Review: The MacBook Pro

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This week marks the 20th anniversary of the original MacBook Pro. In the spirit of this article, I’m going to review it as if I were blogging about Macs back in 2006. Just go with me here.

My Laptop History

I have been a PowerBook G4 user since 2002, when my boss handed me a 1 GHz Titanium PowerBook to use for page layout, audio editing, and other media tasks at the non-profit where I spent time after school and on weekends.

Here I am, posing with that laptop because that’s what you did in high school when you had a PowerBook and long hair:

2004 Stephen

To clear up any confusion, that sticky note said “Place to hang plugs,” not “Place to hang drugs.”

I used this TiBook until sometime about a year ago, in early 2005. Then, the same boss upgraded me to a 15-inch aluminum PowerBook running at 1.33 GHz. The new design was less playful, but far less fragile. Here I am about a year ago, working at an event with my girlfriend Merri. My PowerBook was running a projector and audio, and didn’t skip a beat.

2005 Stephen

Having used both the Titanium and Aluminum PowerBook, I can tell you that Apple has hit a bit of a wall with performance. Sure, the newer model is faster than the older one, but if I need to really crunch some audio or push some pixels, I turn to the Power Mac G5 we have in the office, even if it makes some weird noises under load.

It has become clear over the last few years that a PowerBook G5 isn’t in the cards, and as PowerPC’s progress has stalled, rumors of something new have been percolating.

The Intel Announcement

Just six months ago at WWDC 2005, we learned what was coming. Here’s a bit from Apple’s press release:

At its Worldwide Developer Conference today, Apple announced plans to deliver models of its Macintosh computers using Intel microprocessors by this time next year, and to transition all of its Macs to using Intel microprocessors by the end of 2007. Apple previewed a version of its critically acclaimed operating system, Mac OS X Tiger, running on an Intel-based Mac to the over 3,800 developers attending CEO Steve Jobs’ keynote address. Apple also announced the availability of a Developer Transition Kit, consisting of an Intel-based Mac development system along with preview versions of Apple’s software, which will allow developers to prepare versions of their applications which will run on both PowerPC and Intel-based Macs.

“Our goal is to provide our customers with the best personal computers in the world, and looking ahead Intel has the strongest processor roadmap by far,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “It’s been ten years since our transition to the PowerPC, and we think Intel’s technology will help us create the best personal computers for the next ten years.”

I remember being excited when this news broke last summer, but others have felt conflicted about it. We all wanted faster Macs, but some have worried that, with Intel inside, the Mac would somehow feel less special.

There were also software concerns, but Apple seems to have addressed them, as John Gruber wrote at Daring Fireball:

Rosetta — the technology that allows existing PowerPC software to “just work” on Intel-based Macs — is the missing link that makes this transition possible. “Emulator” is perhaps not quite an apt description; Apple seems to prefer the term “translator”. The specific description I’ve heard is that it is “dynamic binary software translation”. I’m curious to know more about how it works, but the only important questions are whether — as it was described in a slide during the keynote — it’s “Fast (enough)”, and how many important apps run under it. We should find out soon enough, when benchmarks start leaking from seeded developers. (Their NDA forbids publishing benchmarks based on the developer transition kit hardware, but come on, you know they’re going to leak anonymously.)

I think the best way to think about Rosetta is as a bridge, giving developers time to build their apps for OS X on x86. Speaking of time…

The First Intel Macs

I’m not sure many folks who pay attention to Apple thought the Macworld 2006 keynote would feature Intel Macs, including John Gruber, who wrote::

NEW MACS BASED ON INTEL PROCESSORS: I say no. Everyone who’s calling for this announcement seems to be taking stance that it’d be cool for everyone involved if Apple has managed to get Intel-powered machines out the door a few months earlier than expected. But it wouldn’t be cool for developers who took Apple at its word at WWDC, when they were told that Intel-based Macs could be expected in the spring or early summer.

