English: Apple IIe computer (enhanced version) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Since I had my first Apple II back in 1980, I had looked-up to Steve as my idol. He was brash, handsome and had that unmistakable air of invincibility in him.
I don’t believe in miracles and magic but I had an epiphany when I laid my eyes on the Apple IIe inside that store in Saudi Arabia. It seemed to have a halo above it — the company has something special going for it.
What followed for Apple from 1982 through nearly the end of 2011 could probably never be repeated again in world business history.
Kindle Fire: Out of the Box (Photo credit: Brian Sawyer)
You have to admire the spunk of Jeff Bezos (CEO, Amazon.com).
Today, after the release of Amazon’s tablet, ‘Fire‘, he fired the opening salvo towards the heavily-fortified Apple castle with this quotable quote: ” There are two types of companies: those that work hard to charge customers more, and those that work hard to charge customers less. Both approaches can work. We are firmly in the second camp.”
While it’s true that both companies ran perpendicular business models, the short-term future may see these two pioneering firms seeing eye-to-eye, toe-to-toe in the fast-evolving, streaming multimedia market.
Yep, Apple creates very elegant products that command premium prices. On the other hand, Amazon was only an accidental player in the cut-throat tech hardware market. Their only hit hardware product was the Kindle. And, they had no choice but to come up with it to augment their status as the number one digital book purveyor.
Recession-friendly priced at $199, middle-class Americans – who are already credit-pinched- will take a long hard look at Amazon’s Fire tablet before casting their fate to Apple’s uber-popular iPad.
If they feel the Fire didn’t scrimp on quality to achieve that $199 price tag, they might forego altogether that burning desire to get Apple’s iPad (which this author still believes, is really an over-sized, over-priced version of the iPod Touch…ho-hum, really nothing new in here except a lot of advertising superlatives).
After all, gadgets will still be gadgets while the $300 price discrepancy can feed a lot of homeless folks in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Only time, – and, maybe, apps – can tell if this Fire created by Amazon will be strong enough to generate the right amount of rain clouds to douse the scorching heat generated by Apple.
On the 3rd week of August 2011, HP announced the news that they were exiting from the very competitive mobile business.
English: HP TouchPad with webOS on a Touchstone. Deutsch: HP TouchPad mit webOS auf einem Touchstone. Español: HP TouchPad con webOS en el dock de sincronización inalámbrica Touchstone (Photo credit: LA Times)
Apple and the Android-folks led by Google were making it too difficult for HP to breathe in the mobile arena. It had only been more than a year since HP acquired the PDA-smartphone-mobile device pioneer from Palm.
On the following day, they decided to liquidate all their mobile devices inventory. And so, the Pre phones as well as the HP TouchPads – which they had introduced just a month earlier – had to be sold at steep discounts.
I am a frequent HP.com buyer, but, on that fateful day, I had totally forgotten to check out their website.
Three days later after the announcement, all the HP TouchPads were sold out.
The fire sale overwhelmed HP and so they promised that more HP TouchPads are coming at the same discounted prices: $99 for the 16 GB and $149 for the 32GB version.
OK, you have a Palm Pre with an unlimited data plan from Sprint. Yes, you make calls and can navigate the web but it’s really the small screen that turns you off when using cell phones for web browsing.
Apple‘s iPad is a bit pricey (of course, you want the 64GB with WiFi and 3GS version) at $909 (tax inclusive in California) and you don’t want another data plan from AT&T just to use that iPad anywhere (to be honest, I don’t like AT&T’s customer service at all).
Palm Pre shot from Mobile World Congress. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The solution:
Get a netbook and install either (or, both), OSX Snow Leopard or Windows 7 Ultimate on it and then install the app, My Tether on your Palm Pre. If you’re tech savvy, it could only cost you the netbook and an 8 GB USB drive. All the rest are freebie. Courtesy of the your pal, Google and a little bit of research.
How I did it (for a total of $251):
Hardware: Deeply discounted netbook with the new Intel Atom N450 processor, 2 GB memory & 160GB harddrive ($229 tax inclusive), 8 GB SanDisk USB drive ($22, tax inclusive).
Software: Snow Leopard 10.6.3, Windows 7 Ultimate, My Tether (for Palm Pre), Palm Pre webOS SDK (required to install My Tether), NetbookBootMaker (to install Snow Leopard).
After spending about 6 hours for installing both Windows 7 Ultimate and OS X Snow Leopard via the 8GB USB drive, I now have a netbook that I simply connect my Palm Pre to, enable USB tethering while on the road, and, viola, I am on the web anytime, anywhere!
Saved me $658 while being able to watch my favorite Netflix movie, anytime, anywhere!
