Happy Birthday, to me.
MacDesktops is 10 years old today. In 1998, I bought a new 20″ monitor. It was huge. It had a massive 1280×1024 resolution. I searched the web high and low for desktop pictures to fit it, but nobody provided pictures that huge. So, I generated a few desktops and shared them. I was pleasantly surprised that the site generated a couple thousand hits that month, and a few more in May. By June though, interest was trailing off. So, I decided to start posting new pictures weekly. Eventually, weekly became daily. MacDesktops joined MacNN for a couple of years. MacNN’s servers crashed and MacDesktops went offline for a few months. I unhitched from MacNN and relaunched the site independently where it has stayed ever since and weathered two more extended downtimes due to server outages.
In 1998, you’ll notice several Power Computing desktops, as Apple was ending its clone phase. Apple was fighting for survival with market share dwindling below 3%. MacDesktops’ pro-Mac pictures helped bolster the confidence of Mac users under siege. Apple’s combative advertising compared Intel processors to snails and lit the Intel “Bunny Suits” on fire. Apple encouraged everyone to Think Different by buying a Mac. Then came the iPod and iMac, each of which increased Apple’s standing and decreased pressure on Mac users everywhere. Apple had some great advertising campaigns when they returned to Chiat-Day, and they have produced some terrific products since 1998. When the two have converged, MacDesktops has benefitted from the excitement and buzz with tremendous submissions of Apple product desktops.
In 2003, the U.S. invaded Iraq under false pretenses and I took a subtle stance here. This pissed off some people and encouraged others. When I posted Movie picture #146, I pissed off some more people. Such is life. I put a lot of effort into building this little soap box and there are times when I must stand on it and speak rationally to whomever will pause and listen.
During these past ten years, my own interest in the site has waxed and waned several times. Sometimes generating and posting pictures is a joy. At other times, it is a burden. I felt bad for contributors when the submission queue was 8-12 months long. And I feel worried now when it is less than 2 months. I rely more and more upon consistent contributors to fill up the queue when I would like to provide a wider variety of content. My huge 1280×1024 monitor from 1998 is now tiny. Creating original artwork for 30″ Cinema Displays takes more effort than making something for a 15″ monitor. In 1998, digital cameras were expensive while capturing low resolution images. Today, most of the desktops come from inexpensive, high resolution digital cameras.
How has your Mac experience changed over these past ten years?
Happy belated Birthday to you Ryan! Personally, I hope you never step off your soap box. I appreciate your willingness to put yourself out there for what you believe in, even if I don’t always agree (which hasn’t been an issue, so far!).
I hope you will indulge my reminiscing beyond 10 years — my Mac experience started 6 months after the famous “1984″ commercial launched the SuperBowl advertising fad. I had been a designer/typographer/layout artist for about 6 years, and the industry’s fears of being phased out with the advent of computers on everyone’s desk were being realized. However, when I met my first MacPlus, it was love at first sight (and I love the MacDesktop of the same name, btw)! I distinctly remember getting my first 20 mb hard drive — I thought there was NO WAY I was EVER going to use up THAT much space!!! (Ahhh, innocence!)
I struggled through a few years at a print shop, paying my “learn-the-technology” dues, and managed to land a job at a Mac-based software company. I bought my first Macintosh after winning a lawsuit against a drunk driver — a $10,000 MacII with (whoo hoo!) 1 full mb RAM on board. After years of euphoria during the dot-com boom, the software company went belly up, and my MacII became an expensive doorstop.
I bought a number of successively less expensive Macs; discovered the internet for myself and watched it grow into a paradigm shift for the species; founded my own company and saw it succeed, and then fail; and now I’m content to ply my trade of 30 years as a working stiff in a commercial shop. I enjoy MacDesktops on both my work machine and my iMac at home.
I am making a donation to MacDesktops today (albeit just a small token of my appreciation) because I realize how much work this site is, and I want you to be able to continue. Times are especially hard for me (and everyone else) right now as I care for an ailing parent and try to maintain my fragile hold on my lifestyle, not to mention my equity. I have followed your blog and downloaded the desktops for years, and I hope you keep up the good work (and the soapbox) for many years to come!
Cheers to you Ryan!
–Linda
Comment by mandolinda — 26 May 2008 @ 11:03 am
Linda,
Thanks for your story (and your contribution). Just a little clarification, April 10th was the birthday for MacDesktops, not for me personally.
My first Mac was a dual floppy SE with an external 20MB Jasmine drive. Over the years I had it, I upgraded it to 1MB and then 4MB of RAM and replaced the Jasmine with an 80MB and then a 105MB, each one filling faster than the one before. Oh, I loved that machine from 1986 until I replaced it with a used Mac IIx in 1991 or so. From there, I bumped up to a Centris pizza box (605? 610?) which I motherboard upgraded to the PowerMac on which I founded MacDesktops.
Ryan
Comment by Ryan Walker — 6 June 2008 @ 3:25 pm
Happy Birthday to you - mine is April 9th, so anyone born around that date is ok with me. I have an intel iMac ….I’m currently looking for a dekstop picture of the Sgt Peppers cover so I can put myself in there somewhere.
Comment by JimmyJames — 17 June 2008 @ 1:24 am
oops, just read that previous comment …you’re still ok
Comment by JimmyJames — 17 June 2008 @ 1:25 am