iJobShare.com Blog

True believers: The biggest cults in tech

2009-05-06T10:59:00.002-04:00

I am guilty of being associated with the Ubuntu Tribe, the Commodorians, and of course the Tao of the Newton. I have a couple Palms too, but never thought much of them.

-Terry

From Infoworld.com

Spend enough time around technology and it starts to get under your skin. It could be a gizmo that changed your life, an ancient computer you loved, or a programming language that took months to master before it finally clicked. And then, nothing was ever the same again.

It became a part of you. You began to identify with it, even develop a belief system around it. You may have attended regular meetings of others similarly afflicted, and openly despised members of other groups. Before you were even aware of it, you'd joined a cult.

"People develop protective and tribal feelings about the technology they use," says Michael Jolkovski, a clinical psychologist. "And the metaphor of religious wars or cults is pretty accurate -- just as a person's religion becomes the main framework for apprehending reality, so does the OS of choice."

(Jolkovski adds that he belongs to the cult of Apple and is patiently awaiting orders from the mothership on what new gadgets to buy.)

Of course, the word "cult" tends to have negative connotations -- mind control, Kool-Aid, comets -- so if it makes you feel better, call it a club. Either way, you may well belong to one or more of the many tech cults/clubs out in the wild -- perhaps even some of the following seven.

Tech cult No. 1: The Way of the Palm
Established: 1996
Gathering of the tribes: The Palm Forums [6]
Major deities: Jeff Hawkins, Donna Dubinsky
Sacred relics: Pilot 1000 and Pilot 5000
Mantra: The Pre will set us free

When Jonathan Ezor walked into a J&R Music store in the fall of 1996 and encountered his first Pilot 1000, it wasn't exactly a religious experience, but it was life-altering. He immediately began speaking in tongues -- or, more accurately, writing in flawless Graffiti, the Pilot's handwriting recognition alphabet.

"I picked up the stylus, was able to correctly write my name on the first try, and was hooked," says Ezor, an assistant professor of law and technology at Touro Law Center and an associate writer at the PalmAddict blog [7]. "I became an evangelist shortly after that."

Ezor says he's owned seven Palm PDAs in his life (he currently uses a TX) and estimates he's personally converted at least 200 people to the Way of Palm. He also admits that, on the rare occasions he uses pen and paper, he sometimes finds himself writing in Graffiti.

"Palm has just always gotten how people need to work," says Ezor. "They were open from the outset with their software. They had hot-syncing. Back then if you lost your Filofax, you lost your life. I can find every note I've ever taken back to 1996. I challenge anyone who uses legal pads to do that."

You can identify true devotees because they're the ones standing around beaming contact info and free apps to each other through their Palms' IR ports, says Ezor. Another bizarre ritualistic practice: Using their Palms as TV remotes.

But it's been a difficult few years in the desert for the Palmists. After a promising start, the company was acquired, reacquired, and spun off. The original Palm prophets, Jeff Hawkins and Donna Dubinsky, left to form Handspring, then later rejoined the Palm fold. The company opened up its hardware to heretical operating systems (Windows Mobile), causing dismay among the faithful, who watched helplessly as the BlackBerry and the iPhone passed them by. Now, with the coming of the Pre smartphone and WebOS [9], Palm's resurrection may finally be at hand.

Of course, there are the inevitable factions and feuds. Ezor believes Palm's rivalry with Microsoft in 1990s was overblown, but he sees Pre acolytes online eyeing St. Steven's Church of the Almighty iPhone with increasing vitriol.

"I think the true believers are the ones who had the Pilot 1000 or 5000, who jumped on the Palm before it went mainstream," he says. "And the orthodox sect belongs to people who prefer Graffiti 1 over Graffiti 2."

Tech cult No. 2: Brotherhood of the Ruby
Established: 1994
Gathering of the tribes: RailsConf [10], RubyConf [11]
Major deities: Matz, DHH
Mantra: MINSWAN (Matz is nice, so we are nice)

Programming language Ruby and its younger, sleeker sibling, Ruby on Rails, evoke the kind of devotion usually seen in disciples who've spent years in the wilderness, only to find themselves on the cusp of mainstream acceptance.

"It helps that we're better than everyone else," jokes Obie Fernandez, author of one of the cult's sacred texts, "The Rails Way," and CEO of Hashrocket, a Ruby on Rails development house. "One of the main ingredients for cult devotion is a sense of superiority. Also, from the beginning we faced a lot of resistance. That persecution complex definitely helped sow the seeds of cultishness."

Ruby was created in 1994 by the Zen-like Yukihiro Matsumoto, known simply as "Matz." He wanted to create a scripting language he described as "more powerful than Perl, more object oriented than Python [13]." An open source community soon formed around Ruby, along with the philosophy of MINSWAN, or "Matz is nice, so we are nice."

In 2004, David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH) developed Ruby on Rails, an application framework based on Ruby that enables rapid-fire development of sleek-looking Web sites. Unlike Matz, DHH has been known to drop the F-bomb on people at conferences [14] and other public events. Nonetheless, RoR quickly garnered tens of thousands of acolytes, including several at Fortune 500 companies.

"Thanks to a groundswell of open source support, Rails is very mature right now," says Fernandez. "The amount of enthusiasm in the community has created a richness of libraries and plug-ins around the framework, making it both powerful and productive."

While there is some rivalry between Rubyists and members of the Python cult, Fernandez says both are sworn enemies of the compiler clan. Being a dynamic language, Ruby doesn't require compiling before being run, leading to less coding and fewer errors, he says. (Followers of static compiled languages like Java and .Net may not-so-respectfully disagree, he acknowledges.)

The Ruby cult is also fiercely Mac-centric. Brandishing a Windows PC within view of a Rubyist can become a life-altering event, and not in a good way. "From the beginning we've taken a page from Apple playbook and concentrated on being superior," adds Fernandez. "We're not afraid to show off and look more polished than everyone else."

Tech cult No. 3: The Ubuntu tribe
Established: 2004
Gathering of the tribes: Ubuntu Developer Summits [15]
Major deity: Linus Torvalds
Minor deity: Mark Shuttleworth
Animal spirit guides: Breezy badgers, dapper drakes, feisty fawns, gutsy gibbons, hardy herons, intrepid ibexes, jaunty jackalopes

An offshoot from the Debian clan, Ubuntu may be the largest of the many Linux pagan belief systems, says Scott Steinberg, publisher of gadget site Digital Trends, in part because it's more accessible to less tech-savvy geeks.

