Category: Guest Post

Kevin Lipe, in a follow-up post to his Pocket 8086 series here on 512:

I’d been Agenda-curious for a long time, but never tried to actually use it for real. I booted it up on my Pocket 8086, watched cards crawl into place, watched queries resolve themselves into slices of sense, and realized with annoying clarity: none of the modern “task management” apps I’ve used—not Todoist, not OmniFocus, Amazing Marvin, Remember the Milk, not Microsoft To Do—could do any of this. Not really. Agenda wasn’t “a to-do list.” It was a cognitive environment, a place where items could belong to more than one thing at once, where priorities didn’t march in a line but emerged from the way pieces related to one another.

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MS-DOS Correspondent Kevin Lipe reporting again from the trailing edge of computing. When I was last with you, we discussed the Pocket 8086. If you don’t remember what the Pocket 8086 is, or who I am, or what any of this has to do with everyone’s favorite Apple blog, I’d refer you to part one of that series, as it will sort of answer maybe two of those questions.

I was pretty ambivalent about whether the Pocket 8086 was good at what it was trying to do, because I didn’t really think there was much of a goal for the project other than “hey this is cool.” But as someone who always loves a good deep dive into old software tools to see what I can learn about how to work with new ones, I have to admit that I felt a strong urge to see if I could actually find some thing to use it for.

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Editor’s Note: This is a guest post written by my buddy Kevin, and is the first in a series covering a weird and wonderful corner of retrocomputing.

I’m Kevin Lipe, 512 Pixels’ somewhat-official MS-DOS correspondent. Long time reader; second-time guest post.

I’ve only ever written for this site about software that’s as old as I am, and this series will be no exception.

Stephen and I have been friends for a very long time (ask him about buying forkbombr.net from me for two slices of pizza in 2008), and for most of that time, I’ve been obsessed with retrocomputing in all its various forms and fashions.

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Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by my friend Steven Aquino. He is a freelance tech journalist based in San Francisco, CA, where he covers all things Apple accessibility. His work has appeared in iMore, TechCrunch, Macworld, and more.

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The iPhone has been such a revolutionary, life-changing device that remembering what life was like before it existed feels almost like trying to imagine the Stone Age. The advent of the iPhone in 2007 was a seminal moment in technology history; it’s truly a once-in-a-lifetime product that redefined not only smartphones but computers in general. Almost ten years later, it still never ceases to amaze me that everyone nowadays carries with them a lightweight, always-connected supercomputer everywhere they go. A supercomputer, to paraphrase John Gruber, in our freaking pockets!

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Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Joe Caiati. Joe works as an IT professional in New York City. He maintains a weblog called dot info and calls Twitter his second home.

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Apple has gone through a cultural change. Yosemite and iOS 8’s tight integration was a large indicator of that. When Forstall and Browett were ousted, Apple promised an increase in collaboration throughout its teams. Many didn’t know exactly what that was going to be, but it’s become clear that Tim Cook wants less compartmentalization and more interactivity between all Apple channels – including retail.

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With the help of Chris’ Gonzales and Herbert, Shawn Blanc has put together a great list of games for your favourite iOS devices.

These could be perfect if you’re looking for something to play whilst waiting for Santa to arrive.

A couple of my personal favourites on this list are Jetpack Joyride and Ridiculous Fishing. It’s a shame they left Peggle off the list though. That’s a strong recommendation from me.

This is a guest post by Myke Hurley.

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Many people know that I am a big pen and paper nerd, but my nerdiness for such things extends way beyond normal realms, when it comes to Field Notes.

I love these 3-1/2” wide, by 5-1/2” tall notebooks with a passion. I am a colours subscriber (recently-renewed) and a hunter of rare editions.

I keep a Field Notes Notebook on my person every day and would be lost without them.

But it’s about so much more than the book itself. There is a level of care and thought put in to each design, that is perfectly encapsulated in this video by Jim Coudal. This is why I love Field Notes.

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This is how I plan to roll around WWDC next year.

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It’s Myke here, filling in for Stephen whilst he’s away this week.

On episode 27 of The Prompt – without our Southern Belle – Federico and I discuss iOS7 design and accessibility options, the new Mac Pro and Federico’s new iPhone.

Sponsored by Squarespace (use code TALLYHO12 for 10% off)

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This month’s post is by my friend Thomas Brand. Thomas writes at Egg Freckles, and is running in the St. Jude Marathon on my son’s team. You can learn more and donate here.

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The Quadra 605 was the Power Macintosh Cube of the Quadra line. A miniature 32-bit workstation, with limited expandability but powerful specs. Like the Cube it came in a low-profile case that was never used again on any Mac. Unlike the Cube, it was available for a low-price almost anyone could afford. At $900 USD, the 605 was the Quadra for the rest of us.

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This is a guest post from Myke Hurley, the podcaster at 5by5 with the British accent.

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Over the last three and a half years, I have grown from hobbyist to semi-professional podcaster.

Most podcasters produce their shows in their spare time; there are very few podcasters who are currently making a passable living from this. However, this is changing. More money than ever is available to podcasters with popular shows.

Personally, I expect to be making enough money within the next year to be able to do this full time and leave my job.

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This month’s entry is written by Jared Sorge. Jared’s been a Mac user since 1st grade and sold them from 1999–2003 for an Authorized Reseller in the Seattle area. Currently he’s a developer of FileMaker and iOS apps. You can find him on Twitter and ADN as @jsorge, or at his blog over at jsorge.net.

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image via Apple PR

In January 2001, Apple brought out the Titanium PowerBook G4. This was a landmark introduction that would influence generations of designs across the PC industry (and still holds up well today).

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