The Digital Hub Gets Rolling

2001: Steve (and that other guy named Bill) has been droning on about how the PC is moving away from being a single-purpose machine shoehorned under the desk and becoming the center of the new digital universe. They’ll control all the digital devices and become the command center of digital activities.

Hello, Newton

2001 – Apple (read: Steve Jobs) killed off the Newton on February 27, 1998. At least one company attempted to buy the Newton OS from Apple, only to be told that it was unavailable since Apple had future plans for it.

Original iPod

Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPod at a special event on October 23, 2001. The new device was a hard-drive based MP3 player with a well thought out menu system and room for 1,000 songs. It would to change Apple Computer forever.

12″ 600 MHz iBook G3 (Late 2001)

A little over five months after Apple released the first Dual USB iBook (a.k.a. iceBook), they replaced it with this 600 MHz – 20% faster – model available in DVD, CD-RW, and ComboDrive versions. Changes include a faster CPU, a faster system bus (100 MHz vs. 66 MHz) and a larger hard drive (15-20 GB, […]

11 Things You Might Not Know Your Mac Can Do

2001 – I find that casual users of the Mac OS do not investigate the features of the operating system as thoroughly as necessary to achieve the greatest efficiency. Perhaps that is because Mac users tend not to read the manuals for their computers (if there is a manual to read), or maybe it is […]

Tanzania and Tanzania II Motherboards

The Tanzania motherboard was introduced in October 1996 and supports PowerPC 603e and 604e processors on a 40 MHz system bus. This motherboard was used in the Power Mac 4400, Motorola StarMax 3000 and 4000, Power Computing PowerCurve and PowerBase, and Umax SuperMac C500 and C600, as well as some lesser known clones.

Evangelists Unite!

2001: The consumer acceptable version of Mac OS X (version 10.1) is now out of the gate and on track to be the standard operating system in the Mac universe. It’s time to start beating the drum.

Things They Don’t Tell You about the New iBook

2001 – There have been many excellent reviews of the new snow-white dual-USB iBook detailing such interesting features as the dropdown hinge, the integrated FireWire port, the keys that pop off too easily, the beautiful scratchable surface, the nice software included (such as iMovie2), and the bright high-resolution screen. This is not one of those […]

Think Different About Justice

Even as I and other Canadians mourn for the victims, even as we join with other people across the world in solidarity and sympathy with Americans as they grieve, we pause to reflect on the possible meaning of this atrocity, not just for Americans, not just for freedom-loving people everywhere who are struggling to find […]

Processor Envy

2001: Oh great, my little 350 MHz G3 upgrade is about to look even pokier: Motorola Completes 1.6 GHz PowerPC G5. My tired but indefatigable workhorse PowerCenter Pro is chugging along nicely, thank you very much. Darn it.

Visions of the Past: A Historical Perspective on Peace and War

Until the morning of September 11, people who believed in strong military, mighty intelligence services, and significant defense funding were an outdated species from the past who did not jump the hurdle of modernity. Since the end of World War II, our world has lived through peaceful times, except for eternal local wars and a […]

9-11: The New ‘Normal’

Change is the only constant. Last Tuesday’s terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center are changing everything for the United States and the world. Things are getting back to normal – but only because normal has moved. This Monday is very different from last Monday.

9-11: How Should the U.S. Respond?

I was in the subway – here in Montreal – and a woman from the Middle East was wearing a veil. This piece of clothing indicated her Muslim faith, and the other passengers saw that she was of Islamic origin. They were staring, nay, glaring at her. Do I really need to draw you a […]

‘It Can’t Happen Here’

The terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon was truly a shocking event for everyone, whether they knew people working at these places or not. I guess we all thought that the U.S. was immune to terrorist attacks such as this. Hopefully the government will learn from this how to better protect […]

Reflections on 9-11

What an extraordinary week. My condolences to the families and friends of those who died in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. My prayers for the victims – and for their families and friends who are alive. Life is continuing.

Why Can’t We Be Friends?

I actually had something related to Macs, but a little while before I was ready to send it, the events that took place on Tuesday happened. I felt it more appropriate to not write about iMacs at this time, but rather to write regarding the terrorist attacks. I will warn you now – this article […]

Class Act, Mac Web

At about 8:45 a.m. on Tuesday, September 11, 2001, a hijacked airliner smashed into one tower of the World Trade Center. Within two hours both towers had been hit and become piles of rubble. A third airplane caused massive damage to the Pentagon, and a fourth hijacked plane crashed in rural Pennsylvania.

9-11: More Questions than Answers

Was it just a coincidence that the terrorist attack on America took place on 9-11 – the phone number we dial in an emergency? Or was it only a coincidence that the attack took place on the first day of celebration of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year? Again, maybe the perpetrators just wanted to […]

Reclaiming the MHz Lead?

2001: It’s no secret that Apple (courtesy of Motorola) has been lagging quite badly in the Megahertz War. Stuck at 867 MHz, Apple has stood on the sidelines as Intel and AMD offerings have soared past the 1 GHz mark and have now reached 2 GHz.

Low End Linux?

Last week I was reading an article [no longer online] about how one county was saving several million dollars a year by implementing Linux on all it’s desktops. It wasn’t only the Information Technology department – it was secretaries, receptionists, firefighters, police officers, and other county employees.