"Ubuntu is one of the more robust and user-friendly builds of Linux available, and one that -- at odds with typical elitist mentalities -- comes with a community that's generally receptive and friendly to beginner- and intermediate-level users," he says. "Audience participation is welcomed and invited, and sincere efforts have been made to ensure appeal to a wide demographic."

Ubuntu code is governed by a council of more than 120 Masters of the Universe (MOTU), who handle development chores for the Universe and Multiverse repositories, plus another 55 mystics (core developers [17]) and thousands of lay-programmers, says Ryan Troy, founder of Ubuntuforums.org. However, it is ruled by a single shaman: Mark Shuttleworth, CEO of Ubuntu's commercial sponsor Canonical, but more commonly known as Self-Appointed Benevolent Dictator for Life.

Although the word "Ubuntu" derives from an African philosophy meaning "I am what I am because of who we all are," disagreements abound among the faithful. Troy admits there's "a pretty good amount of drama" in the Ubuntu user forums, but says that overall the Ubuntu community is tightly knit and well governed. However, holy wars with followers of Windows, Mac, and other Linux distros continue to rage.

Tech cult No. 4: The Commodorians
Established: 1982
Gathering of the tribes: CommVEx [18], C4 Expo [19], World of Commodore [20]
Major deity: Jack Tramiel
Minor deity: Jim Butterfield (1936-2007)
Sacred relic: Commodore C65

Commodorians know there is only one true path, and it is 8 bits wide.

From 1982 to 1994, the Commodore 64 was the most successful personal computer ever made. More than 30 million units were sold, and many are still in use today. It's probably the only machine to have a "nerdcore" rap band [21] named after it or to have inspired a revival band (Press Play on Tape [22]) that plays nothing but rock versions of themes from C64 games.

There are dozens of Web sites and multiple conferences devoted to the C64 (and its more recent sibling, the Commodore 128), as well as a small but thriving community of developers, says Jim Brain, an applications architect for a Fortune 500 life insurance firm. Brain says he started out with a VIC-20 in 1983 and graduated to a Commodore 64 before he "downgraded to a PC" in 1992. He develops new hardware for the Commodore Business Machines platform [24] and contracts with overseas manufacturers to build the units.

"The Commodore 8-bit crowd is the computer world's analogy to old-time Volkswagen bug fanciers in the car world," says Eric W. Brown, president of Saugus.net, whose ShellTown operation [25] provides Net access via shell for old hardware like the C64 and C128. "Believe it or not people are still writing new software for the C64/128, and these days there are people who handle all their e-mail and even surf the Web via their old C128 boxes."

"It's hard to distinguish among retro-folks, but I do think [Commodore 8-bitters] stand out as a collective group," adds Brain. "They appreciate game play over glitzy graphics, appear to be more willing to tear into something that is broken rather than just pitch it and buy something new. They like to modify things, and they tend to come up with creative solutions to problems."

Their most sacred relic: the Commodore 65, an improved version of the C64 that never made it past the prototype stage. Yet many Commodorians reject the notion of being a part of a cult; they tend to see themselves more as keepers of the eternal C64/128 flame.

"The cult is the Amigans," says one closely placed source who requested his name not be revealed. "These are people who worship the Commodore Amiga operating system and expect that one day its superiority will cause it to rise again. Some of them are really annoyingly crazy."

Tech cult No. 5: The Order of the Lisp
Established: 1958
Gathering of the tribes: International Lisp Conference [26]
Major deity: John McCarthy
Minor deities: Paul Graham, Peter Norvig
Holy Scripture: "Paradigms in Artificial Intelligence Programming"

Like warrior monks driven into hiding, the Order of the Lisp was once a powerful force that lived at the heart of next-generation computing. Closely allied with artificial intelligence and expert systems, the Lisp (or List Processing) language fell into disrepute as those concepts became allied with the dark side in the late 1970s.

A backlash against overhyped rule-based expert systems led to the so-called "AI winter," notes Dan Weinreb, chairman of the International Lisp Conference (ILC). "The phrase 'artificial intelligence' became almost a dirty word, and the Lisp language was dragged down with it."

The language splintered into dozens of dialects as its practitioners dispersed across the Net. But it remained a potent force in academic circles and on message boards. Slava Akhmechet, a doctoral student in computer science at Stony Brook University, encountered Lisp on a programming bulletin board at the age of 16; he's been a devoted practitioner ever since.

He describes his conversion from skeptic to Skywalker in his Defmacro blog [27]: "It was a journey on an endless lake of frustration. I turned my mind inside out, rinsed it, and put it back in place. I went through seven rings of hell and came back. And then I got it. The enlightenment came instantaneously. One moment I understood nothing, and the next moment everything clicked into place. ... I've achieved an almost divine state of mind, an instantaneous enlightenment experience that turned my view of computer science on its head in less than a single second."

Despite its being more than 50 years old, interest in Lisp is on the rise, says Weinreb. The International Lisp conference at MIT last March drew more than 200 attendees -- nearly twice as many as ILC 2007. The language is still in commercial use, though Weinreb says "there are companies using Lisp now who keep that fact a secret, feeling that they would be discredited to some extent if their use of Lisp were known, which is pretty silly."

Akhmechet says you can identify true believers by their contrarian nature and their love for things of great beauty, regardless of age.

"Remember the part of 'Star Wars' where Luke is introduced to the light-saber?" he says. "Obi Wan says, 'It's an elegant weapon, from a more civilized age.' That's how we feel about Lisp. It was designed in the 1960s by people who truly loved their craft and is an improvement not only on its predecessors, but also on most of its successors. It has certain elegance and beauty to it that mathematicians recognize in some of their formulas, poets in their poems, and physicists in their theories."

Tech cult No. 6: Monks of the Midrange
Established: 1960
Gathering of the tribes: Common 2009 [28]
Major deity: Dr. Frank Soltis
Holy scriptures: The IBM Redbook
Sacred relic: Original AS/400

Like their elder brethren devoted to IBM mainframes, the monks of IBM's midrange systems congregate to celebrate the IBM i, iSeries, i5/OS, AS/400 and related solutions, says Randy Dufault, president of the Common Users Group. Although the group traces its history back to the day vacuum tubes vanished from modern computers, it still boasts more than 4,000 members, who meet annually to keep the Power Systems flame alive.

