How to get listed here
The Northern Spy's portal will list most Apple-related sites, but prefers link exchanges, partnerships, affiliations, or advertising exchanges. For information Contact Nellie Hacker at the Northern Spy. Arjay Enterprises gets thousands of page views daily on its various portals and eBbook sites.
Who Needs another Mac portal?
Maybe nobody but us. But The Northern Spy is simple, with relatively few graphics so it loads fast, and consists mostly of links to important information sources, stores, hardware manufacturers, and software shops. There are columns and reviews, but apart from these the main page of The Northern Spy is a gateway site; the kind of place you bookmark because it can get you where you want to go in a hurry. The Northern Spy is also a dynamic site. We reserve the right to change or correct posted columns. The Northern Spy column not only appears here but is also syndicated in other publications and on our RSS feed, and may from time to time appear in whole or part in various print media.
Why Macintosh?
If you're a pro and your desktop is critical, why buy unreliable, cheap, imitation computers that crash a lot when you can get the real thing, with the best quality hardware and software, the lowest total cost of ownership, and delivering the most productive working environment?
Whadda ya mean "since 1983"?
That's when Arjay Enterprises was started. With Nellie Hacker's assistance, Rick Sutcliffe wrote The Northern Spy for Call-A.P.P.L.E. beginning in 1983, along with articles and reviews in other industry publications for a number of years (Anodidacticus, The Dialectical Apple, and Through a Glass, Darkly). After spending much of his time the last few years working on textbooks, novels, and international standards for programming languages, he's set up a few writing and e-book resources on the Arjay site as well as this Macintosh portal as a gift to the online community. Apart from the column, The Northern Spy will not so much collect resources (other than our own) as it will provide fast and convenient access from one location.
Do you recommend everything mentioned here?
No, but the Spy USES OS X, NisusWriter Pro, LaTexIt, Scrivener, BBEdit, Safari, Modula-2, PHP, SQL, Excel, and a kajillion utilities running on a MacBook Pro, and a MacPro, both with lots of memory. The desktop has several hard drives and a Kensington Expert Mouse Pro trackball. He also has pocket drives for file transport and backup.
What's the best software ever written?
The Northern Spy owned one of the first copies of VisiCalc ever produced, and used it and later A.P.P.L.E.'s "The Spreadsheet" for years. Excel is a worthy successor in this key productivity area. You can customize it to death; it's comparatively bug free, cross-platform, and its breadth of functionality has yet to be matched. Among productivity tools, ISO standard Modula-2 compilers implement one of the best notations ever devised. IOHO, NisusWriterPro is the finest general purpose word processor but he uses Scrivener for books and BBEdit for code), Thunderbird for mail, FileMaker for database, and Safari is his go-to browser (but Chrome and Firefox come second). (The Northern Spy's other name is iconoclast, but, seriously, the "typical" tools people use are too bug ridden, slow, and/or non-standard to be of use here.) You also gotta have Tech Tool, and PopChar.
And now, the more elaborate disclaimers (corporate and personal lawyers please take note)
The Northern Spy is NOT a rumour or insider site. Its observations about the future of the industry are derived from generally available information and what we think are logical deductions based on personal experience. The Spy does not claim to have or publish trade secrets, proprietary information, insider reports, or material that is under nondisclosure. Specifically, we do not publish details of upcoming OS changes (non-disclosure) and we do NOT know the names of ANY information sources within Apple (or any other corporate entity). So on the one hand, please do NOT email us with an inside scoop if you have one (email can be traced so we couldn't use it), and on the other please do NOT ask us to reveal the names of such sources, for we have none. And on the (bow to JP) gripping hand, keep your lawyers away from us, because we're NOT revealing secrets.
From time to time, material found here might be partially based on rumour, wishful thinking, or anonymous (impossible to attribute) items picked up from here and there. Our speculations have on occasion been spectacularly right, dismally wrong, or both simultaneously. By using this site, readers release the Spy from and assume for themselves any and all liability for relying on the veracity of anything here, whether the Spy is correct, wrong, both, or neither.
Trade names, brand names, company names and symbols appearing at The Northern Spy are the property of their respective owners. Mention of them on this site is for informational purposes only and carries no implication that the owner of said name or symbol in any way endorses or is endorsed by (or not) or is associated with The Northern Spy, Arjay Enterprises or any of their employees or related companies, or any other organization to which they belong or by which they are employed. If anyone has a problem with being mentioned here, Nellie will promptly and permanently remove their link on request of the owner.
Specifically, the use of publication names, whether they carry The Northern Spy in syndication or not, does not imply any endorsement in either direction, and does not imply any sharing of secrets.
Furthermore, nothing on this site should be taken as investment advice or product purchase advice. Where they appear, recommendations (for or against) are our opinions only, and anyone following them does so at their own risk. Readers should assume Nellie and The Northern Spy are probably mistaken, do their own homework, and take responsibility for their own actions. Anyone who relies on our views and predictions, including us, is right, wrong, foolish, or all three, even when we're right, wise, or both (LOL). Again, any mention of future products coming from Apple or other companies is the result of sheer speculation in The Northern Spy's own twisted mind and does not necessarily imply he or Nellie have inside information, access, or sources, or that they could reveal the latter in the unlikely event they might exist. If we know such a source, we won't use the information. The sources of any products reviewed, if other than the open market, are noted in the review.
Finally, in some cases The Northern Spy may receive a small royalty if you purchase merchandise after clicking on links leading from here. These help to pay for the site. However, The Northern Spy, Arjay Enterprises, and its subsidiaries (Arjay Books, Arjay Web Services, Sheaves Christian Resources, and opundo) have no stock or share in or other association with any other company whose products are mentioned or reviewed on this site. The Northern Spy's advertising/affiliate revenues (such as they may be) are handled by third parties and are not a factor in our editorials or reviews. Neither can we be bribed, intimidated or persuaded to change a review, except for factual considerations, and we never make misteaks, mistreaks, or erors.
|
