[October 31, 2000]
Ranger Magazine I found this site via a sig at the bottom of an email to the webdesign-l mailing list. Sometimes that is the best way to find new sites to explore. Ranger Magazine is brought to you by the folks at Dreaming America. This is an exceptionally well-designed 'zine with a decidedly Macintosh bent. Two stories that stand out in that regard are a profile/interview of the principals of Panic Software (a Blueberry iBook is featured in the photos that accompany the article), and another profile/interview with digital film producer, Jamal Qutub (Buster Slims), who uses a PowerBook as the editing station for his digital creations. I'm looking forward to more great issues... Tell the world what you think about this Astounding Web Site... 
Happy Birthday, Mom! Mom, thanks for all you've done for me, and for all you continue to do. I love you! --Mark [October 30, 2000]
New iMac commercial It's good to see Apple promoting its iTools in their latest commercial. Now I wish they'd somehow promote the web sites those 4 million iMac (and other) users are creating...
Speaking of Google... ...does anyone else pronounce it "Go ogle"?
The Peter Principle Proven I was reading a recent post from Greg, and couldn't remember what the Peter Principle was, so I checked Google and it reminded me (roughly): "The less you know the more money you make." And here's the proof... 
Looking for a way to see your keyboard when typing in the dark? I'm no touch typist, so if I want to use the iBook in low-light situations, I've found that there are times when the illumination of the screen just isn't enough. And so have some people on the iBook list. Here are a couple of innovative and interesting solutions they have come up with: The GameBoy Color Wormlight - this one would likely require some hacking to get it to work via the iBook's USB port... The Fingerlight - attaches around your fingertip, and is powered by two hearing aid batteries. Or you might like to try the Liplight, if you are using IBM's ViaVoice and a boom style microphone... [October 27, 2000]
A moment of silence...
One more week All of this "web stuff" seems inconsequential when compared to issues of life and death. Sadly, there has been a death in the family of the producer of the web magazine in which my article will appear; look for it next week. Life is precious - take some time to tell the people you care about that you love them... [October 26, 2000]
More updates... I have added two new skins in preparation for the article that should appear tomorrow. The first is a subtle iBook themed skin, and the second pays tribute to my Alma Mater... [October 25, 2000]
Update It's been awhile since I've added anything to the PowerBlog. This is the first article I wrote for our homeschool group's newsletter. It's called Discipline, part 1... 
Inversion of the week
[October 24, 2000]
Housecleaning... Updated the iFAQ to be skins compliant and a few other things. Speaking of skins, I've been working on a couple of new ones in anticipation of the publication of the article I mentioned yesterday...
Gravité Grant turned me on to this little "unutility" from Sylvain Demongeot. Makes the Macintosh Drag and Drop more like, well, dragging and dropping. Makes me smile every time I drag a file. Time to send Sylvain an email... [October 23, 2000]
Should I be nervous? Things seem to be going really well right now. The job is going smoothly (our director likes a recent redesign of part of our site, and wants to expedite the look to apply to the entire site)... I am looking at the possibility of two or more freelance gigs... I get a nice email and link from George... I'll be having an article published by someone other than myself (more info coming shortly)... Life is good. I don't take that lightly, especially when I read this. We're praying for you and your family, Jeffrey. [October 20, 2000]
Fat Man's Soccer Club I've never been to a game, but I wish I had. Maybe next month. Sounds like a fun group - and they really seem to like my brother-in-law (Kevin Unwin)... [October 19, 2000]
Who's head is gonna' roll for this? I first heard about this, via an email list, from Cameron Barrett. And now, via that same list, an article with more information. It seems unthinkable that something like this could happen, not that there hasn't been precedent... [October 18, 2000]
I had dinner with the Mayor of Tucson last night... ...and about 600 other people, too. We were at a Banquet for the Crisis Pregnancy Centers of Tucson. Dr. Marvin Olasky, editor of World Magazine was the keynote. Dr. Olasky is the author of compassionate conservatism, which has gotten an ill-deserved bad rap in the mainstream press. Compassion literally means to come alongside someone and enter into their pain with them. That is what the Women's Pregnancy Centers in Tucson are about. In this age where choice is the law of the land we believe that all the choices need to be clearly laid out so an informed choice can be made. While I am a firm believer in the sanctity of all human life, I don't take that lightly. We need to let women who are in crisis pregnancies know there are more choices than abortion. Three involve saving the life of the unborn child: Keeping and raising the baby, giving the baby up for adoption, and a fourth choice, that is rarely talked about, getting married to the father and starting a family. All of those options need to be presented and explored, and that is what these centers do - present the options that the mother hasn't thought about yet. The centers are not about condemning those who have chosen abortion - in fact they are one of the few refuges for these women, most of whom struggle to come to terms with the decision they made. The Women's Pregnancy Centers in Tucson offer counselling for these women, and come along side them, entering into their pain, as they work through all of the emotions and feelings that result from having had an abortion. True compassionate conservatism in action. I'm proud to support them!