Dufault says the cult's bizarre rituals include chanting "Market the 'i'!" whenever other IBMers are around, checking the Web site to see if IBM has changed the system's name again, and making regular pilgrimages to Rochester, Minn., birthplace of the Application System/400 [29] family.

You can identify midrange monks by the way they're always collecting paper handouts from presentations, storing them for decades, and never looking at them until their spouse threatens to throw them all away, says Dufault. "Then they look through them and store them in another place until the spouse finds them again, usually in another five to seven years."

Although cultlike in their devotion, Commoners are both collaborative and flexible, says Dufault, and willing to incorporate newer technologies like AIX and Linux into their ancient beliefs.

Tech cult No. 7: The Tao of Newton
Established: 1993
Gathering of the tribes: Worldwide Newton Conference [30]
Major deity: John Sculley
Minor deities: Too many to name; many are listed in MSU's unofficial Newton Hall of Fame [31]
Holy scripture: The Newton FAQ [32]
The Antichrist: Steve Jobs

How is it that a thing can die and yet live on?

Ponder this paradox, grasshopper, as we tell of perhaps the most slavishly devoted tech cult of all: the Apple Newton MessagePad, aka God's PDA.

Debuting to lavish hype in 1993, the Newton was arguably the beginning of the larger Apple cult and its aura of impeccable coolness. From the Newton's loins sprang most of what we think of as Apple chic today; many Newtonians draw a direct line from the original PDA to today's iPhone.

So what happened? The original Newton was bulky and expensive, with a few glitches, most famously its less-than-letter-perfect handwriting recognition (ruthlessly parodied by Doonesbury's Gary Trudeau [34]). The smaller, nimbler, cheaper PalmPilot soon dominated the market. A few months after Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, he killed the device, earning the permanent enmity of the Newton faithful, who would hold up their MessagePads in silent protest during Jobs' keynote speeches.

Bowed but unbeaten, Newtonians continued to develop software as open source projects. MessagePad hackers added support for MP3s, Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth; the Einstein Project [35] created Newton OS emulators for devices like the Sharp Zaurus and Nokia 770, as well as Apple Macs and Windows PCs. Each year the Newton faithful gather at the Worldwide Newton Conference.

Meditative rituals for the cult include "installing software, replacing backlights, endlessly discussing rumors of a new Apple tablet device, complaining that the PalmPilot stole our thunder, and correcting commoners' assumptions that non-Newton devices are true PDAs," notes Grant Hutchinson, who maintains the NewtonTalk mailing list [36] (as well as a chronological list of every haircut he's had since 1998, if that tells you anything).

He says Newtonians can be spotted by the transcendental glow cast by their MessagePads' green backlights. And they live for the day the Newton will rise again -- perhaps in the form of that oft-rumored tablet [37], the existence of which Apple steadfastly denies.

"The echo of cult-likeness might be in the wish to stop time, to deny the reality of loss," notes psychologist Mike Jolkovski. "For a while, the Newtonians kept hope that the gizmo would rejoin the Apple product line -- much as people pined for the reunion of the Beatles. But no, the Beatles aren't getting back together, the Newton is gone and will stay that way, and we are all going to die."

But, in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make. Wasn't it Steve Wozniak who said that?

http://www.infoworld.com/print/73433

Hello Again!

2009-04-30T22:11:00.002-04:00

I just launched iJobShare.com and so far so good. There was a little bit of a bumpy start, but I have been able to find a great job board clearinghouse. It's much better than Monster.com or CareerBuilder.com because it not only finds jobs on those boards and most of the major ones on the 'net, employers can post ads for jobs with their companies for only $5 for 30 days!

Peguin Plunge for Special Olympics

2008-12-11T10:38:00.000-05:00

PodBrix on eBay!

2008-08-20T21:10:00.003-04:00

There's a really cool PodBrix Steve Jobs figurine on eBay. Check it out!

Some one should Buy it Now!

-Terry

myLife With Apple

2008-07-19T00:22:00.006-04:00

By Terry Goyette

Many people know me as the Apple guy or the Mac evangelist in the family or my group of friends. I am the one who gets called for tech-support questions by my friends. I am the first person to voice my opinion of why Mac OS X is a better choice than Windows XP or Vista, and I can be seen driving around in my car complete with Apple sticker in the rear window, listening to music on my iPhone. I have owned dozens of different Mac models ranging from the classic all in one design to many PowerBooks, G4 and G5 towers, iMacs, AppleTV, AirPort wireless internet Base Stations, Operating Systems 6 through X, Apple monitors, printers, iSight webcam, four different kinds of Newtons, and even a QuickTake Camera (one of the very first consumer digital cameras). At one time, I had seven iPods in the house, and have bought hundreds of dollars worth of music from the iTunes Music Store. And of course, I even stood in line last year with all of the other Apple fan-boys and fan-girls to get my mitts on what was then the new $500 iPhone. Hey, what's the name of my web domain? AppleDoctor.net! I'm also an Apple stock holder.

Back in 2003, my dreams came true and I got a job working for my favorite Cupertino based company at one of their retail locations. Back then it was fun to work Apple retail. It really was barely retail at all. For customers, there were the puzzled people who stumbled in and wanted to know what the hubbub was, and there were also the Apple-fanatics who loved to see their favorite company with an actual retail store. It was a novelty. We sold computers, and it seemed like it was going well enough. The busy time of year was during the holidays and new product launches, but other than that it was usually just a couple of us on the sales floor at a time. Then the iPod took off. It had been out for a while, but with the launch of the iTunes music store for Windows, the iPod just exploded. Everyone wanted one!

It was during this time that Apple’s quality took a dive--at least it did for me. As an employee, I was able to take advantage of a sweet discount on computers, software and iPods. My first big employee purchase was a 15” Aluminum PowerBook G4 (I’m typing on it right now), because I was able to get a refurbished one for a pretty good price. At the time, they were so new (Apple employees sometimes are not able to buy newly released products until the demand dies down somewhat) that the new Aluminum PowerBook G4’s were not available to employees at a discount. I chose a refurbished model because I had bought a refurb PowerMac that is actually still running today with no problems.

