ISSN 1496-3221
September 28, 2002
Cutting it as close to their pre-announced deadline as per usual, Apple has finally made iSync available in public beta form. There’s nothing specifically technical regarding the way iSync operates amidst the current batch of support documents, but I’m hoping that it will be open enough to support third-party plug-ins like iTunes does. The fact … More
February 27, 2002
Yes, another signpost along obsolete technology highway goes flying past in the rear view mirror. Please ignore my lame prose for a moment and take note that today marks the fourth anniversary of Apple (or more accurately, Steve Jobs) deciding to unilaterally discontinue development of the Newton. So, is the deep green platform truly dead? … More
March 23, 2001
In the earlier releases of Mac OS X, there was a curious little fellow that lived in the Fonts panel called the “Buy Fonts” button. A few eyebrows were raised and collective mumblings were shared between onlookers of the typographic variety, and then the “Buy Fonts” button quietly slid out of view and out of … More
March 6, 2001
Building fonts for dead computing platforms. That’s what I think I should dedicate more of my waking hours to. And to start it off this evening, I installed Apple’s Newton Toolkit (NTK). Along with a plethora of standard programming environment goodliness, NTK allows you to take existing Mac OS bitmap typefaces and turn them into … More
February 27, 2001
Today marks the third anniversary of Apple’s decision to focus their “efforts in one direction”. Well Steve, I’m still using my Newton and I’m still waiting for Apple to “ensure a smooth transition”, replacing it with something even marginally close in size, power, and functionality.
September 5, 2000
If you’re anything like me (and I pity your loved ones if you are), you’re the type of person that just can’t seem to stuff enough ephemeral Macintosh knowledge into your limited cranial cavity. Well, now is the time to start up the trash compactor because we’ve got to make room for the historical background … More
July 27, 2000
Writing’s On Wall For Mac OS X It looks like Apple is resurrecting the acclaimed Newton hand writing recognition software once known as “Rosetta” in future iterations of Mac OS. Now dubbed InkWell, it appears to have the exact same features as what I use in my MessagePad 2100 right down to the font used … More
May 8, 2000
Amidst all of the virii chasing and Microsoft-focused “I told you so’s” that echoed down the halls of our office last week, our information services department also took delivery of ten (count’em ten) top-end Power Mac G4 boxes. The easy part of getting these delicious, graphite-bejeweled lovelies in-house was justifying their purchase instead of the … More
April 6, 2000
And like all good open source projects, Darwin has a to do list. Support for older Macs you say? My Quadra 950 is just shimmying with anticipation.
April 6, 2000
Apple just released Darwin 1.0, the open source version of the core operating system found in Mac OS X. It’s all ready to tinker with, but you’ll need to add a few things yourself, like maybe an interface. Or some sort of graphics architecture, perhaps a couple of usable drivers, and probably an API. Never … More