The Husband/Wife Computer Upgrade Conversation

October 07, 2004

While this quotes comes from AppleMatters, it is almost the very conversation I go through with my wife each time I decide it is time to upgrade a computer (Mac) or expand the network with another cool device.

Every attempt I make to justify a new computer to my wife proceeds along the following lines:

"Well its time to get a new computer" say I.
"Oh did your old one break?" replies she.
"No, it's just you know getting old. Heck I bought it way back in 2000"
"But you put that upgrade card in it right?" she returns.
"YesÉ" I deftly answer.
"So what will this new computer do that your old one won't?" She asks.
"Uh, it will do everything faster!" I reply slowly.
"That's it?" She inquires
"Pretty much" I admit in utter defeat.
"Fine. Just as soon as I get that Jaguar I've been wanting. My car is a little pokey you know." She opines.

FireWire External RAID from Scratch

September 09, 2004

Thanks to the donation of a couple of 12 Pack external storage cases I am in the midst of finding out how to build an external FireWire RAID solution. So far, the only option I have found is this one at FireWire depot. It offers RAID 1 Support with multiple drive Spanning.

Unfortunately, that is not quite what I want/need. Ideally, I want to build an external hardware only RAID 5 Solution with Firewire.

If you have any ideas on this, please let me know via the comments field.

Space Technology and Pressure Suits

August 17, 2004

A very interesting look at space technology: Gallery of Space Suits

Pixo's iPod development deal

The story behind Pixo's involvement in developing the iPod, is detailed in a San Francisco Chronicle

Apple iPad: Newton Cadillac Redux

August 13, 2004

Thanks to Alex for this great link off of gizmodo.

It looks like there are potential rumblings of Apple re-entering the Slate PDA Market. You say, "Wait, when did Apple market a Slate PDA?" The answer is they didn't, but the original concept of the Apple Newton was an 8" LCD version that was called the "Cadillac," which had an 8" LCD screen and offered full wireless networking...all back in 1991 (If I can find a picture of it I will post it).

If this rumor ends up being true, you can absolutely bet the handwriting recognition powering this iPad will be the very same Rosetta Newton handwriting technology that was in the old Newton 2000s. That technology was imported into Mac OS X and redubbed InkWell. No matter what you can say about the Newton, it had and still has the world's best natural handwriting recognition engine.

NY Times compares TiVo to Apple, saying it faces a struggle in a market it helped create

August 09, 2004

NY Times compares TiVo to Apple, saying it faces a struggle in a market it helped create (One of their biggest problems is the cable companies' leveraging their monopolies.)

Mildly Entertaining...The Apple Product Cycle

August 06, 2004

Thanks to Jason O'Grady for this one. In one smattering and very entertaining article we get to run through the insane world of how a small little fruit company with "only 2% market share" gets 98% of the PC world's attention when it comes to new product announcements.

Even an ardent (albeit jaded) Apple user can't stop laughing at this...an insane and entertaining look at Apple's Product Cycle.

PowerPC on Apple: An Architectural History

August 04, 2004

Ars Technica is running a follow-up to their recent chronology of events leading up to the development of the Pentium with a detailed look at the development of the PowerPC processor. It is an interesting story, that reminded me of all the happenings back in the beginning between Apple, IBM, and Motorola to bring the PowerPC processor to desktop computing.

I found the article to be a fair and balanced look at the PowerPC.

U2 Threatens to Release Album Early on iTunes

July 24, 2004

This little item shows the power and influence iTunes has with the artists in the recording industry.

"After a rough cut of U2's latest unfinished album was stolen earlier this week, the band has vowed to release the entire album on iTunes if the music appears on P2P networks. Bono told the London Daily Telegraph, 'If it is on the Internet this week, we will release it immediately as a legal download on iTunes, and get hard copies into the shops by the end of the month.' Is this the exact opposite of the Smashing Pumpkins' last album, which the band rushed to release on P2P networks, before it could hit the stores?"

(Courtesy of Slashdot)

Here's the full scoop at Wired

Make Your Own iPod Speakers

July 20, 2004

Alright, this all over the web, but I couldn't resist due to the cool factor:

Make Your Own iPod Speakers

July Rumors Bring August iPods

July 15, 2004

Heard around the Web: July rumors bring August iPods (Smaller, multi-colored, iPod mini-ish.)