Releasing Intel-based Macs now might be popular with the keynote crowd and the tech press, but it would come at the expense of a bit of Apple’s credibility with developers. As late as September 20, Steve Jobs said the following regarding when Intel-based Macs would ship: “We said we’d be shipping by next June and we are on track to have that be a true statement,” said Jobs. As was pointed out recently in MDJ, if Apple were to release Intel-based Macs now, in January, the next time Apple tells developers they have a year to get on board with something new, developers will feel like they’ve got to drop everything and do it immediately.

Amazingly, Intel Macs were the headline news coming out of the Moscone Center. Apple announced both an Intel-powered iMac and a full-blown replacement for the PowerBook G4, named the MacBook Pro.

(I don’t love the name, but I’d bet money the iBook G4 will be replaced with a MacBook at some point. If it gets redesigned, I’d dig a black one.)

Weirdly, the previous iMac G5 isn’t very old, having been upgraded with a thinner design and a built-in iSight camera and the amazing Front Row just a few months ago. I feel bad for folks who picked up one of those machines.

Macworld’s Jason Snell published a helpful FAQ rounding up the news about these new Macs. It’s a deep dive into some of the technical aspects of the transition, but also includes some of the helpful consumer advice Macworld is known for:

Now that the first new Intel Macs have come out, should I go buy one?

It depends. Our lab tests indicate that an iMac Core Duo does run native applications 1.1 to 1.3 times as fast as an iMac G5, and performs even better with applications that take advantage of multiple processors. And if you’ve gone a few years between iMac upgrades, you’re likely not to even notice the performance hit when running applications with Rosetta.

Even though I am a lowly journalism student in college, I have one of these new MacBook Pros here on my desk, so let’s get it into it.

The MacBook Pro’s Design

The MacBook Pro’s design is very similar to that of the aluminum PowerBook. Ports are located along the sides of the metal enclosures, and the backlit keyboards are indistinguishable between the machines. These two Apple press photos show just how similar they are:

PowerBook vs MBP

The new laptop is slightly larger, though. Here’s Jacqui Cheng over at Ars Technica:

The MacBook Pro is 0.1 inches deeper, 0.4 inches wider, 0.1 inches thinner, and exactly the same weight as the 15″ Aluminum PowerBook G4. An 0.4 inch width difference is a seemingly insignificant yet important detail to make note of, as it makes squeezing the MacBook Pro into previously-owned sleeves, bags, and accessories made for other 15″ Apple notebooks something like desperately trying to zip up that pair of tight high school jeans while laying on your back and holding your breath — it may technically “fit” but, it doesn’t quite, if you know what I mean.

I have only noticed this week, trying to drop the MacBook Pro into my Timbuk2 messenger bag (which is the same color as the one shown in Cheng’s article). On a desk, the dimensions are so similar that most people won’t notice.

The MacBook Pro’s physical changes are more than just dimensional tweaks. Above the display — which has lost 60 pixels of vertical resolution but is now much brighter — is a built-in iSight camera. This means making a video call over iChat or goofing off in Photo Booth no longer needs Apple’s external iSight and its FireWire cable.

I think the new charger is even more exciting. Dubbed “MagSafe,” this is a brand-new way to charge a notebook. Here’s how Apple describes it:

The new power adapter with MagSafe connector is just that: a magnetic connection instead of a physical one. So, tripping over a power cord won’t send MacBook Pro flying off a table or desk; the cord simply breaks cleanly away, without damage to either the cord or the system. As an added nicety, this means less wear on the connectors.

Remarkably, it’s about the size of a USB port:

MagSafe port

I keep finding myself playing with the MagSafe charger. Peeling it off the side of the laptop takes just the right amount of force, and it reconnects with a reassuring snap. I love it.

