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So I hear rumor that there will be a big Apple announcement September 5th. I like to keep up to date on things by listening to podcasts with Leo Laporte (who used to be on The Screen Savers and Call For Help on TechTV, which is now G4TV). He mentioned on one of his podcasts this week that he received an invitation to this announcement event and it was titled “The Beat Goes On.” Another iPod on the way perhaps? I will be watching the news closely on the 5th to see what the big announcement will be. I have an iPod Video now and I have to say I am pretty pleased with it. The hard part will be resisting selling it to get the new one, if that is in fact what will be announced.
My first computer was an Apple IIGS that we got back around 1988. I was about 8 years old or so. The GS stood for Graphics and Sound. It had a color monitor and everything. And I’m talking a real monitor, not a TV that you hooked up to it. I remember a lot of people would connect their TV’s to their computers back then. Nowadays you have to buy a special card for that. My IIGS came with two disc drives…a 5.25 inch floppy and a 3.5 inch floppy. Those were the days. The cool games were on the 3.5 inch discs. Dark Castle was probably my favorite. I never did beat the last level on it, but I still loved playing it. I also remember Wheel of Fortune and that cheesy music it had with it, and The Oregon Trail. Those were on the 5.25 inch floppies so of course the graphics were inferior to Dark Castle. :)
For the longest time I had wanted to play Dark Castle, but short of plugging in the old IIGS I never had much luck on finding it back on the great expanse called the Internet. I had found a few emulators that you could download and load the disc images but the ones I had played with were a hassle. A couple of years ago I found a really nifty little website called virtualapple.org that has a ton of Apple II and Apple IIGS disc images that you can play on their website. It’s free, and there is a location to make a donation if you would like to. Every game I could think of was on there, plus a few I had forgotten about. Zany Golf, The Bards Tale, Mean 18, Choplifter…you name it. They even have the “Your Tour of the Apple IIGS” disc that would help you learn to use the mouse and keyboard…beginners stuff but fun and mindless. I LOVE this website. Despite the kick-tushy graphics they have nowadays, it’s still fun to go back to the old days and play those games I grew up on.
If you haven't tried Google Earth yet, you should. It's a free download from Google that you can get here. You can zoom around the globe, search addresses, and add layers like Road Names, Parks and Recreation, Dining and Lodging. Very nifty. Even if you don't want to find a specific address, it's still fun to pan around the world and zoom in on terrain.
With the newest version 4.2 they have included Google Sky that does the same thing as Earth, but in the heavens. Since I'm the astronomy buff of the family I naturally had to give this a spin (no pun intended). To get to Google Sky, open Google Earth and click on the View menu. Choose "Switch to Sky." The layers for Sky include Constellations, Hubble Showcase, and Backyard Astronomer. You can do searches on the sky for constellation names, stars, nebula, and galaxies…really just about any sky object. You can also search using the Messier and NGC catalogs numbers. If you zoom in far enough to an object you will see a picture of it, and a pretty good one at that.
Granted I wouldn't use this for my primary sky charting software. I like Stellarium. much better and it's a freebie as well. However, this is a neat feature to add to Google Earth. Google has also put together Google Moon and Google Mars. You will have to browse to the website for these tools. It's a fun thing to play with if you want to take a trip to space without leaving the comforts of Earth.
If you haven’t bought a Wii yet, get one. Get one now. It is honestly the coolest thing I’ve ever played. And you get quite a workout, which is great for those of us who are waistline conscious. It comes with sports games that really are of a great quality. I am not a sports fan and even I like to play them. Tennis is probably my favorite, and boxing is the most strenuous (at least for me). They have a few classics too, including Mortal Kombat and of course Mario. I never had a Nintendo growing up but I still love Mario. Their new titles are fun too and put a whole new twist on trying to drive a race course. Rayman Raving Rabbids will just make you laugh. The bunny thingies are hilarious when they run around screaming. Perfect after a long day at the office. I’d like to try Harry Potter on it just because the wand would be a terrific item to use with the Wii controls. The controls are easy enough to use and you get adjust to them very quickly. Don’t get me wrong I love my XBOX 360 and I love my Halo. But, if you’re looking for something a little more relaxed than your first person shooter, then the Wii is definitely for you.
Just read that there is a company that wants to build a space hotel by the year 2012. If I had a spare $4 million, I’d go. Click here for the NY Times story.
Technology is fun. At least they can be if you let it. I know a few people who see computers as work machines. Probably never even open Solitaire. Poor souls. Vista comes with some nifty games built in now. Mahjongg and Chess are my favorites. I didn’t know how to play chess until I started fiddling around with the one that came with Vista. So see, you can learn something and still have fun at the same time. :) Sounded like a good excuse anyway. If you decide to try Chess on Vista, change the difficulty to level 1 first. I’m pretty proud I’ve managed to beat it a few times on that level. I don’t think I’ll branch out to a higher difficulty just yet. Might take the fun out of it.
I’ve that some people tend not to appreciate the coolness factor of things. I’ll admit it, I’m shallow. If I am going to spend at least 8 hours a day looking at a computer, it better look nice. I LOVE the new Vista interface. Beautiful. And to top it off, just plain cool. Take the new iPod’s. I mean do you really need a color screen and cool colors to listen to music? Probably not. But it’s COOL. Hot pink Razr? Sure, why not! It’s COOL. Enjoy your technology and have fun with your computer. That’s what it’s there for.
My parents always tell me that my fascination with the universe started the moment I could say the word "moon." I found a freebie sky program out there for download for all you astronomy buffs called Stellarium. You can download it at http://www.stellarium.org/ . It’s pretty sophisticated for a free program. It will track the sky over time so if you leave your computer and come back 30 minutes later, the sky will have changed. It will even track the tilt of Saturn's rings over a few months. A handy feature is a mode that will change everything that displays white (like names, constellation boundaries, etc.) to red if you are using the program outside at night. I’ve done that and it beats a paper star chart. It will show the phases of the moon as well. You can customize it to show or not show constellation lines, constellation boundaries, names, what magnitude to display stars and nebulas up to, and a plethora of other options. I mainly use it to see what’s up in the sky at any given time. It's definitely worth a look into for amateur and serious astronomers alike.
