2007 MacTech 25 (continued)
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Gus Mueller

Gus Mueller is a prime example of the spirit of the Macintosh community: open and giving, while still being able to hawk a product. When he went independent, his blog post, "How to become an independent programmer in just 1068 days" became a must-read for anyone in the same position that Gus was just a short time prior.

Now Gus runs Flying Meat Software. While Flying Meat offers several apps, it was VoodooPad that allowed him to go independent. Not only that, but it allowed him to win an O'Reilly "Mac OS X Innovators" award, along with a four-mice rating from Macworld Magazine.

His blog, located at http://www.gusmueller.com/blog is a nice roundup of news from the Macintosh developer world. - erm

Joe Kissell

Joe Kissell is Senior Editor of TidBITS (www.tidbits.com) and the author of numerous print and electronic books about Mac OS X, including Real World Mac Maintenance and Backups (Peachpit, 2007) and Take Control of Running Windows on a Mac (www.takecontrolbooks.com). He's also a regular contributor to Macworld magazine. Joe has worked in the Mac software industry since the early 1990's, including positions managing software development for Nisus Software and Kensington Technology Group. He also helps run an Internet publishing company called alt concepts, inc., which publishes such popular Web sites as Interesting Thing of the Day, The Geeky Gourmet, and SenseList.

In his increasingly imaginary spare time, Joe likes to travel, cook, and practice t'ai chi. Among the hats Joe wears are author, editor, consultant, entrepreneur, computer geek, cook, punster, amateur theoretical physicist, storyteller, dreamer, and Curator of Interesting Things. Joe prefers to think of himself as a generalist rather than a specialist.

Joe was born in McKeesport, a small city in western Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh, and at various times has lived in New York, Texas, Vancouver (British Columbia), and California. He has a B.A. in philosophy and an M.A. in linguistics, though during grad school his career took a surprising turn into the field of computers.

Although he does not ordinarily identify himself as a religious person, he can often be found at First Mennonite Church of San Francisco. (he also recommends the Virtual Church of the Blind Chihuahua - (http://www.dogchurch.org). Remaining firmly in the electronic world, you can also occasionally find him on Friendster, Friendly Favors, LinkedIn, and Orkut. - jr