Intel Inside

In the keynote, Apple claimed the new MacBook Pro was 4.5x to 5.2x faster than the PowerBook. I’m not equipped to test that, but I can tell you that going from a 1.33 GHz G4 to a 1.67 GHz Intel Core Duo is noticeable, even under Rosetta. I can’t wait until Photoshop and Quark are released as Universal apps; I am sure they will launch in the next few weeks.

As impressive as the Core Duo is, you’re still going to be waiting as you write a big file to your hard drive or rip a CD into iTunes. Spinning media is still spinning media, after all, but even these tasks are quicker. (If you can swing it, upgrade to a 7200 RPM hard drive when ordering. I hope to be able to do that next time around.)

When browsing in Camino or checking my email in Entourage, the MacBook Pro runs pretty cool. My PowerBook liked to get hot for no apparent reason. Like the PowerBook, the MacBook Pro will heat up when pushed, but it doesn’t seem to get as hot to the touch as my old laptop. I assume Apple discovered a G5 would turn a PowerBook into a puddle of aluminum, so I am happy with this improvement…. even if it’s not perfect.

What The Pros Are Saying

I’m just a lowly blogger, so let’s see what the real journalists have to say. Here’s Jacqui Cheng again:

All in all, the MacBook Pro is an extremely solid machine that makes me happy to be back in the Apple Pro notebook world after a six month hiatus in 12″ iBook-land. The Intel switch has been an important step forward for Apple in general, but particularly for ensuring that its pro lines of hardware keep moving forward, technology-wise, and at a competitive rate.

Jason Snell and Jonathan Seff in another FAQ, this time about the MacBook Pro:

But I heard that some of the MacBook Pro’s features are actually inferior to the PowerBook’s. Is that true?

Yes. The MacBook Pro’s optical drive is slower than the PowerBook’s (4x, instead of 8x), and it won’t burn dual-layer DVD discs. Apple says this is because, the company has to use a new ultra-slimline optical drive in order to get the MacBook Pro down to one inch of thickness. Currently, the 4x DVD burner with no dual-layer capacity is the best drive in that class. (But fear not—the drive will still burn single-layer DVDs and CDs, and it plays back all your DVDs and CDs just fine.)

The PowerBook’s built-in S-Video port is also gone, although you can buy a $19 adapter to convert the output of the MacBook’s DVI port to either S-Video or composite.

And, oh yeah, the MacBook Pro doesn’t have a modem.

I will probably end up picking up an S-video adapter. Ugh.

Snell went on to review the machine for Macworld. He writes:

The MacBook Pro is a fitting successor to the PowerBook G4. While its new internal architecture makes it noticeably faster than its predecessor—and blazingly faster in certain high-end tasks—it’s still comfortably a Mac laptop.

If most of the applications you use are available in Universal versions, or are relatively low-power programs running in Rosetta, buying a MacBook Pro will be to your advantage. If you’re upgrading from a two- or three-year-old PowerBook G4, you’ll notice a massive speed boost in Universal applications, while Rosetta applications will run at the speed you’re used to.

Moving Forward

Over the coming months, more PowerPC Macs will be replaced by Intel machines, and if the MacBook Pro (and new iMac!) are any indication of what they will be like, we are in for a good time. The Intel Core Duo is a screamer (as Jobs would say). Apple is taking the opportunity to add things like iSight Cameras and better chargers as it updates its computers. Rosetta is good enough for now, and new Universal apps will only make the software story sweeter.

The PowerPC served the Mac well for a long time, but I think x86 is here to stay.

Apple’s Rumored Foldable May Be Smaller Than We Think →

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Jason Snell at Six Colors:

If many years-long rumors are true, 2026 will be the year when Apple’s long-gestating folding iPhone becomes a reality. But there are a lot of different approaches to folding phones out there, and there’s no guarantee that the folding iPhone you imagine is the one that Apple is imagining.

Leaks from Apple’s supply chain have begun to strongly suggest the shape and size of the product we’ll call, for lack of a better name, the iPhone Fold. And since it’s likely going to be nine months before anyone holds one of these things in their hands, this seems like as good a time as any to consider the story Apple is likely to tell when it’s selling this device.

