Volume Number: 13 (1997)
Issue Number: 12
Column Tag: MacTech Online
by Nicholas C. "nick.c" DeMello, online@mactech.com
When metrowerks brought us CodeWarrior they did it with the same kind of outrageous style and unwavering commitment that launched a hammer across a room full of PCs. To help celebrate the CodeWarrior in each of us, metrowerks has introduced Geekware. Geekware is clothing for the discriminating programmer: T-shirts, hats, sweatshirts, and ... underwear. Yes: underwear. For less than $20 metrowerks sells a pair of boxer shorts with glow in the dark bugs and a foot about to stamp them out. No this isn't high fashion, but I guarantee that it will make a memorable office gift for your favorite QA person. Visit metrowerks web site to check out pictures (with the light on and off) of the debug boxers and the full line of Geekware. You can purchase Geekware directly from metrowerks, or from the DevDepot (purveyors of a varienty of very kool developer supplies).
Geekware should not be confused with other brands of high quality geek apparel, like GeekGeer and Geek Garb. The GeekGeer web site offers GeekGeer logo baseball caps, t-shirts, and pocket protectors, while Geek Garb is an all t-shirt extravaganza. Geek Garb will even personalise T's with your URL for an additional $3 (on top of their low $8-15 prices).
Macintosh isn't a platform, it's a lifestyle. The Apple Designs website hosts a collection of over 50 Apple memorabilia products. Things that caught my eye were a $9 Apple coffee mug, a $20 Apple logo Swiss-army knife, a $40 Apple watch, and a $65 Apple desktop "Lava-Lamp" clock. There is even a quicktime VR movie of the lava lamp (I gotta get one of these :-). Oh, and if your friend already has a Swiss army knife, check out the "Moof!" t-shirt: every die-hard Mac-o-phile should have one.
Those same die-hard Mac addicts need to stock up at the Mac Sufshop. With sharp looking $15.95 t-shirts that sport fighting logos like "Real Designers Don't Do Windows" and "The Only Good PC, is a PowerPC" the surfshop looks like Guy Kawasaki invaded Local Motion. While online at the surfshop I ordered a copy of their $4.95 "Fight Back, for Mac!" poster for my office and a handful of $2.95 bumper stickers to pass out to friends (half the fun of X-mas shopping is picking up a few treats for yourself :-).
The worlds largest Mac user group, the Berkeley Macintosh Users Group has their winter catalog online. Everyone has a friend who needs either a little help understanding the voodoo that is SCSI, or installing ram. If you're not always around to offer that help and advice, give your friend the $39 BMUG Starter Kit. The starter kit includes a copy of the BMUG public domain software CD and 6 months of access to the BMUG help line. Other hilights of the BMUG Winter catalog include the Mac Bathroom Reader for $11 (a very kool book of Macintosh trivia - if you know everything in this book, you need a life :-); the BMUG Font collection CD ROM for $24 (over 1,700 distinct TrueType and Postscript fonts); and Macworld Expo t-shirts from the Japan, Paris, Boston, or San Francisco events for $8 each.
By now you should have a gift for just about everyone at your office. Except maybe for that strange guy in the next cubicle - the one still using windows. Well, there is even hope for him: Dilbert is cross platform. The Dilbert Store web site has offers $19.95 Dogbert plush dolls (the ideal office companion), 1998 Dilbert desk calendars for $12.95, nine web pages of $18 t-shirts and $29.50 polo shirts, plus the $39.95 Dilbert "Gift Tin" (a collection of Dilbert memorabilia that is a 100% improvement over the average Christmas candy tin).
If your friend already has Dogbert sitting on his monitor, introduce him to the Geek Guardians Auda and Yada. These porcelain figurines from the Geeque Boutique are specifically designed to balance on computer monitors and promise to protect your computer data for only $12.95 each (much cheaper than the average data recovery service :-).
Have a good Christmas folks, we'll see you in January when MacTech Online takes a closer look at the new year and the new OS: Rhapsody.
These and other links are available from the MacTech Online web pages www.mactech.com/online/.
