Staff

Alex CurtisAlex Curtis, (MacNCell, http://www.macncell.com)
Alex Curtis is Mac OS X tinkerer and through-and-through Apple evangelist. An original Apple ][e user, he went astray during his teen and early twenties building PCs that ran Windows, Linux, BeOS,and whatever other OS he could get his hands on. After law school, he moved to Washington, DC to work on tech policy. There, (not only did he find his future wife, but…) he discovered an inexpensive demo-model iBook and drank the punch on Apple and Mac OS X, once and for all. In an attempt to fill a need in the online community, Alex started MacnCell.com in 2005 to help users get their mobile phones working with their Macs.

Chris ChristensenChris Christensen, (Inside Chris’s Head, http://chris2x.com)
Chris Christensen bought his first Mac in the 1980s. It was a used Mac Plus that he financed by selling his first computer which was an Apple IIe. Since that time he has owned Macs continuously and has had… a few. His current main Mac is a MacBook Pro provided by his day job.

By day Chris is the Executive Vice President of Engineering and Operations for LiveWorld which builds and runs internet community for many Fortune 100 companies. He started programming in high school on a friend’s Apple II. He has a B.S. and an M.E. in Computer and Systems Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic University in Troy, NY. He has worked for IBM, HP, Apple and two small Silicon Valley startups (Momenta, Liveworld). At Apple he worked on AppleLink, eWorld and the Newton (NewtonMail).

By night Chris plays with computers. He is a podcaster with a travel podcast called the Amateur Traveler which is produced using GarageBand (and has had an iTunes Enhanced version with pictures and links even before the MacCast did). Amateur Traveler has been mentioned in National Geographic Traveler and was named as one of the 4 best Adventure Travel podcasts by Men’s Journal in the Summer of 2006. He also blogs at Inside Chris’s head (http://chris2x.com) in his copious free time. He has written shareware programs for the Mac in the past including Cribbage, Columns, and AddressBook Printer.

Chris is supported in his life by his wife of nearly 25 years Joan and his two wonderful teenagers Mike and Liz.

Chris spells Christensen differently than Adam not just to be difficult but because apparently the Danes are not as good at spelling.

Dave CryerDave Cryer, (Geekanoids), http://www.geekanoids.co.uk
Dave was born and bred in the UK and will bringing us a UK angle on the Macintosh world.

Starting out all those years back on the Amiga, running a fan club and specialist Amiga magazine called Amigamaniac, the trend was set to be heavily involved in publishing. Dave soon moved over to the Apple Mac in 1987, when he bought a PowerMac 7600 at the prestigious Harrods store in London, from this date onward he never looked back. “I follow Apple very closely and have had more or less every incarnation of Macintosh ever released, apart from the 20th Anniversary model, which I would like to pick up on ebay in the future”, says Dave, who prides himself on one of the tidiest desks in the UK.

Owner of a Graphic Design consultancy since 1994 he gets to play with Macs all day. Not content with the day job, the Geekanoids website (www.geekanoids.co.uk) was born in 2005 to bring news and full reviews to the Mac community, so now he gets to play with Macs all night too!

So what does Dave decide to do with his spare time, well this guy must be crazy about Macs, he will be bringing news and articles to Maccast for us all to enjoy.

Favorite product: White MacBook and 5G iPod.
Area of expertise: Quark Xpress and networking.

Scott McGrathScott McGrath
Scott is the archetypal “halo-effect switcher” known to be driving Apple’s recent resurgence. After a decade or more of arguing with Microsoft Windows, personally and professionally, he determined that resistance to Apple OS/X was futile. Prior to Mac ownership, he home-built his own PCs (and still admires the DIY ethos) and he’s worked and played in Unix as well. He has been a Windows power user, and has even attempted audio recording and video editing on the PC platform, apparently out of sheer masochism. He’d even managed to resist the iPod for several years, arguing to himself (and quite a few others) that “cheaper, just-as-good options” prevailed for his very large music collection. It wasn’t until the iPod 5G proved its value that he realized that superb industrial design really mattered. Then he started listening to all his Mac friends who’d been trying to tell him to look at OS/X with an open mind. He switched, sometimes with the help of a KVM, to an Intel based Macbook, upgraded with an aftermarket 7200RPM drive and 2GB ram. A drummer and amateur musician (insert your drummer jokes here), Scott’s been moving his project recording rig over to this Mac platform and using that as an opportunity to try to figure out what he’s trying to accomplish, a process of simplification, clarification, and, well—amplification.

Based in Boston, Scott is Senior Product Manager at AccuRev, a maker of software configuration management tools for software developers. In prior positions, he’s worked at Sun Microsystems, Percussion Software, and Ziff-Davis Publishing. Scott has been an occasional contributor at PC Magazine, PC Computing, OS/2 Monthly, Amazon.com newsletters, and several other publications, and has been a forum manager for some of Ziff’s online presence in days past. Scott holds M.A. and M.Phil degrees in English from Rutgers University. For recreation, Scott plays drums with a couple of local cover bands, and is rarely asked to play louder.

