Andrew Clem.com home Subliminal Apple Macintosh

Upper left and right: My iMac, the short-lived "Flower Power" edition (2001). Bottom photo, from left to right: PowerBook 150 (1994), Mac Plus (1987), ImageWriter II (1987), GCC Personal Laser Printer (1989). Eleven years after this photo was taken (January 1995), all three of the Apple products pictured here still function!

my iMac

Links to publishers & select Mac developers:


Ode to a Machine

Remember that old song by Queen, I'm In Love With My Car? Well it's kinda like that. In the early 1980s I used to press my nose against the window of computer stores and yearn for an Apple IIC or an Apple III. Then came January 1984 and the unveiling of Macintosh during the Super Bowl half time. I could see right then and there my destiny as a crusader for free thought. Three years later I finally had enough money to buy my first Mac, a Macintosh Plus, and I was immediately enthralled with the vast power at my disposal. In 1994 I bought an Apple PowerBook 150 and took it to Peru with me to do writing and research for my dissertation. In March 2001 I bought my third and current Mac: an iMac "Flower Power" edition, and once again I was in MacNerd heaven. All three of my Macs still function, and I have no plans to dispose of any of them. I don't expect long-term Windows users to understand, but I know there are plenty of Mac folks out there who know the joy: Macs rock!

Apple loop

DISCLAIMER: I, Andrew Clem, have not received any compensation from Apple Computer, Inc. in exchange for this blatant (yet deeply sincere) commercial endorsement. Not that I would refuse such an offer, mind you... Smile


No automatic redirect? Please click HERE to go to the new Macintosh & Miscellaneous blog page, as explained below.

April 17, 2006 [LINK]

Web site Spring cleaning

As part of my relentless, never-ending efforts to make this Web site more automated and interactive, I have begun a transition to a new blog system that will entail a slight change in Web site addresses. Unless I have slipped up somewhere, you shouldn't notice any differences in page format or functionality for the time being. In a slight departure from blogosphere custom, the blog entries on the archives pages will henceforth be listed in natural chronological order, starting with the earliest date. To me, that makes it a lot easier to review old material. For the time being, the "legacy" blog and archive pages (".shtml") will remain intact, and they will eventually have an automatic redirect to the new pages (".php"). As part of this transition, there will be feedback features in the near future, as long promised. Note that the new Macintosh & Miscellanous page serves as the residual catch-all for all blog posts that don't fit into any other categories. That means general culture, religion, music, movies, science, computer technology, and non-baseball sports. From now on, the monthly and categorical archives pages will include all blog entries, up to and including the current date. Therefore, there will be some overlap between current blog pages and archive pages. Here are the new and old addresses for the main blog categories. Please adjust the bookmarks in your Web browser accordingly, and as always, "thank you for your $upport."

CATEGORY OLD URL NEW URL
Central blog page index.shtml index.php
Baseball Baseball/index.shtml Baseball.php
Latin America LatinAmerica/index.shtml LatinAmerica.php
Macintosh / Miscellaneous Macintosh.shtml MacMisc.php
Our canaries HomeBirds.shtml HomeBirds.php
Politics Politics.shtml Politics.php
War War.shtml War.php
Wild birds WildBirds.shtml WildBirds.php

One of the tradeoffs with this new system is that I will lose flexibility in making cross blog posts between more than one category. From now on, each post will appear on one, and only one blog category page. That is why you will see this blog post (classified as "miscellaneous") on the old Baseball blog page, but not the new one.

UPDATE: Another change is that for each successive day, blog posts on the central blog page will henceforth be listed from top to bottom in reverse alphabetical order of their category (wild birds first, baseball last), irrespective of what time of day they were originally posted.

Reminder: Legacy blog pages (ending in ".shtml") will not be updated after today. Please choose one of the new blog pages.


February 20, 2006 [LINK]

Mac users: smug or persecuted?

In last Thursday's News Leader, Fred Pfisterer shares his experience as a proud, satisfied Mac user coping with the bigotry of the cruel Windows-dominated world. Do we act like we are [a persecuted minority] some times? Well, you'd have to "walk a mile in our shoes" to understand. After suffering the indignity of PC techno-nerds spouting condescending jargon, Mr. Pfisterer opted for the "kinder, gentler alternative" of Macintosh. Once you go Mac, you never go back! Even though the Macintosh had established itself as a clearly superior platform by the early 1990s, millions of computer shoppers around the world let pushy geeks sell them Windows PCs against their better judgment, and the rest is history. After 22 years, the advantage to using Macs is a strong as ever: As Mr. Pfisterer says, you just plug it in and you get to work; no muss, no fuss. Viruses, Trojan horses, worms, or constant crashes? Not with Macs; well, hardly ever.* Mr. Pfisterer had previously written about putting family photo albums onto CD-ROMs, which I have also done; see Jan. 17 [corrected link].

I had thought that Apple's big "switch" promotion two years ago might have more effect, but most potential switchers are set in their ways by now. Ironically, the brainy pitch man for Apple, Jeff Goldblum, came across as condescending; people get very annoyed when they are told how simple their lives could be if they had just bought the other brand. Sorry, no offense! Even the phenomenal success of the iPod has not translated into much of a surge in Mac sales, at least not so far. Unlike many folks, I didn't have to be sold on the Mac, since I was in the thrall of Apple's karma from the get-go. Like Renee* Zellweger in Jerry Maguire*, they had me at
hello

* [Two name misspellings in one sentence!? Sheesh.]

* A Mac virus??

Coincidentally, there was a very rare news report last week about a a virus that targets Macintosh computers. It apparently only spreads via instant messaging (iChat), however, so I'm safe. See techworld.com (via MacAddict and Washington Post [corrected link]).

I've updated the format of the Macintosh page for the first time in several months, with a new photo montage and few new links. I need to catch up with recent developments in the wake of the release of the first Intel-based Macs, which seems to be a mixed blessing.



Rainbow