When I received my refurb PowerBook, I was appalled at what I found. It looked like someone had hastily put the computer back together after replacing some internal parts. What should be nicely matched and properly fit and finished looked horrendously wrong. The pristine Aluminum was bent in order to close the seams between pieces, and in some places some of the seams were not closed at all. When I started the computer, there was a plaid-ghosting in the LCD, so it was barely viewable. The computer should have never left the factory or refurb workbench. I would have been ashamed passing this off to someone to pay thousands of dollars for it. When I complained to the powers that be, I was told it would be repaired. REPAIRED?! Why not just give me another one? Sorry, employee purchases are non-returnable. I asked if 99% of the parts needed replacing, would they replace the 99% of the parts? They told me yes, and would not give me another one, no matter what. Get it repaired, or don’t. I was hurt that the company I loved so much would stab me in the heart like that. After all the evangelism, the over a million dollars worth of sales while working there, the countless PC to Mac conversions before I ever worked for Apple—after all of that, a loyal employee, stock holder and a customer, they were okay with treating me that way.

I loved working there, despite all of this. For many months, I was the top sales person. Interestingly enough, my sales were many times higher than some of the full-time worker’s sales. Because of this I was able to work my way up the ranks into management. We had an awesome management team, and I miss working with all of them. Some of the best times of my working career was with those people. You know who you are! I left Apple in 2005, and eventually went back to school to finish up my degree. There's more to my story at Apple Retail as far as why I left, but I prefer not to get into specifics because I still know some people who work for and with them.

During my post-Apple time, I have had some of the worst experiences with Apple products. For example, I replaced an AirPort Base Station and found it perplexing trying to get it to work with my existing wireless network. I do computer tech-support and consulting as a side business, so I DO know how to configure electronics properly. I fought tooth and nail with this base station trying to get it to work with my existing set up. After three days of sketchy wi-fi in my house, and a wife who needed to get onto the Internet for work, I finally reconfigured the entire network and was able to get online. Mind you, I am still not satisfied with the results. Why not call tech support? They are no help at all, sorry to say. I’m glad I didn’t buy any sort of support plan with the base station (there is none offered).

The times I have been in contact with Apple’s technical support, I was not satisfied with the results. For example, I was a long time subscriber to Apple’s .Mac (dot Mac) service, which is now called Mobile Me. For $100 a year (or $70 if you knew who to buy it from), you got online tutorials for Apple software, 10 GB of online disk space, sync ability with other Macs you owned, a cool @mac.com email address, the ability to publish photos and blogs to your personal web space with a couple clicks of the mouse, and a whole lot more. During one of my photo and blog postings, something went wrong. My .Mac space was corrupted and would not let me upload or delete anything. I was in limbo. Apparently, the only way to get tech support for .Mac was via email. I believe the fellow who was assigned to my case was in Europe, so by the time I sent him a response to a question, he would read it five or six hours later because he was working while I was still in bed. He would send a response and I would read it five or six hours later. This went on for two weeks. Meanwhile, nothing was ever done to remedy the situation. After many years of having a @mac.com email address, I let my .Mac membership lapse and haven’t looked back.

Recently, I wanted to rent a movie on my AppleTV. It seemed easy enough, but I’m assuming because of the new roll out of the Mobile Me service, my Apple ID is no longer valid on my AppleTV. In order to rent or buy anything using the iTunes Music Store, you must enter your Apple ID, which is usually your email address from when you set up your account, as well as your password. My account was set up using my @mac.com email address many years ago. The Apple webpage I was directed to in order to fix my Apple ID problem told me to create a new Apple ID. If I do that, I will have two different Apple IDs for the music I have already bought, and a new Apple ID for everything new that I am going to buy. No thanks. I just rented an on-demand movie from my cable operator. By the way, the same Apple ID works fine on my iPhone when I buy applications on it. So I know it’s not user error.

The last part of my rant is about Leopard, the latest operating system from Apple. I chose to upgrade our PowerBook to Leopard to see how it would do. So far, it has turned in a once quick PowerBook, into an aluminum slug. This last semester, I brought it to school for a Keynote presentation. Keynote presentations are along the lines of a PowerPoint presentation, but they look and sound much better. Apple’s Keynote is an elegant presentation program. It can put multimedia into a presentation like Microsoft’s PowerPoint wishes it could do. I had my Keynote all set up on my Mac, and it came time to make my presentation. Unfortunately, my poor old PowerBook could not keep up with the demands of this awesome program. The presentation slides lagged five seconds behind my click to advance and it was very embarrassing for me, the proud Mac user.

I bring this up because my five-year-old PowerBook can barely keep up with Mac OS 10.5. Go back to the days of the G3 iMacs and you have machines that can run operating systems that came out many years after they were introduced. My PowerMac G5 is still running OS 10.4, and I have no plans on upgrading to 10.5 on it. It seems like if I want to run OS 10.5 with success, with less spinning beach ball, I should buy a new Intel-powered Mac. Well, to tell you the truth, I don’t know if I want to buy another Mac ever again. It’s sad for me to say. One part of me feels guilty; one part feels let down by poor products. I was one of the few “fan-boys” I know who hasn’t upgraded to the new 3G iPhone. I have to say, the iPhone 2.0 software upgrade is pretty sluggish. I hope there is a software fix soon.

Now, I won’t be buying Windows any time soon either (I vowed never to buy a Microsoft product and haven’t thus far), so it looks like it is going to be Linux for me. But I don’t mind, the software is free, and the tech support people know more than I do!

Am I saying "Don't buy Apple?" Not at all. This is just my experiences with them. I wish them well and hope I will be pleasantly surprised by them again soon.

Why Not Just Make Vista Better?

2008-06-05T12:28:00.003-04:00

From AppleInsider

By Sam Oliver

Published: 08:00 PM EST

While Apple is encouraging its install base to upgrade to the latest version of the Mac OS X operating system, a new sales pitch by its Redmond-based rival to the north recommends that customers unhappy with Vista take a step in the opposite direction 'for free.'

Speaking at an event Tuesday in the nation's capital, Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said his company's licensing policy allows for customers to install the previous generation of Windows should Vista not impress.

