2007 MacTech 25 (continued)
Page 9

Philip Dow

Philip is a long-time Mac user but recent addition to the Macintosh developer community. For the past two years, he has been creating programs for the Mac as an independent software developer. His current focus, Journler (http://www.journler.com/), is one of the premier notebook and information managers for the Macintosh. An incredible user community has grown around the program and Philip is excited to have a leading role in it.

Philip studied philosophy and religion at the University of Oklahoma. Continental philosophy has had a significant impact on his programming and is the foundation for much of his work. Future changes to existing projects as well as new software development will focus on human-computer interaction, user-interface and information management.

Before becoming a full-time indie developer, Philip was an English teaching assistant in Tirol, Austria. He is 25 and continues to live in Austria as an American expatriate, although he's considering a move to San Francisco or the Netherlands. Philip intends to continue developing software for the Mac and is looking forward to having an increasingly positive role in the Macintosh community. - jr

Ric Ford

A mainstay writer for Macweek in the early 1990s, Ric parted ways with Macweek and poured his energy into his web site, MacInTouch -- a fairly daring move pre-dot-com bubble. MacInTouch.com remains one of the earliest Mac-focused sites still in existence. In 2003, Ric formally started accepting donations for the site. Enough people find the plain-text human-run Macintosh news site to keep it, and Ric, going every day. Ric accepts submissions via e-mail, and vets each entry before posting it to the site. This results in much more signal and very little noise.

This is Ric's second inclusion on the MacTech 25 list. Based on the feedback and community presence on the MacInTouch.com website, we're sure Ric will be influencing Mac decision makers for some time to come. - erm

Rob Griffiths

Mac OS X Hints (http://www.macosxhints.com), founded by Rob Griffiths in November 2000, is the most well-known and highly regarded repository of community-based OS X tips and ticks. If you want to know how to do "it", most likely you'll find the answer on his web-site because thousands of us folk have contributed to Rob's site in the form of "hints" which can take the form of a power user tip, a low-level hack, or even a script in just about any language. The objective(s) are obvious -- learn your Mac, enhance your Mac, extend the functionality of your Mac, learn to do something on your Mac in a whole new way.

Rob managed the organization and compilation of all the "hints" in his spare time (his day was from 4:30 am to 10:30 pm) while working at a full-time 9-5 "regular" job until he reached an agreement, in June 2005, with Mac Publishing, LLC (better known as Macworld). He became a Senior Editor for Macworld Magazine, managing Mac OS X Hints fulltime. So, he quit his 9-5 job and we are the manifold recipients of the arrangement.

Rob has written two books published by O'REILLY: Mac OS X Power Hound, and Mac OS X Hints. Rob not only is now the full-time "Hint Master", testing all the submitted "hints" himself, but also writes a column for Macworld magazine and his own blog http://www.robservatory.com - jr