In the blog, Scott is going to cover switching, cross-platform co-existence with OS/X, and on occasion, explore news and topics around music and audio recording, as well as other topics that are… on his mind.

Dale MugfordDale Mugford, (The Digital Memoirs of An Old Soul, http://www.oldsouls.org/digitalmemoirs)
Dale is a 26 year-old freelance computer repair technician, and Network IT consultant, and is also employed with the YWCA as a Disability Counselor. He is also the author of The Digital Memoirs of An Old Soul, his personal blog. He is currently living in Ontario, Canada with his girlfriend, 2 cats and a dog.

Dale’s Apple love affair has grown deep and vast, since he first laid his eyes upon a white iBook, and had the opportunity to test drive the Mac OS X interface.

He offers a wealth of experience in networking, and will also be providing tips and guides from everything to buying a used Mac to taking supreme care of your beloved Mac. You can also expect other articles and editorials from Dale on various Mac topics.

James AlguireJames Alguire (InkDrop Media Group, http://www.inkdrop.com)
James Alguire has over 20 years of computer industry experience including digital design, electronic prepress, multimedia, digital video/audio, technical support and training.

James gives training seminars and product demos at trade shows, computer stores, and user groups. He is an Apple Certified Trainer (ACT) for both Apple ProApps and Technical training, and currently instructs Apple Certified classes in Final Cut Pro, DVD Studio Pro, Motion, SoundTrack Pro, Aperture, Mac OS X, and Mac OS X Server. James is an Apple Certified Technical Coordinator (ACTC) in Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server, an Apple Certified Help Desk Specialist (ACHDS) in Mac OS X, and an Apple Certified Pro (ACP) for Final Cut Pro, DVD Studio Pro, and Motion. James is a member of the Apple Consultants Network

As a technology writer, based in Southern Californiad James Alguire is a contributing editor for ComputorEdge, San Diego’s free weekly computer & Internet magazine and writes product reviews for Game Developer magazine and MacNN. Check out www.inkdrop.com for more information.

Jack HodgsonJack Hodgson (Techpopuli, http://www.techpopuli.net)
Jack Hodgson is a writer, technology commentator, special-events and new-media producer, lecturer, aviation essayist, and really bad golfer. In 1984 Jack was the Founding Director of the legendary BCS*Mac ~~ the Macintosh User Group of The Boston Computer Society. By the late 80s, Jack, and his team of passionate Macintosh early-adopters, had built BCS*Mac into the largest Macintosh User Group in the world. In the late 80s Jack moved to Silicon Valley where he worked for Apple Computer. While at Apple he helped create some of the very first software products to be a delivered exclusively on CDROM. Later, he was part of Apple’s “Software Dispatch” venture, which was one of the earliest e-commerce businesses. A 20 year veteran of the computer industry, Jack has worked in virtually every aspect of that business. In the mid 90s Jack left Apple to work in the live-events industry, as a theatrical stage manager, and as a community & corporate special-events producer. He stage-managed seven theatrical shows, including the world-premiere original musical Honor Song For Crazy Horse. Jack’s a past Board Member of the Prescott Park Arts Festival in Portsmouth NH. Jack is also a licensed private pilot. He writes about the people and places of aviation in his column “Around the Field”, and he is the producer & host of the popular aviation podcast “Uncontrolled Airspace“. Today, Jack is a busy writer and new-media producer. He’s the president of Techpopuli, a new-media publishing & production company. Jack lives either in Cambridge Massachusetts, or in the Seacoast Area of New Hampshire, he can’t decide which.

Charles SpronCharles Sporn (Freecasts, http://freecasts.net)
Charles Sporn got his first Mac in winter of 2005 and since has been unstoppable in his Mac Fanboysmanship. It was soon after getting his first Mac when he found his love for freeware and started the Fredric’s Fantastic Freeware podcast which can be found at http://freecasts.net. He is the youngest blogger for the Maccast blog at the tender age of 15. He lives in New York with his PowerBook, his iMac and his iPod.

Charlie GeorgeCharlie George (Tired Thumbs, tiredthumbs.com)
Before Charlie entered the blogosphere and podosphere Charlie spent most of his time in radio, working at stations like WGN, WLUP, WUSN, and “The Jerry Springer Show”. Chopping up audio and doing production work is one of his passions.

Charlie is the host and producer of “Tired Thumbs” and “The PS3 Cast”, and “The Wii Show” on “The Podcast Network” with Brian Ibbott. He is a big advocate of gaming on the Mac ever since switching from the PC to the Mac. He is also a contributor to “The Around the Controller Network”

When he’s not playing games, which is rare, and not putting podcasts together, which is even more rare, he spends time with his family. He resides in the Chicagoland are in Joliet. He probably has the shortest bio on this page as well.