Welcome back, Miles I received a nice email from Miles Baskett III letting me know that winterbeach.com is back - sorta. Now it's Sacrificial Anode, and it's an iTools Homepage! Miles was the first to send me email about this blog, and I believe was the first to link to me from his blog. I hope you enjoyed your blogging vacation. [October 17, 2000]
iBook on the Bus I was starting a new piece of writing, about the first Christmas I remember. I had written this much, when a guy sat down next to me on the bus: My dad had just gotten discharged from the Air Force. I didn't understand the war in Viet Nam - I was only four at the time. I heard him chuckle a bit, and when I looked at him I saw he was reading what I was writing on the screen of the iBook. When I put my iBook away he asked for a pen and paper - it turns out he was deaf. First he asked about the iBook (everyone does!). Then he wrote that his dad was in the US Army in Viet Nam - retired as a Lt. Colonel. I wish I hadn't had to get off the bus and go to work. He seemed like a nice guy... [October 16, 2000]
Busy weekend... Kim (my wife) and I presented a workshop at Arizona's state Awana Conference. It was a lot of fun, and a lot of driving (Tucson to Phoenix, and back. And then out to Vail to pick up our kids - I spent a lot of time behind the wheel on Saturday...). It's good to be back home. [October 13, 2000]
Appearances There is this guy that rides the same bus that I do each morning. Today he looked quite different. He used to have a lot more hair, and a big, bushy beard. He scowled a lot and reminded me of Charles Manson. He always appeared big and intimidating - almost scary. Today he had a haircut and had trimmed his beard down. Today I noticed that he isn't really big and intimidating, but more middle-aged and overweight. His scowls don't come across as menacing anymore. In fact he seems kind of sad and lonely (actually, he's always seemed kind of sad and lonely). Of course he may be none of these things, but I'll never know unless I make an effort to find out. Appearances really don't tell me anything... [October 12, 2000]
New Mac only web accessibility product Insight is a Photoshop compatible color filter for simulating color blindness, available from Colorfield™. I downloaded the demo (which only allows you to view the rarest form of color blindness...), and it looks like its utility is mostly in previewing something to make sure the contrast is ok for those who suffer from color blindness. This is something that can be done on an entire web page at Vischeck. Unfortunately it doesn't understand CSS yet, so the check on iBlog was not very informative... [October 11, 2000]
Inversion of the week
Another blast from the past... Remember back in 1998 when it was de rigueur to make the background color of your web page change when you moused over a link or an object? You could find examples of this on such fine web sites as this one and this one here. Of course I had my own version...
Off Campus link is flakey That was the subject of this email I received yesterday, explaining why I didn't post anything. We are experiencing problems with our Qwest-Commodity connection this morning. Netops has been working on the problem since 06:15 this morning. Of course I got more work done that way... [October 9, 2000]
New iBook (366MHz) Benchmarked Dan Knight over at Low End Mac has benchmarked his wife's new Indigo iBook with some surprising results. And he may have found a potential flaw in the way MacBench 5.0 evaluates the speed of the new 750CX processors used in the new iBooks. Good reading...
Quantum Threads John Martellaro used to be a Mac Web author and journalist. Now he works for Apple as a Senior Marketing Manager for Science and Technology. So, instead of writing about Apple he is writing some Science Fiction for AppleLinks. His new column is called Quantum Threads and is off to a great start!
«¿Cómo se dice?» I asked that quite a bit on Saturday. Our family went up to Mt. Lemmon with my parents and their church. My parents attend a Spanish church with members from all over South America. We played a game (en Español) in which the question was asked: How do you enter the church? We then went around the group and each person answered something like "Wearing white tennis shoes," and then those "in the know" would tell them yes or no. The rule, that we had to figure out, was that you would say something that was true of the person to the right of you. Of course, once we knew the rule, it was fun to try to be subtly obvious (how's that for an oxymoron?) about how we got into church - one guy picked up a box of donuts and said "with donuts in my hands." This was wrong, since he was holding the donuts. So I picked up the donuts, and my Mom said "with donuts in my hands," and she "got in." I handed the donuts to the girl next to me and said, "with donuts in my hands," and I "got in" too. Some people still had trouble. Of course all this was happening «en Español.» Since my Español isn't very good, I was just happy to have figured out the rule... [October 6, 2000]
Defending Apple What's this? And from John C. Dvorak? Maybe that's why Apple closed up an eighth today... And via CamWorld, a good article about Apple's stock plunge from Robert X. Cringely (I don't know if there is a relation between his middle initial and the name of the next MacOS...). [October 5, 2000]
Inversion of the week
[October 3, 2000]
Nice article, Damien Mr. Barrett has written an interesting article for MacWorld Magazine. As a troubleshooting article it is very entertaining, yet answers the question clearly and succinctly. I am looking forward to more...
Mac OSX Public Beta review Ars Technica continues its excellent reviews of Mac OSX with a very detailed report on OSX Public Beta. And it's chock full o' gummy GUI screenshot goodness to boot... [October 2, 2000]
More on Web Design 2000 I guess when your company spends over $1000 just for conference registration fees, they want to know that their money was well spent. So I spent lunch time discussing what I learned at the Web Design 2000 conference last week. I am excited, and now my colleagues, my boss, and the director are excited, too!
Wake up call Getting an email informing you that a friend is in the hospital with coronary problems helps put things in perspective. Thankfully he will be going home soon...
I really was there Dave Bastian has posted some pics of Web Design 2000. Including some of me... Mark Newhouse is the Web Designer for the public outreach arm of the National Optical Astronomy Observatories in Tucson, AZ. He has been using Macs for over a decade, and sometimes gets Distracted. |
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