News, Reviews and more from Australia's Macintosh Authority
News, Reviews and more from Australia's Macintosh Authority
Ever since its first baby words in 1984 the Mac has been a garrulous creature. Vintage users will remember with varying degrees of hilarity or annoyance the Talking Moose b. 1986 who would pop up randomly and add a pithy comment to lighten up a dreary work session. And he's still available. But be warned - he's an absolute time waster. If this piece has some weird grammar - blame the Moose! In fact I've just had to turn him off. In 1993 I invested in a Centris 660AV which also talked back. More importantly, I could talk to IT. In a rudimentary sort of way. " Open Claris Works." "Quit Word." And sometimes it would.
Keith White | May 8, 2008
Imagine you're a principal in our deep northern state, concerned to get the best for your staff. You note that the Queensland state government has introduced a "Computers for Teachers" program. Bravo. Good to see that this teaching and learning tool is being recognised as essential. The program gives an option for a Windows or a Mac laptop in a seemingly ecumenical way. I write “seemingly” because there are traps: traps that make it difficult — some would say impossible — to get a Mac for members of your staff.
Martin Levins | May 7, 2008
As I type this it's the second of May 2008, and just a few days after the release of Apple's updated iMacs with Intel Penryn processors. While much has been said on various sites about how the changes to the new models are fairly minor, the timing inevitably puts me in mind of the sixth of May 1998 — the day, ten years ago, when Apple first unveiled the iMac. The changes since then are, to put it mildly, pretty radical. Ten years ago there was only one iMac model. It was made of blue translucent plastic, incorporated a 15-inch CRT display, and had a PowerPC 750 (G3) processor manufactured by Motorola, running at 233MHz. It came with 32MB of RAM standard, and a massive 4GB hard drive — that's right, 4GB! How could you ever hope to fill all that? The operating system was a modified version of Mac OS 8.1, amended to include support for this newfangled USB thingy. It cost $US1299 (I don't recall the Australian price, but when I find it I'll update this).
Matthew JC. Powell | May 2, 2008
Since its establishment in 1970, the Palo Alto Research Center funded by Xerox has developed groundbreaking technologies, including Ethernet, the GUI (graphical user interface) and the computer mouse. Xerox failed to profit from some of those technologies, ultimately made successful by companies like Apple, which hired researchers from PARC to develop the GUI. Xerox instead made money from PARC projects such as laser printers, which fit the model of a document and imaging company. PARC was spun off from Xerox in 2002 and now focuses its research on technologies that it can commercialise through its parent or startup companies. The technologies it is researching include self-erasable paper, solid ink and intelligent documents. From 280 researchers during its heyday between the late 1980s and early 1990s, the lab now staffs about 165 researchers, who work with other Xerox researchers worldwide.
Agam Shah | May 1, 2008
Myvu has announced that its Crystal video goggles now work with the iPhone. The Crystal glasses require a new cable which costs $US24.95.
