm going to be keeping some strange hours -- working nights during the week and all day on Saturday and Sunday. It's going to be a big challenge, but I also think it's going to be a lot of fun.

Around the same time, a new friend joined me in the Sobek household: FrankenMac #3. You can find more pictures on my .Mac site here. It's one of the last G4s made before the newer Quicksilvers. I think it's actually a model I complained about here on the site when it first came out -- it was dubbed the "digital audio" PowerMac by Apple, but also was the first Mac not to come with an analogue audio input jack. So here I am, a digital musician who whacked Apple with the columnist stick for this fact 2 years ago, now I actually own one. But that is pretty much the only thing I could find fault with on this machine, and it was easily rectified with the purchase of a Griffin iMic, which enables me to connect analogue audio inputs through USB. It's got a 733 Mhz G4 processor with 1 MB L3 cache, 512 MB RAM, a 40 gig disk and a 32 MB NVidia GeForce2 MX AGP graphics card. Finally, I can run Marine Aquarium with nary a hiccup. Quartz Extreme is also enabled, and it was very cool to boot up for the first time in Jaguar and see that tell-tale drop shadow under the cursor arrow.

The machine came with internal ZIP and CD-RW drives, which I will be selling in short order on eBay. I have no use for the ZIP drive, and I have already replaced the CD-RW with a Pioneer SuperDrive, one of the same models Apple used. I also have bought iLife, and have been fooling with iDVD burning DVDs. The monitor I have is the graphite 17-inch studio display CRT model, the one that came with the G4 Cubes when they first came out. It's not a flat-panel monitor, but it is a flat screen and its color representation is beautiful. I have found myself watching DVDs on the computer now, if only because the screen seems so much more beautiful than my TV. The performance of this machine has been excellent so far, and I have no complaints. Ask me in another six months, though.

As for the Mac world, I have some catching up to do. So there will be more on that soon. All I can say, though, is be sure to tune in to OSXFAQ.com now and then for a surprise.

One interesting note before I go, a link I found while surfing through NetNewsWire tonight. It seems that politicians and business leaders gathering at the huge technology show CeBIT in Hanover, Germany, think the slump affecting the technology industry may soon be over. Let's hope so!
:: Steve 8:33 PM [+] ::
An interesting time in my life...

Couple of days more, then I'll be back

Several days seemed to have attacked me at once! :: I'm starting a new job this week, and I'm flying off for trying Monday morning and will not be back to my computer until Thursday night. There won't be an update until then. When I do get back, I'll tell you all about Frankenmac III, the new computer sitting under my desk - 733 MHz of G4 power with a super drive and a 17-inch cinema display. Until then, head on over to our friends at OSXFAQ.com to keep up with your Mac stuff.
:: Steve 8:35 PM [+] ::
Couple of days more, then I'll be back