Peck’s Agenda

Yesterday, in the form of one of Steve Jobs’ now legendary “open letters”, Apple announced that in february they would be releasing an official iPhone SDK! This was a very surprising announcement in most people’s opinions, considering the stance that Apple has taken against iPhone hacking since its release. The iPhone SDK, or Software Development Kit, will let anyone make native applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Although the letter was very vague on how Applications will get on the phone, this is still a big step forward for Apple, and shows that they are listening to there user base and responding. In other Apple news, the release date for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard was revealed, set for Friday, the 26th, 6PM! I will defiantly be in line on launch day to get the long awaited OS update!

Last week I received a huge donation of vintage Apple equipment to add to my growing collection of historical Apple items. I already have over 100 hardware items, and 1000 software/print media items, but this donation will add a lot more. The donation consisted of about 20-25 hardware items, and about a hundred software/print media items. Now, Apple has made about 700 products in its 30 year history, most of which are worthless, but this lot was everything but trash. Almost all of the machines are from Apple’s “glory years”, the 1984-1990 era, and include there original Box, with original styrofoam inserts and documentation. Some particularly special items include the ultra-rare PowerCD, and revolutionary LaserWriter (both the original and the II). In my busy life it will probably take a few weeks for me to process and move everything to its final spot, in fact, I now have to re-design my entire basement storage area to accommodate all the new stuff (original boxes take up a lot of room, and you can’t just stack them on the floor!). Check out my flickr photos of the big delivery!   -Mp

As you might have seen, the founder of the RetroMacCast was featured on the front page of Gizmodo today, his large collection of Apples the highlight. Reading about his collection was interesting for me, being an apple aficionado and curator of the same magnitude, and a regular listener of his podcast. The size of his collection is quite impressive, but far from perfect i feel. It’s not very well displayed, in fact, aside from 2 very nicely shelved and illuminated walls, most of his collection is in big piles in the floor. Obviously, for anyone setting up a home museum, myself included, space is limited, so only a percentage of your stuff can be properly displayed. Also, although he has a few very rare items (like the Apple Network Server, and Apple III), most of his collection consists of historically insignificant and worthless 90’s era Macs with 3 and 4 digit numbers as names. I am not sure how he got the connections to get interviewed by Gizmodo, but the article was good and the collection was impressive, although not nearly as special as they described it. It sure would be great for TAM to get some attention like this every once and a while… lol — heres the Gizmodo article

Well, it may still feels like school just started, but friday is the end of the mod, or module, which is 1 out of the 7, 5 week class rotations that my school employs. I get 4 days off at the end of each mod, called mod breaks, but this coming one isn’t going to be a relaxing break like they usually are. I have 2 SAT tutoring lessons and homework from each, which is a real pain. There is one exciting event I have to look forward to though. A very generous college professor from Pennsylvania is donating a HUGE lot of late 80’s/early 90’s era Apple equipment to my museum, a total of over 20 rare, (and one New In Box!!) items. I will be sure to take some pictures of the whole event, and post some on the blog!

As an iPhone owner and wireless industry expert, the back and forth between users of the phone, and the nation’s largest wireless carrier, AT&T Mobility, gets more heated every day, and more interesting to observe. Personally, I don’t like Apple’s decision to agree to an exclusive carrier deal, when they could make far more money globally selling the iPhone as an unlocked GSM handset, but I understand Apple’s reasoning, since the process of setting up a traditional GSM phone is slow and inconvenient and not something Apple would want to put there customers through. That said, all this bickering from iPhone owners about the big T not unlocking there handsets is just ignorance from users, who knew from the start that the iphone would not be covered under the standard unlocking policies of AT&T. As many others have predicted, I believe that by early next year, the FCC will force AT&T to provide an unlocking solution for the iphone in order to comply with the recent amendments to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which state that all carriers (including those using CDMA or iDEN) must unlock phones on request after 3 months of paid service. Ignorant users aside, this is an unnecessary roadblock people who own the phone, and I encourage you to submit a complaint to the FCC, I already did by phone, but you can also make submissions via e-mail. — Heres the link to the Consumerist article.

Hello all, my name is Mark Peck, and this is my blog. Well, this is my first post, and i don’t have much time to make it very good, but heres some general info about me and what this blog will be like: I am a teenager from boston, massachusetts, and I live in the domain of all things technical. I have been developing websites for the past 3 years, but this is my first blog. In my free time i enjoy working on what I call “The Apple Museum”, my pride and joy, consisting of over 2,500 historical items relating to Apple Inc. I also am an avid photographer, and enjoy taking taking pictures whenever i can (although i have yet to put many online). During the school year, when i am not busy with work, I am often on the internet, developing my next web project, and always looking for that “next big thing”. I am fascinated by the in’s and out’s of corporate culture (past and present) and the rapid rate with witch the internet evolves. I have a lot of loves, hates, goals, and opinions on the ever changing tech seen, but so far no place to share them, which is where this blog comes in. Hopefully, I will make short posts with links or info i am interested in on a daily basis, and more in depth analysis of an article or subject a few times a week….and thats all for my first post! P.S. expect an original WordPress design sometime in the coming weeks