Tag Archives: Mac

Friday Links: Popular video games turned into horror movies

• Check out Line 25′s Sites of the Week. We heartily approve.
• Popular video games transformed into short horror films.
• The Apple-fication of everything, about design standards and a beautiful thermostat. And if you’re still in the mood for some Apple design talk, take a look at Apple’s aesthetic dichotomy (which has a really good point).
• Google kills its other plus, and how to get it back.
• Settlers of Catan, the novel coming to a bookstore near you.
• Pictures from Hallomeme. Some of it’s pretty funny.
• Richard Stallman’s tour rider.
• Beer at work: A case for drinking on the job.
• Forrester urges IT to support the Mac.

The Mac vs. PC debate, this time with pretty infographics

If you are sick of the Mac vs. PC debate and what it says about you skip this post and go play with Hacker Typer (which lets you be like a movie “hacker,” i.e. write code just by pressing random keys).

If you’re like the Mac vs PC debate (and nifty infographics), surf on over to the Hunch blog where they’ve analyzed the differences between self-identified Mac People and PC People using some of the questions Hunch users can choose to answer about themselves.

A lot of the findings feel pretty predictable or, stereotypical. Mac users like design and trendy clothes and Vespas. PC users like impressionism and comfortable clothes and Harleys. It’s still a fun read. And the best part? If you scroll to the bottom and read more about the analysis, you’ll see that 47% of Mac users find the Mac vs PC debate important compared to only 31% of PC users. At least I thought it was funny. Mac users apparently feel the need to justify their Macness way more than PC users.

The making of 1984

It’s Superbowl week in America. This is the week where NFL fans and advertisers (the people who work in and around advertising) get all wiggly and giggly with anticipation. The game! The commercials! The episode of Glee afterwards. . . oh wait, that last one’s just me.

When it comes to Superbowl commercials, Apple’s iconic “1984″ commercial set the bar. Or as Steve Hayden said in his AdWeek piece about the spot, “[the commercial] established that venue as the platform for big, new branding campaigns from all sorts of advertisers—beer, cars, soft drinks, dot-coms, you name it.”

Hayden, who was a Senior VP and Creative Director at Chiat/Day in 1983 worked on the commercial. In the article he talks about the creative brief the agency was given, how close the commercial came to not even being made (twice), and the marketing campaign Jobs ordered after he first saw the commercial. It’s an interesting look not only into the advertising industry, but the making of an icon.

Here’s the commercial, in case you’ve never seen it (is that possible?)

Friday Links: Is collectivism ruining the Internet?

• Your must read of the week, Caterina Fake’s response to Jaron Lanier’s claim in the Wall Street Journal that collectivism is ruining the Internet.
• Time test: Pen v keyboard v Newton v Graffiti v Treo v iPhone. Which one do you think will be the fastest when it comes to entering text?
• The evolution of the Super Bowl logo. I’m partial to the XI myself. I like that kicky little swirl.
• Ad Week has posted all 66 commercials in the “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” series. You know, in case you missed one.
• Take a look at the controversial new logo for the New York City Opera. It looks like a circle inside a rectangle to me. I don’t get it. If you do, please explain.
• Infographic of the Week: Charting the Beatles.
• The Ford logo that almost was.

This is not an endorsement

However, this is a post with two links to some awfully Mac/Apple-friendly content. They are so amusing that I cannot help but share them with you, our Nerdery readers, no matter what computing choice you have made.

First, MacWorld asked what was the best Mac ever? Three of the five Mac experts they asked proclaimed it was the Macintosh SE/30.

Second, the Web Design Depot has a lovely post about the evolution of Apple Design from 1977-2008. I love how the design progresses from standard utilitarian to whimsical to sleek and futuristic.