ATPM Chicago outing

The boys in and around the Windy City who volunteer on ATPM decided on a get-together last weekend. Wes Meltzer has the complete story, along with a photo of the gang in front of the North Michigan Avenue Apple Store.
One of the things I love about ATPM is getting to see pictures of folks who I only correspond with via e-mail. Now Evan and I have been pals for a while; we’ve even spoken on the phone once or twice. I’ve seen pictures of him, to boot, and trust me, his looks haven’t improved with age. 😉
It was good to see Chris L. and Paul, though, of course, they looked nothing like I imagined they would. I don’t know why, but I always figured Paul would be more of a clean-cut sort of fellow, and thought that Chris would be shorter. Wes, on the other hand, pretty much looked like what I thought he might. Isn’t the Internet cool?
And we’ll have to work on Wes’s Cajun-French; it’s actually “les bon temps roulez.” I also can’t imagine anything north of the Louisiana border being remotely close to real Cajun/Creole-style food…

Kirk’s latest

ATPM staffer Kirk McElhearn’s latest book, How To Do Everything With Mac OS X Panther, has been released.

cover

Congrats, Kirk!

Your very own spy drone

Sweetie, can I have one? I promise to use it and my other powers only for good…

Google your flight info

Last month, Aaron Swartz noted some new features of Google, a few I was not aware of. Is it any wonder that Apple has a Google search field built right in to Safari?

Bye-bye, Palm

So PalmSource has decided to discontinue Mac support in upcoming versions of the Palm OS, despite the fact that they have a larger market share percentage-wise in the Macintosh side of the computing world than out. Mac users will be left to third-party solutions to sync future Palm devices with their Macintosh systems, costing us more money. Palm Desktop (which Palm bought from Apple as Claris Organizer) will no longer be updated.
Last night, I migrated all of my Palm Desktop data to Address Book, iCal, and BBEdit-created text files. I then proceeded to use iSync to sync my contact and calendar info,first on my iPod, then to my .Mac account, the latter of which was a first for me. I then synced my new-to-me, work-provided 1.42 GHz dual-G4 to my .Mac account, so that my Address Book info and Safari bookmarks matched with those on my Cube. All syncs worked without any problems, just as they should.
I have been debating over what kind of phone to move to. My wife’s law firm makes extensive use of the Blackberry RIMs amongst the attorneys, and she will be getting one soon, with service through T-Mobile. I had been considering the Treo 600, but now I’m not so sure. I may go with the Sony-Ericsson T630 when U.S. providers begin carrying it over the next month or two.
I don’t think Address Book and iCal will fill all of my PIM needs; I already feel like I’m going to butt against the limits of the applications, and am looking at alternatives. For now, however, Palm no longer has a place on my systems’ desktops.

ATPM 10.02

Whew. You know it’s been a hectic month when you’re ten days in and you’re just now getting around to noting the release of the February issue of the Macintosh e-zine you help manage.
Yes, About This Particular Macintosh 10.02 is out, featuring first-time cover art by my pal Lee. Ellyn discusses technology and values, Wes has the monthly Mac blog run-down, and Raena continues her discussion on web accessibility. The usual rogues’ gallery provides reviews, cartoons, and other columns for your Mac-using noggin.

Always have an eject button

A lot of third-party keyboards for Macs don’t have an eject key on them. This is an oldie but a goodie from the fine folks at OWC on how to always have an eject button at your disposal, via the menu bar.