Author: Rick Sutcliffe

Opinions expressed here are entirely the author's own, and no endorsement is implied by any community or organization to which he may be attached. Rick Sutcliffe, (a. k. a. The Northern Spy) is professor of Computing Science and Mathematics at Canada's Trinity Western University. He has been involved as a member or consultant with the boards of several community and organizations, and participated in developing industry standards at the national and international level. He is a co-author of the Modula-2 programming language R10 dialect. He is a long time technology author and has written two textbooks and nine alternate history SF novels, one named best ePublished SF novel for 2003. His columns have appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers (paper and online), and he's a regular speaker at churches, schools, academic meetings, and conferences. He and his wife Joyce have lived in the Aldergrove/Bradner area of BC since 1972.

The Northern Spy — From WWDC Part II

Rick Sutcliffe
Posted by: Rick Sutcliffe Date: May 23, 2001
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The feedback sessions at WWDC provide some of the most interesting and informative times. The VP event this year was a highlight. Many of the questions centered around education, and Tim Cook, Senior VP, Worldwide Operations took much of the heat. Why? Understanding higher education goes past price and compatibility issues. There was once a weight of Apple presence at the university level, but no longer (especially in Canada), and this is the nub of market share loss. You see,…

The Northern Spy — From WWDC Part I

Rick Sutcliffe
Posted by: Rick Sutcliffe Date: May 21, 2001
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When is a fireside chat not? When the fire is played on a giant video screen and the intimate setting includes thousands of software developers occupying every chair in a space large enough to be an airplane hanger. The jCEO did announce an end to CRT monitors, price reductions on the current LCD models, a new 17″ version, and lots of rah rah for OS X, much of it, I think, justified. Perhaps the only surprise was that OS X…

The Northern Spy — TiBook!

Rick Sutcliffe
Posted by: Rick Sutcliffe Date: May 1, 2001
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May 2001 We’ve got a PowerBook 540C that’s been all over the world on trips to standards meetings. It turned heads many years ago on a European junket, but despite 12M of memory, a 1.2G hard drive and a Power PC 117MHz processor upgrade, a machine of this vintage can’t do more than walk programs like PowerPoint any more. The thrashing back and forth to the virtual memory gets on one’s nerves, and the audience becomes inclined to snicker–until I…

The Northern Spy — Where’s the Fire(wire)

Rick Sutcliffe
Posted by: Rick Sutcliffe Date: February 1, 2001
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February-March 2001 I decided it was time to upgrade my trusty old 8600/200/(G3 card of course) machines with Firewire/USB PCI cards, in anticipation of the technology’s bright new future. Call it an adventure. After spending some time browsing the links right here on The Northern Spy, I settled on two Orange Micro cards, a SCSI+Firewire combo and a Firewire+USB combo, with a 30M pocket VST Firewire/USB drive as the first consumer on the 1394 food chain. The Orange SCSI card…

The Northern Spy — Say, Professor, Where’s the Market Going

Rick Sutcliffe
Posted by: Rick Sutcliffe Date: December 1, 2000
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December 2000 Glad you asked, Nellie. With Apple’s stock down, the whole North American economy slowing, market share in the doldrums, the educational rep fiasco, and inventory a tad on the high side, the naysayers have been snapping at brand-new CEO Steve Jobs’ heels like a pack of punk piranhas. Things will get worse now the company’s announced a projected loss. But fact is, the company’s worth more than its market valuation just now, so if I had a few…

The Northern Spy — Nellie and The Pirates

Rick Sutcliffe
Posted by: Rick Sutcliffe Date: September 1, 1983
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“Hey, sir, look at this!”. That is one thing that you can rely on about Nellie Hacker. When she has something to say she just bursts right in. “I thought you were typing up one of my articles tonight.” I shot back to the other end of my lab where Nellie sat hunched over the computer keyboard. “Oh don’t worry, I keep track of my time. I’m finished, so I thought I would boot up this disk I got from…