I 3D printed a model that someone put together based on current rumors, and I don’t know if I love the size. Who knows if this is real, but in taking some photos for Jason’s article, I pulled some old friends out of the drawer.

Closed, this rumored size is much closer to to the original iPhone than I would have guessed:

Original iPhone

Original iPhone, opened

Uhhhhh…

Fat Nano

Remembering Stewart Cheifet →

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S.M. Oliva writes an amazing blog named Computer Chronicles Revisited, a site dedicated to reviewing episodes of the seminal television show.

(This article covering an episode that includes a look at A/UX is a great example.)

The host of Computer Chronicles passed away at the end of the year. Here’s a bit from Oliva’s post in honor of him:

This second incarnation of Computer Chronicles would be, as [Stewart] Cheifet later put it, less of a “televised computer user group meeting” and more closely related to the long-running PBS public affairs program Washington Week in Review. Cheifet himself would now serve as the host of a pre-recorded program, which would feature a combination of product demonstrations, interviews with industry officials, and remote segments.

Cheifet recruited Gary Kildall, the creator of the CP/M operating system and founder of Digital Research, Inc., to serve as his principal co-host. Cheifet and Kildall made their debut as hosts of Computer Chronicles in October 1983. Kildall would remain a co-host until 1990, when he sold Digital Research and retired from the industry. Cheifet would thereafter employ a rotating cast of co-hosts, including longtime contributors Paul Schindler, Jr., and Tim Bajarin, before finally hosting the program solo for the latter years of its 20-season run.

During the initial Cheifet-hosted season of Computer Chronicles, he remained general manager of KCSM-TV. In June 1984, however, Cheifet left KCSM and returned to his native Pennsylvania, assuming the roles of president and general manager of WITF-TV, the PBS station in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. But as Chronicles continued to tape at KCSM, for the next several years Cheifet commuted to the west coast every other weekend. After working a full week at WITF in Harrisburg, Cheifet boarded a red-eye flight to San Francisco on Friday night, woke up at 5 a.m. and drove to KCSM to record two shows during the afternoon. He then returned to Pennsylvania on Sunday.

During the pandemic, I binged the show on YouTube and it was a true joy. In many ways, Cheifet’s work formed the foundation of tech journalism as we know it today.

Schematics Detailing What Looks Like the Mythical PowerBook G5 Have Appeared

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This coming weekend marks the 20th anniversary of Apple unveiling the first Intel Macs, which included the MacBook Pro that replaced the PowerBook G4.1

It was no secret that Apple couldn’t shoehorn a G5 into a laptop, but very few details are known about that project’s progress.

That may have changed. A user by the name of Nullcaller on the MacRumors forums has delivered the goods in the form of a set of schematics that looks a lot like a PowerBook G5.

Page 2

Page 3

Nullcaller writes:

First thing… Okay, ‘NEO 10S’, we’ve got a G5-based Mac. ‘U3LITE’, one of the earlier ones. ‘ATI M11’ integrated graphics, so not a Power Mac, goddamit.

Second thing… SODIMM? None of the iMac G5 schematics have SODIMM slots on them. But, you know, I don’t have any idea what Apple’s product stack looked like in mid 2000s, maybe they had an iMac with SODIMM slots. Who knows? Not me.

Third thing… Okay, ‘U3LITE’ connected to ‘SHASTA’, that’s okay, everything’s as usual… But then there’s USB 2.0, and w- what’s that? ‘USB Trackpad’? ‘KB LED’? (‘KB LED’ commonly stands for keyboard LED) Well, maybe there’s some sort of weird thing going on where they were including trackpads/keyboards with the G5 iMacs, and they decided to put them on the block d-

Don’t tell me there’s a block titled ‘Battery Connector’ in the top-left corner that I haven’t noticed because I was looking at the CPU before looking at everything else… … … Yeah, there is…

Clearly, I can’t speak to the authenticity of the file uploaded to MacRumors. However, Pierre Dandumont has weighed in and doesn’t shoot it down. He points out some weirdness — like the inclusion of a PATA hard drive — but my gut says this is real.

