What mac looked like in 1996

The Cult of Mac blog posted an ad from 1996 that shows what Mac and PC looked like in the day. I'd like to see what Mr. Linux 1996 would've looked like, probably the same as he does today.

If I had to choose, I'd choose, uh, neither? I'm not a suit wearing ex-young republican clawing my way up to middle managment. I'm also not a denim shirt wearing metrosexual before it was a word. Come to think of it, I certainly don't look like the people in the iPod ads either.

Technorati Tags : Apple iPod PC

My on again/off again gaming habits

Gizmodo had a post about the old Super NES console from way back beating the PlayStation 3 on Amazon. I thought this was a hoot, Sony must be pissed that the Wii is the must have console right now, imagine how playing second fiddle to a 4th generation (the PS3 is 7th generation) console from 17 years ago! I clicked through the search link to Amazon and the SNES is gone, but the PS3 is (as of right now) #22, behind the Wii at #8, silver PS2 at #15, and the XBox 360 at #17. Both the Wii and the PS3 are priced about $150 above their MSPRs-Ouch! That SNES is looking better all the time!

When I was growing up we had the original NES, before that a Colecovision and our first console, the Magnavox Odyssey 2! That console was retro gaming when it first came out. I wasn't a huge gamer at the time, I think the only game I ever played to the end and beat was Castlevania. I remember that it was a lot of late-night playing. The hours seemed to go by at twice the normal rate. The NES console disappeared (probably got put in the closet) and I didn't play any games till I got a copy of Mechwarrior 2 with a computer I bought when my brother moved out. That was fun, but again, the time flew by and by this time I had a real job that I had to get up and go to in the mornings, which made playing 'til 2am a real drag.

Fast forward to present day. Hey, these old NES (and SNES and Nintendo 64) games, though hopelessly outdated, are still fun! They don't render in HD, but who cares, it'll probably be another 10 years before I have an HDTV anyway. The emulator community is thriving, despite it's questionable legality. I'm sure the game company's lawyers wouldn't say there is no question. I think the game companies should sell ROMs online so people could play (legally) on their computers, I'd buy 'em. Hell, they should give them away, Ninetendo's mindshare with the general public would go up like it was 1989 all over again! Nintendo does sell the old games as downloads for the Wii system, but the barrier to entry is a little high ($400 right now). Guess I'll hang on to my money: if past history repeats, my recent gaming renaissance will peter out before long.

technorati tags : gaming nintendo playstation

Toy Story 3

Variety reports Pixar big muckety-muck Ed Catmull told investors that Toy Story 3 will be directed by Lee Unkrich and released in 2009. My daughter will be thrilled, she loves Buzz Lightyear and will sit through either Toy Story movie without blinking an eye. She can't even put up with Elmo for that long.

Toy Story 3 had ambiguous beginnings. It was started as a Disney produced sequel to the enormously popular Pixar films during the end of the Eisner era, after contract talks had broken off between the two studios. Then hell froze over, Eisner resigned and Disney bought Pixar, that's the short, short version. Development of TS3 at Disney was put on hold, it's future was up in the air while the dust settled. Apparently it's a go, I hope it's as good as the second film.

tags technorati : Movies, Pixar, Disney

A Customer Service Miracle

This is a great customer service story.  It shows the huge difference between Nintendo and Sony.   Nintendo seems concerned about the users experience, not just during the game.  Sony seems to be a big giant corporation, oblivious to user experience outside of the game.  Sure the graphics are state of the art, but I wonder if my (I'm being hypothetical here I don't a have a a PS3) $600 PlayStation 3 console went all wonky if I could get it fixed inside of a month?  Plus have my warrantee extended from the time of service.  That's nice.

I really get excited when I get a friendly cashier/customer service rep, etc.  It's getting very rare.

technorati tags:Opinion

Way to go, Saturn

Saturn has always seemed to analogous to Dodge in the eighties. A viable car company with terrible cars. Up till recently, the Saturn entire lineup has held all the excitement of a , i.e. none. Such being the case, I treated Saturn like I treated the Chrysler in the eighties: something to ignore. While I was busy ignoring Saturn they (finally) came up something worth paying attention to. Saturn's Sky roadster came out of left field much like the Dodge Viper did years ago. The Sky is based on the same platform as Pontiac's very well received Solstice; for my money, the Sky may be the better looking of the two. The Solstice is has a little 'chick car' to it and the Sky has a more chiseled, agressive look. How did that happen?

