We were waiting to see if perhaps this would be covered more widely in the "legitimate" Mac press, but we haven't seen much about it, so we'll go ahead and mention it ourselves. Remember the crashes and failures during the recent Macworld Expo Tokyo keynote address? There were some definite glitches with some of the Macs and the software they were running. Well, if that was karmic payback for that widely-publicized Windows 98 crash at Comdex during Bill Gates' address way back when, then it looks like the karma wheel might be swinging around again. Faithful viewer Andrea P. was present at the Seybold keynote address delivered by Adobe's John Warnock, and she reports that not all went well on the Wintel side of the fence:

During the Seybold Boston Adobe keynote speech, they had 2 beautiful blue G3's with blue studio displays sitting next to a beige PC display. After a while of showing features of the new page layout software InDesign (looks nifty), they tried to use a PC to demo cross compatibility. Needless to say, the PC crashed within seconds... the presenter muttered amiably, "Well, back to the Mac!" amid many cheers and whistles.

The second time he tried to use the PC, for a GoLive demo, it also crashed. This time he muttered, to the again loudly amused crowd, "I know what you're thinking."

The third time he attempted the PC, later in the presentation, it worked, but he switched back to the Mac.

For the iMac gamers in the audience, there's some good news out there-- Micro Conversions is officially shipping their $199 iMac Game Wizard. The Game Wizard lets iMac owners add the blistering 3D power of a 3Dfx VooDoo2 chipset via that naughty little unsupported Mezzanine slot on the underside of the iMac's motherboard. Early feedback from people who've received their pre-orders is very positive-- games that take advantage of GLide acceleration run about a gazillion times faster than on a stock iMac, and look about a bajillion times better. Hardcore gamers with a lust for a truly immersive 3D experience now have a heavy-duty option for their translucent blue buddies.

And when we say blue, we mean Bondi-- since the Mezzanine slot officially vanished from the iMac motherboard with the advent of the current fruit flavors, only rev. A and B owners need apply. That leaves a slightly worrying gap in the 3D games performance spectrum for the iMac: the Game Wizard makes "classic" iMacs into 3D powerhouses, but the Rage Pro in the fruit-flavored models doesn't have quite as much "oomph" as serious gamers might like. (Sure, "serious" gamers would be better off buying a more expandable Mac anyway, but remember-- Apple's going for the throat in the consumer market, and games are a huge part of that whole equation.) Interestingly enough, though, a reader over at NoBeige hints that Micro Conversions is toying with the idea of performing major surgery on the guts of fruit-flavored iMacs for owners who just gotta have Voodoo2. The plan apparently involves sending in the iMac's motherboard (!), to which Micro Conversions will then solder on the necessary connectors, install the Game Wizard, and send the board back. Sort of a "surgery by mail" deal. Since this process obviously voids the iMac's warranty (to put things mildly), MC is even considering fulfilling the rest of the warranty period themselves. It's a nutty idea, but it just might work.

In the longer term, the iMac may not suffer such a 3D games disadvantage. Have you tried the Rage 128 that ships with all new blue and white G3's? We have-- and it's incredible. Well, if you had attended the My Mac chat with Mike Dixon of the Mac Gamer's Ledge last night, you would have heard that Apple will be including Rage 128's on the motherboard of iMacs sometime in the near future. In fact, the only reason that the current models have a Rage Pro instead is that the motherboard-chipset version of the Rage 128 wasn't (and, we suppose, isn't) yet available-- only the expansion card version was. Anyway, if you're in the market for an iMac and you really want a solid 3D gaming experience, you've got a couple of choices: find a Bondi model on closeout and add a Game Wizard, or wait for Apple to add Rage 128 and buy the color of your choice. Choices! Choices everywhere!

Ah, yes, the Mac SE-- one of our personal favorites in the classic "toaster-style" all-in-one line. The SE, you see, actually has a flat and level top, making it perfect for use as a nightstand for an alarm clock/telephone. Or you could take several of them and stick some sort of broad, flat surface on top and, voilà! A classy coffee table. Of course, there's always the basic MacQuarium, too, and about a billion other things you can do with a Mac SE. Oh, yeah, we almost forgot-- you can even use it as a Mac! Just because it's twelve years old or so doesn't mean that it can't be a productive and useful member of computing society. It may max out at 4 MB of RAM, but it still serves as a nifty word processing terminal and email station.

Beyond those basic computing tasks, though, the SE is somewhat limited, and that's why a lot of them are out there serving as nothing more than cute and fashionable doorstops. But according to a Wired article pointed out by faithful viewer Jim, that's not stopping some Linux developers from trying to give the SE a new lease on life. Linux, as you probably know, is the free open-source Unix-like operating system that continues to grow as it attracts new users every day. It's not as user-friendly as the Mac OS, that's for sure, but many "computer people" find it a powerful and refreshing alternative. It's apparently really big in higher education, and that's why the SE Linux project is moving forward: to give all of those unused SE's in academia something to do.

We admit, we find the idea of an SE running Linux to be kind of amusing, if only for the mild paradox of a friendly Mac toaster running a fundamentally text-based OS with a command line interface. So if you want a cheap Linux machine that also does double-duty as a kickin' bookend, you can't beat the SE. Heck, we found ours in a trash pile, and we bet it wouldn't take much digging to find one for $30 or less. And, the iMac notwithstanding, those toaster-style classic Macs still have a boatload of charm all their own.