Slashdot Mirror
Black Is The New Beige
An anonymous submitter writes: "Spurred by Apple's innovations and the dangers of commoditization, computer makers are finally moving beyond beige. Rather than exploring diverse ideas, however, they have made a decision reminiscent of the fashionistas: black is the new beige (a NYTimes story)."
If you're looking to go beyond the boring black and/or beige, here are a few nice case sources:
www.lovermecases.com
www.colorcases.com
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
Why can't computers companies get this fine point of consumerism right?
_ __
Dell is a perfect example. I think that the Optiplex series make fine corporate desktops. Still the latest black case with a slightly odd front shape does not make it stylish in the least. In fact, in some ways they are actually uglier than the plain jane Optiplex GX110 I have in my cube.
I don't care if its a cube or aluminum or has a winodw in the side or some combo. It seems that people like Compaq and Dell ought to have enough money to hire some industrial designers to come up with a nicier looking more functional case.
_______________________________________________
ACK
Black cases have been available for years from such companies as Antec, Siliconrax, and others for years. How is this different?
There are also numerous industrial PC companies that are happy to provide cases in whatever color the buyer chooses. I guess I'm just having trouble seeing why this piece is newsworthy...?
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
The boxes they use now are Antec cases. These things are very sturdy, but, unfortunately, very heavy.
-prator
OK, yeah we all hate yuppies, and LUsers as well, but geez, who cares what these women (and yes, you seem to think their gender is relevant here) want to do with their _own property_? If they want to run 8 feet of video cable to their monitor, and you get paid to do it, where's the bad? These are mass-manufactured objects, it's not like a work of art is being shut away in that closet... And personally, if I had a roll top desk, I'd want it to close too. They're cool. Granted, the design pre-dates PC's, but if this lady wanted the two to work together, good for her. Don't be so judgmental, a contemptuous geek is not a pretty thing :-(
Freedom: "I won't!"
Been there...
Done that...
Really dark blue is even more nifty then black if you get the shade right.Painting the bits of plastic is usually a problem but the boxes themselves can be painted no probs.
The best choice are car repair kit paints. They are a bit more expensive but spread better and have better coverage.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
This is nice until I want to upgrade my brand new black machine. I go to Best Buy and pull the latest bargain drive off the shelf, put it in my box, and stare at my new black-and-beige creation, ugly as hell.
I suppose I could always paint it, but I never had to do that before and I don't really want to now. I suppose I could switch to all external devices *sigh*.
Dude,
Why are you so angry.
First of all you do custom PC set-ups for rich women (I realize not all of your customers are women, but those are the examples you gave.) This does not sound like a horrible job: you get to mess around with tools and computers etc. and you get to do it for an appreciative woman.
Second, what's so crazy about what these women were asking for? There are loads of stories of case-mods, hacks, and contraptions on Slashdot that are just as absurd as what you describe. I think it's cool that even people with very limited knowledge about computers instinctively want to customize and tweak them in whatever way they can.
Third: free speakers? Are you nuts. If these people are really yuppies, don't give them stuff for free. The kind of person who wants their PC installed in the closet out of sight has a fairly high threshold when it comes to price. The yuppie mind-set is that the more something costs the more it's worth. A friend in college did well for himself consulting for well-off middle-aged women. It helps to be shameless. He used to charge like $75/hour to set up AOL.
OK, sport, so what's wrong with wanting your roll-top desk to close? Seriously, this is an article thread about the death of ugly beige boxes which was brought on in part by the fact that people are using computers more in the home, but don't want to have something as hideous looking as your average PC there. Or, let's put it another way: geeks are quite well-known for their refusal to compromise on principle, and often get insults or abuse as their reward for this. Now, you may be unfamiliar with the idea or unsympathetic to the notion that most traditional computer monitors make really crummy additions to virtually every decor. But, of course, the first thing you do is insult and try to make fun of somebody who has a different idea. Forgive me if I'm just not very impressed.
Babar
--- Steve Jobs on Design ---
Fortune Magazine: What has always distinguished the products of the
companies you've led is the design aesthetic. Is your obsession with design
an inborn instinct or what?
Steve Jobs: We don't have good language to talk about this kind of thing.
In most people's vocabularies, design means veneer. It's interior decorating.
It's the fabric of the curtains and the sofa. But to me, nothing could be
further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a
man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers
of the product or service. The iMac is not just the colour or translucence or
the shape of the shell. The essence of the iMac is to be the finest possible
consumer computer in which each element plays together.
On our latest iMac, I was adamant that we get rid of the fan, because it is
much more pleasant to work on a computer that doesn't drone all the time.
That was not just "Steve's decision" to pull out the fan; it required an
enormous engineering effort to figure out how to manage power better and do
a better job of thermal conduction through the machine. That is the furthest
thing from veneer. It was at the core of the product the day we started.
This is what customers pay us for--to sweat all these details so it's easy
and pleasant for them to use our computers. We're supposed to be really good
at this. That doesn't mean we don't listen to customers, but it's hard for
them to tell you what they want when they've never seen anything remotely
like it.
fortune - january 24, 2000
regards,
john penner
---| swoopy curves Are Not design |---
Certainly, the PC industry has never revered design, preferring blocky
beige boxes or, more recently, coloured go-faster curves devoid of real
function. He's scornful of those who use 'swoopy shapes to look good,
stuff that is so aggressively designed, just to catch the eye. I think
that's arrogance, it's not done for the benefit of the user.'
By contrast, he says, "you won't be able to find a single thing on an
Apple that hasn't had thought put into it"...
With the first iMac the goal wasn't to look different, but to build the
best integrated consumer computer we could. If as a consequence the shape
is different, then that's how it is. The thing is, it's very easy to be
different, but very difficult to be better. That's what we have tried to
do with the new iMac."
(THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME, Interview with Jonathan Ive,
Charles Arthur talks to the designer of the iMac, January 14 2002)
--
regards,
john penner
Bullshit.