The January 2008 issue of About This Particular Macintosh is now available to help you ring in the new Mac year.
Mike Chamberlain looks back at the first of 2007, and how his desire for a “MacPhone” panned out, and surprisingly so, later in the year. Mark notes how smaller cars might not always be a good thing, but smaller iPods are, and wonders what lies ahead for Apple’s music player line. Mark’s also thankful that FileMaker has remained easy to use, lo these many years. ATPM reader Tricia Roach becomes an ATPM contributor, with a Segments piece on how she uses her Mac’s video capabilities to stay involved in the lives of her grandkids.
This month’s desktop pictures are courtesy of ATPM reader Jennifer Curry, from her 2006 trip to Cuba. They feature the island nation’s buildings and cityscapes. Meanwhile, Angie flashes back to 1984 as she and Cortland face off against Lisa in the Mudrix for a final showdown.
Linus takes Baseline, a utility which helps you look at file and folder sizes on your Mac, through its paces. Ed uses BusySync to get things done, allowing others to subscribe to or read his iCal calendars, thus assuring everyone’s on the same page. Chris Lawson tries out, and really likes, the Fin Laptop Handle/Stand, while Lee pairs his iSight up with Iris for some fun. Reader Mark Stoneman contributes a review of Mellel, a word processor I’m fond of, and a must-have for those who work with right-to-left languages such as Hebrew or Arabic.
This issue marks the entry in to the fourteenth year of publishing for About This Particular Macintosh, and we hope it’s a great year for our readers, and Mac users everywhere!
Year: 2008
A friend from college got me in the habit of saving my movie ticket stubs, and I have a glass mug stuffed with them, going back to the very early `90s. I’ve never really kept a running yearly tally before, however, until I was encouraged by my pal Brent, who keeps his own tally of those sort of things. So here’s my list of movies seen (in theaters) in 2007:
Amazing Grace
300
Shooter
Blades of Glory
In the Land of Women
Knocked Up
Ocean’s 13
Surf’s Up
Ratatouille
Live Free or Die Hard
Transformers
The Bourne Ultimatum
Superbad
3:10 to Yuma
The Kingdom
Michael Clayton
Fred Claus
Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium
No Country for Old Men
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
Alvin and the Chipmunks
My pick for best movie? It’s a really tough call to just pick one as the best overall. From a purely cinematic perspective, I’d have to go with No Country for Old Men. I laughed the most during Blades of Glory. For a book adaptation, Shooter was pretty good, though like most book adaptations, it falls short of what can be crammed in to two hours on screen. The worst movie I saw was Superbad; I guess if I were thirteen, I would’ve enjoyed it more, but given that I liked Knocked Up, and to a lesser degree Walk Hard, all by the same crew, perhaps it wasn’t just my age that was a factor. I thoroughly enjoyed Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium, 3:10 to Yuma, Ratatouille, Surf’s Up, and Transformers.
Best movie? A tie, simply because they’re such totally different movies, and my favorites for two vastly different reasons. The Bourne Ultimatum is just flat-out entertaining, visually appealing, a real “thrill ride” as the critics would say. I was initially skeptical five years ago of Matt Damon taking on the role of Jason Bourne, but he took it and ran with it, owning the role. He is Jason Bourne. Though the movies have little in common with the plot lines of the books, they are still among my favorite action thrillers.
The second movie in the tie is Amazing Grace. William Wilberforce showed how one can positively affect the cultural and political culture while remaining grounded in faith in Jesus Christ. His efforts toward ending the slave trade the British Empire was engaged in paved the way for slavery’s abolition in the United States, and continues to be an inspiration to this day. Slavery still exists in our modern world, though the euphemism “human trafficking” is the nom du jour. Amazing Grace is a reminder the battle for human freedom and dignity still goes on.