Alan Kay Decries the State of Computing

July 13, 2004

Computer pioneer Alan Kay (DARPA in the '60s, PARC in the '70s, now HP Labs) declares 'The sad truth is that 20 years or so of commercialization have almost completely missed the point of what personal computing is about.' He believes that PCs should be tools for creativity and learning, and they are falling short. (Thanks to SlashDot)

Read the full article >>

View of nBlogging from a Newton

June 24, 2004

While not a screenshot from my MP2100 (I have to install a few packages for that to happen), this gives you an idea of what the blog experience looks like from a MP2100.

MoBlogging With a Newton

June 21, 2004

Most of the people that know me have learned that I am someone that loves to find uses for antiquated technology. One visit to my house would prove that with a few PowerMacs dating back the the early 1990's still in service as mail servers, multimedia servers, and a firewall.

However, I have been digging deep into my closet as of late and have rediscovered my Newton MP 2100. The grand daddy line of PDA's. The very device that launched the PDA world back in the early 1990's. I bought a few of them back in the day and despite their oft derided hand recognition issues, was by far the best PDA on the market. We all know what happened to the Newton, Apple killed it. I moved on to a Palm (which was seldom used), and my MP 2100 sat in a closet for 5 years.

That was about all there was to say about the Newton until last week. I ran into an article on Wired that mentioned that there was a cult like following to the Newton platform. People were still writing apps for it, and were posting to blogs with a MP, a wireless card, and a piece of software. So, I dug through my pile of equipment and got everything I needed to start MoBlogging here.

Through that process I rediscovered why the Newton was so far ahead of its time. Even with 5 year old technology, the MP2100 I have can run circles around any Palm device with pure power, applications, and the ability to recognize my handwriting without graffiti. And if you are stubborn and have to use Palm's Graffiti, you can go out and install the packages. The only downfall of the device now is its form factor. It is big compared to a Palm. However, I think that is a small price to pay for a 4 x 6 LCD display.

More MoBlogs coming soon...

Six Apart has released a developer edition of MT 3.0 ahead of the official release

May 13, 2004

This is being posted all over the blogosphere, but it is cool...Six Apart has released a developer edition of MT 3.0 ahead of the official release

Record labels want to raise online mp3 prices to $3 per song

April 12, 2004

With the recent news that CD sales are plumetting AGAIN, it appears that the record companies and the RIAA want to raise the price of mp3 single sales from .99 cents to $3.00/song to compensate.

If they think this is something people are going to just swallow, they are dead wrong. Hell, at $3/song I could be persuaded to return to Peer to Peer file swapping for my music instead of purchasing them from the Apple iTunes store.

Here's the article.

The end of the CD

April 08, 2004

Jeff Veen has an interesting commentary on how he stopped buying CD's and never looked back.

I think it is an interesting perspective as well. I did something very similar to this over 3 years ago when Naptster was hot. In many respects I have sampled and bought more music than I did when I was in College (back in the day when I averaged 5 CD purchases a week). All of this with thanks to the Newsgroups and online music sales that allow single song purchasing. Everything I own now is in a digital format and gets played more often.

Music Recommendations by Listening Habit

March 15, 2004

This really shows the power and penetration of the iPod and iTunes in society and the marketplace. MusicMobs will dynamically recommend music that you may like based upon your listening habits on iTunes and your iPod.

A simple upload of your play-list library to the site, and they poll the popularity/frequency of the songs you play to come up with related artists that you might like. Think of it as amazon's recommendations system, but for music.

Random Links (Part II)

March 08, 2004

• Belkin iPod Media Reader - Use your iPod as a digital image storage device while on the road. Hey, I need a place to store those uncompressed TIFFs I shoot at 5 megapixels. Not enough SmartCards in the world (in my camera bag) to do that.

Microsoft's Digital Music Format Too Fragmented

February 26, 2004

Thanks to everyone's favorite Rob Black for this little item:

The New York Post reports that there are dozens of online music stores that back Microsoft's digital format, but they may be too fragmented to successfully dent the lead of Apple's iTunes software. According to the article, Microsoft has been quietly shifting some of its marketing muscle to back a few of the rival stores, particularly Napster, which is owned by Roxio. "They certainly don't want to see [Apple] become so dominant it becomes the de facto service," said Michael Goodman, an analyst with the Yankee Group. The company now links to half a dozen music stores on its Web page, but has given prominent placement to Napster on its Media Center personal computers. Also, Napster is one of only two companies to have a branded version of Microsoft's digital-music player software.

