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About this site

For six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul

Coming soon: Everything Must Go

The next edition of "Everything Must Go" will be appearing here soon. --Paul

Thursday, January 08, 2004

CES 2003

Sorry about the lack of updates this week: I've been up to my neck in work-related activities at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. I'll be back soon with some commentary about MacWorld San Francisco and other topics.

[ Posted at 5:05 PM | Permalink ]

Monday, January 05, 2004

GNU celebrates 20th anniversary

Today is the 20th anniversary of the GNU Project, writes Dan Gillmor. "Richard Stallman resigned from MIT 20 years ago today to launch the GNU Project. That was the free software effort that ultimately spawned the operating system known as Linux, building on a tradition that gave the world a host of other software, some of which is at the heart of the Internet and other things we take for granted today."

[ Posted at 2:22 PM | Permalink ]

Feeling lucky? Part two

Following on the heels of a similar story last week is this Spiked-central look at luck: "A society that cannot accept the concept of luck is one that seeks to attach blame to every undesired outcome. Unless we can accept bad luck we are destined to be governed by a risk-blame-litigation-compensation culture that suffocates initiative. For some, this culture can be rewarding. Tripping over an uneven paving stone, plus a note from a compliant doctor, plus the assistance of an enterprising lawyer, can yield untold riches - sometimes even without the tripping. But for others, this culture is threatening. All the traditional risks encountered in our daily lives are now overhung by legal and financial risks."

[ Posted at 12:53 PM | Permalink ]

Treo 600 review

The Shifted Librarian: "I've had my Treo 600 for almost two months now and though I logically knew the impact it would have, even I have been surprised by just how wonderful a device it truly is ... It's truly amazing having a cell phone, PDA, game pad, audiobook player, MP3 player, word processor, email reader, web browser, instant messaging client, radio, ebook reader, and camera all rolled into one. Add to all of that a thumbboard that makes it easy to respond to email, write notes, or instant message and you have one incredibly powerful device.

[ Posted at 10:37 AM | Permalink ]

Will Apple's innovations and influence ever translate into market share?

The Boston Globe has one of those tech reporters that's overly-friendly with Apple, but even Hiawatha Bray can't ignore the obvious while paroting a theme I raised the other day in my look at Apple's performance in 2003. "Apple holds less than 5 percent [sic, it's under 2 percent actually] of the world's personal computer market, and is dwarfed by rivals like Microsoft Corp., Dell Computer Corp., and Japanese electronics titan Sony. But market share is one thing, mindshare quite another. Under Jobs, Apple has positioned itself as the 'thought leader' of America's high-technology sector, winning a reputation as one of the world's most innovative firms."

[ Posted at 8:35 AM | Permalink ]

Sunday, January 04, 2004

Mark your calendars

On Tuesday, Apple CEO Steve Jobs will keynote MacWorld San Francisco 2004. I'll be flying to Vegas for CES 2004 that day, so I'm expecting to hear all the big news when I arrive. I have no opinion on the many rumors flying around the show, but I would like to see cheaper iPods, vastly improved iLife applications, faster G5s, and cheaper notebooks. We can dream.

[ Posted at 11:28 PM | Permalink ]

How far behind is Mac gaming?

I had to laugh out loud when I saw MacWorld's hilarious "2003 Game Hall of Fame," which reads like a list of PC games past. Which games made the list, you ask? Well, you'll have to think back a bit, because most of them debuted on the PC one to three years before they hit the Mac. Here are the PC release dates for the mainstream games that made the list (even the bizarro choice, Noiz2sa ["most difficult-to-pronounce" game, duh] was out on the PC first, though I couldn't find a release date):

Zoo Tycoon - Released on the PC October 2001
Unreal Tournament 2003 - Released on the PC September 2002
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2003 - Released on the PC July 2002
Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast - Released on the PC March 2002
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Desert Siege - Released on the PC March 2002
Dungeon Siege - Released on the PC April 2002
Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne - Released on the PC July 2003 (the sole simultaneous release)
The Operative: No One Lives Forever - Released on the PC November 2000

On the PC, we're playing newer versions of these games now (I actually have both Tiger Woods 2004 and Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, for example). But the funniest part of this roundup, of course, is the section titled 'Best Place to Get Classic Games." Clearly, that would be the Mac. But serious game players have know this for some time, so it's not a huge surprise. I just think it's interesting to see it so clearly demonstrated.

[ Posted at 10:55 PM | Permalink ]

Science fun: NASA craft successfully lands on Mars

MSNBC: "The first of NASA's two Mars rovers landed safely on an open stretch within Gusev Crater on Saturday night and sent back screenfuls of black-and-white images, marking a successful start to NASA's first ground-level exploration of the Red Planet in more than six years."

CNN: "A NASA robotic explorer touched down on Mars, sending a signal home that it survived the risky descent through the Martian atmosphere and bounced to a halt. The $400 million rover Spirit, designed to conduct unprecedented geologic and photographic surveys on the Martian surface, transmitted a simple hello to Earth minutes after landing."

NASA: "We're back!"

[ Posted at 10:32 AM | Permalink ]

Science fun: Rare comet photos

CNN: "After traveling five years and 2.3 billion miles, a speeding NASA space probe pounced on the shimmering tail of a comet Friday, trapping tiny space dust to bring back to Earth and snapping rare, closeup pictures of a celestial body."

[ Posted at 10:30 AM | Permalink ]

Smartphone Quake

You know we've come a long way when Quake looks great on a smartphone.

[ Posted at 10:23 AM | Permalink ]