posts

Ashwin Vasavada, project scientist for the Mars Science Laboratory mission:

It’s a summer of milestones for Mars Exploration. Fifty years ago, Mariner 4 became the first spacecraft to take close-up pictures of Mars. Thirty-nine years ago, the Viking 1 Lander became the first spacecraft to successfully land on the Red Planet. And now, Curiosity celebrates 3 years on Mars – operating well over a thousand Martian days.

In three years, the 1-ton rover has made some significant findings, including encouraging information about radiation levels on the Martian surface, the presence of methane, and — of course — water on the Red planet.

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I’ve long praised the Apple Extended II keyboard for its amazing typing experience. While I don’t use it anymore, I miss my big beige noise machine.

While some may think all old keyboards are alike, they are not created equal. The AppleDesign keyboard may look of similar vintage, but its rubber dome switches are no match for the Extended II’s mechanical ones.

While Apple’s support document doesn’t bring this up, it does list many other differences between the two accessories:

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I love the look of all of these old panels and machines, but this video is a little scary to think about for more than a moment or two.

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This week on Connected: the end of iCloud Drive follow-up, the start of my independent life and my super-late Apple Watch review and then the return of “weekly” picks.

My thanks to these sponsors:

• lynda.com: An easy and affordable way to help individuals and organizations learn. Free 10-day trial.
• Casper: Because everyone deserves a great night sleep. Get $50 off with the code ‘CONNECTED’
• Igloo: An intranet you’ll actually like, free for up to 10 people.

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While I worked part-time at my previous gig most of July, today marked the start of my first week working for myself.

While I didn’t get caught up on my to do list, it was great knowing that tomorrow morning, I’ll drive to the office space I share with my brother, record a podcast and jump right back into my projects. I’ll do all of this, during the working day, without stealing time from a J-O-B job.

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My 42mm stainless steel Apple Watch shipped at the end of April. In the three months since, I’ve worn it every day. I’ve biked in it, slept in it, taken it to both U.S. coasts and have gotten used to having it in my life.

While we’ve known about Apple Watch’s existence for almost an entire year, and while I have spent lots of time with mine, it’s still a very hard thing to write and talk about, and the reasons for that are complicated.

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FeedPress Is Made for Bloggers and Podcasters

FeedPress is a simple, intuitive, and powerful RSS analytics and podcast hosting platform. We feature powerful subscriber and podcast download tracking, integrated newsletters, automated publishing to popular social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, a slick drag and drop podcast hosting interface, and everything you need in order to submit an optimized feed to iTunes.

With 250MB of flexible file storage that rolls over monthly, you can easily upload 4 episodes per month. Upgrading storage is easy and affordable, starting at a flat rate of just $20 for 1GB.

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Mika McKinnon:

Apollo 15 was the first lunar landing mission to use a rover, allowing astronauts Jim Irwin and Dave Scott to explore farther from their landing site while still having time to conduct scientific research. Al Worden stayed in orbit, photographing a quarter of the moon’s surface during his three solitary days in a spacecraft in July 30 to August 2, 1971.

The lunar rover is one crazy peice of hardware.

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A friend of mine recently gave me a stack of old Apple documents, and included were scripts for three Apple-approved radio ads pushing the Apple IIc for the holiday season of 1984.

The three ads — titled 20 Gifts, Christmas Card and Perfect Present — extol the virtues of the machine, including its compatibility with programs written for the IIe. Dealers also promised easy credit and help with the purchase of accessories such as a modem or mouse.

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I’ve written a lot about NeXT over the years, but this video with Michael Johnson really is full of good stuff. I was hoping to make it to this event at WWDC, but it didn’t pan out. Now I’m really sad I wasn’t there in person.

_via The Loop_

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We hit the big 5-0 this week on Connected:

On the golden anniversary of Connected, the crew sits down to talk about Apple Pay in the UK, Apple News and RSS before sharing a little about how they write articles and prepare for podcasts.

I was surprised to learn how alike Federico and I are alike in the way we approach our writing. This episode was a fun break for us, and I think you’ll enjoy it.

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Tom Warren, opening his Windows 10 review on The Verge:

Windows has a cycle. Windows XP saved us from Windows ME, Windows 7 saved us from the Windows Vista mess, now Windows 10 is here to save save us from Windows 8.

It’s nice to be on the good part of the cycle.

I’ve been playing with the pre-release versions of Windows 10 on and off for a while now, and I like what I’ve seen. Microsoft has reigned in some of the insanity of Windows 8, and the whole thing feels faster and more modern than its predecessor ever did.

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