"Customers get both," he said. "I don't know how you can do better than getting both."

Baller's comments were in response to a question about whether Microsoft will continue to market retail copies of Windows XP for mainstream PCs beyond its scheduled June 30 expiration.

The Microsoft headman explained that his firm holds no such plans because any customer who wants to purchase XP after June 30 can just as easily buy Vista and trigger its built-in downgrade option.

Earlier this week, the software maker said it would extend the shelf life of XP for installations on "nettops" -- it's term for ultra-low cost desktop systems -- for an undetermined amount of time. That followed an earlier move to continue selling the six-and-a-half year old operating system for ultra portable notebook systems for up to two more years.

InformationWeek's Paul McDougall points out that a number of PC makers, including Dell, already offer business systems that have been "pre-downgraded" from Vista to XP. Though that raises the question, he says, about the accuracy of the sales figures Microsoft has provided for Vista.

"In April, the company said it had sold more than 140 million Vista licenses since the OS became available to the public early last year," he wrote. "But Microsoft did not indicate what percentage of those Vista licenses have been downgraded to XP."

Scanning wallet cards into the iPhone

2008-05-14T15:39:00.004-04:00

From TUAW.com

This is pretty much genius. Like Albert, I have a bunch of "membership cards" in my wallet -- they're those cards with a barcode or number on them that you get from places like the local grocery store, or some other retailer. They're useful to have around, but they tend to pile up after a while, and pretty soon, your wallet gets to be a brick of barcodes rather than anything you'd actually want to carry around in your pocket. Albert's solution was to scan all of his barcodes into the iPhone, front and back, as an iPhoto album. And lo and behold, just like the paperless boarding passes we posted about a while back, it worked. All of the barcodes were scannable, which means no more countless membership cards -- just a gallery in your iPhone.

We've already heard of barcodes reading both on and off of the iPhone, of course, and we'll hopefully see more of this when the SDK drops in just about a month here (maybe, in the future, someone will write an app to generate barcodes from numbers, so you don't even need to get a clear scan). But even without an external app, this is pretty handy solution to clearing up some of the clutter in your wallet. Obviously, for anything important (driver's license, credit cards), an iPhone scan won't do. But just to get the membership prices down at the Jewel-Osco, scanning wallet cards into an iPhone seems to work just fine. Very nice.

Micro-hoo? Macro-whew!

2008-05-05T11:03:00.006-04:00

From Yahoo! News:

SAN FRANCISCO - With its quest for Yahoo (YHOO) abruptly over, Microsoft (MSFT) must now pursue a Plan B to compete with Google for Internet advertising dollars.

Microsoft dropped its blockbuster bid to acquire Yahoo late Saturday, after the two tech titans could not agree on a price.

The software giant withdrew its offer hours after it sweetened the bid to $33 a share, or about $47.5 billion, at a meeting in Seattle between Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, said people with knowledge of the talks who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the discussions. Yahoo's board insisted on $37 a share, the sources said.

Microsoft's decision to walk away culminated a whirlwind, three-month courtship that it initiated on Jan. 31 with a $31-a-share unsolicited bid.

In a statement Saturday, Ballmer said Microsoft would continue to pursue other online efforts.

Those options could include acquisitions and partnerships.

"Microsoft should look creatively at how to invest $40 billion-plus instead of looking at an entity that may have passed its prime," says N. Venkat Venkatraman, management professor at Boston University.

Yahoo repeatedly rejected Microsoft's offer, saying it undervalued the company. Microsoft at times vowed to lower its bid and threatened to launch a proxy fight to oust Yahoo's 10-member board, including Yang, if Yahoo didn't accept the offer by April 26. Yahoo ignored the deadline.

Yet in a letter to Yang that Microsoft released Saturday, Ballmer said it did not make sense for Microsoft to pursue a proxy fight, which could take months.

In a statement Saturday night, Yang said, "This process has underscored our unique and valuable strategic position." Heartening Yahoo were better-than-expected first-quarter results last month.

Microsoft's withdrawal was as abrupt as its audacious takeover bid. The retreat could have lasting implications for Ballmer - who has been questioned by some investors and analysts for attempting such a landscape-shifting deal - and Yang, who is trying to right Yahoo after a rough financial patch.

The breakdown in the talks is likely to send Yahoo's shares reeling and intensify anxiety among investors about Yahoo's management, which has been criticized for moving indecisively as it, too, struggles to compete with Google.

Should Yahoo's stock take a beating, it is not out of the question for Microsoft to take another crack at acquiring it - perhaps with a lower bid, says Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates.

But two of the sources close to Microsoft told USA TODAY on Sunday that the software giant is through pursuing Yahoo.

Shortly before Microsoft's deadline, Yahoo entered into a search advertising partnership with Google. It also explored a merger with Time Warner's AOL.

Apple's value is now quadruple Dell's

2008-05-02T12:37:00.002-04:00

From TUAW.com

There's no love lost between Steve Jobs and Dell founder Michael Dell. Back in 1997, when Michael was CEO of Dell, he famously told a group of IT big wigs, ""What would I do [if I were in charge of Apple]? I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders."

Oh, Michael. That's the kind of statement that waits in a corner for years, thinking, "I'm going to bite him in the backside ... hard."

The time has come. Earlier today, Apple rose $6.05 (3.48%) in NASDAQ trading, closing at $180.00. Compared to Dell's standing, Apple's market value of $158.66 billion is now four times Dell's $38.97 billion.

Only a year ago, we were excited that Apple had doubled Dell's value. Here's to the next twelve months.

Leopard drubs Vista in corporate satisfaction survey

2008-03-27T16:00:00.003-04:00

From ComputerWorld.com

March 26, 2008 (Computerworld) Corporate users of Apple Inc.'s Leopard operating system are more than five times more likely to say that they are "very satisfied" with the OS than business users of Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Vista, a research firm said Wednesday.

In a February survey of 2,200 U.S. corporate computer users, 53% of those using Mac OS X 10.5 reported that they were very satisfied with their operating system. Of those using Windows XP or Windows Vista, however, 40% of the former and only 8% of the latter said they were very satisfied.

"Apple continues to set the standard for corporate customer satisfaction," said Paul Carton, director of research at ChangeWave Research. That, and the fact that corporate buying plans for Macs remain at historically high levels, indicate that users like what Apple's doing, continued Carton.

