MacWEEK yesterday announced that they are merging with MacCentral as of Monday, March 5th. This brings to a close a magazine which at one point was praised above all others as the holy grail of Mac literature.

Back in the late '80s, getting a subscription to MacWEEK was like a nod saying you were influential in the Mac community (or willing to pay $99 a year, which wasn't really a possibility for my 15-year-old self). As an inustry weekly, it targeted those with purchasing power, interested in what's happening in the industry this week instead of the two to three month lag mandated by Macworld and MacUser's production schedule.

In 1993 I had the honor of working at MacWEEK as a reviews intern under Rick LePage, Sean Wagstaff, Henry Norr and Stephen Howard. Since that time, Rick went on to be Editor in Chief of MacWEEK, and is now Editor of Ric Ford's Macintouch. Sean has become an accomplished author on 3D issues on the Macintosh, Stephen Howard has become Editor of ZD-Net, and Henry Norr is an Editor Emeritus at Macintouch, and frequent writer on technical issues for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Anyhow, MacWEEK's closing is just another sign of the times. BMUG, the Berkeley Mac Usres Group, (another place I used to work) is now officially out of business, their petition for bankrupcy having been completed last week. Both BMUG and MacWEEK were victims of the Internet community. Targeting different ends of the Mac spectrum, both organizations served to bring timly information on the state-of-the-Mac to the people, and now that the people grow closer to information every day, they became unneeded middlemen. In one way, they accomplished their goals. These organizations, along with so many others, sought to empower people through their computers. Their collective efforts succeeded beyond their dreams, and now that that battle is won, the armies are disbanded, while the soldiers get to move on to other fronts.

All in all, though I feel sadness at the passing of MacWEEK and BMUG, I can't help but be warmed by the factors that brought about their decline. Though we didn't see our battle as anything other than an ongoing effort to help and inform people, we still managed to win, at least to the point that the efforts are carried out now on different fronts of email, newsgroups, bulletin boards and news sites updated several times a day.

This post has now officially reached the level of rambling and vamping, so I'll cut it off here. Let's just leave it at I'm sad, but in a good way.

Just when I thought the student body had used all it's pulling power to get the Young Dubliners to play to a crowd of 200 at Lower Sproul a couple months ago, I walked by a poster yesterday that said "Noon Concert: Tiffany!"

I walke right by, then stopped, retraced my steps, and read the poster, thinking "that Tiffany?" and the poster actually read "Tiffany! (yes, that Tiffany)."

Dear god I hope none of my readership is too young (though possibly too old) to remember such teen hits as "I Think We're Alone Now" and the remixed Beatles cover of "I Saw Her(him) Standing There."

Anyhow, if you're in the area and want a little nostalgia draw, or just satisfaction to the lingering question of "Where do teen sensations go to die?" be sure to show up at Lower Sproul this Monday, March 5th, at noon for the free concert.

I'll be there, taking a few pictures for the site, and I'll even take a stab at recording a little sound to make a nice Flash montage, in honor of her teenliness.

I'm signing as many checks as possible today (okay, just my rent check) bcause it's the only time in 100 years that I can date it 3/2/1. I am a simple man.

But my loss is your gain. Fury 3.1 is basically done, and as soon as I finish the revamped AOLiza page I'll be reassigning the DNS to point to the new server, and the new site.

For a long time, rooftops have been a favorite place of mine. Unlike New York or many other cities, most rooftops in San Francisco and the East Bay are off limits. They're seen as mere caps to buildings, with no real style or public access.

Especially in urban areas, I've seen rooftops as the best way to get away from the sense of crowding. When I used to live in Manville Hall (which isn't a dorm anymore, and isn't even called Manville), I used to go to the roof every day. It was unusual in that it's one of the only buildings on the UC campus that had ready roof access. The key to our dorm room was the key to the roof entry.

A while ago my frined Gary and I, who had both attended Berkeley for many years, would occasionally make a habit of exploring a building we'd rarely or never been in before. This was the way I explored Wurster Hall, the architecture building which was literally six floors of student shantytown with cots, space divisions, showers, and architecture projects in all stages of completion.

