RandomMaccess

Back when this was a full-fledged journalistic endeavor — a real news site, if you will — things like re-designs and the development of additional features took place on a development server — behind the curtain, if you will. Now that we’re “just” a blog, though, I have no hesitation to do these things right (…)

I get quite a bit of comment spam on the postings here. Because of the way the site is set up, not much of it gets through. I’m frequently amused, though, at some of the tactics the spammers use to try to get their posts on the site. A lot have taken to pulling words (…)

Back in the late-nineties, I produced what would now be called a podcast on the long-defunct “GiveMeTalk” Internet Radio Network. They were mostly 10-15 minute scripted shows, wherein I offered some analysis and commentary on the day’s news. Topics back then ranged from the introduction of candy-colored iMacs to the passing of legendary Mac journalist (…)

Following an apparently successful upgrade of WordPress (the Content Management System that replaced the homegrown version previously used on the site), our servers got in a virtual snit and started refusing to serve up webpages. We apologize to all who were unable to reach the site over the past 22 hours or so, and we (…)

The slides from my Macworld San Francisco 2008 session on setting up a WiFi network are now available as a PDF file. Thanks to all of you who attended and responded so enthusiastically. I was lucky enough to have great crowds for all four sessions — they were attentive, asked great questions and were very (…)

Thanks to instructions provided by The Joy of Tech’s Snaggy, RandomMaccess now has a custom icon for those who add it as a web clipping to their 1.1.3 iPhone. The technique is very straightforward. Simply create a 57×57 pixel icon, save it as a PNG with the name “apple-touch-icon.png” and drop it in the root (…)

I ran into a friend on the show floor who said he’d recently visited the site and was surprised my wife would let me “get away” with what he saw: bikini-clad (and barely at that) women. My first reaction was that the site had somehow been hacked and was now serving up some kind of (…)

I did an interview with Chuck Joiner for his “MacVoices” podcast (one of several excellent podcasts he produces.) The interview went online today–unfortunately, I can’t hear it yet because of firewall issues at my office, so I don’t know how much of an idiot I sound like. (Always a concern for me when I speak (…)

I’ll try to limit site news, but I felt the need to make a quick note about the look of the site: I know it’s awful. I’ll be working on the design over the next few weeks, but I didn’t want to hold up the content. Please bear with me — it’ll get better.

Those who have only recently started following all things Mac will be forgiven for having no idea who the heck I am, but hopefully there are still some of you out there with fond memories of RandomMaccess.  Ever since my career path took a decidedly non-Macintosh-centric path, I’ve had little time for maintaining a full-service (…)