RetrophischGruber sums up quite well my feelings about Adobe’s acquisition of Macromedia:
Rather than expand into untapped creative markets, Adobe seems hell-bent on expanding into the jerks-wearing-suits market, a market that’s completely at odds with the creative market they’ve dominated for nearly two decades.
Which is what happens when you put a sales guy in charge of a company that makes creative products. Which is Gruber’s point.
Recently, Michael Hyatt revealed what was in his business carry-on, and posed the question to others of what is in their’s. So here’s the official inventory from the Phisch Bowl:
The PowerBook 1 GHz 12-inch rides in a Waterfield Designs Sleevecase (with flap). This is tucked in to a sapphire-blue, Tom Bihn Brain Bag. (Anyone want to [trade me](mailto:retrophisch@retrophisch.com?subject=Brain Bag trade) a black Brain Bag?) The Sleevecase replaces the original Brain Cell I got with the pack, as it is for a 15-inch PowerBook no longer in my possession.
In a WD medium Gear Pouch, I have stashed: my AC adapter for my third-generation, 40 GB iPod; three packs of iKlear Travel Singles screen cleaners; a Boostaroo for possible use with the iPod (it might came in handy while flying, so your mate can watch the movie on your PowerBook with you, instead of the in-flight entertainment–if there is any); a small voltage tester; and a wall socket circuit tester.
The rest of my cables–with the exceptions of 25-foot RJ-45 (Cat-5 Ethernet) and RJ-11 lengths–reside in a black Tom Bihn Snake Charmer. These include: the long AC adapter for my PowerBook; a Madsonline MicroAdapter (it’s good to have a spare); a Madsonline Auto/Air Adapter; a six-foot Ethernet crossover cable; a PowerPod; two Dock-connector FireWire cables; and a Fellowes Transient Surge Suppresser (a single-plug surge suppresser, complete with RJ-11 In and Out jacks).
Stashed elsewhere in the Brain Bag’s pockets and compartments, as well as in a Freudian Slip, also by Tom Bihn, are the following: a Kensington PocketMouse; a pair of Aiwa noise-cancelling headphones (the cans are actually more noise-reducing than they are cancelling, but for $50, they’re a great value); a pad of stickie notes; 4 ink pens of various colors; the one-foot FireWire cable I use with the portable FireWire hard drives I pick and choose from; the AC adapter for my mobile phone; the VGA and DVI video adapters for my PowerBook; the battery recharger for my digital camera; a deck of playing cards; and a pocket first-aid kit.
Part of my everyday kit that would also travel with me: Sony Ericsson T616, paired with a SE Akono HBH-602 Bluetooth Headset (silver plate, not the blue shown); the aforementioned 3G, 40 GB iPod; and a Canon PowerShot S500 with a 1 GB Compact Flash card. These tech toys ride in, respectively, a horizontal Krusell case, a Contour Design Showcase, and a Lowepro Rezo 20.
Whew! I think that about does it. What’s in your bag?
Whenever I need to generate filler text, I’ve been using MacLorem. It’s a handy little app, it’s freeware, and it can generate text in Hawai’ian, which amuses me to no end. It generates text in other “dead” languages, though being a “dead language” is hardly the case with Hawai’ian.
If you’re looking for one less program in your Applications folder, however, you should check out Steve Wheeler’s Lorem Scriptsum, an AppleScript that will generate the Lorem Ipsum dummy text and place it in the Clipboard for your use. I’m going to have to give this a try…
[Via MacInTouch iWork Reader Report.]
Adobe to acquire Macromedia.
Whoa.
I’ve been futzing around with OSXvnc on my Cube and Chicken of the VNC on my PowerBook, and I cannot get the latter to connect to the former. Is anyone out there using this combination, and can offer guidance? Or recommend a different VNC client?
Today’s MDJ provides good background information on Apple’s quarterly financial conference call coming later this afternoon. Matt & Company’s analysis of the stock “analyst” situation is spot on:
If Apple beats its own estimates by 10%, those results are merely “in line with analyst expectations.” If Apple’s estimates were spot on, then the company didn’t live up to those “analyst expectations.” In a sane world, the market would punish the analysts for missing their forecast, but that’s not where we live. The analysts would blame Apple, not themselves, and issue feverish research notes accusing the company of “underperforming” and “bursting its bubble.” The stock price, in turn, would summarily fall.
[Emphasis added. –R]
So like many segments of our society, the “analysts” will play the blame game if Apple’s figures don’t match up with theirs. It’s not their fault their projections were wrong; it’s Apple’s fault for failing to meet the analysts’ expectations, even if Apple’s figures fall in line with Apple’s projections. Much like how a certain Mr. O’Grady and other rumor-mongers blame Apple when new product specifications fail to match up to their caffeine-driven imaginations. MDJ’s taking-to-task of the anaylsts continues:
Still, one shouldn’t ignore the possibility that Apple will post a solid quarter that looks “bad” simply because it doesn’t meet the fantasies of analysts who are busily inventing video iPods, media servers, and Apple-branded cell phones in their feverish little heads. The exuberance has placed Apple in the uncomfortable position of needing to beat its own guidance by 10% or more just to keep up with expectations.
UPDATE, 7:55 PM: It’s all moot, at least this time, as Apple blows away everyone’s projections. [Via Matt D..]
In what yours truly believes is a huge branding mistake, Mac Design is changing it’s name to Layers. Ick.
Publisher Scott Kelby reasons:
The magazine has grown, changed, and evolved so much over the past few years that the word “design” doesn’t really explain all that we are anymore. If you’ve read us for any length time, you know we’re also a magazine for digital photographers, with digital photography news, tips, tutorials, and camera and printer reviews in every issue. Plus, from the very beginning, we’ve been the only Mac magazine to have an entire section dedicated to digital video editing. But we found that most photographers and video editors didn’t really know that because they don’t generally reach for a magazine that has the word “Design” in big letters on the cover.
I’m not sure how changing the name to Layers is going to draw the digital photography/video crowd that isn’t already reading the publication. I know about the use of layers in Adobe products. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s a pretty stupid name for a magazine that already has a great, all-encompassing name. This will not have an effect on the fact that I am a reader and subscriber. I just think it’s a bad name.
[Via Macsimum News.]
Adobe GoLive CS2 is going to have integrated tools from Six Apart for MovableType and TypePad users. Maybe this will be a way to speed up generation of new site looks.
The April issue of About This Particular Macintosh is now available.
Ellyn looks at the ongoing Apple trade secret lawsuits, which Wes covers as well. His Bloggable column is chock-full this month, as March was chock-full of Apple- and Macintosh-related news and bloggings. Yours truly is even quoted in the column, for which I am humbled and grateful.
Paul takes another lap around the Internet, bringing back sightings of baby naming, credit reports, Canadian flag proposals, and ad blockers. Oh, and “three dozen kinds of fried dough.” Ellyn has this month’s Pod People, and discusses the use of digital music vis-a-vis le iPod for exercise purposes.
Ted starts a new chapter of ATPO, with a look at the history of outline exchange and XML. Reader David Blumenstein shares his first Macworld Expo experience, and Scott Chitwood checks in with customizing your Mac with desktop pictures. Ever the mad scientist of multimedia experimentation, Sylvester shares some tips for your next multimedia project.
The Ellyn Ritterskamp issue continues with her review of the iPod Shuffle, while our Mr. Lawson looks at three backpacks from Axio and the iLite. Marcus J. Albers reviews the latest king of Tetris games for the Mac.
Cortland deals with designer networking, and the iTrolls ask “What’s In A Name?”. Frisky Freeware notes Firefox’s kissing cousin, the Thunderbird e-mail client. Finally, Eric was kind enough to offer up desktop pictures from his trip to Arizona last year.
This issue marks a milestone for ATPM. This e-zine has now been continuously published for 10 years. I am happy to say that I have been involved with the publication in one aspect or another for nearly seven of those ten. Since leaving college, this is the longest relationship I have had with anything or anyone other than my marriage to my wonderful wife. This publication has given me an outlet for writing. It has given me my best friend in the virtual world, and other close pals as well. The staff–all volunteers–approach the work as professionally as they would if this were a monthly print magazine that actually paid them. It’s a top-notch crew that I am thankful to be a part of. I’m looking forward to the next 10 years.
If you’re not subscribing to MDJ or MWJ, you’re missing out on what is the very best and most comprehensive coverage of the ongoing Apple trade secret lawsuits. Matt Deatherage has worked to the point of failing health to deliver a knock-out of an issue this past Sunday that features the most intensive news of the cases I’ve seen. Matt & Co. deliver brilliant point after brilliant point, with so many good ones, I’d have to reprint the entire article to get them all in.
There is one example on why these cases are important for businesses, and why this is not about the political right to free speech as set forth in the First Amendment.
How many people would have looked twice at the original iMac if its Bondi Blue design had leaked out two months in advance, and competitors had already released similar-looking PCs? Apple actually introduced the machine at an event that everyone thought was for some of O’Grady’s long-rumored PowerBooks, and it was – plus “one more thing.” It’s said that only about 30 people within Apple knew what the machine looked like or that it would be announced that May day in 1998, and the press coverage conveyed the shock at Apple’s bold move.
The iMac’s design influenced everything from rival PCs to peripherals to pencil sharpeners, but because Apple kept its work secret until it was ready, all those products were rightly seen as iMac copycats. If Think Secret had leaked the iMac like it did the Mac Mini, would the world have seen those products are iMac knock-offs – or seen the iMac, the original idea that was stolen and released prematurely, as “just part of a trend?”
That sums it up. If the latter had happened, would Apple have recovered as quickly from its doldrums as it did? Would it have recovered at all? One could make the argument that the success of the iMac fueled the development of iTunes, the iTunes Music Store, and the iPod. Without the runaway success of the iMac, Apple as we know it today might not exist at all. That success could have been placed in serious jeopardy with rumors of the new machine leaking out.
If you could spend your money on only one Macintosh publication, I would recommend MDJ or MWJ. (I have no affiliation with these publications, or their parent company, GCSF, Inc., other than as a satisfied subsriber.)