Blake Patterson



Blake Patterson's Articles

Mac Addicts Slam Dvorak

Wednesday January 9, 2002 10:52 am PST by
Reader Sam Finale wrote in to point out a Tech TV story accounting Mac users' heated response to John C. Dvorak's unfavorable reaction to MWSF. Dvorak has long been dismissive at best with regards to any and all of Apple's product offerings and innovations. The video clip linked from the site above gives you a...

iWalk

Wednesday January 2, 2002 8:40 pm PST by
Click here to see what appears the fabled iWalk movie. My god---if this thing is real... Rebirth of the Newton (definitely looked like NewtonOS). Take a look!! (View it now--not on Spymac.com yet, apparently!) Update 2: SpyMac.com has posted their links. (they require...

Boycott Universal

Tuesday December 18, 2001 1:09 pm PST by
Danny Ricci wrote in telling us, "It's final, Universal is going to release CDs that can only be played on some newer stereo systems and Windows-based PCs. There is no support for Macs, DVD Players, and some CD players. Microsoft must have paid them big bucks for this, (although Windows users won't be able to rip eather, just play). See the SiliconValley.com article. Time for Apple users to...

OS X vs. BeOS

Tuesday December 18, 2001 12:20 pm PST by
Scot Hacker, author of BeOS Bible and long-time BeOS afficionado, has written a lengthy article pitting OS X and BeOS against each other. With the sinking of BeOS, Scot has come over to OS X and has decided that it is the best operating system out there. It's a great read with plenty of juicy details. update: here's the link...

Jedi Knight Petition

Wednesday November 28, 2001 10:24 am PST by
As reported on XLR8YourMac, Westlake's Brad Oliver has offered to port Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II to the Mac for FREE. All he needs is a publisher. Sign the online petition to Aspyr to get them to publish the game. This could result in a pretty pleasantly priced piece of 3D gaming goodness (pardon the alliteration). ...

A Look At Adobe Go Live 6 For OS X

Monday November 19, 2001 1:24 pm PST by
ThinkSecret has posted a look at Adobe's GoLive 6 for OS X (with screenshots). Perhaps the most robust site design package around, the inclusion of this application in the list of OS X native apps is a huge help in moving completely over to OS X. Take a...

New iPod Site: iPodHacks.com

Thursday November 15, 2001 1:28 pm PST by
To anyone interested in the new Apple iPod, I wanted to point to a new site I have setup dealing with Apple's wonderful new little white box: http://www.ipodhacks.com Dedicated to tracking hacks, mods, tips & techniques as well as general iPod news, iPodHacks will hopefully be lots of fun for all....

How The iPod Will Change Computing

Friday November 9, 2001 10:57 am PST by
On the eve of Apple's official release date for the iPod, CNET's article, "How The iPod Will Change Computing" may prove interesting reading. So how many users out there are going to be standing in line when the Apple Stores open tomorrow morning at 10? See you...

Inside The iPod

Thursday November 1, 2001 7:17 am PST by
A poster on MacNN forums gave a link to a Japanese page with photos of the internals of the iPod. Pretty interesting. He also provided an English translation of the page's text. Take a look. The two main components on the iPod's circuit board are TI's TSB43AA82, (a FireWire controller) and PortalPlayer Inc's PP5002B (a multi-processor, ARM-based...

iPod Sighting and Easter Egg!

Friday October 26, 2001 12:14 pm PDT by
Joel Jimenez wrote in to tell us, "An Italian Mac site has a story about the iPod's first public appearance in Italy. Along with the review, they demonstrate an easter egg. You can play Breakout on the iPod! (with photos) http://www.macitynet.it/macity/archivio/ipodpresentation.shtml" ...

Apple's New Thing (iPod)

Tuesday October 23, 2001 12:05 pm PDT by
Brief bullets of what's happening with the announcement of Apple's new digital device gathered from a variety of sources:Jobs reviews Apple's "digital hub" concept announced in January. Speaks of the Mac as the focal point of one's digital lifestyle. Jobs mentions early November as ship time for iDVD2 (from macminute): Apple introduces iPod, a digital audio player (MP3, MP2, more) with a 5GB...

