Entries related to techology in general…
While flying to Tampa for the MacMania cruise, I had a chance to really put my new 80GB iPod to the test--I had purchased a couple of movies from the Music Store, and was anxious to see how well the iPod worked as an in-flight entertainment device.
So how'd it work? Well, I had a very non-standard experience, which I wrote up in this editorial at macworld.com, along with my general observations on using the iPod as a movie viewer.
Fellow Macworld Senior Editor Dan Frakes and I have just returned from a week on a Geek Cruise in the western Caribbean. We both wrote quite a lot, and took a bunch of pictures. So instead of linking to a huge collection of articles, I'll just link to the two relevant sections on Macworld's site, where you can find everything: the MacMania archives for October 2006 and November 2006.
Macworld's site has changed over the years, and there's no longer a section for each cruise. So here's everything from this trip that I was involved with:
Separately, I posted some of my scuba diving pictures from the trip here on robservatory.com.
In this piece for Mac911, I explain and demonstrate on video the Safe Sleep feature in newer Apple portables.
I don't normally post links to interesting things on other sites as stories here, just because I figure there are about 210 other places out there that already do just that. But someone sent me a link today to an absolutely amazing video from Macworld New York in July of 1999.
Steve Jobs and Phil Schiller were demoing AirPort, and the way they did it simply must be seen to be believed. I would have lost a lot of money had someone bet me that someone did what they did in this clip--"no way, he's not going to do that!" But, as you'll see, he did.
I had no idea they were that wild and crazy "back in the day..."
The other day, I was trying to print some shots of our kids on our Epson Stylus Photo 890, and having nothing but issues--first it was clogged print heads, then it was trailing dots and splats at random spots on the page. I literally cleaned and aligned the heads probably 15 times over the course of a couple hours, trying to get a reasonable print out of the thing.
Finally, I gave up, and decided to lower my blood pressure by blasting over to my favorite local independent Mac dealer, The Mac Store, to check on the availability of the new 80GB iPod (more on that in another article). While I was there, grousing due to the iPods not yet being in stock, I happened to notice a Canon Pixma iP6600D (say that three times quickly!) sitting there, with a gorgeous borderless 8.5x11 photo glossy printout sitting there in its output tray. Of course, every sample print from every printer in any store looks great. With my Epson troubles fresh in my mind, I was definitely tempted, though, by the beauty of the print staring me in the face. I wanted to buy the thing, take it home, and beat the Epson to a pulp with a rubber mallet, basically.
But I had done zero research on any replacements for our Epson (which we had purchased over five years ago, I learned later when checking our records). And I'm not normally one to just purchase without doing the requisite research...what to do, what to do. So I moved over to a new 24" iMac (oooh, very nice machine!) and brought up Google. Canon Pixma iP6600D went into the search box, and up popped the results. That's when I was hit with the obvious stick--the first match was for a review at, of all places, Macworld. My employer. Duh! I didn't even think to look at Macworld's review section first.
[continue reading…]
After a recent golf outing, I decided to try something a little different with Google Earth. Overall, the project came out quite a bit better than I had expected it to going in.
For those who didn't quite see it in the comments, the mystery object is a printout of an entire walkthrough of the original game of Zork, one of the earliest interactive fiction games. Adventure was the first widely-known entry in the genre, but Zork really made huge strides in both the breadth of the virtual world as well as the character's interaction with that world. The printout pictured in the prior story was created on February 18th, 1980, by myself and a good friend who was in his first or second year at MIT.
At the time, I was 15 and my buddy Patrick was 19. These were the early days of computing, just over two years into the Apple ]['s existence. So while graphical games existed (Mystery House was released in 1980, for example), the capabilities of the machine made for very limited graphics--check the screenshot on the Wikipedia page for proof. As such, interactive fiction offered a more complete escape into the gaming world, as your mind did the work of creating whatever "graphics" the game required, based on the descriptions provided by the developers.
It was also the very early days of the internet, meaning it basically didn't exist. Its predecessor, ARPANET, was just getting going. Somehow, probably through a computer club at high school, I was introduced to ARPANET and the MDL machine at MIT. This machine allowed free guest account signups, and they had Zork installed for anyone to play. That's about all it took for me to get hooked, even over a 300 baud modem working on a dumb terminal with thermal paper!
Read on for a bit more about Zork, online gaming in the very early 1980s, and that monster printout...
[continue reading…]
After recovering from my dead iPod experience, I decided to replace its aging battery, and wrote about the process. While it wasn't overly difficult, I'm very glad I'm not an iPod technician--working on something that small and compact all day would drive me crazy!
This morning, while doing a bit of cleaning and recycling in the computer room, I came across something that I'd totally forgotten I had. So I thought I'd have a bit of fun with it, and see if anyone can figure out exactly what it is. Here's what it looks like:
Based on the visual, here are some clues...
So the standing question is: exactly what is printed on that long roll of expensive thermal paper? If there's no progress in guessing an answer over the next day or so, I'll post some more clues. (Peter, James, and Pat aren't allowed to comment, as they already know the answer. If you're reading this, guys, keep your mouths shut! :) )
-rob.
Update: It's identified! Thanks to the commenters who quickly identified the font as Textile. This was a font Apple distributed with OS 9, but never OS X. When I last upgraded my machine, I didn't bother to reinstall Classic, since I never used it. However, I did keep a disk image of Classic around on a backup, so I'm now set once again with Textile--thanks again for the fast response!
About five years ago, I created a project for an event at my wife's employer. What started as something small and simple grew into (of course) something large and complex. But the event was a success, so the efforts were worth it.
Fast forward five years, and the company would love it if I could update the presentation to cover their latest five years. No problem, I think, as I've managed to keep all the project files intact over the years. But I can't say the same for my Macs. I believe I've upgraded twice since I originally created the project (in iMovie2, as a reference point). And whatever font it is I used in the project has long since vanished.
Now that I'm updating it, however, I need to know what font I used--I'm sure it's on a disk around here somewhere, but I have no idea what it might be called. Since I'm far from a font expert, I figured I'd ask for some assistance. How about it? Anyone have any thoughts on what font family I might have used?
Thanks!