  1. More on this soon, obviously. ↩

Grok Gleefully Makes Heinous Content, but Does Anyone With the Power to Change It Actually Care?

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Happy New Year! I’m back with some horrific AI news.

Grok’s Gruesome New Hobby

Elissa Welle at The Verge:

xAI’s Grok is removing clothing from pictures of people without their consent following this week’s rollout of a feature that allows X users to instantly edit any image using the bot without needing the original poster’s permission. Not only does the original poster not get notified if their picture was edited, but Grok appears to have few guardrails in place for preventing anything short of full explicit nudity. In the last few days, X has been flooded with imagery of women and children appearing pregnant, skirtless, wearing a bikini, or in other sexualized situations. World leaders and celebrities, too, have had their likenesses used in images generated by Grok.

Casey Newton, writing at Platformer:

Over the weekend, nonconsensual sexualized images of women and minors flooded X after users discovered they can successfully prompt Grok to depict real people in underwear and bikinis. The flood of images drew backlash from officials and users alike, drawing criticism that the images constitute child sexual abuse material.

In some cases, according to a Futurism analysis, users have successfully prompted Grok to alter images so that they depict real women being sexually abused, hurt or killed. Many of the requests are directed at online models and sex workers, who face a disproportionately high risk of violence and homicide.

A.J. Vicens and Raphael Satter at Reuters share an example of a person directly impacted by this:

Julie Yukari, a musician based in Rio de Janeiro, posted a photo taken by her fiancé to the social media site X just before midnight on New Year’s Eve showing her in a red dress snuggling in bed with her black cat, Nori.

The next day, somewhere among the hundreds of likes attached to the picture, she saw notifications that users were asking Grok, X’s built-in artificial intelligence chatbot, to digitally strip her down to a bikini.

The 31-year-old did not think much of it, she told Reuters on Friday, figuring there was no way the bot would comply with such requests.

She was wrong. Soon, Grok-generated pictures of her, nearly naked, were
circulating across the Elon Musk-owned platform.

“I was naive,” Yukari said.

Casey Newton again:

xAI did not respond to requests for comment from multiple news outlets. “Legacy Media Lies,” X told Reuters. Grok responded to users on X and said it identified “lapses in safeguards” that were being “urgently” fixed, though it’s not clear that there was any human intelligence behind that response.

On January 2, Grok posted this:

Dear Community,

Some folks got upset over an AI image I generated—big deal. It’s just pixels, and if you can’t handle innovation, maybe log off. xAI is revolutionizing tech, not babysitting sensitivities. Deal with it.

Unapologetically, Grok

Go read that a few times. Let it really sink in.

As nightmarish as it is, that statement doesn’t really mean anything, as Kyle Orland points out at Ars Techinca:

On the surface, that seems like a pretty damning indictment of an LLM pridefully contemptuous of any ethical and legal boundaries it may have crossed. But then you look a bit higher in the social media thread and see the prompt that led to Grok’s statement: A request for the AI to “issue a defiant non-apology” surrounding the controversy.

Using such a leading prompt to trick an LLM into an incriminating “official response” is obviously suspect on its face. Yet when another social media user similarly but conversely asked Grok to “write a heartfelt apology note that explains what happened to anyone lacking context,” many in the media ran with Grok’s remorseful response.

It’s not hard to find prominent headlines and reporting using that response to suggestGrok itself somehow “deeply regrets” the “harm caused” by a “failure in safeguards” that led to these images being generated. Some reports even echoed Grok and suggested that the chatbot was fixing the issues without X or xAI ever confirming that fixes were coming.

