Obfuscated Networking is just a place to store ideas and thoughts. It's not clear what, why or how, but they are all here. Hopefully you will find them entertaining, thought provoking or interesting and will be inspired to leave your thoughts.

I first met Jef Raskin in 2000 at a conference in the bay area. I was introduced to him by a friend of mine who spoke often about his work on computer interface design. After the conferece Jef took the time to demonstrate the features of the Cannon Cat to us at his home. It was while demonstrating the features of the Cat that I suddenly understood the Macintosh. Instead of working with the computer, telling the computer what to do and how to do it the computer should be a tool for the user. It should work for the user offering up it’s services as it will.

The thing I took from his demonstration was that the computer doesn’t matter. People don’t want to use computers, program computer or control computers. They want to get their work done. They want to get their work done and if the computer happens to be the tool to do that then so be it. While most of us computer geeks enjoy working with and programing and controlling our computers most people simply want to get their job done. That was the goal of the Macintosh, which Jef created, and that was the goal of the Cannon Cat.

Jef recently passed away and with him the technology worlds greatest advocate for the user. His presence will be sorely missed by countless users who’s computers operate just a little bit better in one way or another because of his ideas whether implemented directly based on his ideas or indirectly by copying his creations.