In celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Commodore 64, I threw together this timeline of the computing devices I or my family have owned using Timeline 3D. The C=64 had a huge influence on my life. You can read what I wrote about it on it’s 25th anniversary here.
In his Stanford commencement address, Steve Jobs told us that “Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.”
Last Thursday, the day after I heard the news that he had passed away, I was in a funk. I don’t believe I have ever felt that way about the death of somebody I have never met. I’m not one to get very emotional about celebrities. I’ve read many other responses that have expressed the same sentiment. So what is it about the man that made such an emotional impact on me?
I’ve been using a Macintosh as my tool of trade nigh on twenty years. More than most, the field of Graphic Design was fundamentally changed by the Macintosh, due in no small part to a calligraphy class Steve took after dropping out of college. I was in my formative undergrad years during the tail end of the turmoil it caused. I never had to do paste-ups, but I used guache, Vac-U-Mount, and a Photostat enough to have some appreciation for the technological revolution that had occurred. I sit in front of a Mac all day. I’m as fluent in the Mac OS as I am in American English. It has made my daily job more enjoyable and more productive than it possibly could have been otherwise. The thought of having to spend that kind of time with Windows makes me feel sick, and there was one year in particular that I was threatened with that nightmare. I would have left my job if the issue had been forced.
In addition to my work life, it has improved my personal life. Even when I’m home, I spend much of my time sitting at my Mac Pro, color-correcting photos, editing video, working on my church’s website, prepping for my class, playing games, and writing entries for DesignAday. I use the iWork and iLife suites daily while listening to music from the iTunes store. When I’m in my living room or kitchen, there’s the AppleTV, playing podcasts or family photos and music. Everywhere else, I have my iPhone. It’s with me everywhere I go. I found the Palm Pilot extremely useful. I despised my Treo. I love my iPhone. Apple’s products, both hardware and software, have been a very important part of my life, but considering all of it, I don’t think that is at the root of my melancholy.
Steve’s return to Apple occurred while I was a graduate student at CMU. Those were the most influential two years of my life. I was already a Macintosh user, but I wasn’t yet steeped in the history of Apple. I still vividly recall the day in 1998 that the original iMac was announced. I was sitting at my desk in the “Roundroom” of Margaret Morrison, the building in which the School of Design resides. When the Bondi Blue computer finished loading in my browser, I just said “Wow!” The exclamation was repeated when my classmates came around to see what I was looking at. That was just the beginning of a long love affair with Apple’s innovative product design.
Steve Jobs became a beacon for me, proof that good design could triumph in the battle with time-to-market and ease of implementation. Every time somebody repeated the mantra that “perfection is the enemy of good enough,” I could point to Apple as an example of a successful company that didn’t settle. They helped to turn our profession from something that our moms didn’t understand, to one that is recognized by the consumer conscious. It became a skill set that every major technology company had to have. Apple products were cited as examples of great design everywhere such discussions were raised. Steve was the enabler—the CEO that got it—that understood the power of design and made it a priority. Time after time, he proved that attention to detail, quality of materials, and a focus on the user experience were important to the goals of the business. He was a hero to every designer that was trying to make their customers and employers understand the importance of good design.
The real tragedy is that he should have had another fourteen productive years. Fourteen years—that’s how long it took to pull Apple back from the brink; produce the iMac, iBook, iPod, iPhone, iPad, and MacBook Air; roll out OS X, iTunes, and the Apple Store, and all of the other smaller, yet still important products that went along with them. What magic would he have worked given that much time again? I feel that I have been robbed of something amazing I’ll never know, much the same as I’ve missed the brilliance of Jim Henson, another genius taken before his time.
But what if Steve was right? What if death was just doing it’s job, clearing out the old to make way for the new? I’d argue he wasn’t old enough, but let’s just say death knows what it’s doing. Is it at all possible that Steve’s shadow was holding the rest of us back? You would have a hard time convincing me of it, but it’s really a moot point. Steve is gone, and that means somebody else has to take the ball and run. I read a tweet last week exhorting us to go into work and turn the place upside down in Steve’s honor. I appreciate the author’s inspiration, but it’s completely unrealistic. If you haven’t been pushing with Steve’s passion and ferociousness before, are you really going to completely change now? Even if you could, who would support your actions?