Recently another friend showed me how to get onto the roof of Wheeler Hall. (notice to any responsible entites: this entry may be a complete work of fiction) Getting on top of these buildings, especially at night, when you can feel the wind blow and see the people below, always gives me a sense of power and connectedness with the environment.

One of these days I'd like to do some informal research, going to each and every building on campus and seeing if there's roof access. After they gutted the contents but before they began the complete structural rebuilding of the Hearst Minig Building, I had the chance to go in there and visit every single room, finding dry cells from the 1930s and granite core samples and hige discarded drill bits to the remnants of what seemed to be an electron microscope and boxes of 8" floppy disks. Most importantly, I found access to the attics and the roof, and was able to explore an absolutely fantastic building before the opportunity disappeared, possibly forever.

It's amazing that UC Berkeley doesn't come with a users guide. you can attend the college for years and not ever find or notice some of the most amazing places.

I'll try to make a point in my remaining months to document some of the more interesting spots I've found in Berkeley (that still exist, that is. It wouldn't do you much good to learn about the fabulous Doe Library stacks that were demolished 4 years ago but, before their destruction, resembled nothing so much as the interior of a Borg cube, complete with translucent floors, steel girders and low ceilings). Ay any rate, I'll let you know what I find, and maybe it'll help some others find the hidden gems the tours don't tell you about.

As if I'm not in front of a computer often enough, I often come up with ideas I want to blog while I'm in class, on the subway, with friends, or otherwaise away from my desk. I used to take down the ideas in my Palm, but I've noticed that once data goes in, it feels the same as the whole mess of data that's already in there, and then I have no compulsion to dig it out and write about it (the same goes for the bookmark list I have of about 40 sites I wanted to blog about. Maybe I'll just post the list and people can surf it as they will).

Anyhow, a few days ago I started keeping these small index cards in my wallet, and whenever I have an idea I write it down on a blank card. When it comes time to clean out my wallet (if not before), I refuse to let the card go until I've blogged on the topic I wrote down. We'll see how it works.

Here's an exercise in futility: Try to delete your amazon.com account. they let you fiddle with it in any wayunder the sun, but they won't let you kill it...

Exercise for tomorrow: Three midterms. Taking two, administering the third. Fun fun fun!

Got to go to dinner with Alan Cooper tonight, then watch him speak at the first ever East Bay CHI meeting.

It's always interesting hearing Alan speak. I like how he always seems to walk the edge between being immensely knowledgeable about interaction design and being full of hot air. Most of the talk was about what interaction design isn't, and what they don't deliver. I almost expected him to keep whittling it down until he admitted that all a new client gets for their $half-million is a Cooper Interactive keychain.

It was a good show though, and a packed house. This April we'll be continuing the just-started Easy Bay tradition of great HCI speakers with a talk by Jef Raskin, one of a handful of people often labeled "Father of the Macintosh." Woo hoo!

Okay, I've calmed down a bit now. So as of this morning I've been accepted into CMU's Human-Computer Interaction Institute's Masters program. Naturally I have a lot to think about. With my education nest egg drawing to the bottom of the barrel finances are my primary consideration.

The alternative is going back to work. I love work, and there are a number of great places I could go in May (Roundarch, Nuance, Yahoo); I just have to figure out what I want right now.

After last Tuesday's interview-a-thon at Yahoo, they're thinking it over, which essentially translates to them wanting to find someone with my skill set and lower compensatory needs, and I respect that, though it would be refreshing if they'd just say so. I expect to hear from them, either positively or negatively, within the next week and a half.

In the meantime, I'm really looking forward to venturing to the SXSW Festival in Austin next week. Ernie and I are both up for awards, and with Min Jung, Richie, and Bertie along (sorry, I'm too lazy to link right now!) it'll be a great trip.

I'll be visiting CMU for three days during my Spring Break (though, thankfully, not theirs) and that should go a long way in settling how I feel about my future plans.

Well, today's the first day of the rest of my life, and I'm starting it by making a big sigh of relief. Ahh...

Alan Cooper, interface and HCI guru, will be speaking at Soda Hall on the Berkeley campus tonight (Wednesday). If HCI interests you, you should consider coming. He only comes out this way every couple years, so catch him while you can!

306 Soda Hall, 7pm. Admission is free.