Can you guys keep a secret? This is the first post I’ve written in more than a month that I created on my Mac. Right at the end of August, I opened my faithful 12″ Powerbook only to be greeted by the unwelcome sound of the Click of Death.

If you’ve never had a hard drive die, you might have never encountered the Click of Death. Count yourself lucky. It’s a sad sound. A heart-breaking sound. The sound of things falling apart. A tap, a skip, a whir and failure. Over and over and on into the future. And so, part way through a major writing project, my computer was beloved Mac and constant companion was rendered utterly unusable. Not immediately equipped to pay for the repair, I had to hold off until this last week to get a new drive.

I have walked in the valley of darkness, oh my brothers, and I am more convinced of the Mac’s superiority than ever. Fitted with a new drive, my little Mac feels dozens of times faster than the year-old ThinkPad I have to use at work. It just feels like being home. To make it more like home, over the course of the weekend, I’ve been restoring my Mac to just how I like it. I have five easy steps for doing it yourself, so click through to learn how.

The One Laptop Per Child initiative seeks to bring technology to the developing world to make up for historic educational and economic inequities. Though I think the project has plenty of problems (Did anyone check to see that a laptop was the best way to repair inequalities in Africa and South America? Or, as Om Malik so succinctly put it, “What about the people?“), the actual XO laptop they’ve produced is quite cool and has capabilities rare on mainstream machines.

The machine is outfitted with a touch screen, a stylus, and a keyboard. In other words, it’s exactly like Apple’s eMate, a Newton product line extension from 1996 targeted at the educational market. Jason O’Grady has a great rundown of both the XO and the eMate over at ZDNet, but there’s a bigger point here that hasn’t been made: Technologies are not inherently interesting or bound to succeed. They require the right context and adoption strategies to take off. Though the XO is far from guaranteed to succeed in the long run, if it does, it won’t be because its technology or design is so superior to the eMate’s. It will be because it connects with people in just the right way. That’s all innovation is — the right idea at the right time for the right people.

Radiohead’s “In Rainbows,” released early this morning over the Internet just nine days after the band announced its completion, is out and completely brilliant. It’s also not for sale through any existing music distribution channel. It’s DRM-free, you can name your own price (no, really), and not one penny goes to the record companies. My thoughts on what that means are over here at my other blog.

What bothers me is that this is exactly the sort of consumer-friendly, content-creator friendly business Apple should be encouraging. Instead, they’re acting in the best interest of record companies, movie studios and TV networks. Kind of disappointing. Either way, the songs still play on my iPod, so away I go!

David Early, a MacRumors member, shot off an e-mail to Apple complaining about a number of limitations on the device, such as its lack of disk mode, incompatibility with older iPod games, and crippled Calendar application that doesn’t allow the creation or editing of new events. And he actually got a reply, signed by Steve Jobs (though possibly composed by an assistant of his) that ignores most of Dave’s questions but speaks directly to the Calendar issue, which he says will be fixed via software update soon. Click on the thumbnail to read the full note.

It’s pretty awesome. Anyone else ever get an actual e-mail back from Steve?

Via Digg.

Remember 1988? Bill McEwen certainly does. And that’s why he’s the CEO of Amiga, Inc., a little company still churning along based on the stellar reputation that Commodore’s Amiga enjoyed back in the late ’80s. For awhile there, some actually thought the Amiga would really duke it out with Apple for supremacy. And Bill McEwen still thinks it can happen, as he lays out in a baffling interview on Amiga Web:

16) You’ve claimed earlier that OS5 will be better than Mac OS X. Can you tell us in what way?

Details for OS 5 will be made public in the 4th quarter of 2007, and then you will have a much clearer understanding and I will let you decide if what I know to be true is accurate.

Also:

28) In the era of the Mac mini, iPhone, $100 laptop, and Efika, what innovative products can Amiga Inc. bring to the information technology market?

Our plans and product strategy take all of the above question items and others into account. Until I am able to show it to you, I will just have to say that there is plenty of places for Amiga to succeed.

You hear that Apple? A company that thinks this weird picture of a woman with a cell phone belongs on the front page of their website is taking the Mac mini and the iPhone into account. So there! Just consider yourself accounted for! I love true believers.

Via Slashdot

Let’s face it: There are Mac cultists — folks like you and me — and then there are Mac cult leaders. Take James Savage, a man who has more than 100 Macs in his house. The picture above doesn’t quite do justice. You must read the Gizmodo interview and see the gallery…

Jesus Diaz: The first time I saw your photo I couldn’t believe anyone could have as many Apple computers as you do, at least not outside of a museum. How many do you actually have?
James Savage: About 100 Macs and Apple computers (one NeXT) are in Macca [the spare room], with another 25 or so Macs in our home office and the rest of the Macs are in use throughout the house.

Yikes.

Via Digg.

As expected, ZuneScene notes that Microsoft took a card from Apple’s playbook and made a big product announcement on a Tuesday. Brace yourselves, people. It’s Zune 2 time! OH, YEAH! Outrageous! Now with the same capacity as the iPod classic, only with a “squircle” interface that sucks way more than a clickwheel! And it costs the same price! BOOYA! And wait for it, homes, there’s now a Zune with flash memory, at the same price and size as an old iPod nano! POW!

