Martin Gordon's Blog

David Morgenstern of eWeek speculates on which Macs will be allowed to run Leopard. His main two differentiating factors: G3s and VRAM.

The last G3 Mac released was the last round of iBook G3s in the fall of 2003. The last Mac released with <32mb of VRAM was the iBook G3 700 way back in 2002. Those are probably surefire cutoffs, and making one a requirement effectively makes the other one a requirement, except for the case of PowerMac G3s with upgradable video.

David also speculates that the G4 and/or <64mb VRAM could be left behind, but this is unlikely since Apple released iBooks with G4s and 32mb VRAM back in May. I think it's a definite possibility for Apple to leave behind all PowerPC processors for 10.6, which should be released sometime in 2008-9, at least two years after the Intel transition is finished (assuming Mac Pros at WWDC).

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac OS X, Mac, Leopard, Intel, PowerPC, G3, G4, G5, Intel Core Duo

The fact that I'm posting this at 5pm just goes to show how much I actually use iCal…

But anyway, today is iCal day. For those of you fortunate enough to not have iCal running, you'll notice that the application's icon matches today's date. That's because iCal was announced 4 years ago at Macworld New York on July 17, 2002.

So for old times' sake, fire up the little bugger and take it out for a spin, give it a little pat on the back for encouragement and hope that v3 in Leopard brings us great new features.

Technorati Tags: iCal, Apple, software, announcement, Mac OS X, OS X, Macworld, Leopard, anniversary

It seems that the Apple-inspired Nintendo DS Lite is having quality assurance problems that also seem to be inspired by Apple.

Reports are coming in that the hinge on the new DS Lite is all its cracked up to be (man is this post too punny or what?). Worse yet, Nintendo is claiming that this isn't covered under warranty and is charging users the standard $50 fee (~$40 of the cost of the system) to repair it. This series of events eerily echoes Apple's stance when there were early reports of MacBook Pro and MacBook QA issues (though they've since changed their stance).

Both the DS Lite and the Apple laptops are considered by many to be the pinnacle of industrial design. Is this the unifying factor between the two that is causing these QA problems? Is it still possible to design something aesthetically-pleasing and have it last until at least the end of the warranty period? How much longer will consumers be willing to brave these issues to have something pretty to look at in their hands/laps/desks?

Technorati Tags: Apple, Nintendo, Nintendo DS Lite, DS Lite, cracking, MacBook, MacBook Pro, quality assurance, quality control, QA, industrial design

Holy crap! I didn't expect to see this one coming!

The Apple Store Lincoln Road is set to open this Friday at 6pm according to Macworld. This will be the 10th Apple Store in Florida and the 2nd within 15 minutes of my house. High school would have been a lot more bearable if there was an Apple Store 5 minutes away too.

There are DJs planned for opening night and the remainder of the weekend. 1,000 shirts will be given out and there is a contest for a $2299 prize package consisting of a 17" iMac, an iPod nano, a Canon digital camera, a Sony video camera and an HP printer.

ifoAppleStore has pictures of the unique facade (for an Apple Store, that is). Instead of changing it to match Apple's usual stylings, the original store front has been kept and an Apple logo has been added.

In contrast to the Apple Store Aventura, this store features The Studio, a relatively new Appl Store "attraction" that's a bit like a Genius Bar that is more creativity-oriented than troubleshooting-oriented. No mention of a theatre on the store's page, and I doubt there is one since, at least from the stores with Studios that I've seen, the Studio sits in the center-rear of the store, where the registers are in smaller stores and where the theatre is in larger stores.

This is so exciting and I don't even get to go. At least I'll have a chance to see it when I go home in mid-August. For now though, I've got to convince my sister to drive down there, brave the geeks and pick me up a shirt on opening night :)

Technorati Tags: Apple, Apple Store, Aventura, Lincoln Road, Miami Beach, Florida, South Beach, retail, opening, grand opening

Martin Photo Booth 8
Originally uploaded by Martin Gordon.

The picture above is a great of example of how unphotogenic I am. As "one of those people", I found the WikiHow article on being more photogenic really useful.

Technorati Tags: photography, portraits, howto, WikiHow, funny, humor, lifehacks, Flickr, Apple, Photo Booth, Mac OS X, iSight

I just got an email from the Warehouse, the Dave Matthews Band fan organization, announcing that Dave will be playing a solo acoustic set at Farm Aid this year. This comes at no surprise since Dave is on the Farm Aid board and has played at the benefit concert for the past few years.

What is surprising is the news that this year's Farm Aid will take place at the Tweeter Center at the Waterfront in Camden, New Jersey which is just across the river from Philadelphia. This will be my first time seeing Dave perform solo so it should be a real treat.