Okay, everyone agrees, the sky's nice; it's easy to make a killer roadster. It's almost impossible to make a midsize sedan that is not as boring as the tax code. Saturn comes up with the Aura, another handsome car with an awful name. The brand design language started with the Sky works well as executed here. Not (too) derivative, not bland, not retro. The wheel arches are nicely chiseled, the high shoulder line has an Audi-esque quality, which is probably the best choice of German inspiration. A hell of an improvement over the L-series, the chrome grill it received in a mid-run facelift made me think of something you'd see on something made in an eastern bloc country.

Now Saturn is definitely on a roll, I should be paying attention by this time, but I'm still not. Recently I happened across Saturn's newest SUV, the Outlook, a replacement for the awful Relay, now I'm noticing. This almost makes up for the TrailBlazer, that and nearly every other SUV GM has ever made. Again, nicely chiseled, the new Saturn design cues work well here. It's based on the same platform as the GMC Acadia, also above average design from GM. The third vehicle based on this platform is the Buick Enclave, which is a great improvement over it's predecessor and not just a badge engineered model, but actually has unique sheetmetal and glass, but I digress.

Saturn recently unveiled the Astra hatchback, again, very nice. They've sucessfully come up with an original look for their vehicles that works well across the whole range of vehicles. The sporty compact segment is not to be overlooked, or your competitors, will claim it for their own. The four door version has a VW Golf Rabbit look to it, not as though it's a copy, but a lot of the same massing, etc.

The turnaroun at Saturn is beyond remarkable, Cadillac has pretty much done the same thing and I thought that was a fluke. Somebody needs to tell Pontiac, Saturn is eating their lunch.

Mom's an Early Adopter

So Mom couldn't wait for Vista and didn't have enough computer to bother to upgrade, so she bought a new laptop with Vista preinstalled.

That actually, is a lie. The truth is, Mom's power supply is apparently about to die. It's gone wonky, the computer is about to turn five; it wasn't exactly top of the line when it was new. I'd say she's gotten her use out of that machine.

So, with my help, we scour the weekend sales flyers and find a mid-range Gateway with a Pentium, 1 Gig of Ram, 80GB HD, 15" widescreen, 802.11 B/G/N, Vista Home Premier for $600 after mail in rebate. I steered her away from the $400-500 laptops: Celeron processors, 512k ram, 802.11 B/G and most damning, Vista Home Castrated Basic edition.

Of course, I get to set the thing up. I take it to my house, cause of course there'll be updates. Not surprisingly, a smallish one for the Antivirus software (yay-McAfee not that awful Symantec junk) and only 18MB for Vista (five vista updates and one or two others.) The interface is a little different, which means you have to look around for stuff, but it's mostly all still there.

Verdict: So far, it seems like they polished the glass. I'm not sure I love Aero, it seems like the fluffiest sort of resource-hogging eye candy. Granted I have a Powerbook, so my opinon is a little biased. On the other hand, considering I use OS X, obviously I'm looking for a nice GUI. It seems to be XP reskinned, I guess I'll have to wait and see if it's more than meets the eye.

Stupidity or Genius

I've been a fan of Van Halen since back in the day, before Sammy. I had 1984 on vinyl, for the love of Pete! Van Halen begat Van Hagar, which begat a big mistake. Fast forward nearly 10 years, Van Halen has basically dropped off the radar. They probably can't get Sammy back after the 2004/5 reunion tour. I didn't see them on that tour, but it sounds like there was one screw up after another. If Eddie so much as mentions Gary Cherone the villagers will revolt and probably garotte him with his own low E string. The only thing left to do eat crow and call Diamond Dave, apparently that call was made. Dave said yes, but Michael Anthony is out and Wolfie Van Halen is in as the new bass player.

So yesterday the 2007 tour was announced, 40 dates this summer. One of the most highly anticipated reunions in rock 'n roll has been shot in the butt by Ed's I don't know what. Stupidity, I guess. I saw them in 1995 on the Balance tour (the day Jerry Garcia died, Sammy announced that at the beginning of their set) and that will have to be my Van Halen concert memory. If 2007 isn't a forgettable tour by a past-their-peak band, I'll be a surprised. Good luck to them.

Resistance is Futile!

Sorry for the ST reference, cheesy, I know. My blog has been absorbed into the Google collective. It's already consumed my email, my RSS feeds, what else? Not my photostream though! Picasa? Really? Weak.