Best Gaming Experience On Any Platform

Sunday October 21, 2001 9:40 am PDT by
There's no doubt gaming fans who have made the switch to Mac OS X have been enjoying the truly impressive performance of some early native ports to the platform. Quake 3 Arena, Alice, Sacrifice, etc. Well, get ready to be even more impressed. Now available for order at the Apple Store is Giants: Citizen Kabuto, heralded as one of--if not the, most impressive 3D games on the PC. OmniGroup...

Yet More Device Speculation

Thursday October 18, 2001 9:01 am PDT by
User Cbluzzyfuzzmorphywizz writes in pointing us to this website with info/speculation on the new device http://www.mac-tv.de (in German, English translation here) And tells us, "It says, the new device will be like a stand-alone CD-writer, but will look like a Hifi-component. It has a hard disk, an airport card and a USB port. Via Airport it communicates with all macs in, say, a house...

$799 iMac Just Released

Monday October 1, 2001 8:51 pm PDT by
User Iriejedi wrote in reporting that, "Low memory (64 megs) and slow backside cache and a normal CD-rom drive are the trade off for cost - but for $799 the 500MHz G3 machince is not a bad starting point for low end users... Now available at the Apple Store!" It's there alright. Nice to have an iMac with a pricepoint this low in the back in the lineup. 64MB is pretty slim, but then memory ...

Avie Tevanian Leaves Apple

Tuesday September 25, 2001 11:19 am PDT by
User NO B&W writes in to tell us (and sadden us in so doing) that Steve Jobs' technical wonderboy and sidekick Avie Tevanian is leaving Apple. Principle designer and engineer of the Mach operating system kernel upon which Mac OS X is based, Tevanian began his connection to Jobs at NeXT back in 1988. Let us hope that his departure does not harbinge a period of lesser innovation by Apple. ...

Return to Castle Wolfenstein - OS X Client Available

Tuesday September 18, 2001 12:26 pm PDT by
As reported by xlr8yourmac.com, the OS X client for Return to Castle Wolfenstein is now available. For all the info, see Graeme Devine's .plan file, quoted below: Name: Graeme Devine Email: zaphod@idsoftware.com Description: Designer / Project Manager Project: ----------------------------------- Mac stuff. The OS X build is looking good. On my G4 dual ...

Apple Donates $1 Million, iBooks To Rescue Worker Families

Monday September 17, 2001 12:54 pm PDT by
As MacCentral reports, an Apple spokesman has, today, stated: "Apple is donating one million dollars to the families of the firefighters, police and other emergency response personnel who lost their lives, through the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund. In addition, we will donate one iBook to each of these families with children this holiday season." Certainly any benevolent sentiment...

Apple Expo 2001 in Paris - Cancelled

Monday September 17, 2001 8:03 am PDT by
Brett wrote in with this PRNewswire: CUPERTINO, Calif., Sep 17, 2001 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Apple(R) (Nasdaq: AAPL) today announced the cancelation of Apple Expo 2001, which was scheduled to take place at the Paris Expo in Porte de Versailles, September 26-30, 2001. "We're canceling Apple Expo in the wake of last week's devastating and tragic...

Enhanced Cinemaware Titles Ported To Mac

Sunday September 16, 2001 7:34 am PDT by
Some of our readers may recall Cinemaware, a well-known game company that appeared in the mid-80's, creating rather unique and wonderful games that pushed the run of the mill computer gaming scene of the time more towards a cinematic experience. Their first and most well known title was Defender of the Crown (see a fan page), first released for the Amiga. Well, in what is a magnificent stroke...

Return to Castle Wolfenstein for OS X

Saturday September 15, 2001 9:19 am PDT by
As reported by xlr8yourmac.com, a downloadable demo of Activision's Return to Castle Wolfenstein is due out today, Saturday the 15th. It had been assumed that this would be a PC-only release, but a quote from Graeme Devine's .plan file might indicate otherwise: " Mac stuff. I've been playing the WolfMP test natively under Mac OS X. I've also got the OS X installer for WolfMP all wrapped up...