Net interest is always developing
Editor’s note: Rob Brewster is president of Conover Bond Development ( www.conoverbond.com).
The first computer I used was an Apple IIe at Roosevelt Elementary in the early 1980s. After winning a Radio Shack TRS-80 (affectionately known as the “Trash 80”) as the second-place prize in Sacajawea Junior High’s annual magazine fundraising contest, as luck would have it, I inadvertently switched away from Apple to a shiny new Radio Shack computer.
Throughout high school, college and my professional career I used Compaq and numerous Dell computers. Last month, after 25 years of PC torture, I made the switch back to Apple. I bought a new MacBook Pro at the Seattle Apple store.
If you’ve not seen an Apple store, take a look at the Web site – especially the glass cube store in New York City.
For anyone other than a graphic designer or a hard-core Apple aficionado, the change is somewhat unorthodox. The bottom line is: Macs are just plain cooler.
World affairs
Though certainly not unique to Mac use, I immediately downloaded Google Earth ( www.earth.google.com) one of the best Web tools yet developed. I’ve spent a lot of time “flying” around Africa and looking at the Middle East learning about places I can’t even spell.
I am a news junkie and like looking at news throughout the day. I load up the daily papers – seattletimes.com and spokesmanreview .com – along with cnn.com, news.bbc.co.uk and slate.com (which has a nice storehouse of political cartoons).
I like using the Mac browser Safari because its multiple tabs let me look at numerous sites easily. But frustratingly, many sites like one of my favorites, the panorama view of Seattle’s waterfront – www.kokogiak.com/projects/ seawft/default.asp – can’t be viewed well with Safari.
Development stuff
In my profession, real estate development, there are a lot of great sites. Sites like cooltownstudios.com and the Urban Land Institute’s uli.org are great resources for urban projects and ideas.
I tend to skip the blogs – they’re too often vapid and plagued with inaccuracies.
Just interesting
An action packed site is www.globalincidentmap.com/home.php. I can’t tell if it’s real or just right wing propaganda. Nonetheless it’s intriguing.
Perhaps the best site for information is the ingenious collaborative dictionary/ encyclopedia Wikipedia. It’s a great place for history fans and, lo and behold, I just found an entry there for a TRS-80.