Insanely Great!

What better way to celebrate the first computer for the rest of us, than doing so by watching a part of Steve Jobs' keynote?

1984

Since we are only 1 day away of the 25th anniversary of the Apple's Macintosh release, it is time for me to indulge into a little bit of nostalgia and go back to January 1984 ... Back then, I was only 2 weeks shy of been 10 years old, and the personal computer revolution was in full swing (yes, even in France!). I probably wasn't aware of the new Macintosh and its game changing Graphical User Interface, but I was already been titillated by computers and programming, thanks to my dad whom was very much into it, albeit in mobile computing. Mobile computing? In 1984? Well back then it was called pocket computing, and my dad's favorite toy was his trusty Casio FX-702P (which he was using also for work) and he was fully equipped with tape recorder and the tiny thermal printer with its funky metallic like paper. The 702 was indeed great, and I myself falled in love with it in the following years when it was handed down to me. To the point that I used to carry it around (in its little pouch) with me everywhere. Not contempt to just being geeking on his calculator, my dad was also a member of the local computer club, where I had my first encounters with top of the line computers such as the ZX Spectrum, Oric Atmos, Apple IIc, Matra Alice and VG 5000. The later eventually became my very first personal computer (for christmas '84 I guess) for countless hours of gaming and BASIC programming. My dad, back then, had subscription to two french computer magazines (both long gone) which had tons of little programs to be typed in (yep, that's right typed in, not loaded!), so it was possible to spend lots of time on the computer without actually doing much of anything except entering the code. Trying to run it was always a bit of a frustrating experience since there was very often errors in the code which were making it un-workable (that and/or typing mistakes made by little fingers ...). Anyhow, my first encounter with what I'll call a modern computer didn't occurs until late '86, when a school friend got a Macintosh Plus, which we used to do the school newspaper on.

Did I knew back then that computer was what I wanted to do when I grew up? I like to said yes (of course) but unfortunatly it's not the case. I didn't really get into computers until the late 80s, and only decided to make it my profession in 92. Up to that point, all I really wanted to be was either a Naval officer or an Archeologist (the later was likely due to that romatic image of archeology imprinted in my mind by waaaay too much of Indiana Jones) ...

As for the very famous 1984 commercial, well I never saw it until years after the event. To be honest I don't think it was ever aired in France (I could be wrong though) ...

10 years of OS X (sort of)

Well, this beginning of year is sure full of anniversaries. Few days ago it was the Mars Rover, and yesterday it was the release of Mac OS X Server which occurred 10 years ago. Oops ... did I wrote release? I meant announce ... Stories of Apple.net has a bit more detail on it (including a link to a screenshot, sure did look like OS9 ...). The very same Macworld keynote was also used to introduce the Blue&White PowerMac G3 with that funky look which at that time looks pretty darn cool but now look, well ... very late 90s ...

While I'm still talking (a bit) about the MER, I must mention that one of Spirit's drivers (Scott Maxwell) have started (to celebrate the anniversary) a very interesting (and well written) blog on the first 3 years on Mars of the rovers. Each daily post will be covering a martian day (sol).

Scott participated in August to some sort of conference, which is now on Youtube

Be a software slut ...

Catchy title isn't it? Obviously it's an intriguing concept that I took from the hilarious talk (video) that superstar indie Mac developer Wil Shipley (of Omni Group & Delicious Monster fame) gave at the C4 conference in August last year. If you are an indie developer, or if you would like to be, or if you think that you may want to be (but don't know if you can do it), then you most definitely must watch Wil's take on hype (and other things that could potentialy make you successful). I guess, I should also mention his blog, although I'm sure that anyone reading this will have known about it for a while ... unless you are new to the scene (oh man this soooo early 90s! Quick get the Amiga out!). Anyhow, there's a lot of (very) good stuff to learn from that talk, so make sure you have some paper and a pen handy so that you can jolt it all down. How do I know it's sound advices? Well ... he's a successful independent developer, and I'm not. Therefore, what he have to said must be good advices ... unless he's just applying his (core) principles and hyping things ... hmmm 8-o