A big leap – from webOS 1.3.5.1 to webOS 1.4 indeed. Had Palm bundled out this version initially when they launced the Palm Pre last June 2009, it could have probably taken some bite off Apple’s iPhone -or, even Blackberry’s – stranglehold on the smartphone market!
webOS 1.4 was the “real webOS” Palm was suppose to showcase their new smartphone at the 2009 CES in Las Vegas, but dwindling revenues and pressure from Palm’s biggest investor – Elevation Partners– to put out a product as soon as possible, probably resulted in the initial version that lacked a not only video recording capability but also was too slow and sucked-up power too quickly from the battery.
But, why is the iPhone still so popular compared to Palm’s Pre and Pixi running webOS 1.4 when the iPhone simply runs on a mobile version of Mac OS X? Three reasons:
1) Long time Apple fans. Apple had been in the personal computer business for too long and has an established cult following. These are the same folks who bought iPhones when they were initially released.
2) Hardware elegance and software reliablity. Like their iMacs, MacBooks and Mac Pros, the iPhone was so elegantly designed using top-notched materials. While the Palm Pre could stand up to the iPhone with its well-conceived and elegant industrial design as well, the materials they used on the Pre could not. The Pres used too much plastic & screens that cracked very easily when the USB charging cable was recklessly attached.
3) Steve Jobs. Steve is the ultimate tech hardware showman. And he really knows how to whet the appetites of long time Apple fans as well as new ones.
Movable Type devient Open Source (Photo credit: La Fabrique de Blogs)
Wow, that was fun but a lot of coffee and beer were involved. I had completed the update of my blog site – which is linked via my website – from Movable Type 3.32 –> to 3.38 –and, now to its current version, 4.33. I would like to use the latest and greatest version, 5.02, but, I already have my very own web site running on my very own web server – – powered by Apple’s Mac Pro.
It was almost a complete overhaul since MT 4.33 requires MySQL database and no longer supports my old Berkeley DB.
In, short all the installation modules have to be the latest and greatest: Perl,ImageMagick and whatever else were needed to get it up and running quick!
Here are my observations along the way as I installed MT 4.33:
Installing it was easy but do take a bit of time even on my dual quad Mac Pro
English: Logo for ImageMagick (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Install the new version on the same paths and folders as your old version. Otherwise, all the links will be broken after importing all your entries from the old version – more specially, if you have a separate site linking to the blog. I had to re-link everything from my website to the new version. Aarrgg!!!!
It will take you about a day (or, more) to get use to this version, but, it’s worth it. It has tons of new features, looks more professional and provides more blog content with the Zemanta plug-in. Plus, the added security features should not be overlooked!
You will have to fix the Archive Links as the entries will not show up when you click on the link from the Main Blog Page.
Don’t expect your previous pop-up images that’s working in older versions will automatically work. MT 4.33 uses an ‘Assets_C’ folder to speed up image serving.
The style sheets are better and nicer but requires some patience – specially in putting up your own images on the header.
I will try to put up a separate entry later on how I did my last observation – putting up an image -, the easy way as this was the part where I encountered a lot of editing on the style sheet I chose – – Minimalist Light Green.
For now, let me enjoy my beers and appetizers after all that hours of coding.
English: Backside of a Power Mac G5 (left) and a Mac Pro (right) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I greeted 2010 by upgrading my web server hosting this site and blogs.
Apple‘s PowerMac had been my favorite platform since 2004. I had been hosting the site on my very own web server since I got hold of an Apple PowerMac G4 (466 Mhz) and broadband access.
Then, in early 2006, I upgraded to a PowerMac G5 (Dual 2.0 Ghz) after several months of penny-pinching and bringing my own lunch to work. Apple’s products are by no means cheap. With their elegant design and top-notch quality, Apple is the very best in personal computer technology.
In my honest estimation, since early 2004, these two (2), trusty servers had a downtime of, probably, only 30 days. Those were the days when I had to dust-out the internals & fans, upgrade the memory or video or, move their location around the house . These babies just keep on running & running.
Remember your first HP LaserJet? Those brutes just keep on printing since the early days of ‘desktop publishing’ until you get tired of them only because of aesthetic reasons. You hate to put those machines in the landfill. They are still working. Donate and recycle!
So, the PowerMac G5 is now my back-up server. Enter the Mac Pro Dual Quad.
Physically, it looks very much the same as the PowerMac G5’s anodized-aluminum case including the weight (about 40 lbs). But, did I notice that it’s now much sleeker & shinier?. Or, maybe, simply because it’s just a newer model?
It now sports two DVD drives – dual layer but no Blue-Ray capability here, a redesigned board which makes it easy to install hard drives (up to 4) or upgrade the video card & memory.
Upgradeable parts, basically, are on sleds now. Slide out, upgrade, then slide back in.
The installed video card has a dual-link DVI port & a new Mini DisplayPort (a smaller reincarnation of their ADC port). And, of course, there are more USB & FireWire ports.
Simple yet elegant. That’s Apple for the rest of us.
But, I have to bring my own lunch to work…again. Everyday.
