17 inch Macbook Pro January 2009

The new January 2009 17 inch MacBook Pro, 6.6 pounds, under an inch thick, features a lightweight aluminum unibody, and up to 8 amazing hours of battery life. The curved illuminated keys are fitted to your fingers, and the trackpad is also the button—entirely clickable, with pinch, scroll and swipe, and configurable by you! 

320GB hard drive standard, optional solid state drive, up to 8 gigs of memory, processor up to 2.93 GHz. Glossy screen, matte optional, USB2, firewire, built-in camera, DVD read-writer, ethernet, wireless, all the standard things.  

HD-video-ready, sensationally improved color gamut—60% better, hotter contrast, game and video-production level Nvidia processor, glass display, More software than you will ever use, including the updated iLIfe 09, also has the extremely cool magnetic powercord standard, and greener than ever.

Log Tech

The technology has been around for centuries, and is still natural and beautiful and warm.  Log cabins, log houses, log homes.  Here’s a luxurious example, created by masters of the craft.

Beautiful log lodge, view from Lake Michigan

See the details for yourself, here:  http://www.hilltoploglodge.com/index.html

Steampunk Computer Keyboard Mod

If you’ve ever doubted the value of obsession, check out this website:

http://steampunkworkshop.com/keyboard.shtml

Steampunk computer keyboard mod by steampunkworkshop.com

This page features a detailed description of how to make a steampunk computer keyboard mod, with amazing results.  If you care to delve deeper, there are links to steampunk guitar mods, etching, headphones, even a car and motorbike.

Volcano Lightning

This is maybe one of the spookiest pictures ever taken, as a volcano in Chile erupts with lightning twining through its cloud of ash, dust, and gasses.

Chile Volcano Lightning from National Geographic

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/05/photogalleries/volcano-photos/

And to think, this may resemble the place where it all began.

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/37729/title/Primordial_soup_lives_again

Exploring the Antarctic with a Horror Writer

The adventure has started. This summer (winter at the south pole) a team of scientists and one children’s author, Nancy Etchemendy, will sail on the National Science Foundation’s icebreaker Nathaniel B. Palmer and study the marine biology of the area.

To follow the action, check out the blog for adults:
http://etchemendy.com/rmmblog/

And the blog for kids:
http:/etchemendy.com/unblog/

And find what dwells in the cold at the bottom of the world.

Phoenix has landed!

And is reporting back! After months of travel, and “seven minutes of terror” during the landing, Phoenix has arrived, deployed its solar panels, is looking around, and sending back pictures.

To see images from NASA’s Phoenix Mars lander, go here:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/images/index.html

Amazing Computer Music Magazine

Computer Music: the Complete Guide for Mac and PC, is a great monthly magazine published in the UK, with clear tutorials, reviews of music equipment and software, and articles about the many aspects of making, sharing, and selling music, even a page on music theory. It also features interviews with band members and producers, focusing on how they work and the gear they use.

Computer Music : the Complete Guide for Mac and PC

But maybe the greatest thing about this magazine is the digital material that comes on the included DVD. Each month it contains samples, tutorials, reader-submitted music, videos, and free and demo software. Eagerly awaited each month, enjoy as much as you can use.

TechHeroes: Charlie Rose

PBS star Charlie Rose risked facial disfigurement to save his MacBook Air during a recent fall on the streets of New York.

As reported in Salon.com, Rose stumbled in a pothole, and his first instinct was to save not himself but his MacBook Air!

TechHeroes Awards originated in honor of the brave photographers who have fallen into the drink while holding their cameras above their heads, and now is branching out to recognize others who give their all to support and protect their great technology.

Aquatic screen saver

One of the unexpected virtues of computers is that they’ve brought about screen savers.

In the day there were flying toasters. Now you can have bright and realistic 3-D fish swimming across your screen while your computer sleeps. Marine Aquarium is one such elegant screensaver.

It has options such as an integrated date and clock, sound on or off, and choice of fishes.

The website name serenescreen.com is not far off, since it provides a surprisingly relaxing change of scene.

Great computer graphics magazine

If you do anything related to computer graphics and design, one of the best print magazines is the monthly Computer Arts Magazine published in England.

The focus is British, but includes lots of rest of the world design. It’s great to see what people are doing in Brazil and Hong Kong and Russia and Singapore.

The range of tutorial projects is wide. Recent ones include designing a letterhead for your company, drawing in anime style, designing a logo, branding online, and creating an animated book.

The art and design they feature is unusually current. Perhaps British illustrators are on the leading edge right now. At any rate, trends you see first this magazine often appear within the year on album covers, other magazines, TV commercials, and print advertisements.

Perhaps the best parts of the magazine are the tutorials, simple, clear, richly visual descriptions of how to do a variety of design-related tasks, using a variety of software.

In addition, each issue comes with a CD containing goodies like free Illustrator brushes, fonts, tutorials, or stock photos.

And hey, you get to do on the fly currency calculations, and occasionally puzzle over British slang. The magazine is somewhat expensive— $15 or so an issue in the US. On the other hand, for great design and excellent tutorials, you get as much instruction and inspiration in two or three issues as you would in a how-to book, except these are lots prettier, and much more current.

Best of all, the publishers are generous— a trip to the website, http://www.computerarts.co.uk/ gives you the opportunity to look at an amazing variety of articles and tutorials from previous issues. Try some of them out, and if you find them useful, subscribe.