According to ChangeWave's survey, 7% of the corporate respondents who said their company would purchase laptops in the next 90 days were planning on buying Apple. "Apple held at 7%, the same as November," said Carton, referring to a similar survey late last year.

Most other vendors, in fact, slipped in ChangeWave's corporate buying plans poll. Fewer companies with purchasing plans figure on buying a Dell notebook in the next three months than reported they would in November (down a percentage point). HP (down two points), Lenovo (down two points) and Toshiba (down one point) also dropped in the survey.

But while Apple shows some sales strength even as the general pace of U.S. corporate computer sales looks to slow in the next quarter, it remains a minor player in the market, reported ChangeWave. More than half -- 53% -- of the computers companies plan to buy in the second quarter will be equipped with Windows XP, the survey said, compared to 20% with a version of Windows Vista and just 8% with Mac OS X.

TSA can't believe MacBook Air is a real laptop, causes owner to miss flight

2008-03-10T10:05:00.002-04:00

I've been delayed by TSA before because of the amount of gadgets I had in my carry-on luggage. This story doesn't surprise me a bit.
-Terry

Via Engadget
The TSA has been known to take issue with products designed in Cupertino before, but for one particular traveler, it was Apple's thinnest laptop ever that caused the latest holdup. Upon tossing his ultra-sleek slab of aluminum underneath the scanner, security managed to find enough peculiarities to remove it from the flow, pull it aside and wrangle up the owner for some questions. Apparently, the TSA employee manning the line was flabbergasted by the "lack of a drive" and the complete absence of "ports on the back," and while hordes of co-workers swarmed to investigate, the user's flight took off on schedule. Thankfully, said owner was finally allowed to pass through after some more in-the-know colleagues explained in painfully simple terms what an SSD was, but the poor jet-setter most definitely paid the price for trying to slip some of the latest and greatest under the sharp eyes of the TSA (and cutting it close on time, of course).

Google wigged out by volume of iPhone traffic

2008-02-24T23:56:00.001-05:00

via engadget imobile

When even Google is impressed by the amount of traffic driven to its search page by a particular device, that's saying something. The head of the company's mobile group said in a Mobile World Congress interview that it "made [its] engineers check the logs again" when data indicated that the iPhone was responsible for 50 frickin' times more traffic than any other mobile device, going on to hypothesize that if other manufacturers follow the same route, mobile search will overtake desktop search within a few years. With products like S60 touch and Google's own Android in the wings, we'd say the writing's on the wall.

$44.6 Billion

2008-02-03T23:51:00.000-05:00

I've been a Yahoo! user for a long, long time. I believe it started for me when I got rid of AOL, which was back in 1998. My first website was a GeoCities page, then they were bought out by Yahoo! in 1999. That's a long time ago in Internet time.

The Micro$oft buyout of Yahoo! really bothers me. I really don't like that company, and that's one reason why I'm a Mac user. It seems to me like they need to dip their beak in every possible market they can. Don't they have enough money already? I guess not. XBox? Zune? Sync? Don't get me started on Steve Ballmer!

Back to Yahoo! I'm going to be really bummed if the Feds approve this buy out. You see back in my early computing days, I made a promise to never buy a M$ product ever. Aside from a used copy of M$ Flight Simulator for Mac that I bought from a thrift store (this was pre-promise mind you), I still have never bought a copy of Windows or Office. Interestingly, I have legitimate copies of Windows XP, 2000, NT and 95, as well as an unopened box of M$ Office for Mac. All of these were given to me, believe it or not.

Now if this merger happens, I am going to have to cancel my Yahoo! accounts and stop using them to host my website. Kinda sad, but I dislike M$ that much.

D'oh Indeed

2008-02-02T13:43:00.000-05:00

From Slashdot.org

Several readers have written to tell us about one users rant in which he tells the story of being so frustrated with gaming on Windows Vista that he tried comparing gaming on Vista to that on Linux using Wine, with surprising results. "This post is clearly a bit biased. What shocked me though was how easy it was to find games that didn't run under Vista but did in Linux by using Wine or DOSBox. I'm not a huge gamer, so I don't have a huge collection of games to try out, but even still with just a few hours of frustrating work, I have been able to show that not only is Linux a reasonable alternative to Vista for gaming (XP is still king though), but also that Linux handles application failures more gracefully than Vista. Every game but Blackthorne crashed my Vista box, this didn't happen a single time under Linux."

Carl N. Karcher (1917-2008)

2008-01-19T19:13:00.000-05:00

I met Carl back in 1989 when I was working as a Shift Supervisor at Carl's Jr. Restaurant #575 in Chula Vista, CA. Carl's Jr. was my first job, and the place where my wife and I met. It is also the place where I met some other really great people (such as my best friend Tom) and learned a lot about life and work. I worked my way up from fry cook to General Manager in the 8 years of combined employment there. The company and its people have a special place in my heart. -Terry

From http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=117249&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1095587&highlight=

CARPINTERIA, Calif., Jan 11, 2008 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News Network/ -- Carl Nicholas Karcher, 90, founder and chairman emeritus of the Carl's Jr. (R) restaurant chain, passed away today at St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton, Calif. of complications from Parkinson's Disease.

A public vigil service and Rosary will be held Thurs., Jan. 17 at 7 p.m. and a Funeral Mass will be celebrated Fri., Jan. 18 at 11 a.m., both at St. Boniface Catholic Church in Anaheim. Hilgenfeld Mortuary is handling the arrangements for burial at Holy Sepulcher Cemetery in Orange on Sat., Jan. 19 at 11 a.m.

Karcher started his business on July 17, 1941 when he and his wife, Margaret, borrowed $311 on their Plymouth automobile and added $15 of their savings to purchase a hot dog cart in Los Angeles.

The hot dog cart proved successful and within a few years, Karcher owned and operated four more stands in Los Angeles. In 1945, the Karchers moved to Anaheim, Calif. and opened their first full-service restaurant, Carl's Drive-In Barbeque. In 1956, Karcher launched the first two Carl's Jr. restaurants in Anaheim and nearby Brea. They were so named because they were smaller versions of the original drive-in restaurant.

