In spite of its salacious, click-bait title, and apparently being written by fictitious baseball player Sidd Finch*, I read an article entltled How to Not Write Like an Asshole last year. In it, the author proposes that the way to become a great writer is to copy great writers. “When I say you should copy great writers, I mean you should literally copy their best work, word-for-word, and preferably by hand. This process is called copywork and it’s mind-numbingly simple. You barely have…
From Call-A.P.P.L.E. Magazine: January / February 2017 – Over the last 30 years or so of Steve Jobs life, many in the both the Apple community and the philanthropy driven community accused Steve of not giving or hoarding his billions of dollars in wealth. What they did not see was the reality that Steve was a giving person early and often. While Bill Gates has a public media blitz with every gift he has given to various causes over the…
NOTE: The article below was featured in my Working Smarter for Mac Users newsletter this week and is excerpted from my soon-to-be-released eBook, Working Smarter for Mac Users. It’s a delightful little ditty with a tip that can save you countless hours. ‘ Better still, the more you use this tip, the more time you’ll save. And, as you’ll see, it couldn’t be easier. And, last but not least, if you read all the way to the end, there’s a free gift for you! All…
Chris Morrison has a new writeup at his blog, “The Vintage Geek Blog”, that takes a look at all five of the versions of Bank Street Writer, a popular word processor during the 1980’s for the Apple II Computer. The overview includes versions of the program for the Apple IIe, Iic and IIgs and highlights some of the idiosyncrasies of each version. You can check it out at:https://vintagegeek.wordpress.com/2017/02/22/bank-street-writer-for-apple-ii-5-versions/
From the VCF: VCF West XII: August 5-6, 2017 VCF East is only six weeks away, but we’re already planning VCF West! The show will be August 5-6 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. Visit the show web site. Last year’s VCF West was our resurrection of the original VCF which ran from 1997-2007. This year, Vintage Computer Festival West XII will be even bigger! We have two additional rooms to use at the museum for speakers,…
Hello blog-readers! This entry starts with a short tip on drive failure rates that could be useful the next time you buy a hard drive. That’s followed by an excerpt from my new eBook, Working Smarter for Mac Users, an excerpt virtually guaranteed to make you more productive. Onward! Drive Failure Rates I don’t know how many people use Backblaze for their offsite backups, but it’s probably a lot (and it includes me). What I do know is that they had 73,653 hard…
The Jan/Feb 2017 issue of Call-A.P.P.L.E. magazine has been released to A.P.P.L.E. members. This 36-page full-color issue features many exclusive articles including: – Akalabeth: The Beginning of a Legacy– Steve Jobs: The Quiet Philanthropist– GBBS Pro: The Official Archive– The Apple II Web Server in BASIC– Uthernet II update– Freshly Squeezed Reviews: Swift Be My Playground A.P.P.L.E. members can log into their accounts and download the PDF magazine. If you are not yet a member, be sure to join through…
Axel Muhr from Germany has announced the release of his T2A2 card, his transputer project for the Apple II. Read his announcement: I’d just like to send you a quick heads-up, that my T2A2 (“Transputer to Apple II”) interface finally became a real PCB – 6 years after you ran a news-line about the prototype (http://a2central.com/2683/t2a2-apple-ii-transputer-interface/). Well sometimes it just takes a tad bit longer 😀http://www.geekdot.com/t2a2-for-everyone/I ran a first initial batch of 20 as I have no idea how big…
From the WozFest Website: I’m exceedingly pleased to announce that the next WOzFest, WOzFest PR#6, will be held on Saturday, April 29 2017, starting around midday Sydney time (UTC+10:00). The theme of the day will be “Preservation”, with a special emphasis on grass-roots preservation efforts. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say all retro-computer enthusiasts are preservationists of one kind or another – software, hardware, documentation, books: you name it, we preserve it! With that in mind, I’ve lined up three Skype…
This month on Open Apple, we round out the year with our annual tradition of sitting around a virtual table with some friends of the show, discussing whatever comes to mind. Mike and Quinn are joined by Jeremy Barr-Hyde, Jorma Honkanen, Kate Szkotnicki & Chris Torrence. We have a really fun mix of Apple II fans from all walks of life and all parts of the world this month. Sit down with us as we discuss our history with the…
