Category: General Tech

Speaking of old Mac stuff, check out this essay by Cabel Sasser, co-founder of Panic, which just released a new version of their excellent FTP client, Transmit:

It’s not to say that Panic, as a company, will shy away from making a Windows application. Hey, if it rakes in the big bucks, we’ll do it! But we’ll always be Macintosh first, and Macintosh at heart. The users are consistently more supportive, intelligent, less likely to use ALL CAPS in beta reports, and excited about products. I mean, our next product is an FTP program, for gods sake. Not exactly pure applicationary sex, but because our product is the best FTP program the Macintosh has ever seen (hey, it’s my job to plug) and takes a fresh approach, loads of people have expressed interest with little press. That’s what we love, and that’s why we’re glad we went with our intuition.

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Sebastian’s classic setup:

I use the fabulous Word 5.1 for writing business letters. After so many newer versions of MS Word I still consider this to be the best version ever. I also use my LC for Retro-gaming, bringing back memories of all those great games we used to play day and night during the nineties (Sim City 2000, Diamonds, Civilization and many many more). Right now I’ve been thinking of bringing my LC online to use it as an e-mail machine, but it’s not easy to come by the necessary hardware for a fair price. Also, I’m a bit disheartened by the fact that there is no up-to-date 68k Browser like Classilla. Any volunteers for a port?

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John Rust:

Ten years from now, there will be no need for a “real computer” as we know it now. Devices like the iPad will be capable of all the high-end tasks we now need fancy computers for, and I look forward to using a touch version of Final Cut Pro, despite the small screen of the iPad. The already-fast hardware of the iPad will only get faster, and will eventually match the capability of desktop computers.

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Dean Hachamovitch, the General Manager over Internet Explorer at Microsoft c himes in on the future of the web:

The future of the web is HTML5. Microsoft is deeply engaged in the HTML5 process with the W3C. HTML5 will be very important in advancing rich, interactive web applications and site design. The HTML5 specification describes video support without specifying a particular video format. We think H.264 is an excellent format. In its HTML5 support, IE9 will support playback of H.264 video only.

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Wired:

Brian J. Hogan, a 21-year-old resident of Redwood City, California, says although he was paid by tech site Gizmodo, he believed the payment was for allowing the site exclusive access to review the phone. Gizmodo emphasized to him “that there was nothing wrong in sharing the phone with the tech press,” according to his attorney Jeffrey Bornstein.

He seems to be throwing Gizmodo under the bus, unsurprisingly.

This part is interesting:

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The WSJ:

Mr. Narayan says he’s for “letting customers decide,” but that the multi-platform world will “eventually prevail.”

None of his arguments in the article are exceptionally strong.

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Jobs, in an open letter posted this morning:

Flash was created during the PC era – for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short.

While Jobs’ open letters are rare, they are always powerful. Even if you disagree with his assessment of Flash, it’s worth a read.

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Adobe Labs has posted a preview release of the next version of Flash, which will take advantage of Apple’s new hardware decoding in Snow Leopard. Here’s the scoop straight from Adobe:

Gala allows developers to preview Flash Player with hardware acceleration of H.264 video on supported Mac computers equipped with the following GPUs: NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, GeForce 320M or GeForce GT 330M. The hardware acceleration functionality in the Gala preview release of Flash Player is expected to be included in an update following the release of Flash Player 10.1.

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Engadget has the details:

The word is that Palm’s existing hardware roadmap is basically untouched at this point by this acquisition, but the good news on the HP end of things is that the company sees webOS as a “prized asset,” and they intend to “scale it across multiple connected devices.” That sounds like tablets to us, and HP didn’t beat back that assumption. On the Palm hardware end, Jon is very fond of saying “scale,” referring to the money and manufacturing resources at HP’s disposal, but he also says that he sees Palm working hand in hand with HP on devices.

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Wired:

Much to the chagrin of the Recording Industry Association of America, internet users quickly caught on to digital music as a free alternative to paying for albums. In fear of declining album sales, record labels filed lawsuit after lawsuit against online services Napster and MP3.com for hosting digital music, as well as Diamond Multimedia, a Korean company that released an MP3 player called the Rio. Clearly, for the recording industry, change wasn’t easy.

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Kara Swisher:

Apple CEO and Co-founder Steve Jobs will appear at the eighth D: All Things Digital, in an interview on the opening night, kicking off our tech and media conference that will also include famed Hollywood director James Cameron, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, among others.

Too bad I want to stab my computer every time I see Kara Swisher on the screen.

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Benj Edwards has a great piece over at Macworld about the importance of the LaserWriter. It really did a lot to shape Apple into the company it is today.

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