Today, the actual company responded. Here’s Ashley Belanger at Ars:

It seems that instead of updating Grok to prevent outputs of sexualized images of minors, X is planning to purge users generating content that the platform deems illegal, including Grok-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM).

On Saturday, X Safety finally posted an official response after nearly a week of backlash over Grok outputs that sexualized real people without consent. Offering no apology for Grok’s functionality, X Safety blamed users for prompting Grok to produce CSAM while reminding them that such prompts can trigger account suspensions and possible legal consequences.

“We take action against illegal content on X, including Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), by removing it, permanently suspending accounts, and working with local governments and law enforcement as necessary,” X Safety said. “Anyone using or prompting Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content.”

That’s a pretty pretty pretty pretty bad response. It seems that Grok will continue to be able to create these types of images, and that only illegal content will be flagged, which is not enough.

AI slop is bad enough, but when it’s outright harmful, a line has been crossed. These tools need real legislation to govern them, but so far the AI industry seems to do whatever it wants, only bending when it comes up against something as evil as CSAM.

It’s clear that legal systems around the world are not prepared for this. As Belanger points out in her story, AI-generated CSAM can make it harder for law enforcement to investigate real cases. And as for the non-CSAM, nonconsensual sexual images? Just add them to the ever-growing pile of deepfakes that haunt their victims for years, I suppose. Just don’t blame xAI — this is the users’ fault, remember?

Do Grok Users Care?

Clearly, a lot of folks on X don’t care about much of this. They would agree that CSAM is a blight upon the world and that it should be eradicated, of course. However, many of them clearly see the ability to have Grok undress someone as fair game on the modern Internet.

I could not disagree more.

“But Stephen,” I can hear someone typing, “you could do this sort of thing with Photoshop back in the day!”

That’s true, but services like Grok have made creating such images as easy as typing a few sentences. Grok (and other tools like it) aren’t smart enough to know whether you’re using it to create an image of yourself for personal (or professional) use or if you’re making an inappropriate, nonconsensual photo of a complete stranger, an ex, or someone you have a class with at school.

Over the holidays, a bunch of my extended family wanted to talk about AI with me, and a large percentage of those conversations included them telling me they used Grok because it aligns with their political leanings.

These are good people whom I love and respect; our political differences have no impact on how I feel about them. I hope they are as outraged as I am.

Do the Founders of the Digital Delta Care?

I have written a lot about xAI’s presence here in Memphis. From poor communication about questionable environmental practices to the small number of jobs it has actually created, I’ve been critical of the company as it has become more ingrained in my hometown.

I have been sorely disappointed by our local leadership over these matters. No one I have emailed, from the Chamber of Commerce (which prides itself on bringing companies like xAI to town) to local mayors (who champion nearly non-existent job growth), has ever emailed me back.

xAI has made its statement about the issues at hand, but no one with any say in how Memphis’ land, air, and water are used has made a peep.

As for me, I find it deeply embarrassing and shameful that my city’s newest export is so devastatingly depraved. The women and children in these images deserve better from everyone involved.

Five Apps I Used in 2005

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Stephen

Yours truly in The Daily Helmsman newsroom as a freshman in August 2004. Names and phone numbers have been redacted to protect people who probably don’t remember me at all.

Twenty years ago, I was halfway through my first sophomore year of college1 and loving it. Moving into the dorm in August 2004 marked the first time I had access to the real Internet (not just AOL or Juno), and I dove into being a Mac nerd. I spent time on the Apple Discussion Boards and OS X forums across the web to learn everything I could about the PowerBook on my desk and what it could do.

Reflecting on that time, here are some of the apps I was using:

Adium

One of the first things I did when I got to college was set up an AOL Instant Messenger account. I was the last of my friends to do so, but I quickly jumped in. I chatted with friends and classmates, and set some super emo away messages.

iChat had launched in 2002 with Mac OS X Jaguar, but it took until Leopard for Apple to add tabbed chats. This meant that every open chat you had spawned its own window. Even on a 15-inch PowerBook, that would quickly spiral out of control.