No, trying to become like Steve at the snap of your fingers isn’t likely to work. In fact, trying to become like Steve isn’t likely to work at all. But what we can do is work hard to reach the pinnacle where we can become the enablers. Maybe that is a position of leadership in your current company. Maybe it is in a company that you will start yourself. It may not be associated with a company at all. Take inspiration from Steve Jobs, from Apple, and from others like them. Be passionate about your work. Stand for what you believe in. Do what you can to make a difference in the lives of others. Pass on what you have learned. Make your own ding in the universe. I can think of no better way to honor a man that has been such an inspiration to so many.
I took over 200 photos during my vacation last week, and last night, when I imported them into iPhoto, I discovered that the card was corrupt and that about half of them couldn’t be read. That scared me. But then I figured that surely someone is making money off of this problem, so I did some Googling. I found a few photo recovery tools and decided to give CardRaider a go, because it’s available on the Mac App Store. I downloaded a free trial from ecamm’s site, first. The test proved that most of the photos were fully recoverable, so I purchased the app for $19.95. Fifteen minutes later, I had all of the photos safely saved off of the card. Even if I never have to use the app again, and I hope I don’t, that’s twenty bucks well spent. I’ll feature one of them this Friday.
When I first took a look at the new Mac App Store, I noticed that one of the applications I already have, TextWrangler, was not marked as installed, while Apple’s applications were. It’s a free app, so I decided to use it as a test. When I clicked the button to install it, the app’s icon flew in a graceful arc from the store to the position in the dock where it was placed. While this may seem gratuitous to some, think about the inexperienced user. You know exactly where to look to find the app you just purchased.
In July of ’09, I made a posted titled “What’s Hiding in My Apps Folder?” I bemoaned the fact that I had 145 items in my Applications folder, many of which I had forgotten about or didn’t even know what they did.
My first conclusion is that I should take some time to clean out my Applications folder. My second conclusion is that I think I’ll try introducing a little bit of organization with some choice sub-folders. My final conclusion is that I need another application—one that helps me manage my applications the same way iTunes does my music. I should be able to say, “I need to convert an audio file,” and the app would then show me all of the tools that I have that might help me to do that.
I wanted an app app—an application for managing applications. One might say, “Well, that’s what the operating system is for, silly!” No, it’s too general-purpose. Then, earlier this year, Steam was released for the Mac. I thought about it a lot, and I decided that given the success of Apple’s App Store for the iPhone and iPad, as well as the success of Steam for games on both Windows and the Mac, it only makes sense for Apple to broaden the App Store to include Macintosh software.
Sure enough, Apple announced last Wednesday that they will be opening the Mac App Store in about three months. Not only will it provide an easy way to find and purchase applications, but will also simplify installation and keeping apps up to date. Pair this with the new Launchpad feature they showed in their preview of OS X Lion and I think my application management problem will have a solution.
The Mac version of Quicken has gotten a little long in the tooth. It hasn’t been updated since 2007. I wrote back in September about my search for something to replace it and the announcement that they would be acquiring Mint. Well, I’ve been keeping tabs of the development of the next version due out in February. I just discovered some bad news.
Quicken is treating this as a new product, rather than an upgrade of Quicken. Called Quicken Essentials for Mac, it appears to be a “light” application. They aren’t including much of the functionality found in the current version. Going bye-bye are the ability to track investment buys and sells, exporting to TurboTax, and bill pay. For these apparently inessential features, they “recommend trying Quicken Mac 2007.”
So what do you get? According to Aaron Patzer, creator of Mint and new VP and GM of Intuit’s Personal Finance Group, we’ll have “crisp, glossy, candy-like colors”. Yay! Basically, it sounds like it will have similar functionality to Mint. It will download data from practically every bank, credit card, and financial institution, and it will provide you with clear reporting on your spending.
