512 Pixels

Will Hopkins just took some friction out my workflow.

via Devir Kahan

This week, Myke and Stephen discuss the Matias Quiet Pro, then Stephen rants about Apple’s new iMac.

• Matias Quiet Pro

• Microsoft Natural Ergonomic 4000

• Microsoft Comfort 5000

• Shawn Blanc: Clicky Keyboards

• The 512 Podcast 013 - The World’s Oldest Profession

• Ulnar nerve decompression

• 512px: Inside The New iMac

• New iMac iFixit Teardown

• Wiha

• Wiha Master Technicians Set

• Ars: Taking the new iMac out of it’s weird-shaped box

Who wants this type of thing?

The weird little social recommendation network is closing its doors after being bought by Yahoo:

The update to the venerable Mac OS X editor includes Retina support and lots of other goodies. The in-app update mechanism seems to be falling over the moment, but this link will download the DMG directly.

Let’s face it, we’re heading into the worst time of year for getting work done. Everyone is getting ready for [insert holiday of choice here].

It seems like Janice is always out of the office. Bob’s coming in late every day. And if Kelly sings [insert holiday song of choice here] one more time, you’re going to go insane. But you can’t work from home – your shared drive is locked down and your VPN is just. so. slow.

This holiday season, ask your boss for a cloud-based collaboration platform. You’ll be able to securely work from home and your coworkers will love the built-in social tools. They can share updates about what they’re working on, and you can ignore the cat videos. Your boss will love your increased productivity.

’Tis the season for an intranet you’ll actually like. Try Igloo.

Sponsorship by The Syndicate.

Nilay Patel just broke my brain.

Martin Lindstrom:

But should we really characterize the intense consumer devotion to the iPhone as an addiction? A recent experiment that I carried out using neuroimaging technology suggests that drug-related terms like “addiction” and “fix” aren’t as scientifically accurate as a word we use to describe our most cherished personal relationships. That word is “love.”

via Patrick Rhone

Mike Snider, USA TODAY:

Nearly one-third (32%) of the heaviest adopters of social networks — those ages 18 to 24— connect with sites such as Facebook and Twitter in the bathroom. The new data, from NM Incite, offer a glimpse into the growing devotion that Americans have to social networks.

Time spent on social networks increased 37% over 12 months ago, according to the new report out today.

To be honest, I really miss having an iPhone when I go to the bathroom.

via The Loop

At Macworld San Francisco in January of 1997, Apple announced the 20th Anniversary Macintosh. Built to celebrate the company’s birthday which had occurred the previous year, the machine was constructed with gold-colored plastics, fabric and leather. It shipped on March 20, 1997 and a retail price of US$7,499.

(Don’t miss the company’s product video for the machine.)

Apple manufactured only 12,000 TAMs, with a release run of 11,601. The remaining 399 were kept by Apple for use as spare parts. The machine was only for sale in the US and UK, as well as Japan, France, Germany.

Ten TAMs were sent to Apple in Australia. At least two of these were given away as prizes to the public and one went on display in Apple’s Sydney HQ. Woz got one as a gift, and one was seen in Jerry’s apartment on Seinfeld for several seasons.

The machine came with a leather CD case and a leather holster for a matching pen and pencil set, and also included the unheard of luxury of a man in a tuxedo coming to your house to deliver, set up, and help you learn how to use your new computer.

While it might not look like it by today’s standard, when released, the TAM was shockingly thin. At 14.9 lbs and just 10" deep, it seemed impossibly thin. It’s obvious that the TAM was Apple’s most forward-thinking machine of the late 1990s.

The arrangement of the LCD, vertical optical drive and overall orientation was re-used when Apple introduced the first iMac G5 in August 2004. The use of a trackpad with a desktop system has also come back, in the form of the Magic Trackpad.

The TAM was more than just forward-thinking though — it was nice. The keyboard and trackpad were flanked in leather, and the pad itself could be popped out and used to either side. (A small leather insert found underneath the keyboard to fill the gap.) The sound system was far better than anything Apple had shipped up to that point, and with the TV tuner card, the system could be used as a media center, not just a computer.

In fact, the TAM shipped with a large, external, Bose-designed subwoofer that doubled as the machine’s power supply. This component connected to the main machine with a custom-built connector. This connector doesn’t age well, and on many remaining TAMs may suffer from broken pins or even rust.

Inside, the TAM was basically a Power Macintosh 6500 with a built-in TV/FM card. The machine ran Mac OS 7.6.1 through 9.1, and required a special version of Mac OS 8. Here are some specs:

• CPU: 250 MHz PPC 603e
• RAM: 32 MB (expandable to 128 MB)
• Level 2 cache: 256 KB, expandable to 1 MB
• GPU: ATI 3D Rage II
• 2 MB VRAM with a 12.1" LCD display 800 x 600 at 8- or 16-bit.
• 2 GB 2.5" ATA/EIDE hard drive, 128 GB maximum
• 4x CD-ROM and 1.4M floppy drive
• 1 ADB port, DB–25 SCSI connector, 2 DIN–8 GeoPorts serial ports and 1 PCI 6.88" slot

Because of its PowerPC 603e processor, the TAM cannot run OS X without the addition of a third-party G3 processor upgrade and the use of the once-popular XPostFacto software. Even then, the TAM is best served by some variant of the classic Mac OS.

Its price was cut to $1,999 after Jobs returned to Apple, and the TAM quietly went away.

While Apple didn’t make many of the machines, and it didn’t sell well, the TAM has become a rare collectable, and marks everything that was right — and wrong — about Apple in the late 1990s.

Alfred is so ingrained in my workflow, that a Mac without it feels broken.

Rupert Murdoch, in a News Corp press release:

From its launch, The Daily was a bold experiment in digital publishing and an amazing vehicle for innovation. Unfortunately, our experience was that we could not find a large enough audience quickly enough to convince us the business model was sustainable in the long-term. Therefore we will take the very best of what we have learned at The Daily and apply it to all our properties. Under the editorial leadership of Editor-in-Chief Col Allan and the business and digital leadership of Jesse, I know The New York Post will continue to grow and become stronger on the web, on mobile, and not least, the paper itself. I want to thank all of the journalists, digital and business professionals for the hard work they put into The Daily.

While I have no idea what The Daily needed to be bringing in to be “sustainable in the long-term,” my guess is that the large overhead — coupled with News Corps’ usual greed — doomed this thing from the start.

While it certainly is a blow to the idea of a digital-only magazine (which is weird, as everyone is declaring print to be dead), I don’t think it’s the end of this type of publication. That said, this new way of publishing requires a new way of doing business, and that’s something Murdoch just doesn’t understand.