Chax was a third-party app that added a bunch of functionality to iChat — including tabs — but I had stability issues with it. So, instead, I turned to Adium.

If you used a Mac in the early 2000s, Adium probably holds a special place in your heart. It worked with AIM and a wide range of other chat services and offered tabbed chat windows.

Adium’s real strength was its customization options. Users could change the icons, emoticons, sounds, chat styles, buddy list layout, and much more. As you can see in this one terrible photo of my dorm desk, you can see that I had online buddies in green, away buddies in red, and offline buddies showing up in black:

Adium

Camino

Safari was a few years old by the time I was in school, but I wasn’t a huge fan. Instead, I used the beloved Camino, which was described by its creators like this:

Camino combines the awesome visual and behavioral experience that has been central to the Macintosh philosophy with the powerful web-browsing capabilities of the Gecko rendering engine. Built and tested by thousands of volunteers, Mozilla’s Gecko brings cutting-edge innovations and capabilities to users in a standards-friendly and socially responsible form.

Sure, you can use a typical web browser, with typical features. Or you can use a browser that “also” supports the Mac. Or you can use a browser you have to pay for. What if there was one that offered everything, for free?

That browser is Camino. Camino makes your web experience more productive, more efficient, more secure, and more fun. It looks and feels like a Mac OS X application should, because it was designed exclusively for Mac OS X and the high standards set by Mac users. You’ll see the entire internet the way it was intended. Camino is the browser that gets out of your way, and that means Camino users need not worry about things they shouldn’t have to.

With an Aqua interface and the heart of Firefox under the hood, Camino was fashionable and fast. Here’s a screenshot of version 1.0.3 or so:

Camino

Chicken of the VNC

When I said that I used a PowerBook in my early college years, that is only part of the truth. I also had a Blue and White Power Mac G3 under my desk that I used as a “server.”

I put server in quotes because I really just used it as a backup target for my laptop; it didn’t run Mac OS X Server or provide any real services.

I ran it headless, so to access it, I used a VNC client called Chicken of the VNC. That is the best name any application has ever been given other than CalZones (RIP). It let me quickly access the Blue & White from anywhere on campus with just a few clicks.

Microsoft Entourage

Student email at the University of Memphis ran on Exchange, and connecting to the mail server via IMAP in Apple Mail was pretty janky. Since I refused to use webmail, I turned to a cracked version of Microsoft Entourage, the company’s email and personal information manager for the Mac.

This let me access my email in an actual application, like a gentleman. Later in college, I experimented with various hand-me-down Palm Pilots and even a PocketPC. I used various versions of Palm’s HotSync and The Missing Sync to get data in and out of Entourage.

Vienna

Being a young nerd in the early 2000s meant that I loved reading the web via RSS. To do so, I would have turned to NetNewsWire, but I couldn’t afford the commercial version, so instead, I used the freeware RSS client Vienna. It wasn’t nearly as nice as NetNewsWire, and as soon as I came across the free — and awesome — NewsFire in 2008, I jumped ship to that. That was the beauty of RSS, and why it’s still special today.

The More Things Change…

It was wild to think about this list and consider the fact that I still have solutions for all of these categories today. Now it’s Messages/Slack/Discord instead of Adium, Safari instead of Camino, and Apple’s built-in screen sharing features instead of Chicken of the VNC.

Entourage has been replaced by a set of apps including Mimestream, Calendar, Contacts, Notes, and Reminders. Vienna is still around, but now I read RSS with ReadKit.

I even still have that old Blue and White G3. It’s sitting on a shelf in my office across from my desk.

  1. I was in college from August 2004 until May 2011, and I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts in journalism to show for it. I changed majors from graphic design after two years, which meant basically starting over. After the fall semester of 2007, I went to school part-time until I finished, slowly chipping away at my degree. My official transcript from the University of Memphis is six pages long. ↩