That’s all fine and good, but without bill pay, they aren’t doing me any favors. I went ahead and built out my Mint account (which now works with my bank) to give it a try for awhile. If Quicken Essentials for Mac isn’t going to give me any more capabilities than Mint does, why should I pay $60 for it? In fact, why should I pay that much for a product that doesn’t do half of what the $40 Quicken Deluxe for Windows does?
I’m not happy about the direction this is taking, and I’m not going to downgrade. Their discussion forums are full of comments conveying similar opinions. This is a prime opportunity for Squirrel and Cha-Ching to romance Quicken’s customers.
Who wants to give me bill pay functionality? The first one wins.
Please excuse me for wrapping up the week with another post related to my new MacBook Pro. It probably seems rather quaint to all of you that have been using laptops, but I am rubbing my wrists, freed from the shackles of a desktop, so it’s on my mind.
I’m on a short business trip and will be participating in a meeting with a customer. I have a few slides to present and can finally do it from my own laptop, rather than handing somebody else a thumb drive. I stopped at Tyson’s Corner on my way here to visit, as I understand it, the very first Apple Store and pick up a mini display port to VGA adapter, so I can plug into the projector. I happily created my slides in Keynote, instead of that other program, and I purchased the Keynote Remote iPhone app. It’s a nifty little tool that lets me control the show over a WiFi network. You just swipe to change slides backwards or forwards. It also displays your notes, if you need them.
I was quite satisfied with myself. Then I realized that my meeting is on a military base. I’m not allowed to have my phone in the building.
I guess I’ll just have to do it the old-fashioned way.
For 18 years, I’ve been using Mac desktop computers. I started on an LCII, then got a PowerMac 6100/60. After that was an 8500, followed by a G4, a G5, and finally the Mac Pro I’m writing this on. The Macs I’ve used at work have followed a similar path, although there was a Cube in there. My G5 at work was getting long in the tooth, and it finally came my turn to upgrade. This time, I opted for a MacBook Pro.
There are a number of good reasons behind this decision, and they can mostly be covered by explaining why I have never been interested in a laptop before. Power was a significant factor in the past. Processor speed, memory, and drive space were all concerns that are no longer an issue. The biggest reason has been screen real estate. I’ve been using two displays at home since I put a second video card in the 8500. I started using two displays at work about 7 years ago. I just can’t get along with a single display (although Spaces helps). Of course, the Mac laptops drive a second display now. In fact, the 15.4” widescreen display on my new MacBook is higher resolution than the cheap, 17” Dell LCDs I have at my office. Finally, I’ve been attending more meetings than I used to, and it’s inconvenient to have to take everything I think I’ll need on a thumb drive and then ask to use somebody else’s PC laptop to show my slides. It’s even a little embarrassing at times to be the only one at the conference table that pulls out a legal pad to take notes. I’ve had customers rib me about it on multiple occasions.
So now I have a laptop, and I’m realizing all of the accessories I need to get for it. I just ordered a bag, a mini-display port to VGA adapter, and the Keynote iPhone app. Let me know what else I need.
Here’s to going mobile!
The other day, I mentioned that I’m starting to look for a new car. One that I’m very interested in learning more about is the Nissan Cube, which is supposed to be available this Spring. They don’t have much in the way of detailed information on their website, so I registered to have them send me a brochure. I got it in the mail. It is a four-panel fold-out with pretty pictures and less information than is on the site, but it contains a CD.
“Great,” I think, “There’s bound to be some information on that!” Then I read the minimum requirements.
Seriously?! In this day and age, they couldn’t go to what tiny little effort it would take to make it run on a Mac too?
Crossover was able to install the application, but it was designed to be controlled using a webcam. You are supposed to hold the brochure in front of your webcam to reveal information within the app. While Crossover would run the application, it couldn’t utilize my iSight.
So, they sent out a CD-ROM that requires a webcam, but didn’t make it compatible with Macs, that all come with webcams! I’m willing to bet that a high percentage of webcam owners are also Mac owners.
Stupid marketing! I’d be really interested to know what percentage of the people that get the CD are actually able to view it.
