ClarisWorks History

Michael notes a history of ClarisWorks posted by Bob Hearn, one of the software package’s creators. The quote Michael highlights stands out in my mind as well.

ClarisWorks was partially responsible for my switching to the Mac back in the mid-90s. I began using the Windows version of ClarisWorks while working at CompUSA, and it became my favorite application when I brought home my first Mac. The rebadged AppleWorks that is its successor actually feels more bloated and “heavy,” and I miss the lightweight but powerful ClarisWorks 3 and 4.

These days, I tend to do most of my text editing/word processing in Tex-Edit and BBEdit. Database stuff is done in FileMaker Pro. What little spreadsheet work I have is done in Excel, but that’s just because I have Microsoft Office through my job. Without Excel, I’d likely be in the spreadsheet module of AppleWorks.

Though he hints at it, what Hearn doesn’t come right out and say is how ClarisWorks totally annihilated Microsoft Works on the Mac. It simply ceased to exist. A truly impressive accomplishment, considering Microsoft’s track record both then and now.

Automatic Flatterer

If you’re having a bad day and need a little pick-me-up, click here. (JavaScript needs to be enabled in your browser.)

(Thanks, Jim!)

Don’t mess with MacTavish

It’s nice to see that Craig MacTavish, who came up during the NHL’s bruiser days, hasn’t lost the hockey-player mentality as a coach.

(Thanks, Brian!)

New spam filters

Something I know will be of interest to Michael. (SpamSieve uses Bayesian analysis to identify spam.)

(from Lee)

Frank talk on Apple’s free software

I know why Michael links to Steven Frank’s note on Apple’s free software. I agree with Steven, and I hope that developers like Michael and Panic continue to thrive, even with more and more freebies coming out of Cupertino. The old cliché is true: you get what you pay for.

And if Steven keeps it up, he’s going to have me seriously considering a Sidekick when my current mobile phone contract is up in June….

Where’s Marv?

Ok, so now I’m worried.

A few weeks back, I noticed that Gunnery.Net had dropped off the ‘net. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, as I figured Marv might have been moving hosts, having domain issues, etc.
Last week I started digging around; I noticed all of Marv’s domains (at least the 4 others I knew about) were off-line as well. All email to any address I ever had for him come back as undeliverable.

Now I haven’t spoken to Marv over the phone since before I stopped helping edit Gunnery.Net, but I decided to give him a ring. Disconnected 866 number. Disconnected long-distance business number. Hmmmm. Ok, I can understand killing the 866 number, those things cost major dough. I can even understand killing the biz number if he wasn’t using it any more.

Then today, disconnected unlisted home number (what can I say, he trusted me). Like I said, now I’m worried. Marvin Stenhammar was in the U.S. Special Forces in the 1980s; he was forced to retire due to a severe injury and a degenerative bone disease. Lucky for Marv, he married a Norse goddess of a doctor, who looked after him when she wasn’t at the hospital. Did they move? Or something worse?

I can’t head over to the SIG-L email list and poke around; the email list about SIG firearms Marv and I met on no longer exists. Or if it does, it’s on a different email server that I have been unable to google. I’ve googled Marv’s name and domains and have come up with squat, at least as far anything recent is concerned.

If you know of whom I speak, and you have information, please drop me a line at: retrophisch at retrophisch.com (sorry, anti-spam measure). I’d just like to know, you know?

One million Safari downloads

Apple announced that its beta web browser for Mac OS X, Safari, has been downloaded more than a million times in just over 2 weeks time.
(from Stan)

Jacoby on capital punishment

Speaking of Jeff Jacoby, he offers this point on the recently-revived capital punishment debate:

“This week the Justice Department released ‘Capital Punishment 2001,’ its latest annual survey of death penalty statistics. … It is striking that a controversy so large revolves around numbers so small. The death penalty is available in 38 states and the federal system, yet only 66 convicted killers were executed in the United States last year. That was fewer than the 85 executed in 2000, which in turn was fewer than the 98 executed in 1999.

“… But whatever else might be said about these numbers, they are eclipsed by a far larger and more heartbreaking number, one not mentioned in the Justice Department’s report: the number of murder victims. In 2001, 15,980 Americans lost their lives to murder–a death toll hundreds of times greater than the small body count of executed murderers. Year after year, the number of inmates put to death by the state–usually painlessly and after years of due process–adds up to a minuscule fraction of the number of Americans purposely shot, beaten, strangled, knifed, poisoned, burned, drowned, hanged, and tortured to death by murderers.”

Jacoby’s musings

Jeff Jacoby’s latest column notes a wide array of topics, including the fact that the war between the enlightened West and militant Islam has been raging a lot longer than most of us think.

Lies my protesting newsperson told me

Now I could lay in to the various news agencies for their highly-skewed slant on the various anti-war protests over the weekend, but the Media Research Center has already done an oustanding analysis of the various stories.

I would like to note that the protestors in Damascus, Syria, that ABC News pointed out in its commentary were anything but peaceful, shouting, “Our beloved Saddam, strike Tel Aviv.”

I would also like to note that the group responsible for organizing the protests this past weekend is a radically leftist organization far more interested in seeing our national security forces dismantled than in seeing a corrupt, homicidal dictator rendered militarily impotent for the safety of the world.

Please do not construe any of this to mean that I am opposed to the protestors or the protesting in general. That is their right in this country, hope they had fun with all of their whining, misguided though a lot of it may be.

What I have a problem with is the irresponsible reporting that cast some sort of legitimacy on these pro-communist hippie throwbacks, purporting a “significant” portion of mainstream America is now beginning to throw its weight behind their antiwar movement. And don’t comment me with, “What about polls?” Polls are about worthless unless you start getting numbers and demographics really representative of the population. (Hint: this generally means a sample size of more than 3,000 people, and you don’t call all 3,000 within the New York or Los Angeles metro areas.)