Steve Jobs: Lessons on life
Steve Jobs (RIP) talking about his lessons on life, to young Stanford University graduates.
About dropping out to drop in at college, about the trust that one day the dots in your life will connect. About to love doing what you do. About not loosing the limited time you have on Earth, by living someone else's life.
Truly inspiring. Reminded me of Randy Pausch's Last Lecture.
Slave to technology
[i-Apple upgrade]
I keep most of my applications and software on my laptop and iPad/iPhone up to date, but this starts to become a full time job.
I don't have many applications that I don't need, or don't use. Some I can not do without. For instance I need iTunes as it is the only "easy" way to get music on my iPhone/iPad. And I need Safari to test browser compatibility on different blogs I am working on. So am bound to Apple. But that means I am bound to upgrade the software regularly.
Then I get notices of (make the calculation 43 + 4 + 34 +93 = 174 Mbyte ?!?!) of Apple upgrades? That does not even include the latest iPhone OS upgrade. People, people where is this going to lead us?
I have nightmares of how depended we will become on IT suppliers, and how much overhead this will cause for us. Will we start to be a slave to technology?
Nightmares... How far are we off from this (fictional) scenario:
I overslept this morning.My iPhone had a bug, and the alarm clock did not go off (nonfiction Jan 1 2011 scenario). I can't afford that excuse twice or my boss will fire me. It's like "the dog ate my homework" excuse. So I decided, as I was brushing my teeth, to upgrade my iPhone's operating system. But, as I was avoiding to get toothpaste on the screen, I found out that it is not that simple. Need to do that via iTunes.
But that needs the latest iTunes version. Which is 93 Mbyte (non fiction). Decided to do that. Takes an hour to download (non fiction). Then download the new OS. Another hour (non fiction). Then need to upgrade the iPhone, another half an hour (non fiction).
Only to see that half of my apps then also needed to upgrade. Decided to upgrade the apps on on my iPhone. But when I came home in the evening, saw that also requires I download them in iTunes. Which also upgraded the apps on my iPad, and installed iPhone apps on my iPad (all nonfiction).
As I was getting into the car, I found out my Bluetooth did not work anymore, so could not pick up my calls while driving. Found a patch for that. Installed the patch, but then found that the patch conflicted with an earlier patch I needed to direct my Internet 3G home to the right page. So now I have Bluetooth, but no Internet. Installed a patch upon the patch.
To find that that crashed my iPhone. Which crashed my iTunes. Which crashed my computer. Found the patch for the patch actually contained a virus. Upgraded my computer virus programme, but it did not detect the virus. Installed another antivirus programme, which crashed the first one. Decided to reinstall my computer's operating system.
Etc...
So tell me.. how far are we away from this fictional nightmare scenario? Not far I think...
Dear Mr Jobs, here is a comparison between a $600 iPhone and a $30 Nokia
[i-Nokia and iPhone reception comparison]
[i-Nokia and iPhone reception comparison]
[i-Nokia and iPhone reception comparison]
At the same time, at the same place, with the same GSM provider: a simple comparison between the reception of a $30 Nokia and a $600 iPhone 3GS. This should wipe the excuses from Apple that it is all about "the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display", right off the table.
It is black and white: either you have reception or you don't. Either you can make a call, or you can't.
In my apartment in Rome, where GSM reception is rather marginal, I had to buy a $30 Nokia with a spare mobile number, so people could actually call me.
The comprehensive state of the world - Part 2
[i-Ship's Bridge]
It seems I tuned out of the world, and the world news, for the past six weeks. So, it is high time to check what happened in this cruel world while I had my eyes off the ball.
Pakistan seems badly hit by floods, and so is India. The Niger hunger crisis is still peaking.
Seems the "GOSPEL" (Gulf Oil SPilling wELl) is plugged, hopefully ending the worst oil polution event ever. Or was that honour given to Sadam's burning of Kuwaiti oil wells? ("Yeah, but that was far away from home")...
Google plugged a spill of its own by aborting their much hyped about Google Wave product. Sometimes I have to trust myself when my first impression is "TUUT": "Totally Unusable and Unnecessary Tool". Then again, sometimes a mega company has so much market weight that it can push through an unusable product, like Apple does with its iTunes. Beh.
Talking about Apple. Apple had a "SHIT" ("Signal Hiccup on iPhone Technology"): Their new iPhone 4 seems to be good at everything, except phoning, with everyone but Steve Jobs complaining about a significant lower GSM signal sensitivity than the iPhone 3. Which was already the worst I have ever seen. - Up to the level I had to buy a US$30 Nokia phone to make a mobile phone call from my apartment, as the iPhone sees no signal.
Apple then made a complete fool of itself by taking a "DUMP" ("Deny, Underestimate, Mumble and Patch-it-up-with-chewing-gum-and-ductape") approach:
First they denied the problem, then showed their totally ignorant users how to hold the iPhone (Do NOT use the deadgrip. I repeat, do NOT use the deadgrip), then claiming ALL smartphones have similar reception problems (which went down really well with Nokia, Blackberry and Droid affiliates), followed by a media campaign showing how well their antenna testing facilities are working, and giving all iPhone 4 users a free rubber. I kid you not.
In the end they hushed everyone and released the iPhone operating system version IOS 4.0.1, a patch of iPhone operating system to "adjust the way the signal level" was calculated. I kid you not.
It is a 40 Mbyte upgrade (as any iPhone upgrade), which you download, then upload to your iPhone, (after a full backup of course), hoping the thing does not crash in the process and turns your iPhone into expensive paperweight.
All for probably one additional line of code in the whole 40 Mbyte and 3 hours upgrade procedure:
new_signal_bars = old_signal_bars + 2
Seriously, Mr Jobs: if in my apartment, I can make a perfect phone call with my $30 Nokia, and my $600 iPhone indicates "No Service", then this "SPIT" ("Simple Patch, Inadequate Technology") won't help.
All of that bad news at the time where iPhone and iPad devices seem more security prone than one thought.
Yepyep, all insignificant news on the day the world remembers one of its most shameful deeds in which one nation killed 200,000 civilians in a single event, now 64 years ago. And everyone said "Yep, that was needed."
Guess the term "crime against humanity" is used solely dependent on which side you stand. And with that, I refer to Hiroshima, and not to the Apple iPhone problem.
Rumble: iProtest!
Why is it software and website developers think they are smart when they automatically adapt the application's language to the country you are living in? And don't give you an option to switch to another language?
Be it Google, Expedia or iTunes Genius. Not that much of a geniality, if you ask me.
I upgraded to the new iTunes (which included Quicktime). Starting up iTunes, an error message said QuickTime was faulty, had to remove QuickTime and reinstall it... Fresh from a download...
Anyway, long gone are the times where Apple could be proud of providing the most user-friendly software. Maybe that is why they released a new feature called "Genius" in iTunes. Because anyone who thinks iTunes is user friendly should be a Genius. Read the full post...
Rumble: iRack Anyone? Or Are We Already at iRan?
Another way to protest. And pretty funny too!
"No-one wants the iRack". "There is no exit strategy for the iRack". "We will keep on throwing more money at the iRack. But don't worry, start focusing on the newest product: the iRan".. hahaha..
[Loband: Object Removed -]
glumbert.com - The Apple iRack
tnx to E. for the link