Those Apple Bastards

Up to today, I was feeling pretty good about getting the 2.5 GHz Power Mac G5 that I ordered in early June sometime next week, as the Apple Store showed that it would ship "on or before 8/2/04." It just got changed to "On or before 9/3/04." Crap.

The Dashboarder

I should have known this would already exist. The Dashboarder:

The Dashboarder is the original and most complete archive of Apple Dashboard Gadgets (widgets) on the internet. Consisting of user-created gadgets for Apple's forthcoming "Tiger" operating system, The Dashboarder is your one-stop shop for all Dashboard needs.

Barack Obama

Last night I was fast-forwarding through the recording we'd made of C-SPAN's convention coverage, and like most people, I was impressed by Barack Obama's keynote speech. I kept looking at him and wondering, how old is that guy? Late 20's? Early 30's? So, I went to his site to look it up, and found out that he's three days older than me. Sigh. Damn, I wish I looked that young. Go give him a birthday present.

The Apple Product Cycle

This is to make sure that Tom reads the piece on The Apple Product Cycle. Be sure you're not drinking anything.

NNTP feeds, anyone?

Something that came up at last week's Flutterby get-together is that Dan's supporting NNTP syndication for blogs. If you don't know what that means, don't worry about it. If you do know what it means, and it would make your heart sing if Backup Brain supported it, let me know.

Wise-Women lists return (maybe)

Wondering what happened to the Wise-Women Web design and development lists? It's a long sad story, but to cut it short, you can try signing up for the new versions here: Wise-Women, WW-Talk.

If you have any trouble with these new lists, let me know.

Upcoming Mac conferences

A couple of bits of info for those folks interested in upcoming Mac conferences:

• Macworld Expo 2005 SF is now looking for conference session proposals. If you've ever thought about speaking there, you've got from now until August 2 to get your pitch in. Oh, and their site seems to be somewhat confused at the moment, so look here for the actual session proposal page.
  
  
• The O'Reilly OS X Conference 2004 site is now live. And yes, that's my smiling face on the front page. I'm in some pretty sweet company there, huh? (I'm not worthy!).
  
  Want a good deal on going? The early bird discount's available until September 10, and you can combine that with one of their other discounts (are you a student? a teacher? a user group member? a previous O'Reilly conference attendee?) to save even more.
  
  Still not tempting enough? If you sign up for the conference, you'll get to choose one of two O'Reilly books to receive. And while we can't tell you which one to pick (well, we can, but we won't in this post), we'll point out that only one of them will have both co-authors attending when you want that all-important autographed copy...

DNC Maps

Hey there, political junkies: if you'll be watching the coverage of the Democratic National Convention this week, you might want to get oriented as to where things are in Boston or in the hall. The Map Network has these terrific interactive Flash maps of the convention hall and Boston. Check them out. For us, our ReplayTVs will be recording 8 hours of C-SPAN's coverage every day, so we can watch the interesting stuff without commercials, without the annoying talking heads' bloviations, and best of all, so we can zoom through the filler.

Reality check, please?

Having come from a dysfunctional family, I don't always know what's normal behavior. So, I'm throwing this out to the world to give me a reality check if this is an nutty as I think it is: Sean's paternal grandmother has just announced that because Sean (who just turned 16) hasn't bought her birthday presents for the last couple of years, she's not going to buy him a birthday gift this year.

Is it just me, or is this downright rude? I've never in my life thought that children were required to give presents to grownups in order to be given reciprocal gifts, and grandchildren even less so. Do your families have this rule? If so, at what age does it start?

I am so spitting mad right now that I'm thinking about cancelling his plans to see her later this summer... after all, he's flown to see her dozens of times in the last ten years, and she hasn't flown to see him once.

SAT's Big Multiple Choice

Because I don't worry enough about my kid getting into a good college: SAT's Big Multiple Choice.

Yeah, the SAT's being revamped, and his class (2006 graduates) have to decide which version of the test to take. I figure that it makes more sense for him to take the new version, because (1) the UCs require it, and they're near the top of the list of his college choices, (2) he did well enough (he got a 4!) on the AP World History test, and that requires essays, so he's shown he can write essays under pressure, and (3) I think that taking the new one shows confidence in your abilities—you're not trying to game the system, you're willing to go out there and show what you've got.

Given that, though, and given that the new SAT is being offered in March, I'll be on the lookout for an intensive SAT course he can take when his school's out for a week next February. Anyone got a recommendation?