mschindler.com

Johnny Apple Hype

I’m starting off my New Year off with a second Christmas. That’s right! The Apple Marketing department has gotten me that worked up. By noon Monday (the time that Steve Jobs gives his keynote address at MacWorld Expo in San Francisco), I’ll be a bundle of twisted nerves and hopefully teary-eyed and/or vomiting by the speech’s end.

The countdown to the event has been hyped on Apple’s website with an approach so cockey and so wonderfully inciting that it’s hard to imagine a disappoint could await. But you never do know with my favorite computer maker. Hopefully, lessons were learned with the apparent over-hype that surrounded the
iPod. That, we can at least blame somewhat on the rumor sites and some derelict predictors themselves for thinking, well… a little too different.

But nontheless, in the spirit of good fun that most Mac Addicts are enjoying around this time, I’m willing to lay out some predictions of my own. Let’s call it Christmas list #2.

My magic crystal iBall tells me that a few things are likely to happen, all of them adding up to the “Way Beyond” expectation they’ve been promoting.

1. The iMac will have a major revision. No big surprise there.
2. A new G5 processor architecture will be introduced. It will kick major ass.
3. A new FireWire dubbed GigaWire will be built into a new line of PowerMacs and/or PowerBooks.
4. It will be complemented in the AirPort base station and feature the ability to transfer data wirelessly.
5. Mac OS X running on Intel will be demonstrated, but no one will care.
6. Adobe will announce a Mac OS X compatible version of Photoshop and top off the keynote with the stunning news that Apple, Adobe, and Disney have merged.
7. Mike will call Liz to ask if it’s okay to start adding to the AppleLoan already in effect.
8. Mike will be teary-eyed and/or vomiting

We’ll see how far off the mark I am in a few days. Sweet anticipation.

Mac OS X Unleashed

My new favorite book has 1,464 pages and I intend to read every bit of it… eventually. It’s called Mac OS X Unleashed by John Ray and Will C. Ray. Never has there been a book this robust for the Mac. Hell, never has there been an Operating System this robust for the Mac either. That’s how over a thousand pages of text can only be considered an introduction.

Simply put, the Mac is back. I am a web developer and a general Mac enthusiast and I work in a mostly corporate environment. I know all too well the sentiment of disregard the PC hegemony feels towards the Mac platform. Most think of Apple as a company that’s constantly on the verge of distinction, an uttering almost as clichè as the evil empire status begotten Microsoft. But fortunately, years after the personal computer has entered into millions upon millions of homes, only the latter happens to be true. And this time, the Rebel Alliance might stand a fighting chance against the Emperor, er, I mean… Bill Gates.

The reason for this lies in the robust nature of Mac OS X itself, the UNIX-based overhaul of what is arguably the easiest, most gorgeous, and, yes, most advanced computer environment ever conceived. The brothers Ray (no, I’m not sure that they’re related) cover the basic groundwork of Mac OS X with great diligence, spending appropriate time on the more advanced details. They touch on the basics, like working with the Dock, then move their way into the dark cavernous reaches of the sophisticated UNIX underpinning. They do this with a keen awareness, wisely sensing that this is new ground for most Mac users—even self-proclaimed aficionados such as myself.

This book contains answers to nearly every question one might have about the new OS. After hearing David Pogue not too long ago on the Mac Show Live, a net-casted radio broadcast on all things Macintosh, claiming his new book to be the only one on the market covering Mac OS 10.1, I have to wonder if he even knows this book exists. Both books were at my local Borders. Perusing for a second, I could see that Mr. Pogue’s Mac OS X: the Missing Manual does cover 10.1, and I’m certain with great accuracy, but Mac OS X Unleashed seems to cover it much better, spannning a much greater depth and exploring everything, from configuring Apache to providing a Terminal command-line reference for the newly uninitiated who have, up until now, had permanent residence in the land of GUI.

Of course, casual users will probably find David Pogue’s book more in line with the commercial basics of X, and there’s nothing wrong with that. After all, not everybody uses their computer like a developer. Nor do they have to, by any means, with Mac OS X.

I’m certain that this book is destined to become the most dog-eared of my computer manual collection within a few months. The breadth of information provided in it is just outstanding. My urge to explore the new OS, from the top-most layer of GUI goodness to the far reaches of a new command-line interface, has now become almost too impossible to contain.

Books like this, with their careful attention to details (the chapter tabbing is a wonderfully useful touch), are testament to the fact that the Mac is quickly becoming a viable competitor to Windows, and even Linux. The system hailing from Cupertino is stable, attractive, easy to use, and expandable to undreamt of capacities by wiser geeks than me out the yin-yang. I am in awe at the nearly Utopian effort Apple has put into making Mac OS X the most open and standards compliant Operating System available — appealing to both die hard developers and everyday consumers. I don’t think it’s any risk at all to say that Mac OS X will be one of the technologies to watch in 2002. The magnitude of its power is just too overwhelming. And I simply can’t wait for whatever announcements are made at the MacWorld Expo in San Francisco this coming January.

With a book as in depth and useful as Mac OS X Unleashed, it’s no surprise that the power can now only be, well… unleashed.

May the Force be with you.

Hoot-y Holidays

Merry Christamas, Happy Hannukah, and whatever else I’ve forgotten [insert politically correct holiday here]. Liz and I are having a marvelous time celebrating the holidays, but of course, so are you. So I wouldn’t expect you to be wasting your time here at this web page. Me? I’m going to go watch some It’s a Wonderful Life without any thought of irony or sarcasm in my mind.

Seriously, every one stay safe and happy this holiday! We miss all of our friends and family that we can’t see because of distance and such. Liz and I wish all the warmth in the world your way and hope to see you soon.

Being Kazimir Malevich

No, this isn’t a pitch for an off-the-wall movie about the inside of the Russian avant-garde painter, Kazimir Malevich‘s mind. If so, there’d be rightful panic in the streets. The guy was a case study in wishful revolutionary thinking and a true artistic innovator of conceptualism, only to be ker-plunked by
rigid Soviet power in the end. Shame.

It is, however, a near-end celebration for Liz’s fall graduate semester studies. One of her last projects, an educational packet tour de force on comrade Malevich is in the process of printing right now. Then tomorrow, it’s off to DC for some final exams.

Truth be told, I’m all proof read out but not nearly as plain poofed out as Liz. She’s put in a long hard semester, which everyone knows didn’t get off to the best start. I’m so proud of her this semester that I can hardly find the words. Two more semesters to go until she’s mastered her education.

She’s already mastered me, but most of that’s not fit for print.

It’s Miller Time Again

Replacing some of my comic book geek status with a more generalized computer nerdhood as of late, it came as a surprise when a mutually interested friend of mine told me that Frank Miller, the man who caused a surge of interest in the comic book genre back in the 1980′s, is once again deconstructing the Batman (Hat Tip: Brendan). Admirers of this seminal creator will be pleased to pre-order
The Dark Knight Strikes Again, just in time for the Holidays.

He made heroically flawed characters almost as trendy as Alan Moore did with Watchmen. It will be interesting to see how the interpretation lives on as Miller the author undoubtedly contends with foreseeable factors — the current political climate, the daunting popularity of the once kitsch super-hero he helped to legitimize, and his own legendary status as a Postmodern hero.