I Know It's Dorky, But...

I imagine I've got the same basic fetish for the movie "Back to the Future" as does the guy who runs Delorean Mac Mini, although I must not have as advanced of a case. (Check it out...he's mounted a Mac Mini in his Delorean, which he uses to project a wide-screen DVD version of "Back to the Future" onto the inside of the car's hood at car shows. Talk about having time on your hands.)

I remember visiting the "old" Universal Studios (back all they had was the tour and some stunt shows...AND WE LIKED IT, YOU DERNED WHIPPERSNAPPER), where I actually got to be near a Back to the Future Delorean picture car. (My little brother was more intrigued sitting in K.I.T.T., but sometimes there's no accounting for taste.)

What's worse, though, is that I'll admit that every once in a while I endulge in some eBay surfing in the fantasy pursuit of putting an actual Delorean in my actual driveway. (I'm always a little surprised at how relatively inexpensive they are.) I generally come to the conclusion that actually owning and driving one would, ultimately, be too dorky. I mean...it's got rear louvers for crispen glover's sake.

But, then again, maybe 25 years is long enough (ouch...it's been that long) and the Delorean is moving into the classic status. After all, from certain angles...hmm...nah...I probably couldn't pull it off.

Used Mac mini = nice price?

I've decided I'm in the market for a MacTel Mini if only because I'm going to need to be writing about that Intel processor in the near future. Not thrilled with the prices in the Apple Store, I decided to surf eBay a bit; of course, I'll probably convince myself that I have to go with the more expensive Intel Duo Core model because of the performance issues I've experienced with Intel Single Core processors. I have a feeling that the Single Core Mini is one of those transitional machines that Apple will quietly disown in a few more months.

But, meanwhile, I realized what I could get if I wasn't Intel focused; how about a *very* serviceable G4 machine for $320, including a SuperDrive. Yowza.

And why not? The G4 system seems faster than the Intel Single Core, particularly with older, non-Universal applications. And, those older Minis have better graphics subsystems and they use less RAM for day-to-day tasks. If you don't need a MacTel Mini to run Windows -- and you've got keyboards and monitors hanging out, like I do -- then you might just have quite a bargain machine in one of those used G4 Minis.

Cooler Than Camino?

Just stumbled across Shiira, a Mac-only Web browser that uses the same Web Kit engine as Safari, but offers some fun extra features. First of all, it's written in Cocoa and it's a Universal Binary -- might be a welcome addition to your browsing arsenal if you've got a MacTel machine. Shiira is designed for heavy-duty browsing, with a number of features (such as "Bookmark All Tabs") that work well for surfers who tend to open a lot of windows and tabs and switch among them. Shirra also uses a sidebar/drawer interface element for History, Bookmarks, Page Holder (haven't seen that one in a while) and RSS feeds. The Google box can be changed to search all sorts of engines, including MacUpdate...all in all it's a very interesting package that seems to have been lovingly crafted. I'll let you know if I end up making the switch...or if I stick with Camino (currently running 1.0a1 and hardly a hiccup).

Does .Mac Need to Go '2.0?'

GigaOm is recommending updates to .Mac to make it Web 2.0-compliant, so to speak, including some interactivity for iCal calendars, a better Webmail interface and faster iDisk service.

I agree...I use iDisk only for occasional backups at this point, where at one time I thought it would be useful for file sharing in my office. Too slow...we got a dedicated FTP service. I use my .Mac e-mail account almost exclusively by POP downloading it to Apple Mail -- not only is the Webmail interface clunky, but Apple doesn't give me enough storage space (and I pay for *extra*) to use Apple Mail as my main account. And I use Apple Mail all the time to reply from different e-mail accounts from which I receive e-mail, etc -- something that Gmail, for one, can handle online. I'm a little wary of Gmail (I still bristle at the idea of storing my whole e-mail existence on Google servers), but I'm leaning more and more toward it, if only because Google offers the most elegant solution I've seen so far for Webmail via my Blackberry.

Apple might take a page from Google and Yahoo! and notice that people seem to be spending more time in their browser, accessing e-mail, reminders, calendars, address books -- even office apps. (To see Google's strategy in action, just stop by Google Spreadsheets and Writely, which Google recently bought...warning: not Safari-friendly.)

I noticed the other day when I was stopped by the Apple section at CompUSA that it seems MacBooks and Mac minis no longer ship with AppleWorks...maybe it's time for Apple to put an AppleWorks Web edition online?

eMac Gone, Replaced By Low-End iMac

PC Magazine is reporting that Apple has announced that the eMac is no more, marking the end of the CRT era for Apple. Instead, Apple is making a special edition of the iMac available to Educational customers for $899. The lower-cost model uses the same GMA 950 graphics system used in the Mac mini, which shares main system RAM for its graphical needs. It also has only an 80GB hard drive (standard iMacs have a 160GB drive) and instead of the 8x SuperDrive standard on other models, this iMac has only a 24x CD-R/DVD playback combo drive. The new iMac does retain the standard 17-inch LCD display, along with the built-in iSight camera and other perks of the latest iMac models.

The new low-cost iMac shows up in the educational Apple Store only, not the regular store, which still lists the lowest cost iMac at $1299. No doubt the low-end iMac will be available on eBay, etc., in a short period of time.