Category: Columns
December 2013 Following up on comments in this space last month, the Spy still has had none of the issues reported by others who’ve adopted Mavericks. Apart from the need to upgrade a handful of programs, all continues smooth. However, iTim’s elves are busy at work releasing betas of the first incremental upgrade to fix issues some have seen. Of greater interest might be what they’re doing with system XI. And, the reader will recall the troubles reported here with …
The Open Apple Podcast, run by Ken Gagne and Mike Maginnis features Bill Martens of A.P.P.L.E. this month. Discussions about the latest news in the Apple world, Apple II software, preservation and other related topics took place. Brian Wiser also joined the trio of long time Apple II afficandos to discuss his and Bill’s WOZPAK Special Edition release as well as other forthcoming projects. You can listen to the podcast in its entirety on the Open Apple website at: http://www.open-apple.net/2013/11/02/show-032-martens-history-founders-wozpak/
The wave of Apple’s future was supposed to be a simplification of the user interface, a de-skeuomorphism of visual elements, and a unification of MacOS and iOS. The most recent version of the latter went a long way toward this mark However, MacOS 10.9, a.k.a. Mavericks, is, on the whole, a stay-the-course mild enhancement of Mountain Lion 10.8, nothing radical. Thos who want radical change will have to wait for MacOS 11. The important changes are in the upgrade process…
October 2013 “Hi Nellie.” I didn’t need to turn around. The sound of her cowboy boots and a certain air of eau de geek that pervades her space tipped me to her presence. “What’ya workin’ on?” “This column.” “Still into self referentialism as always, so no doubt you’ll quote us quoting us.” Lest we get tied up in logical knots, I ignored this sally. “So what’s got your shirt in a knot today, Nellie.” She rarely visited unless she wanted…
September 2013 A very long time ago even by non-Internet standards, the Spy advised people owning stock in typewriter companies to sell. In that same era he opined “collect postage stamps young woman, for soon they won’t make them any more”. To the former, anyone under thirty-five might today say “what’s a typewriter?” The Spy was right. But to the latter, he was only half so. True, anyone under ten today is likely to say the same thing about stamps…
In the aftermath of WWDC, the Spy notes his reader saw it here first–a modular multi-core MacPro, that is, a closed box with all expandability through external ports. He thought an all-in-one design possible, and didn’t foresee the cylinder, but rightly saw the demise of the tower more than a year ago. Doubled Thunderbolt speed will be nice, and it will be great to get the desktop machine back on the desk from the floor. With that kind of connection,…
When all is said and done with the usual caveat that most is said and little done, people make decisions with their emotions and guts, not their brains. This has been noted here before in connection with the stock market and the purchase of cheap imitation PCs (rather than the real thing–Macs). Last month’s Provincial election here in British Columbia illustrates the same principle in the practice of politics. (Note: in Canada, municipal, Provincial, and Federal elections are independent of…
A sudden spate of email from last October last week should have been a clue that not all was well with the Spy’s own company virtual server, where he has most of his mail accounts and the billing system for Arjay Web Services (WebNameHost and WebNameSource). Unfortunately, he failed to investigate until the following day, after customers complained about receiving bills they had already paid, even having their accounts suspended (all they on his big dedicated production server). A few…
The first is more of an update than a review. Ubuntu 13.4 is out. For those into running Linux this has been a fairly successful update. Although I haven’t tried it there does not appear to be many complaints. Mint 15 (derived from this version of Ubuntu) should be out toward the end of May. The second is a program called Simutrans found at http://freecode.com. Alternatively it is available in the repositories if there is access to a Debian based…
There is no truth to the rumour – that Apple has become a third bidder in the suddenly interesting battle to gain control of Dell. Michael Dell himself began the process by trying to take the company private under his own personal leadership, but has hit a roadblock in the form of a second suitor who would likely show him the door. Apple was said to be ready to close the company, wind up its affairs, turn the assets into…
I was asked this afternoon by my friend what I thought of the possibility of Apple actually making an iWatch. While many folks seem to be clamouring over themselves to get one, none of them have thought much of the actual financials of taking on such an undertaking. My question is more do I need one? To answer this question truthfully, we must first take a look at the history of the computer watch in the real world. Many movies…
The 25th edition of the Open Apple Podcast is now up and available for immediate enjoyment. This month’s issue of the podcast features Egan Ford talking about the Apple Game Server Online and the state of Abandonware. Open Apple #25 (Mar 2013): Egan Ford, 8088, Voyager, and abandonware
Apple’s stock continues to behave strangely, but with more explanation in recent weeks. Seems a couple of large hedge funds sold billions in Apple shares over a short period, driving the price down. More recently, another fund manager speculated on a stock split, which caused a short rally in the shares. Yet another wants to extract cash from Apple’s hoard into his own pocket. All these moves are both short-sighted and self-serving. Indeed, it seems to the Spy that any…
The great shift in the computing devices market is well under way, with sales of desktop units tanking, even of laptops flattening out (sic), while those of iPads (there is no tablet market) boom. In this milieu, there are some interesting byplays. First, sales of Windows machines have been hit far harder than those of Macs, and Windows 8 has not helped either Microsoft or the generic box assemblers. Indeed, uptake appears worse than that of Vista, when it first…
The Coast show had Chris Langan as a guest, making a huge deal out of his super IQ, which has been measured to be somewhere between 190 and 210, and billing him as the smartest man in America…possibly the world. I’d never given my IQ much thought. When the RPI Psychology Department gave me an IQ test, they said my IQ was somewhere over 200, beyond where they could measure. So, big deal. When I read about…
While we’ve been being entertained by TV, ball games, movies, radio, the media, and so on, we’ve been secretly being giga-scammed. Fortunately, with the web we have a low cost way to communicate that’s not yet controlled by the government or big business. My hope is that by getting the word out on these scams we’ll be able to get people to recognize what’s been going on and recruit others to help us end the scams. I’ve done…
Some analysts are upbeat about RIM but the Spy doesn’t understand why. The new Blackberry and OS are too little and too late to make any difference. Colour this one more or less DOA, along with the readers’ choice of Sony, Sharp, and Panasonic. Both the smartphone and large appliance electronic markets are over-saturated with brands that are no longer viable. Others have become downbeat about Apple. Well, the Spy can understand that the stock may have entered a more…
Even before I heard the boots clunk on the table behind me I didn’t need to turn around to know who’d dropped in. Some people carry an unmistakable air about them. Besides, regular people knock, even though the door’s always open. Not Nellie Hacker. She, BTW for the new reader, helped me found this column back in the day. Well, at least she doesn’t wear spurs. “Hi, Nellie. It’s been a while since you popped by to see your old…
More on the fifteen inch retina MacBook Pro The Spy has had this machine a month now, and experience confirms his first impressions. The machine is computationally fast, though not spectacularly so. Having an SSD for a drive makes more of a difference than any internal changes. The display is crisp, better than anything he’s had in a portable before, and the glossy finish not nearly as annoying as such once were, but the improvements are not as revolutionary as…
Last Monththe Spy recounted his adventures with changing his Linux server to a bigger badder machine running a much more recent OS. This month, he bit yet another migration bullet, moving into a new laptop. Why an issue? Software. The longtime reader may recall the iconoclast Spy has continued to use good old reliable Eudora for his mail client, lo these many years. Well, cannot do that even with Lion, much less Mountain Lion. BTW, the new machine is a…
