Josh Baugher wrote in to say " Intel's chairman says he has seen the future of computing " Yes.. you heard it right. Andy Grove says that Imac is a lot what computers in the future will be like. " All I know is that they look even better candidates to be fish-tankized. Anyone got extra Macs they wanna send for fish tank conversion? We'll make a story out of it-send me mail here.

the secret asian man sent us an image that could only have been inspired by the iMac. GRR wrote in to tell us that Symantec is retireing it's Norton Utilities in favor of it's new Bigman Utilities. I found that one extremely amusing. Lastly Jaro wrote in to announce yet another Unix GUI project. This one is called the Unix Desktop Project.

Chops-Frozen-Water writes "It was only a matter of time. At their developer forum, Intel demoed a prototype of a "home entertainment device" that has a transparent blue case. Story also mentions a Korean manufacturer that's working on a Celeron-based iMac lookalike. Whatever you think of the iMac, the design concept is going to be around for a while... "

mrorange (aka Patrick Berry) writes "The iMac, which only sold for 15 days in August, may set a record for monthly PC sales. The final count isn't tallied yet, but the only thing that is close, according to the article, is a Compaq machine that sold last Christmas." I finally saw one a few days ago (I don't go outside much). I still want one, but until Linux is good to go on it, I don't really know what I'd do with it beyond run an X-Server on it :)

Alf Dagfinn Lynegard writes "On The University of Oslos (Norway) campus some Apple ppl put one iMac balloon over our math auditorium and last night some unknown linux-fans made up a Tux poster over the screen of the iMac balloon last night or this morning. (1998-09-04)." The shots are here and here. All I can say is hahahaha. We are definitley going to need mirrors for these shots.

Alex Prestin sent us This Link to a strange picture of the iMac, and what appears to be its long lost little brother. Ewan Leith wrote in to tell the world that "PC Plus in the UK goes on sale tomorrow (the 27th) with Suse 5.2 on the cover CD, along with another CD full of linux programs." Donovan was the first to warn the world that the 2.1.119 kernel is now out. I compiled my 2.1.118 kernel a wopping half hour before the 119 release. Sigh. Colin Walls sent us a link to the latest Spencer F. Kat cartoon thingee. There's another piece of aftermath from last weeks standards hoopla. icetrey wrote in to say "OctobrX and Bishop have chosen me, icetrey, to be the new blackbox themes webmaster. It has a new look, as well as a few new themes for 40.x."

The fun just keeps rolling in with the iMac stuff so I guess I'll just keep posting it. The major notable is that LinuxPPC.org has a page up for the iMac/Linux porting effort. As we all know, the messy stuff is the USB support. Robert Petty sent us this link where you can read about the iMac mystery slot. Tom Drabenstott sent us a link comparing windows and Macs at various every day tasks. Finally Sean Harding sent us a link to a page dedicated to documenting the iMac firmware.

Thanks to hazzmat for sending this one my way: In this article a Microsoft exec by the name of Matusow states that the BIOS in many new PC's will pass 1/1/2000 but recorrupt itself exactly one year later. Server networks fed data from these recidivist PC's will be at risk. This all independent of the OS and application's compliance status. Hey, how come they say things like this abroad, but not here in the US ? Another reason to buy an iMac ?

Martin-Gilles Lavoie writes "For all those pundits who keep arguing the lack of floppy in the iMac (while ignoring the fact that USB floppies are available), a German magazine (c't) has a cool tip on hooking up a regular floppy drive directly on the iMac motherboard Check it out. OpenSource/architechture winers can therefore grab a soldering iron and do it themselves! " In other news, Micah writes "Apparently, 15% of iMac buyers are purchasing their first computer, and 13% are replacing PC systems if this article is correct."

Patrick Berry writes " LinuxPPC is gathering information to get the device drivers ready for the iMac. Maybe you can have one by Christmas running linuxPPC! " Update tons of people have submitted various speculations on the mystery port on the iMacs. Supposedly the slot is a Mezzanine socket for any sort of external devices (SCSI etc). Thanks to Roger A. Tetzlaff for sending that bit in.

Espen Koht writes "Its been reported several other places, but I thought it might still have some general interest. "The Parallel Macintosh Cluster for Numerically Intensive Computing" detailed on link becomes even more interesting when you add the other news of the day: the iMac. It has the processor and the networking is built-in, cutting the cost by a fair amount. Then ask yourself: what if these things were running Linux instead? The mind boggles. " Plug and play parallel processing. Must wipe drool off of me.

Today is the day that the new iMacs are supposed to be rolling. Jobs and Co. are betting big on this one, with Jobs saying this will "cause a revolution." Regardless of that, Apple is undertaking their biggest ad campaign ever, with a 100$US million dollar ad campaign. It will be interesting to see the results of this-and whether the PC converts return, like Jobs hopes.

Eric Davis sent us a link to some pictures at Apple showing the floors where iMac's are being built. No matter what you think about that iMac, it sure does look cool to see gigantic stacks of non intel computers getting ready for sale.

James Ratliff wrote in to tell us that the iMac's are now available. He sent a link to CDW where you can read the exact specs and cost. Considering that MKLinux DR3 announcement below, and the stunning speed of those G3s, all I can say is I want one bad. It would be interesting to compare Netwinders and iMac's as thin linux clients. Or I guess you could leave MacOS on it...

Ok folks after the recent hub bub on Slashdot over the iMac release (check out that story... 300+ comments) Benjamin Shive sent me a bunch of points in response to most of the criticisms that occured in the comments. I would consider one personally (it would end up being an X-Server in my living room :), but it would be nice if it was a couple hundred bucks cheaper. But these things are designed with a different audience than most of us hardcore techies. Anyway, Ben has covered the issues pretty well, so if you were partaking in the flamefest yesterday, it's probably worth reading this.