It was five years ago today that I was awaken by news of the most startling, surreal event that has taken place in my life. I woke up to the call of my mother, telling my brother and I to get up, that a plane had hit one of the Twin Towers in New York. My brother and I went downstairs quickly, still half-asleep, though we were quickly shocked awake by the sight of a gaping hole in the side of 1 World trade Center on TV. I stood in front of the television stunned, my jaw hanging open, dangling somewhere around my ankles. Surely this had to be an accident.

Moments later, I notice a plane entering into view on the screen. Intially, I thought it was a military jet patrolling the skies aorund the World Trade Center, except that it never emerged from the other side.

It was 6:02 AM Pacific Standard Time, 9:02 PM Eastern. Two World Trade had just been struck.

Okay, now I start to really get upset. My mom and brother were in the kitchen at that moment. I call out to them in a shaky voice that another plane just hit the other tower. It dawns on us--and the rest of the nation and the world--that we were under attack. The news only got worse. The Pentagon is hit. The South Tower collapses. The North Tower follows suit shortly thereafter. All flights in US airspace are grounded. I go to school with a sick…
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I finally took a dive into Vista with RC1, as it seemed that every disk image of Beta 2 I tried getting previously was corrupted.

I wanted to give Vista the opportunity of a doubt,
I thought it would be so much better than XP,
but, honestly - with the few minutes I spent with Vista (after more than an hour of installation and around 10 reboots later) feels like it’s simply a theme for XP (a nicer theme than the Fisher Price default theme on XP), with an entire collection of things ripped-off from others. Innovative indeed.

From the few minutes I was able to stand Vista, here’s how I feel:

Gadgets is most definitely Konfabulator - err I mean Yahoo Widgets.
IE7 is most definitely Safari.
The theme feels like a theme on Linux with some OS X Flavoring.
The forced dialog screens (where the entire screen goes black except for a password screen or dialog box) are annoying as all hell - altho I do like it for some people that tend to ignore them, there should be a way for advanced users to turn it off!

As it’s not an official release I can’t really complain about this, but I swear none of my stuff works on it! I did an upgrade from XP and I got about 10 “Insert the CD for X software”. Even my games wouldn’t work! So after poking at XP for a few minutes I ended up playing Solitaire, as it seems…
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Running an older system with a smaller hard drive? Or maybe an iBook or PowerPC-based Mac mini with 40 GB hard drives that fill up quickly? Here are a few easy steps you can take to slim down your system. Some are obvious to experienced users, some not as obvious.

Note: I am not responsible for any hosed applications, Mac OS X installs, or files. Do this at your own risk. DO NOT EVER, EVER, MESS WITH YOUR OS X INSTALL ITSELF UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING! YOU MAY RENDER YOUR COMPUTER UNUSABLE!

Difficulty level is measured in fish sticks. One fish stick means it’s a very simple task to accomplish, five fish sticks mean it’s a job for experts only!

Empty the trash (difficulty level: 1 fish stick)

This is a beginner mistake. If you’re new to the Mac, dragging files to the trash does not--repeat--does not mean they have been deleted. You must “empty” the trash to regain disk space. Don’t worry, it won’t involve hauling garbage bags out to the dumpster:
From the Finder menu, select “Empty Trash”. If you get an alert box, click the “OK button.

Alternately, click and hold (or right-click) the Trash icon in the Dock until a menu appears. Click “Empty Trash” from the menu.

So please, empty the trash. It smells bad and attracts flies after a while.

Oh come on, experienced Mac users, stop laughing! I already told you that some of these would seem obvious to you!

Be…
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Apple has introduced a new 24” iMac and reintroduced the low-end 17” iMac to double the number of iMacs available to consumers. The new iMacs have been upgraded to the new Core 2 Duo chips from Intel. The specs for the mid range 17” and 20” iMacs remains mostly unchanged though both come with 1GB of Ram standard and upgrades to 2GHz and 2.16GHz processors respectively.

The low-end 17” iMac is pretty much identical to the educational iMac previously announced, featuring a combo drive and integrated graphics with an absence of Bluetooth and the Apple Remote. The 24” features a 2.16GHz Core 2 Duo (upgradable to 2.33GHz), 1GB memory (upgradable to 3GB), 250GB HD (upgradable to 500GB) and an NVIDIA GeForce 7300GT (upgradable to a 7600GT).

The Mac Minis have also been upgraded to 1.66 and 1.83GHz Core Duo chips at the same price points.

UPDATE If you’re eligible to purchase with an academic discount and are planning to buy a new iMac, be forewarned: the new iMacs are not eligible for Apple’s iPod rebate promotion, which ends in ten days. (See the FAQ for details.)

Ah, another Apple event is upon us, and you know what that means...*

Office betting pools on what Lord Jobs, Master of the Universe and Controller of Our Destinies will unveil on September 12!

Now you may be uncertain as to what we can expect to see. That’s why I’m here. My crystal ball has been polished. I’ve been in touch with my sources. I will provide to you the most absurd lies most accurate information pertaining to Apple’s upcoming “Showtime” event. Deep Thought is, after all, the world’s premier source for utter BS tech news and rumors. So here we go!

Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs will wear his customary black mock turtleneck and jeans. The jury is still out, however, on whether Jobs will wear black or blue jeans. He is expected to walk on-stage and say, “Good morning! Welcome to San Francisco; it’s great to have you here. We have some incredible stuff to show you this morning, so let’s get started. First, a few updates...”

...and a cast of hundreds! (well, one other, anyway)

Phil Schiller will make a presentation. Deep Thought confirmed that Schiller will be wearing a thong. More specifically, a cream-colored see-through thong. As we reported before, Schiller wore a thong at Apple’s 30th birthday party and such taste in wardrobe was rumored in the past. In fact, Deep Thought has an exclusive photograph** of an informant displaying the thong that Schiller intends on wearing:

The rest of the staff is being tortured at the…
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