Never Trust a Computer You Can't Lift

In 1984, Steve Jobs introduces the Macintosh computer. He doesn't look much like a visionary with that bow tie, but the Mac's text-to-speech brings the crowd to its feet. Thanks to MacBlog for the link.

Picasa2

Looks like Picasa is finally getting its Google on. C|Net is reporting that Google has released version 2 of the free digital photo management program. Earlier versions did not have any real integration with Google services. Version 2 allows you to e-mail pictures using your Gmail account and adds a few more image editing tools. The interface appears to have been tweaked slightly as well. More good, free stuff from Google. Happy downloading!

Nerds are Dreamy

After seeing these pictures, I think I'll start writing Bill G. Fanfiction.

"End of Line" Just Doesn't Make Any Sense Today

I love Tron for about the same reasons other love the movie; campy yet cool, futuristic yet lo-tech, a family-friendly jaunt into (at the time) the undiscovered cyberspace. It really captured my imagination when I was a kid. When I heard Tron 2.0 was going to be a videogame, I thought Disney made a mistake by not making a movie sequel; when I heard the game was decent, I felt vindicated and sad.

There is a lot great storytelling that can be done within the setting of "inside a computer." (ReBoot is a great example of that.) The Tron universe is pretty much left wide open. There's plenty of room to write a great sequel of the movie (with ties off the game); but a remake (as reported by Empire Online)? I'm thinking another mistake.

I guess Disney needs a project like a Tron remake to get self-sufficient in their 3D animation, since there's a good chance they'll lose their development deal with Pixar. Their current non-Pixar 3D stuff has been flying under the radar since its lame. No matter the reason, I hope Disney makes an actual effort to support and produce this movie, and not choke off funding and advertising at the drop of a review.

And that whole Disney's DVD Vault? Don't get me started! Don't even get me started!

64-Bit Apples Might Be Too Hot For Your Lap

Apple Insider is reporting that during the Apple Q1 Conference Call, chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer said that getting the G5 processor in a Powerbook will be the "mother of all thermal challenges." Getting the G5 into the new iMacs was a good sign of the progress made thus far. As I was telling one of my friends today, as much as I love the power of the G5s -- boy, those dual processor towers sure can run applications -- I wish IBM and Apple would have prevented some of the heat issues in the initial design, if it was possible. (There are several 64-bit laptops out there, ya know.) There's some talk about liquid cooling for the laptop, but the case is still just too damn enclosed.

Edit: Check the comments for an update on recent developments.

The Firefox Pipeline

Previously, we told you people about some Firefox tweaks. One of those tweaks involved using the pipelining setting to boost Firefox's download speed. Now, why was the pipelining setting turned off in the first place? Well, "There are issues with some web servers and proxies," according to caillion.blog. So if you have some strange problems with firefox accessing web servers, be sure to disable the pipelining as one of the first steps of troubleshooting.