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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
psxndc
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
That's okay, for a while White was the new Beige. Briefly, it looked like Purple might be the new Beige, and if you consult my young daughter, green-bug-shaped is her idea of the new Beige. No doubt barbie-Pink will be the new Beige for some subset of computing.
And, in about six months, there will be a retro trend, and Beige will be heralded as the new Beige!
Ah, fashion, you have arrived in the techie world!
A.
someone had to say it : Steve Jobs pushed black design for NeXT cubes, and Apple had a black Performa 6200 series along time ago.
Although I consider black to be an advantage over beige since you don't see coffe or cola stains that much, I really doubt that a new color will boost PC sales all that much. If there's one thing that Apple does right, it's 'everything' : just changing colors won't do. The iMac was (and is again) a new formfactor, a new system, new bus (USB/firewire) new drives (slot loading iMacs)
And anywhow, nothing beats a TiBook...
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
"It's a new library; it's even black"
"That means it's new, does it?"
"Oh, yes!"
To be honest, I find the black better; we have a ton of older IBM kit and it just looks... well, old. The black looks more modern.
Of course, the problem many of us will have with our PCs is a Frankenstein system as we have a beige case with black CD/floppy drives (or vice versa) as we upgrade. We're already having issues like that with some Sun Ultra 80s having black DVD drives (to match the Sunblades and servers).
PC Fashionistas exclaim, "Black is the new Beige!"
I sure hope we're not going to read an article two weeks from now which explains some computing error, and how the new fashionable color is actually something one could describe as a dusty mint color.
And please don't let them correct themselves again claiming that it's chic to use a sort of salmon/melon/peach color. I couldn't stand to boot up a computer of which the casing reminded me of tuna sashimi.
[
I took an old PC case I had and used some stone spray (with the rough stone particles in it) on it. It looked like granite afterwards, pretty cool. The case was heavy anyway, so it was quite fitting :D
----- Whats wrong with this picture? http://www.revoh.org:1234/whatswrong
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
Yes folks its Cosmos "Desktop and Tower Outfits for the girl about town"
Feb: Black is back, everything will be black for ever
May: Beige is the new Black
June: Curved monitors are the new Flat Screens
July: Oooh look at the pretty iMac and "how to make your keyboard match your nail polish"
Sept: Black is back
November: The must have USB accessories of the season, can you use your USB security key as an earing.. ifs its the D&G one you can
December: Your Colour Therapy Horoscope for the coming year, how the colour of your PC case can change your life.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
...the original Apple II in 1977. Steve Jobs wanted a neutral color that would blend in to the average home.
"I think Beige has the most RAM..." -- Dilbert's Boss
:)
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
furry carpet covers like seat covers for your car to protect the case over time
Yeah, that's what my athlon needs...a fur coat, just in case it gets a little cold.
do not read this line twice.
It's sitting underneath your desk. I have more important things to do than say:
"Hey, look at my fucking computer. Look at that shit right there. You see that, motherfucker? That's a sweet looking machine. It's sweet enough that I could fuck one of its ports in the back. And look at that fucking neon light in it! Bad ass! You see how I ran my cables right there? Fucking 'leet, ain't it? And look at this shit over here, that's a goddamn SCSI card, bitch. You see the little red light on the card? That shit actually came with it, those fuckers at Adaptec already slammed the card before I even got it! Hey, shitface, get back over here, I'm not done showing you my 'rig'. That right there is a fucking CD burner, ass-fucker. You see that? I can burn a CD so fucking fast it'd scare the fucking RIAA, man. And would you fucking look at this shit! Holy fucking shit! This is a fucking DVD-ROM drive. I can watch fucking *movies* and shit on this motherfucker. *MOVIES*! And look right here. This case has no fewer than fucking 10 fans! 10, motherfucker! It sounds like a goddamn freight train up in this motherfucker! Or a fucking plane taking off at the fucking airport! Hey, bitch, speaking of airport, let me show you my slammed fucking laptop, this damn this is choice..."
the Apple II was issued in black version a by Bell and Howe,this was in the early 1980's
Free cell phone tracking
Look, guys... It's a computer. It's a tool, not an objet d'art. Shove it under your desk and forget about it already! Who cares what flippin' color it is? In a couple months it'll have that "accumulated dust" veneer anyway.
Now, quit messing with those case mods and get back to something important. Like desktop themes.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
Originally, the new PC color was TURQUOISE.
However, after an extensive study, researches at the Fashion Dept. at John Hopkins University discovered a slight color-wheel miscalculation in their assessment of the Spring 2002 PC line.
It turns out now, that Beige is the new black.
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!"
If everyone used #000000 black, it would be fine. All black things would be black. But Dell's black is really dark grey, and someone else's black is really navy blue, and someone else's is a lighter dark grey. Looks almost as silly as having 4 drives that are 4 different shades of beige, none of which are the shade of the case.
The masses are the crack whores of religion.
--- 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