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- Reclaiming My Creative Life With Vintage Macs: The Cigar Box Mini Stack March 30, 2026
- Caturday March 28, 2026
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- The End of the Adobe Era: Reclaiming My Creative Life with Vintage Macs March 25, 2026
- Minestrone Soup March 23, 2026
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Author Archives: Joe_Williams
Reclaiming My Creative Life With Vintage Macs: The Cigar Box Mini Stack
After months of tinkering, I finally built the Murciélago Mini-Stack: a 2010 Mac mini sitting on top of a 2022 M1 Mac mini, all resting on a cigar box. Two Macs, one keyboard, and zero subscriptions. Here’s how I reclaimed my creative life with vintage hardware I already own. Continue reading
Posted in Computers, Illustration, Joe's Garage, Vector Illustration
Tagged 2010 Mac mini, Adobe CS4, Affinity Designer, Apple hardware, cigar box, desktop publishing, IKEA hack, KVM switch, M1 Mac mini, Mac Mini, Mac stack, Murciélago Mini-Stack, no subscription, retro Mac, Snow Leopard, subscription free, vintage computing, vintage Mac
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The End of the Adobe Era: Reclaiming My Creative Life with Vintage Macs
After three decades with Photoshop — from floppy disks and beige Macs to monthly subscriptions — I finally hit cancel. Here’s why I’m happily back to my old software running on old hardware, and how I reclaimed my creative life. Continue reading
Posted in Blast from the Past, Computers, Curious Clutter, Joe's Garage
Tagged 1990s computing, Adobe, Adobe subscription, analog to digital, beige box, cancel Adobe, Creative Cloud, creative freedom, death by a thousand cuts, digital minimalism, drafting table, future proofing, Mac Mini, Mac nostalgia, Macintosh IIci, old Mac, old software, Photoshop, Photoshop CS4, Power Mac, pre-subscription Photoshop, retro computing, subscription fatigue, vintage Mac
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Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome!
I’ve been playing around with this scanned negative in the free, cross platform, Photoshop alternative GIMP!
Posted in Computers, photo manipulation, Photography, Pixels Versus Pigment, Sketch
Tagged analog, bienvenue, digital, GIMP, photography, Photoshop, Tina Garceau, USA, welcome!, Willkommen
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Caturday
Photos of Felines in and around Philadelphia Continue reading
Posted in Caturday
Tagged cat, feline, ginger cats, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, photography, USA
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Caturday
Photos of felines in and around Philadelphia Continue reading
Digital Doodles
I’ve mostly set aside my real world drawing tools as an obsession with old computers has been burning through me since around Halloween. I’m trying to frugally future-proof my family’s digital life by gutting and re-configuring computers that have long … Continue reading
Caturday
Photos of Felines in and around Philadelphia Continue reading
Caturday
Photos of felines in and around Philadelphia Continue reading
Forward to the PAST!
When tech giants rely on subscription software and planned obsolescence, the only direction I can go in is Forward to the Past! Continue reading
Posted in Blast from the Past, Computers, Joe's Garage
Tagged Adobe CS4, Adobe rental, anti-subscription, dual boot, Frankenstein Mac, internal storage upgrade, Linux Mint, Mac mini 2009, Mac Pro 2009, Mac revival, MacBook Pro 2010, mechanical HDD, offline software, old Macs, OWC, OWC Data Doubler, PCIe SSD, planned obsolescence, retro computing, right to repair, Snow Leopard, solid state drive, SSD upgrade, subscription software, SuperDrive replacement, tech nostalgia, used Macs, vintage Macs
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