512 Pixels

It’s been pretty quiet on my YouTube channel, but I’m kicking off 2019 with something fun: A look at the most beloved notebook in Mac history, the 12-inch PowerBook G4.

This week on Ungeniused, we are ringing in the new year:

Every January 1, New Yorkers count in the new year by dropping a ball. As it turns out, that’s is more complicated than it would seem.

Turns out, that time ball is way heavier than it looks.

My thanks to our sponsor for this episode:

• ExpressVPN: High-Speed, Secure & Anonymous VPN Service. Get 3 months free with a 1-year package.

Apple Support:

Let’s say you would like to know what week of the year a certain date falls on. FileMaker Pro and ClarisWorks both have a WeekofYear function which returns the number of weeks from January 1 based on a supplied date. If you want to calculate the number of weeks starting at a date other than January 1, as in a fiscal year beginning date, you can use the following calculation given your file contains the field ProjectDate:

Week of Year (calculation, number result) = INT ((ProjectDate - Date (3,1,Year (ProjectDate)))/7)+1

The Date function is where the start date is formed. In this example, the start date is 3/1 of the year of the ProjectDate.

Alex Blumberg interviewed Ron Johnson on Gimlet’s podcast, Without Fail. It’s a super interesting conversation about Johnson’s role in creating Apple’s retail arm, his time at J.C. Penny (and how that didn’t go to planned) as well his new company. It is a fantastic interview and I enjoyed every moment of it.

On this week’s episode of Connected, we reviewed 2018, including our predictions from way back in January, and talked about what news ended up being important in the long run.

My thanks to our sponsors:

• Pingdom: Start monitoring your websites and servers today. Use offer code CONNECTED to get 30% off.
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• Kane 11: Premium socks in precisely your size. Get 20% off your first order.

Fifty years ago, while aboard Apollo 8, William Anders took what is perhaps the most iconic photo of the 20th century:

Dubbed Earthrise, it was the first image of our entire planet taken by someone not on it.

Anders has written about the image over on Space.com:

One of my assignments was to photograph the lunar surface to facilitate the evaluation of potential landing sites. I brought a 250 mm lens to bring that alien terrain into better view. On our fourth orbit, the spacecraft was oriented in a different direction. A startling image captivated the three of us.

Earth, 238,900 miles away, ascended above the barren lunar surface. Compelled by that vision, we scrambled for cameras. I deviated from the rigid NASA flight plan. Every photographic exposure had been determined in advance but I had to capture our view with the long lens on color film.

One of those shots became known as “Earthrise.”

Apollo 8 not only gave us the first images of our home suspended in the darkness of space, but proved we could go to the moon. On their way back, the crew provided the world with a message of hope:

William Anders:

We are now approaching lunar sunrise, and for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

James Lovell:

And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

Frank Borman:

And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called the Seas: and God saw that it was good.

And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas – and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.

On this week’s Upgrade, Jason and Myke are joined by the spirits of Apple’s past, present, and future.

I’ll let you guess which one I played.

This is great.

This month in my MacStories column, I wrote about something fun:

Apple’s use of magnets in its products go back further than the most recent iPad Pro, with its keyboard and Apple Pencil. Magnets allow Apple to do things without the need of mechanical components, keeping the design of its products clean and streamlined. Here are a few of my favorites over the years.

On this week’s Connected:

Stephen priced out a MacBook Air, Myke almost got a new iPad stand and Federico reviewed Launch Center Pro 3.

This is our last regular episode for the year. On December 26th, we’ll be talking about the biggest (and smallest) stories of 2018.

My thanks to our sponsors this week:

• Pingdom: Start monitoring your websites and servers today. Use offer code CONNECTED to get 30% off.
• Luna Display: The only hardware solution that turns your iPad into a wireless display for your Mac. Use promo code CONNECTED at checkout for 10% off.
• StoryWorth: The easiest way to share your story.

Joe Rossignol:

Today marks the fifth anniversary of Apple’s last update to the Mac Pro, as reflected in the MacRumors Buyer’s Guide.

Apple released the second-generation Mac Pro on December 19, 2013, starting at $2,999, and it remains that price today after some reshuffling of configurations despite having over five year old hardware, including up to a 12-core Intel Xeon E5 processor, 64GB of ECC RAM, 1TB of SSD storage, and dual AMD FirePro D700 GPUs.

I wrote about this machine back in May, and re-reading it, I’m sad all over again about how things turned out.

This episode marks the end of Query. It’s been a fun podcast do, both with Serenity and Mikah, but it was time for it to end. If you listened to the show, thank you for being part of something weird and kind of different from what I’ve done in the past.