In 1966, the company incorporated as Carl Karcher Enterprises, Inc. and offered stock publicly for the first time in October 1981. In 1994, stockholders approved the structure of the company to include a new parent company, CKE Restaurants, Inc.

Karcher was well known for his philanthropic work and always encouraged others to become involved in the community. He served on numerous boards of directors for various charitable organizations and received countless awards and honors throughout his lifetime, including the Horatio Alger Award (1979), the Multi-Unit Food Service Operators' Man of the Year and Golden Chain Awards (1983) and the 1998 Service Award from The Claire Burgener Foundation for the Developmentally Disabled.

A devout Catholic, Karcher was knighted into the Order of Malta, one of the highest honors a layperson can attain. He also received the Pope John XXIII Award from the Italian Catholic Federation for "best exemplifying benevolent, philosophical and charitable principles."

Karcher was born on January 16, 1917, to Leo Alexander and Anna Maria (Kuntz) Karcher. The third of eight children, he was raised on a farm near Upper Sandusky, Ohio, and left school during the eighth grade to help on the family farm. Karcher moved to California in 1939. He married Margaret (Heinz) Karcher Nov. 30, 1939. The orange grove on which Margaret was raised in Anaheim eventually became home to the corporate headquarters of Carl Karcher Enterprises, Inc., and company offices still stand on the site.

"Carl was a pioneer in this industry, a devout Catholic, and a loving family man. He touched countless lives through his generosity as a business leader and philanthropist, and his legacy will most certainly live on," said Andrew F. Puzder, president and CEO of CKE Restaurants, Inc.

Karcher was preceded in death by his wife of more than 66 years, Margaret, who passed away from cancer of the liver June 6, 2006. Together, they raised 12 children: Anne Marie Wiles, Patricia LaGraffe, Margaret Jean LeVecke, Carleen Karcher (deceased), Carl L. Karcher, Catherine Karcher, Janelle Karcher, Father Jerome T. Karcher, Rosemary Miller, Barbara Wall, Joseph Karcher and Mary Miller. Karcher is also survived by his 51 grandchildren and 45 great-grandchildren.

AAPL at $200!

2007-12-27T00:01:00.000-05:00

(from TUAW)

Post-holiday investor confidence in Apple's end-of-year performance appears to be high. Way high. Like, all time crazy high. Witness today's intraday price peak for AAPL, rising above $200/share for the first time.

There may be more upside to come with the quarterly numbers. Shaw Wu of ATR as quoted by the AP: "It's looking like Apple's most optimistic guidance in eight quarters [forecast sales of $9.2 billion and profit of $1.42 a share] is turning out to be conservative after all." What more is there to say? Well, one more thing: Your Mac Life is offering a chance to win a single share of Apple stock if you pick the day it first closes above $205. Fun!

disclaimer: I hold AAPL shares. (Me 2! -tBone)

A FireWire story

2007-12-16T09:41:00.000-05:00

From TUAW.com

Once upon a time the Mac vs. PC debate found a kind of synecdoche in the FireWire vs. USB debate. FireWire had been invented by Apple way back in 1986 essentially to replace SCSI. USB 1.0 arrived on the scene in 1995 from Intel, Microsoft, and a few others. Somewhat ironically, however, it was the original iMac that gave USB a needed kick-start in adoption. In any case, for a while there was a clear sense that FireWire was the Mac peripheral interface in contrast with the Wintel USB, and even now FireWire 400 tends to outperform the higher-spec'ed USB 2.0 on Macs in the real world. Nonetheless, with Apple moving to Intel there has a been a notable shift in Cupertino away from the interface Apple invented (witness the USB-only iPods), and with the forthcoming USB 3.0 standard and the increasing prevalence of eSATA the future looked somewhat bleak for FireWire.

But FireWire is not going down without a fight. The industry trade group has announced a new standard, FireWire S3200 which will use the same connectors as FireWire 800 but deliver approximately 4 times the performance. What's interesting to me is the question of whether and how far Apple will go to support the new standard. Is FireWire destined to become the bastard stepchild or will Apple once again reclaim its old standard and live happily ever after?

Back on up!

2007-10-30T10:33:00.001-04:00

A while back I learned the hard way. Back up your data regularly. It's amazing how many people admit to not backing up on a regular basis. If you are like me and are an early adopter of new applications, operating systems and hardware, you are asking for a catastrophe if you don't back up regularly.

The hard lesson for me was when I accidentally erased my hard drive (back in my Mac OS 8.6 days) and lost a few gigabytes of important stuff. Most of it was program installs, but a lot of it was stuff I couldn't replace such as files I imported from our Amiga computer. Once I got a lot of my stuff reloaded back on, I wasn't paying close attention again and erased my drive again! That was only days after the first time I erased it. After that, I've become much better about backing up my stuff.

Now that we have a baby and there are literally thousands of photos on our computers of her, and not doing regular backups of that stuff is just irresponsible. We also use Quicken for our checkbook, and losing that data because I was too lazy to do a backup would be foolish.

If backing up your data alone is worth $80 a year, do yourself a favor and subscribe to .Mac (dot Mac). You get 10GB of online storage, easy to use backup software (called Backup) and you can also use the space to share your photos and videos, watch online tutorials, plus a whole lot more. If you are using Leopard, there are cool new features in .Mac too!

Click here to buy .Mac now!

-Terry

Flashback: 10 years ago, Michael Dell's throwdown

2007-10-08T19:41:00.000-04:00

From Engadget
Posted Oct 8th 2007 5:30PM by Michael Rose

Remember Michael Dell's legendary snub of Apple's prospects? Back in 1997, Dell was publicly asked what he'd do with the recently re-Steve'd Apple if given the opportunity. "I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders," said Dell, earning the people's denigration and infamy forever. Of course, how could he possibly know?

Fast forward 10 years, and Dell's $62B market capitalization is dwarfed by Apple's $144B valuation. AAPL is trading at all-time highs, possibly portending a split, and the July prediction of AAPL passing IBM's $160B cap (!) is starting to look more rational every day -- but first it'll likely pass Intel's $149B. That's a lot of value that, shamefully, Apple has created for shareholders instead of taking Michael Dell's sage advice and throwing in the towel back in '97. Don't feel bad for MD, though; as Apple 2.0 notes, he's personally worth about 15 billion dollars. Seems like there's money to be made at both ends of the computer quality spectrum.