This is not so much a question of technology, but a question of fragmentation. Apple's iTunes, like it or not, has a commanding lead with the purchasing and distribution of online music. Why? They are Apple and not 20 other companies. I hear the lament for Window's users, the codec sucks, the DRM is bad, it is Apple, etc, etc. However, if the shoe was on the other foot with Micro$oft, those same users (while griping) would still embrace it. I liken it to the VHS vs. Betamax debate. And we all know who won that war...don't we?

iPod a Cultural Icon?

There's a great article on wired discussing the cultural impacts of the Apple iPod and how it has helped to shift culture. It is an interesting read.

iPod Mini Innards

Someone was bound to do it, it was just a question of when. Courtesy of Slashdot, a blow by blow tear down of an iPod Mini.

I don't know which is worse, the fact that this guy tore down a 200.00 machine and couldn't put it back together, or the fact that this makes me want one. Either way, it shows just how much innovation went into this cool product. Wait 6 mos. and the price will go down with greater capacity.

Macs just don't crash

February 24, 2004

I just know I am going to get flamed for linking to this one, but it is just too good...

AnchorDesk: 'Macs don't crash, Windows machines do'

MT Spell Checking

February 23, 2004

I am one of those people that writes in one giant stream of consciousness...disregarding grammar and spelling until the end and then going back to edit. This is a carryover from my creative writing and policy briefing days.

Now on any other form of word or story authoring tool this is not a problem. Think spell checker for the mentally lazy. However, thanks to a very anal friend (read Danularity) it was pointed out that I have been getting extremely lazy in going back over my blogs and checking for errors. Good friend that he was, he pointed out my spelling errors and suggested that I use MS Word to author my blogs and then copy/paste.

On the whole it was a good idea, but aside from hating MS Word it defeated the purpose of being able to blog from anywhere in the world without worrying about having that evil application. So, I took things one better...built in spell checking for MovableType. All you need is a little perl library (courtesy of CPAN), ispell for UNIX, a perl MT plug-in, and some template tweaks...poof! Workable spell checker.

The expandable nature of MovableType makes the app so compelling. It can do everything but make your sashimi for you.

Server Migration

February 08, 2004

See that little Server 2 in the footer? Yep. I was exercising pure and total geekdom this weekend. The never ending quest for a bigger, badder, and cooler server. Yep, I did it...the ever laborious (and notorious) web server migration (something every geer head just loves to do)

In one fell swoop, I moved 250 web sites from my OS X 10.1 PowerBook webserver to a big fat corillian G4 450 with 400gb of storage running 10.2 Server. The hard drive was starting to go on the old machine. So I moved to a new server. OS X Server 10.2 gives me Total control. Ahh, BSD UNIX with a Mac GUI...Linux users eat your heart out.

The move however is not stopping there...I'm putting in a new upgraded web server in running OS X 10.3 Server in the server closet to take on the load from my clients...less disk space...but afterall they aren't paying for more than 20mb of space. Actually, they aren't paying me anymore...since siteSatellite is basically on life support. Oh, well...guess they are on my good humor.

I plan on putting a big load on the G4 450...streaming QuickTime and photo management...so no one will care if I move people once again...actually they will probably thank me. As far as my clients are concerned...the move is seemless.

Although, if I put one more server in the Server (nee Hall) Closet under the stairs I will be able to cook my breakfast in there. Hmmm...think better ventilation.

Tales from SPAM & Mail Server Upgrade Hell

January 20, 2004

Damn SPAMMERS. You gotta' love them a little to hate them. I mean, the persistance and viral nature of them is interesting. One spam company gets your email and then spreads it throughout the spam universe like the plague. Before you know it an email address you carefully guarded (kept off message boards, HTML pages, and hid in server code) becomes compromised. Finally,the load becomes so heavy that it fills your mail box with 2000 pieces of spam and then overloads your mailserver. In other words, you are stuck in the middle of a midievel seige on your castle.

This type of SPAM hell hit me really hard recently. In the past I simply took a SPAM sieged email address and turned it off. Most of the time the accounts that got hit were the ones I used for subscriptions, so turning them off were no big deal.

Then, they invaded. I got hit on one of my oldest email accounts @ illuminare...I surrendered and turned it off. That was too bad, but I accepted it because there was little I could do and it was an old account that I didn't use anymore. That was the norm until last week when my personal and private email account was selected for assimilation.

The onslaught of SPAM brought my PowerBook 500 email server to its knees and shut it down with a muderours scream eminating from it. I banged my head on the ceiling in the Server Closet in my attempt to reset it. I was pissed. Not only was the server dead, but I banged head to boot. So, I decided to fight back...hard. It was far time to put some serious server side spam and antivirus scanning in place on a new mail server. Unfortunately, this decision meant that I had to kindly kill my oldest PPC Mac that dated back to the dark college days of the early 90's.

