Bobbie Johnson
Sad news for geeks this weekend, with the announcement that technology guru Jef Raskin had died after a battle with pancreatic cancer.
But hold on - it's not just technologists who should mourn his passing. Raskin had more effect on our lives than you might first imagine. Do you have a computer? Then you owe him a favour. While working at Apple Computer at the cusp of the Eighties, Raskin headed the team which developed the first ever Macintosh - a machine which revolutionised the way computers looked and worked.
Every time you click on your desktop, you're using a piece of Raskin's philosophy. Every time there's an easy-to-use computer, chances are he had some influence along the way. And of course, he's the man who came up with the name "Macintosh" (after his favourite flavour of apple, apparently).
Over the years home computing took on a lot of the messages he championed, making a lot of people very rich indeed, but Raskin remained a peripheral industry player. He was no stranger to controversy - his contributions at Apple have long been disputed - but remained thankful for the chances he'd had when the Guardian's Online technology supplement interviewed him last year.
The relentless progress in technology marches on, as always, but his is a contribution that shouldn't be ignored.
You can read more at Onlineblog.