Opinion: Why Apple's 'new Newton' will rule

2007-10-01T09:01:00.000-04:00

(from computerworld.com)

Some company will dominate the small computer market. Prediction: It's going to be Apple

September 28, 2007 (Computerworld) -- They can send a man to the moon (or at least they could 40 years ago). Why can't they make a tiny computer people want to buy?

Cell phone, laptop and desktop PC markets are all well established, with dominant players in each category raking in billions in sales. But in the world of mobile computers, the field for laptops that are bigger than cell phones but smaller than regular laptops is still wide open. A shockingly large number of companies have invested millions of dollars developing products in this category. They've shipped dozens of gadgets hyped as the Next Big Thing. But the buying public has responded with indifference.

Many observers blame this indifference on problems with the category itself. What's the appeal of a mobile computer too big for your pocket and too small for a full screen and keyboard?

But I disagree. There are many scenarios -- airplanes, restaurants, meetings, around the house -- where tiny mobile computers are ideal. The problem is price, performance and user experience. To date, products have been way too expensive, slow, clunky and awkward to use.

Eventually, somebody is going to get it right. And when they do, the tiny computer market will get huge.

Since Microsoft announced the "Origami" project way back in March of last year, the category has been going nowhere. But, suddenly, everything has changed.

Events in the past 30 days lead me to conclude something unthinkable just one month ago: Apple -- yeah, I said it -- Apple! will ship the first ever successful small computer. Call it the Newton on Crack (or, more accurately, on Mac).

Here's what happened in September.

Palm Foleo

Everyone seems to think that Palm's Foleo project has been canceled. But this isn't true.

The original Foleo concept was a Linux-based, low-power clamshell device that worked exclusively with Palm's Treo line of smart phones.

What is true is that Palm CEO Ed Colligan announced earlier this month that the company plans to discontinue the use of Linux as an operating system. This companywide strategic change will delay the Foleo, which will come out eventually on a new OS platform the company is now working on. The new operating system will be finished next year.

So just to be clear: The Palm Foleo project has not been canceled. It has been given a new operating system and delayed.

The Foleo is still a dark horse candidate. If the company's new platform is great, if the company can survive long enough without real innovation on the phone side, if they can get the price down far enough -- a lot of "ifs" here -- then Palm has a shot at selling a few of these to existing Treo owners.

The Foleo has zero chance of dominating the coming boom in tiny mobile computers.

Nokia

The Federal Communications Commission recently approved a new minitablet, nonphone device from Nokia that supports Bluetooth, WLAN and GPS. The approval was branded as "confidential," so only the sketchiest of details are available on the product, which will almost certainly ship this year.

Gateway finally catches Mac 20th anniversary edition

2007-10-01T08:51:00.000-04:00

(from MacNN)
The gadget web has been dutifully reporting the release of a new all-in-one computer from Gateway called the One (right). Almost inevitably it has been repeatedly compared to the iMac. However, looking at the thing I can't help but observe that it doesn't look so much like an iMac as another Mac of fond memory: the 20th Anniversary Mac (above left). As a Mac guy I just can't help myself: good job Gateway, welcome to 1997!

Add An AirPort Connected Printer in Linux

2007-09-02T20:07:00.000-04:00

I am pleasantly shocked to find out my Ubuntu Thinkpad can print to my Canon iP4200 printer. Why is this a big deal? Because my printer is connected to an Apple AirPort Express base station. I have to say, it was easier to set up the printer in Linux then it was in Windows.

For my set up, I added a printer using the Printing control panel under System/Administration. For printer type, I chose Network Printer and TCP/Socket, HP JetDirect, Raw Connection. In the Host box, put in the IP address of the base station with the printer connected to it, and leave the port at 9100 (this worked for me anyway). Click the Print a Test Page button and you get a nice Ubuntu color test page.

These links helped me out a lot:
http://lilserenity.wordpress.com/2007/07/31/
http://ldopa.net/2006/07/24/linux-airport-printing/
http://mambo.kuhp.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~takushi/#canon

Good luck,

tBone

This is why I don't hack my iPhone

2007-09-01T23:20:00.000-04:00

from http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/01/iphone-meltdown-occurs-during-hardware-hack/

Not that it doesn't completely go without saying, but whenever you start hacking any battery-powered portable device, you need to freaking be careful. Otherwise you might end up like dude here who was pulling a Geohot on his iPhone when short circuited and became red hot, releasing the magic smoke hither locked inside the device's electronics. Lesson learned: you take your phone, even your life, into your own hands when screwing with components, so be gentle and careful, will you?

This guy is really gonna be mad if Apple releases a new version of iTunes that lets you do custom ringtones, etc., this coming week!
-tBone

Whew!

2007-08-31T00:19:00.000-04:00

I was mucking about "under the hood" of my Ubuntu ThinkPad (trying to get the DVI out on my port replicator working) and ended up hosing some of my settings. Not only would the computer not start up in GUI mode, but after a few restarts and more fiddling, it would just hang.

The worst part of this was I was afraid my backups hadn't backed up anything at all. Where I thought the backup files were supposed to be, were really somewhere else. Of course I didn't realize this until I did a clean install of Ubuntu with a sad face and a sigh. Luckily, my backups (one at least) did in fact work properly--it was just not in the place I expected it to be. After a very long restore process, I think I'm back where I was this morning before everything went a rye. At one point I tried to copy my home folder to an external disk, but inadvertently erased the copy when I tried to restore it--the baby was crying, I was in a hurry. Whattaya gonna do?

The moral of the story is to make sure the backups you are running on a regular basis are where you want them, and actually contain the stuff you want archived.

Diggin' Ubuntu

2007-08-26T16:06:00.000-04:00

So far my Linux experience this time around has been going a lot better than others. In the past (such as my early version YellowDog Linux days), when I had encountered a problem such as X not starting because I mucked with a config file, I would have reinstalled and started from scratch or just walked away. The big difference this time is that I am not dual-booting, so I'm kinda forced to resolve the problem.

I've been busy adding and removing features such as Bluetooth (with my D-Link DBT-120 adapter and my Apple BT Keyboard and Mouse), and removing the annoying trackpad click "feature." My next trick will be getting DVI out to work with my port replicator & HDTV.