I looked around at the different open source mail servers and decided upon a combination of Exim & Courier with a healthy dose of SpamAssassin and Clam Antivirus. All of it would tie into a SQL database for account management and server configuration. It litteraly is the holy grail to solving my problem.

I thought it would be an easy compile on OS X and there would be not permissions problem. I was dead wrong. Although the compile and upgrade of Per was easy, the permissions issues I ran into after the fact was pure bloody hell. First, Courier would not authenticate usernames into the account database. Next, the Exim Mail Daemon would fail to create an MailDir dynamically for new accounts upon receiving email for them (which is the way it is supposed to work).

It really sucked. I was in permissions hell...chmodding files, bouncing servers, the works to very late hours of the evening. When I fixed the authentication problem for Courier by upgrading to the latest release, I broke Exim's MailDir creation process. The only good news in the pit of dispair was the looking at all the Spam in the mail log that was wholesale rejected by the server...4000 pieces of mail...all bounced before hitting my in-box. SpamAssassin kicked some serious butt.

With that one bit of good news, I was determined to make it work all the way accross. I took the OS X server I was building the mail servers on and literally rebuilt the box from the OS X Server installation level up and then reinstalled the mail server apps. With that multi-hour process, I managed to get it to work. Turns out it was a security patch that was released to address holes with certain services was getting in the way. I turned off those services and skipped the patch...bang it worked.

Now I have a bullet proof mail server with AntiSpam, AntiVirus, and webmail. All of it open source and running on Mac OS X server's BSD unix. Now I have to set up the other services that used be running on the same box before the mail war. (I may not be a code monkey anymore, but with enough of incentive--SPAM--I will do everyhing possible to secure my network.)

The moral of the story is this: Either you let the SPAMMERS win by surrendering your email account, allow SPAMMERS into your mail box and clense the spam after you download it (thus sucking your bandwidth dry), or you fight back on the server side.

I tried the first 2 methods and the experience sucked. Your email address is like your phone number. If at all possible you don't want to change it because then you have to tell everyone that it has changed and they have to remember to use the new one. It is far better to fight back on the server side and win. This way you end up keeping your email and fight back the siege of SPAM at your doorstep.

Tales of a BeOS to Linux to Windows to OS X User

January 08, 2004

I ran across this great story by a former BeOS user that went through a varied OS hell journey on his way to using OS X. While the article is a little dated it points out the serious GUI flaws with most of the Linux distros and how OS X (in his opinion) is the only serious Deskop/DUI Unix distro worh using (This comes from a guy that bashed the Mac for years).

Well worth the read.

Improvements to Panther

November 07, 2003

Well, I ran (not walked) to the nearest Apple store when Panther was released a week ago, but have been so busy that have not installed it yet. Now I have time to see what kind of kitten this OS update is. Sunday is Panther day. I will either be cheering or cursing depending upon what issues I run into. Mac OS Updates never seem to go all the smoothly since OS X was introduced.

On a related note, Jason Kottke, has an interesting suggestion for improving Expose, which is rumored to be based upon the research that Apple did on piles back in '92 (PDF) and Microsoft subsequently put into Longhorn --cough, vaporware.

Movable type is fixed

November 05, 2003

What a very weird week. For the last 5 days I have been trying to figure out why movable type, which is used to publish to this site, has been hosed. After some fiddling and permissions modifications I got it back online. The thing that perplexes me is this: I have not touched the install on this app for well over a year. It was installed and was extremely stable. Weird.

The Network and Paper use

January 23, 2003

"Despite predictions to the contrary, it doesn't seem that the advent of networked information sharing has reduced human consumption of paper."

Although I've managed to stop printing most things thanks to the network and the web, it is still true. I just love this quote. The full article is available here.

Uber Geekdom

January 06, 2003

If you grew up playing video games in the late 70's and early 80s at home you probably did so on either an Atari console machine or an early personal computer like an Apple //e .

In my trip down memory lane this weekend scanning photos from childhood and college I thought of all those hours supposedly "wasted" (according to my parents) playing video games and hacking on my Apple //. I can remember very fondly playing Dig Dug, Ultima I, Spy Hunter, and Karateka to all hours of the night.

I actually rue the day I gave away my Atari 2600, Apple //c and all the console games to my niece...never to be seen again. Well, it looks like I can have my cake and eat it too now, I got a hold of an Apple //e emulator for OS X and a few classic games. A few hours of gaming nostalgia await me this coming weekend.