In all seriousness, this is seriously underwhelming stuff. Once again, the only feature Microsoft is using to try to stand out from the iPod is WiFi, specifically wireless music, video and photo syncing. Which might be fairly exciting, were it not for the fact that, you know, Apple just rolled out the iPod Touch, which also offers WiFi web browsing. That’s a slightly more appealing WiFi feature for the vast majority of the population.

I am pleasantly surprised to see that Microsoft had the insight to translate Xbox Gamer Cards, which are major points of pride for Xbox Live maniacs, into Zune Cards, which will be embeddable on message boards and websites to show off recent music choices and even let other people listen to top songs. It’s way more compelling than the initial WiFi sharing they dubbed “the Social.” And now, songs transferred that way last forever, not just three days. They can still only get played three times, however.

ZuneScene thinks that the Squircle interface might one day be used as a directional pad for games on the Zune. That would be more interesting if there were complementary buttons on the other side for action and full gaming. I think most people will stick with playing the iPhone NES emulator.

All in all, this is far from a real threat to the iPod’s dominance. It’s profoundly unimaginative and just barely improves on the first Zune and does little more than match the low end of Apple’s line-up. It’s almost sad.

Silicon Valley Socialite Om Malik reports that the good people of Yahoo! were recently inspired by none other than Steve Jobs himself:

He told the gathering of 300-odd Yahoo (YHOO) vice presidents that they can do anything. The company with one of the largest Internet user bases can do and achieve anything, he apparently told them. (I am channeling a handful of VPs.) He talked about how Apple (AAPL) was down on its luck and made a comeback. Yahooligans were pretty inspired! Now if they made more of their products Mac friendly!

Malik promises more detail on Steve’s speech soon, but in the meantime, ponder this: Yahoo has 300 VICE-PRESIDENTS! No wonder they need motivation from Steve. Stay tuned — this is a very interesting development. Yahoo and Apple are much friendlier than they were a year ago… Steve doesn’t do motivational speaking for just anyone. It’s always as a personal favor.

Remember America Online? Yellow guy, blue triangle? “You’ve Got Mail!” No? Trust me, it was huge once — the dominant way a lot of Internet newbies first reached out across cyberspace. And after five years (yes, five years), AOL has finally rolled out a new beta for its main line AOL Desktop for Mac software.

After all this time, the actual upgrade’s features aren’t terribly thrilling (particularly for anyone who, you know, just uses a web browser for all of this stuff). There’s definitely still a market for an integrated Internet app that gets the basics — mail, chat and browsing — down well, and I’m always fascinated to see if AOL can ever start to gain back the kind of position it once held.

Here’s what’s in store, other than being “Leopard-ready”:

Fast Load Time:  AOL® Desktop for Mac launches within seconds and enables users to begin browsing immediately, without signing in to the software.

 

Tabbed Navigation:  Tabbed browser and AIM® windows offer easy access to content, and an uncluttered, organized view of all open windows.

 

Additional Email Options:  A streamlined AOL Mail experience allows users to send and receive messages using multiple email accounts, including Apple Mac addresses, Gmail, Verizon and more from one Inbox.

 

AIM Integration: AIM is built in to the software, so users can view Buddies online, chat, and more while checking their email or browsing the Web.

Customizable Toolbar:  An easy-to-use customizable toolbar gives users quick access to their favorite sites.

Yep, it’s only several years behind the cutting edge in browsing. Oh, and you can finally use other e-mail protocols. What a time to be alive. Anyone using the beta? What’s that all about?

The biggest concern everyone had when Apple announced it would shift Macs to Intel chips from the PowerPC platform was whether third-party software companies (actually, just Adobe and Microsoft) would make the switch along with the computers. After all, it was Adobe and Microsoft’s unwillingness to develop versions of Photoshop and MS Office for Rhapsody that scuttled Apple’s first attempt to transform NeXT’s OPENStep into a next-generation Mac OS.

Adobe Creative Suite 3 brought the essential creative applications to Intel Macs at native speed, and now Microsoft is nearly ready to bring the essential productivity bundle along for the party. Though it won’t ship until January, Microsoft’s Mac Business Unit is currently previewing the software at a Mac Office website — and hey, it looks a lot like the iPhone site!

All in all, it looks most like Microsoft trying to do Pages and Keynote while leaving in all the complexity. The interface still feels off (especially with Leopard coming before this), but you can tell they’re trying. And it’s about time the last excuse to not switch to an Intel Mac got polished off.

From everything I can tell, there’s nothing Mac-specific about the suite other than the interface and a few Automator workflows. It’s basically Office 2007 a year late and Windows-free. The YouTube video above shows the newly integrated SmartArt features that rapidly transform data into graphs.

Office 2008, featuring Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Entourage, is $400 in full or a $280 upgrade.

Office 2008 for the Mac Home and Student Edition, which drops Exchange support in Entourage and Automator workflows, is $150. Seriously. Corporate e-mail support costs $250 a head. Who knew?

Office 2008 Special Media Edition costs $500 or $300 for an upgrade and throws in MS’s Expression Media, a digital asset management tool on top of the standard bundle.