Walter Mossberg “The iPod only works with Macs, though Apple should have a Windows version by the summer." As far as I know, this is the first time we’ve heard this. Apple is going to release a Windows version of the iPod? I would imagine they are just going to release Windows software for it.
Dan Gillmor laments the slow performance of Virtual PC on Mac OS X. I agree, but I don’t really use it anymore anyway. PC’s are cheap, and there are really only five or six apps that I run that I can’t find any equivalent for on the X platform. You are better off buying a discontinued or second hand machine IMHO. (via Mr. Barrett)
Flash 99% Good. First Aid Manual For Usable Flash Sites I was unaware of this site until Web Graphics pointed it out to me. I’m happy to see Macromedia putting effort into making Flash more usable and into making it faster on the Mac. The next question is what happens with all of their editor software. I use Cold Fusion Studio and Homesite to do all of my PC based Web coding.(except Java) Others, especially those who are more designy than codish, are using Dreamweaver and Ultradev. I don’t see Macromedia keeping all four of these applications alive, but it’s quite a tightrope act for them to please all of the target audiences with one line of products. We’ll just have to wait and see, I guess.
Looking Grim at the Grammys “The generally dismal quality of America’s mass-marketed pop music is an esthetic national emergency." This person is looking in the wrong place. There’s plenty of great music coming out, but it’s not from a boy band or a teenage diva. Mass-marketed pop music has been bad for decades, maybe even forever. I’m finding solace primarily in the Turntablism movement and the Electronic music community currently. Bands like Gorrilaz are products of these movements without actually being a part of them. I’d trade fifty Britney’s for Dan the Automator any day. Some of the other music that has meant a lot to me are artists that have left or been forced out of major label America, like Aimee Mann. The bottom line is that music is art, it’s self expression, not just another product, not just another dishwashing liquid or pair of khakis. Without that self expression being genuine, there’s no emotion. Whether that emotion is torment or bliss, it’s the experience of it, and the story that it tells through words and emotions that make it so important to me. Most of the time when the majors luck into an artist like this, it’s because they threw a whole truckload of shit, and, while most of it sucked, one or two artists shone through. For every Jeff Buckley or Radiohead, there are a few hundred artists that were either mediocre or just plain sucked. Perhaps I am being an optimist, but that’s how things look from where I stand, and no amount of file swapping is going to change it.
Jason’s post today about the picture from SXSW two years ago really hits home over here. I don’t even know who that guy with the dorky expression on his face is. So young, so naive, so….FAT.
It's funny how much a difference a couple of months can make. I have used the Mac OS in some form or another since 1987. I was there for the transition to color monitors, the addition of the CD-ROM drive, eWorld, the transition to PowerPC (painful at times, remember 7.5.2?), the clones, their death and so on. As I've noted here before, when 10.1 and Microsoft Office V.X were released this fall, I went to Mac OS X full time.
I rarely boot the Classic environment, only when I need Photoshop and Fireworks, and aside from that, never. I've had to eat some nails along the way, but I've adapted and embraced Mac OS X. It's not perfect, but I do like it. There are things there that I've wanted for a long time, like a command line interface(can you believe that I was missing DOS when I wasn't on a Windows machine?), and it just doesn't crash. Others have had different experiences there, but for me it's been rock solid as both a desktop and server OS so far.(I have just jinxed myself.)
Today, I went over a friends house to configure her brand new iMac. Not the cool new Luxor iMac, but one of the older Snow ones. She needs to use Quark and a couple of other apps that aren't available for Mac OS X yet, so she'll be running Mac OS 9 for the time being. I booted the machine, and began installing updates. All I could think of the entire time was how old fashioned the operating system seemed to me now. I've learned how to use Mac OS X, and the operating system that was like an old friend a couple of months ago now seems like a distant relative I only see once a year. It was almost shocking. I still know how to do everything, but it all seemed foreign. It's for this reason that I know that Apple is on the right road with their operating system. Oh, there's resistance from some people, but people are always scared of change. We're quite close to having Flash and Photoshop over here, and that's the tipping point. Unaddressed issues with things like fonts will get dealt with then, of that I'm quite certain. So goodbye old friend, we had a great fourteen years together.
OsOpinion: Macromedia Unveils Flash MX, Backs Mac “Enhanced platform support in Flash MX goes beyond the desktop, with a new version of ColdFusion MX that can be used in conjunction with Microsoft .NET, Java application servers and Web services."
iTunes and Home Theater (via Mac Net Journal) This is really just one way to go. I’m using my Airport network to do a similar thing, but it requires a second computer, which I happened to have lying around anyway. Makes it easier to have all of my MP3’s on a machine I can get to over the Internet and have a second computer, in the same room as the home entertainment system, that I can control without leaving the room. I went the extra step of adding a wireless keyboard, so at least I don’t have to get up.
Untold History : The History of Flash (via Dane)
infoSync : Palm unwraps m130, m515 models
Macromedia finally annouced Flash MX. What is up with all these software companies switching over to letters for software versions? Confusing, if you ask me. One thing that the site doesn’t tell you, but should be public knowledge, is that the new version of Cold Fusion that will come on the heels of this version of Flash will have an entire API that is dedicated to Flash integration. You will be able to use Cold Fusion as your application logic and to manage state, and use Flash as your UI layer. This should be scary stuff for the providers of other Web Application servers because it’s also written in Java.
The new DanSays is up. I’m interested to hear about his development experience with .NET.
Escape Velocity: Nova, the latest in perhaps the best Macintosh based video game series ever, has reached final candidate status.
It’s a rainy, Sunday feeling Saturday here in Atlanta. Just munching on some veggie burgers and watching some Kung Fu.
The Register: Back in the Bloghouse : “If I was in a position of power, I’d be delighted to see news reporters supplanted by blogs, because blogs - for all their empowerment rhetoric - are far easier to divert and confuse than a few persistent and skillful reporters. Watergate took fifteen months to break, but a blog meme has a TTL (time to live) measured in hours, as it roars round the world, before the bloggers find a new novelty. ” I completely disagree with this statement. Most of the commentary I find on the blogs I read is far more critical and insightful than this statement implies. Most of the blog authors I read are brilliant people, and are quite skeptical.
Rob Fahrni’s project to get Visio rendering OPML files into diagrams reminds me why I don’t use Visio when I’m doing sitemap work for Web sites. Instead, I use a product called Inspiration. The main reason for this is that Inspiration has a built in outliner that lets you define hierarchical relationships and do all your typing outside of the actual diagram mode. This makes the labor intensive process of defining sitemaps for large sites that have more than 200 pages quite a bit easier.
I’m curious what tools other people use for this sitemapping/information design part of the Web site building process. I believe that I discovered Inspiration via one of Kelly Goto’s talks at a Web Design conference I attended in Atlanta. What do you use?
Bruce Sterling: Information Wants to Be Worthless
Brent’s leaving Userland. Best wishes from here, I’ll be following what you are doing. I’ve thought Brent is the man for years, since the Ranchero software days. I’d still be using his contextual menu plug in if I hadn’t moved over to X.
The below means, I will finally get that asterisk I’ve been coveting.
Despite getting a late start, I’m confirmed now for attending SXSW.
415-564-1347 What is real?
CERT Advisory CA-2002-05 Multiple Vulnerabilities in PHP fileupload
It’s nice to know that AT&T has been spending their infrastructure money in Utah. Maybe that’s why my calls drop out in Central Park.