Only a geek would be so proud.

TiVo: If music be the food of profit

December 12, 2002

According to C|Net TiVo will be rolling out a new set of set top boxes and services that will expand the unique DVR device's ability to record and manage programming. This will include the ability of TiVo devices to record and play MP3's and potentially route them through a high end amplifier.

This is definitely another reason to consider TiVo. After a few months of owning one, I can't imagine using a VCR to record or watch TV anymore.

A little more on the death of PGP

March 09, 2002

C|Net posted a little more information on NAI's decision to discontinue distribution of the commercial PGP application. It sounds like the freeware version will continue to be available.

No more PGP

March 07, 2002

It seems that Network Associates has quietly decided to discontinue Pretty Good Privacy. That just bums me out. There goes the encrypted email world I have grown so accustomed to.

Linux keeps morphin faster than them Power Rangers®

Sony began taken orders for a $200.00 developer kit that allows Linux to run on PlayStation 2. While this is cool, it makes me wonder what's coming next...a Linux powered toaster? Can we say Coffee, Tea or Command Line Toast?

Explaining the Cult of Macintosh

February 24, 2002

Every time I tell someone that I use a Mac they instantly put me into the corner of being weird. So what if I use a platform that has only 4 percent of the global pc market? Have you ever wondered why mac users are so fanatical...we are in a cult, and for good reason...most of the things Wintel users are getting now we have had for years. This great article explains the Macintosh Cult

The death of the CUBE

July 04, 2001

Despite numerous design awards and high praise from Cube aficionados, Apple issued a cryptic press release today announcing the abandonment of further Power Mac G4 Cube production. These 8 inch by 8 inch G4 PowerMacs came in such a small, power saving, quiet (fanless) enclosure that they made great boxes for mac based web servers. Alas, bad marketing and an unrealistic price point compared to the other Macintoshes in their product line contributed to low sales and their demise.

This sucks for siteSatellite as we were just about to place an order for a few of them direct from apple...the cube is noticeably hard to find in stock on any mail order web site after today's press release. Got a used G4 cube you would be willing to part with? Let us know

TiVo

June 25, 2001

Is the end near for hacking Tivo?

The Wild Days of MP3's are over

May 25, 2001

When the RIAA went after Napster and won most of the system's users went underground or turned to alternative services such as Aimster. Fast forward two months and withness the purchase of MP3.com by Vivendi Universal and the fresh lawsuit against Aimster and the industry's strategy becomes very clear.

Lacking a cohesive online strategy, the music industry has used legal action under the guise of copyright infringement to drive the market valuation of new upstarts like MP3.com down so the record labels can buy them, thus buying an online strategy on the cheap.

As I have said many times, this battle is not about artist's rights, but control. The recording industry is attempting to control what you listen to, how much you pay, and by what means. If they had their way it would have been illegal for you, as a paying customer, to make copies of your LPs to audio cassette. I'm not kidding about this, there was a lawsuit over this very issue in the 1970's.

Hack your Mac

May 22, 2001

When Apple released OS X to the world in March they provided the equivelent of crack to the average mac os tech geek. Since the very first beta I have been tweaking the OS on my G4 to make it more like a Mac and enable tons of professional web server features from the open source commnunity.

For the very brave users out there, one no longer has to wait for Apple to bundle a new security update months after they become availble to the rest of the world. If it is available in open source you can go out and get it and then recompile it.

The last three nights I have been fast at work recompiling MySQL, PHP, OpenSSL, and custom configuring Apache to run on MacOS X. Not only do I get a robust web server on my G4 tower out of the deal, but also I get a portable development environment on my PowerBook to build dynamic web sites on while I am on the road.

The next generation sites for the siteSatellite network will all be built in this new development environment. No more guessing how a page will integrate on the server with all the include and database files. :)

Wireless Access

March 25, 2001

Here is yet another reason to get an Airport (802.11b) Card, you can get free access to WAP points in downtown San Francisco. It seems that in the mad rush to offer wireless LANs to employees the Airport networks are also available to anyone within radio transmission range and an Airport card. This will not last of course, but I will be milking it for all its worth when I am downtown on client visits.

X marks the spot

March 24, 2001

Today marked the make or brake day for the future of Apple. This morning thousands of Mac users decended upon retail stores or got up unusually early in the morning to wait for that white FedEx truck carrying their copy of MacOS X.

