Category: Apple

“Mac father” Jef Raskin Passes Away

Jef Raskin
I saw this on Boing Boing today:

“Mac father” Jef Raskin: in memoriam
Personal computing pioneer Jef Raskin passed away this weekend.

Raskin is best known for starting the Macintosh project at Apple in the late seventies, though his later career as an expert in computer interfaces was overshadowed by controversy over who ‘fathered’ the Macintosh. Though Raskin conceived of the Mac, he was usurped by Steve Jobs, who put his own distinctive mark on the machine we know today.

Link to obit post on CultOfMac.

Update: BoingBoing’s founder Mark Frauenfelder says:

This is really sad. I saw Jef last fall, and he seemed to be in good health. Jef wrote many wonderful ideas for me when I was an editor at Wired. He also wrote some really funny (and true) stories for the print edition of bOING bOING under the nom de plume “El Jefe.” He was a wonderful artist, musician, and inventor. He’ll be missed.

Mac father” Jef Raskin: in memoriam
Google News Links

(obit, apple, Jef Raskin)

Sony and Apply are at it Again

This could be a pretty neat deal if it goes through. With Apple having iTunes and a health market base and Sony owning the rights to lots of films a new service could stand to make quite a killing. Lets call it ‘iVids’ or better yet, ‘iFilm’. You see that your favorite film has just been released on DVD. Now you could buy it for $24.99 ($21.99 at Costco) at the local mega store or you could hop online and download a copy of it for only $9.99. Hum, well it would be nice to have the case and a fancy DVD to put on the shelf, but you live for today, the now, you want instant gratification.So, you fire up your computer and web on over to the Apple iFilm store check it out. You are given a few options like do you want just the movie, or the one with the directors cut track and interviews with the cast? That will cost you $3.00 more, but what the hell, its still less than if you drove across town for it. You hit the ‘buy me button’ and the download start. Good thing it’s been compressed with that nifty Apple H.254 codex, the whole thing is only a few hundred megs. Your glad you won’t have to watch it on your computer monitor because know that you can burn a copy to play on your TV right from iFilm because its got that sweet ‘Burn’ button up on the menu. And speaking of menus, you get those with the film too. Some smartie figured a way of converting a DVD menu into a play list for your computers media player. Print a little cover art off the iFilm store and your all set for another classy movie in your home library.Yeah, life is good.
Ok, I can dream can’t I?
(BTW, this is what my boss and I talked about at lunch today. See what a quick visit to the local Apple store can do to you? And yes,I know that iVids and iFilm are real sites and not owned by Apple…)
AppleInsider | Merrill Lynch speculates on potential Sony-Apple partnership

A Mac Mini Enthusiast Network

Bring Your Own Display, Keyboard, and Mouse
So you ran out and waited in line for the spanking new spiffy Mac Mini. Now you have the thing and your wanting to ‘stress the envelope’ and see what you can make this baby do but you don’t know where to look. If your not one to blaze new trails and risk releasing the magic smoke from your new toy, BYODKM (Bring Your Own Display, Keyboard, and Mouse) is the place to start. From overclocking to mounting one in your car, BYODMK has information for the modder and power user alike. Even if you don’t own a Mini this site is worth a look.
BYODKM.net – A Mac Mini Enthusiast Network