The Warehouse ticket request period is currently taking place and will close at noon on July 18th. The public on sale date is Saturday, July 22 at 10am Eastern Time.

From the email:

The mission of Farm Aid is to keep family farmers on their land. Family farmers are our only guarantee for fresh, local food. Our goal is to bring together family farmers and citizens to restore family farm-centered agriculture. Family farmers ensure safe, healthful food, protect natural resources, and strengthen local economies. For more information, please visit www.farmaid.org

Technorati Tags: Dave Matthews, Dave Matthews Band, DMB, Farm Aid, benefit, concert, Tweeter Center, Tweeter Center at the Waterfront, Camden, New Jersey, Philadelphia

ZDNet blog, Googling Google, reports that Google Spreadsheets has received a minor update from version 1.1.4b to 1.1.4d. You can now add borders to cells and there's a useful "clear formatting" button. Also new is a contextual menu with Cut/Copy/Paste and Clear Selection, although the menu is obscured by my Firefox contextual menu (Firefox 2.0b1 on OSX). There's also an option to paste values or paste formats, the former of which is really useful for large spreadsheets. As the linked story reports, the app does seem much faster; I have yet to see the red "Loading…" tag. No improvements yet on the function arguments side, though. The application still shows "f(args)" instead of actual function arguments.

Still not replacing Excel, but at least it's moving along. Now if only I could get into the Writely beta to bash that too (jk, Google)…

Technorati Tags: Google, Google Spreadsheets, update, Microsoft, Microsoft Office, Excel, Writely, beta

Microsoft and Yahoo have begun testing instant messaging interoperability between the two company's IM services in effort to better fight AOL's position in the IM market.

I really don't know how much it will help though. If they're looking for shear numbers, they've effectively cut their potential market in half since now there's no reason to have both an MSN account and a Y! IM account. I have both a Windows Live Messenger and a Y! IM account by virtue of the other services these logins offer (access to Office/Vista betas on the Microsoft side; My Yahoo! and Yahoo! Mail on the Yahoo side), but I have no reason to sign on to either IM service because I have no friends that use those services. The ability to use one login to have access to no friends on either service isn't very appealing.

Even still, in the age of Meebo and Adium, both multi-protocol IM apps, there's so much transparency between protocols that having to enter one less login name in the Accounts window is pretty inconsequential. Of course, having only one login name does have some benefits, namely synchronization. Now you will only need to worry about one buddy list, one status, one profile, etc.

Unless this interoperablity makes switching from AIM, I don't see it having much effect in the IM wars. What I do like about this agreement is the possiblilty of more Microsoft/Yahoo! collaboration and even the purchase of Yahoo! by Microsoft. Now that's something to chat about.

BTW, WY! = Windows Live Messenger + Yahoo! Messenger

Technorati Tags: Yahoo, Microsoft, MSN, Windows Live, Windows Live Messenger, MSN Messenger, Yahoo! IM, AOL, AIM, IM, instant messaging, instant messenger, Meebo, Adium, interoperability

Here's a pair of links to tradition media (gasp!) prince VH1's Best Week Ever Blog.

The first video is a take on the current Apple "Get a Mac"
ad campaign, featuring a hip guy as a Mac and a nerdy guy as a PC. The second video is a take on Adam Sandler's movie career summed up in just a matter of minutes.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Get a Mac, PC, spoof, parody, commercials, trailers, Adam Sandler, movies, VH1, Best Week Ever, blog, old media, traditional media, television

i use this is a brand new social Mac OS X application tracker. It features a Digg-like interface where instead of Digging news stories, you click "i use this" on an application that you use. In addition, you can add other users as friends and you're given a list of "neighbours" who I assume are chosen based on how similar your app usage is.

Even without the social aspect of it, this is a much better app tracker than the bloated VersionTracker and MacUpdate, which take forever to load and are loaded with intrusive ads. In contrast, I went through the first 20 pages of applications in a matter of minutes and picked a handful of apps that I currently use. There is only one AdSense text banner ad at the top of every page.

And of course, what would a Web 2.0 app be without tags? i use this supports tagging of applications and features a Top Tags sidebar. It also has a size-weighted tag cloud common to many other web apps as well. Also par for the course, here's the developer's blog.

I think my biggest concern about this site, apart from its somewhat limited appeal is the fact that "i use this" can't be verbed. It's easy to say "I dugg that story" but it's a bit awkward to say "I 'i used this' that app." It doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. In addition, I didn't notice any RSS feeds. *tsk, tsk*

EDIT: Looks like either Firefox didn't autodetect the feeds or I was on a page that currently didn't have feeds. Here are the feeds available and the ones currently planned (at least as of March).

Technorati Tags: Web 2.0, Apple, Mac OS X, applications, software, Digg, social news, app tracker, social networking, i use this