Yes, I was one of them. I dragged myself out of bed, grabbed a starbucks mocha and perched by my window looking for that FedEx truck. You have to be a Mac user to understand the fanaticism surrouding the release of this new operating system.

(And yes, I ripped open the box and installed it right away)

Breaking News - Yet another DSL provider bites the dust.

March 22, 2001

This evening I was informed that Northpoint Communications was ceasing operations effective immediately. Northpoint will be winding down network operations in the next 10 - 30 days (or less). The company is trying to secure bridge funding to allow customers to migrate to alternate business carriers.

So, why do I mention this? Well, this is important as Northpoint is one of the primary providers of my internet backbone and by extension a significant chunk of the siteSatellite network. Therefore I am in the midst of securing additional backbone connection providers as quickly as possible to minimize service interuptions.

Clients with server accounts will be contacted in the next 24hrs to make alternate arrangements and financial considerations in the event of service interuptions. We are doing everything possible to avoid service interuptions, but are being proactive in planning for the worst.

Are you a concerned siteSatellite customer? Get in touch.

Webcasting 101

March 08, 2001

We have been playing with our own form of limited webcasting at siteSatellite. Most of what we have broadcast has been restricted to stuff on this site and a select group of our clients.

Truth be told there is a lot to learn about serving streaming media, especially when it is live on demand. I ran into a great article for those of you interested in how to do live webcasting on the cheap.

Coming to an MP3 player near you

February 17, 2001

More news from Napster...they are hacking the MP3 format to restrict where and what you can do with MP3's. This includes prohibiting uploading MP3 music to your Rio that you paid for on their new subscription service. This sounds a lot like what the recording and movie industry tried to do in the 70's when recordable audio and video tape came out.

Napster as we know it died today

February 12, 2001

Yes, I admit it. I am shamelessly sucking down files from Napster tonight...getting all those hard to find live bootlegs and those long since out of print albums from the late 70's and early 80's. I have said on numerous occasions that Napster is the one great equalizing force in music today which takes all the power away from the record labels and puts it squarely in the hands of the consumer.

With Napster we the music listening public can sample the odd song, decide we like or don't like it, and if we do can go out and get the album from this new band we like. This doesn't necessarily translate into ripping off Metallica, but instead hooking up with an emerging artist like Roger Gillen, or a new band that has that one hit that is being pushed.

Instead of having the next Spice Girls pushed down our throats by some mindless A&R exec at a major label because trend data says it will sell we get to choose because we can swap files.

Today's decision, along with the earlier BMG deal, has effectively killed Napster.

An Ode to Blogger

February 02, 2001

Blogger, which is used to power this site along with a great number of others out there in the blog nation has run out of money. The company laid off their staff last Friday. The company now consists of an employee roster of one and a bunch of servers. A public wake is now being held at Metafilter.

The service is still running and Ev assures all Blogger users that the service will continue despite the crisis. However, I am now forced to look at the alternatives for this site and may be looking at a fundemental shift of purpose for this here domain. Hopefully this will not come to pass, but a little reflection is good anyway.

In the meantime I will continue to update this site with my wry brand of web insight and occasional rants as long as Blogger holds out.

Transformation of Be

January 07, 2001

I have been a big fan of Be since its early beginnings running on PowerPC based BeBoxes. The small company founded in 1986 by some ex-Apple engineers from the original Mac development team built an OS that is incredibly fast, unix based, and platform portable long before Apple even had an OS strategy. Be was considered a contender as the future of Apple in 1997 until they bought NeXT and embarked on the borg based OS X.

With the loss of Apple and hardware support from that company, Be went to Intel and embedded systems like cable boxes. Both those efforts have floundered in the face of poor marketing and extreme difficulty in convincing developers to port software for the BeOS.

It looks like the little company that could just got a break from Sony to use Be's new embedded operating system in a proposed internet appliance that is under development. This is good news for Be.

I often pass by Be's offices on the El Camino in Menlo Park on the way to work. Every time I drive by I think of what could have been. Unfortunately the Valley is littered with examples of could've beens. They range from MagicCap, Xerox PARC, Be, and Taligent. Maybe this one will have a happy ending.

True wireless access

January 04, 2001

We have been using Apple's Airport wireless technology for sometime at siteSatelllite, but have been craving a real wireless alternative for our Palm PDAs. Well it looks like our prayers have been answered with today's announcement that Sprint and Palm are teaming up to provide PCS based high-speed web access for Palm Pilots. This is enough to give a gadget-junkie a major sugar rush.

Napster

November 28, 2000

Napster is not hurting record sales, contrary to record industry statements.