john mahoney's weblog

Fri, 25 Jul 2003 18:18:01 GMT

When Jef Speaks, I listen

There's a nice interview with Jef Raskin, father of the Macintosh computer, on the ACM website. A real Renaissance man, Jef says he enjoys being an iconoclast. Mac users can try his work-in-progress, a new user interface simply called THE: The Humane Interface, at Jef's website. His latest book shares the same name.

Almost forgot: I learned of the interview through the WebReference Update newsletter.

Wed, 23 Jul 2003 02:38:20 GMT

DoNotExpectMeToBuyMusic.com

Somebody forgot to tell Buy.com about new browsers and the growth of Linux: The company is launching a digital music store that works only with Internet Explorer. I'll surely not be a customer.

Thu, 17 Jul 2003 00:24:50 GMT

The day off gives me a chance to mention Frank's Tour de France weblog.

Thu, 17 Jul 2003 00:21:19 GMT

Also from Wired News: AOL's weird relationship with Mozilla.

Thu, 17 Jul 2003 00:12:53 GMT

Keep a webcam in the dark and what do you get? Randomness.

Wed, 09 Jul 2003 23:26:04 GMT

Coming Soon

My overdue article on our recent vacation is now officially Under Development.

Thu, 19 Jun 2003 02:46:24 GMT

New Macs Coming Soon?

Just a quick post to make sure people know I'm alive. ;-) We're going on vacation soon so there won't be any posts for a couple of weeks. Anyway...

The MacEvangelist (thanks, Frank) has some fresh rumors about the upcoming PowerMacs. Looks like the IBM PPC970 chip will indeed power the new machines. I've been chomping at the bit for months, waiting to get a new Mac (it'll be my fifth!), and I believe the waiting will be worthwhile. If nothing else, the current dual G4 boxes will go on sale.

Tue, 13 May 2003 01:10:20 GMT

My DSL Connection

Paul suggested that I could stop blogging with UserLand Radio now that I have DSL. Actually, I had BellSouth.net's "FastAccess" DSL in Miami Beach, also; there it replaced a digital cable modem service which suffered from a poorly-run network. (The local network was often near saturation (pR0n freaks in my condo, maybe?) and the DNS was frequently down or overloaded.) I assumed that the phone company would provide better service than the cable TV company, and that's pretty much been the case.

On the other hand, I've been having some DSL weirdness which I finally realized (after ruling out the alarm system) may be due to DirecTV, as the satellite tuner is also plugged into the phone line. I will be researching this more later.

One annoying thing about this DSL service is that my IP address changes frequently, and there are at least 2 Class A IP address blocks that are used. This made it difficult to access my company's servers because the firewall had to be configured to let my IPs through. We've thus had to open things up to whole blocks of addresses.

In any case, I don't wish to run my own server just to serve my weblog. Perhaps the new hosted Movable Type service will be worthy, I don't know. One thing I'd like is the ability to post from anywhere on the web, which Radio does not provide.

Fri, 11 Apr 2003 13:29:10 GMT

Checking In

I'm back! We've made a lot of progress. Although the new house still contains many unpacked boxes, the PC is (obviously) set up. DSL is working nicely, so I'm online again. Now I need a new name for this blog. I expect to update the tempate and start posting in earnest this weekend. Seeya!