As a first-time self-publisher, I’ve been reading a lot about building an email list and attracting new fans. And it turns out one of the big trends in marketing on the Internet today is to give away up to 95% of your content. I’m not sure how true it is, but I’m ready to give it a. try. All you have to do is sign up for my newsletter and I’ll give you not just one, not just two, but…
The Spy (metaphorically) pens this on Wednesday, February 1, 2017. Those two are the most commonly misspelled and mispronounced words on the calendar. That’s English for you, though. After all there are more than twenty correct pronunciations of the letter combination “ough” in English. No wonder students from other countries have such a tough time learning what we native North Americans absorb and store in our memories from infancy. Memory and storage have come a long way from the industry’s…
I’m so happy to have finished Working Smarter for Mac Users. All of the chapters are in production and the final iBook, Kindle, Nook, PDF, and print-to-order versions should be available by the end of February assuming no major hiccups. Now, I’ve got some very good news for you: You don’t have to buy my book. I know it sounds crazy but I want everyone to see it so I’m going to give away all or most of it right here in…
Convert CH Mach III Joystick to Apple II About a year ago I bought a very cheap CH Mach III PC joystick and found some schematics on the web for convert it to Apple II. Everything went fine, the conversion was successful and moved on, even sold the joystick to a fellow enthusiast. A couple of months ago I purchased again two PC CH Mach III joysticks, and started the conversion. This time I couldn’t remember the process and of…
The Apple II Scane website has added a slew of new items including the manual for Apple-Cillin II, another issue of The Apple Education Newsletter, and “A Personal Guide to Computers”. The documents are freely downloadable from the site and can be reached at: http://www.apple2scans.net
The Drop III Inches podcast returned this month with their first episode in 3 months. According to the posting on the Drop III Inches blog, We’re back, with an episode that was three months in the making. Mike and Paul talk (in November 2016) about the state of things in our Apple /// worlds, and then speak at some length with Don Burtis (in December 2016), who designed (among many other things) the Microsoft SoftCard III. Don Burtis, who is probably most…
Gerard Putter has announced the release of the latest version of his Virtual II emulator. Virtual II is a Mac OS X based Apple II emulator which features a bevy of features not found on other emulators including realistic sounds, multiple speed, print to PDF among others. Version 7.5.4 includes a number of changes and fixes including: A new option allows forwarding all Command-key combinations to the virtual machine as “Open Apple” key combinations, instead of being handled by the…
I am now accepting a limited number of new consulting clients… If you need help with your backup strategy or execution (or anything else on your Mac or iDevice), I’m happy to say I’m once again accepting new consulting clients. I’m pretty stoked because several of you have asked about it and I’ve had to turn you down. But, now that I’ve finished writing Working Smarter for Mac Users (in production; watch for it this March in fine eBook Stores everywhere) I…
Pre-Order Working Smarter for Mac Users Today and Save Up to $20 I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve finished the writing portion of Working Smarter for Mac Users. All I’ve got left is a final edit and production. So, if all goes well it, should be available in the iBook Store, Amazon.com (Kindle Store), and elsewhere by the end of February. In celebration (I don’t know about you, but I’m celebrating!), I’ve got a special deal for you: From now until the day it…
I began 2017 with a pair of columns reminding users that their hard drives are going to fail—absolutely and positively—and that the question isn’t if they’re going to fail, it’s when they’re going to fail. And, I urged them to back up their data or risk losing it forever. If you haven’t seen the columns already, you really should; you can find them here: Resolve to Back Up Your Mac in 2017 (Dec 28, 2016 ) & Backups on a Budget (Jan 04, 2017). Go…
