W ired.comis Leander Kahney has written a report for Wired concerning the death of Rodney O. Lain and the outpouring of support for him from the Mac community. In the piece, titled "Popular Mac Columnist Mourned," Mr. Kahney offers more details on Rodneyis death, comments from Rodneyis friends and family, and a look at some of his detractors. From the article:
Lainis death is being widely mourned in the online Mac community. Hundreds of people have posted messages of condolence on forums at the Mac Observer, MacAddict and MacNN, and eulogies have been published by former editors at AppleLinks, Low End Mac, MacObserver and MyMac.
"Iim amazed at how many people knew him," said friend Bill Ferguson. "Iim getting e-mails from editors and readers everywhere who loved his writing."
Lain, an African-American, was an indefatigable Mac evangelist, who styled himself as the "black Guy Kawasaki" after Appleis former pitch-man.
He gained a wide audience as a prolific and provocative Mac pundit. In the last few years he had been published by most of the major Mac-related websites, including AppleLinks, AppleLust, MacAddict and Low End Mac. Much of Lainis writing is archived at his iBrotha website.
Lain held various full-time day jobs, but for six years, he also worked part-time at local computer superstores for the pure pleasure of preaching and selling Macs face-to-face.
"That was one of his outlets for evangelizing the Mac," said friend Juan Cabanela, an astrophysics professor at Haverford College in Pennsylvania. "It wasnit about money. He did it to meet people. He was an incredibly gregarious person. He liked to talk about Macs more than anything."
There are additional quotes in the full article from fellow employees from Power On Software (where Rodney used to work), and information about the strange person who dedicated a site to criticizing Rodney.
We have put together a list of articles and tributes about Rodney, and we also encourage you to drop into our forum thread about him and leave your thoughts.