Michael Murie
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| How did you personally get into using the Macintosh family of computers? | Was volunteering at the Resource Center of the Boston Computer Society and started playing with a Mac Plus and Desktop Publishing. Published a newsletter for the volunteers of the Resource Center (12 readers!) | |
| Status: | Someone recently told me that I could have been a multimedia guru if I'd worked harder at it. I'm not sure what that means - I am now. | |
First Mac:
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Regularly used: Mac Plus Actually owned: IIci. For about a year I owned a SCSI hard drive that I took from machine to machine, but I didn't own one of my own. This really amused a friend who owned a Mac, but no hard drive. | |
Current Mac:
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6100 and 8500. | |
| When did you get your first modem? | I don't remember. It was a 1200 baud modem. | |
| Who did you call first? | No idea. Maybe Compuserve. | |
| Present Occupation: | Multimedia Developer. | |
| Claim to Fame: | Created the Now & Zen Navigator animation, and the RoboDogCow movie that appear on the test CDs for QuickTime 1.0 Wrote the books Macintosh Multimedia Workshop and The Macintosh Multimedia Starter Kit and co-wrote with David Drucker The QuickTime Handbook. | |
| Dream Job: | Unknown. |
| Not So Random Thoughts... | |||
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| Was there ever a time in your life that you had to "Think Different?" What was the situation and what did you do? | |||
| The best way to Think Different is to show your creative work to other people. They always thing different. The real test is whether you can take what they say and make your work better. | |||
| How has using the Macintosh computer changed your life? | |||
| I'm absolutely certain that I wouldn't be doing what I am today if I hadn't discovered the Macintosh. Before Macintosh I was a COBOL programmer. After Macintosh I'm an interesting guy (well, a little interesting.) When I discovered the Macintosh I started doing Desktop Publishing for fun. Through that I started getting work doing Desktop Publishing. When HyperCard came out in 1987 I said to myself "That's what I want to do." It took about a year, but I turned myself into a multimedia consultant and have been doing that ever since. Though I can now create multimedia with other platforms, it's still not as easy as on a Mac, and this would never have happened if I'd been using another platform back in 1985. I also have to acknowledge that the now departed Boston Computer Society was a signficant early part of this adventure. |
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| What is the weirdest thing in your office right now? | |||
| A large canvas with the remains of a Mac 512K glued to it. This mixed media piece, called "Creation" was made for a party at MacWorld years ago. It also was hanging at the Boston Computer Society Mac office for a while. | |||
| My Passions are: | |||
| Interactive media and video. I like to create stuff. | |||
| If you could have dinner with one person dead or alive who would that person be and what would you ask them? | |||
| Steven Spielberg. "Can I work on your next movie?" (I would of said Paul McCartney and "Can I work on your next record" but that would be a waste of a dinner -- see next question!) | |||
| Do you play a musical instrument and/or are you in a band? | |||
| I'm the world's second worst guitar player. (I'd say I'm the worst, but I remain hopeful that someone somewhere is worse than I am.) | |||
| When I grow up I want to be: | |||
| I like to do new things. I hope I can always keep doing them. | |||
| The question never asked: | |||
| Why are we here? |
| Just The Facts, Please... | ||||
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| Biographical Tidbits: | Met my wife at the Somerville Community Access Television station. I was a promising editing student. | Education: | Too much when I didn't want it and not enough when I did. | |
| Location at Birth: | Wellington, New Zealand. | Current Location: | Boston, MA. | |
| Where you've been in between: |
Sydney, Australia. | Astrological Sign: | "Slow Asteriod Crossing" | |
| Available? | Married. | Chat Nick: | None | |
| Favorite Books: | Carrying the Fire by Michael Collins (Command Module pilot for Apollo 11) Biplane and A Gift of Wings by Richard Bach Round the Bend and Sliderule by Nevil Shute |
Favorite Music or Band: | The Beatles | |
| Favorite Food: | Sweet and Sour Pork. Chocolate cake. | Cat or Dog Person: | Cat; but I'm allergic. | |
| Michael's Personal Web Site - Multimedia Workshop | |
| MIchael's Professional Web Site - Multimedia Workshop - News, Resources & More for Multimedia Developers and Users | |
| Favorite Web Site: | Macintouch |
| "If you can't be good, be colorful" | |
Created Sunday, February 14, 1999; Edited: