PushingJelly

Has Steve already pegged it?

Reading the trade press and watching the share price, you might think the poor guy is dead already.

Why is everyone so twitchy all the time over Apple computer. It seems more column inches are typed every day about Apple than the troubles in Darfur (or another troubled region taken at random).

If Steve is poorly, then I feel sorry for him and his family, but did the Apple investors and press really think he was going to go on as CEO forever. 

The board are lucky he is still around. Pancreatic cancer is normally a death sentence. It was pure fortune that the type he had was operable, however the Whipple procedure is agressive and removes large parts of the organs related to the absorption of nutrients from food so one of the (more minor) complications of Whipple is that you lose weight.

The USC page about Whipple has this to say:

Some of the long-term consequences of the Whipple operation include the following:

• Mal-absorption: The pancreas produces enzymes required for digestion of food. In some patients removal of part of the pancreas during the Whipple operation can lead to a diminished production of these enzymes. Patients complain of bulky diarrhea type of stool that is very oily. Long-term treatment with oral pancreatic enzyme supplementation usually provides relief from this problem.
• Alteration in diet: After the Whipple operation we generally recommend that the patients ingest smaller meals and snack between meals to allow better absorption of the food and to minimize symptoms of feeling of being bloated or getting too full.
• Loss of weight: It is common for patients to lose up to 5 to 10% of their body weight compared to their weight prior to their illness. The weight loss usually stabilizes very rapidly and most patients after a small amount of initial weight loss are able to maintain their weight and do well.

Not nice.

The bottom line is that we shouldn’t obsess about this, the guy has been through the worst of times and may again be ill, but lets not write him or the company off before the (now not so) fat lady sings.

Well I have upgraded to the new version of wordpress with little or no issues (so far). If you see any glitches, please let me know in comments.
It looks a lot better from the back end – more modern.

Well at last my latest bout of technolust has been sated. I am writing this entry using the WP application on my 16GB slab of black iPhone lovelyness.
Some bugs still (a .00 release) but mostly good. Will update with more later.

There are times when even the faithful such as me see cracks appear in the church of Apple. I can’t list examples because there’s too many for this small blog entry and the memories are too painful anyway, lets just say they are many and varied and involve both the ways Apple treat their customers and their product failings.

The only reason I still keep the faith is that once in a while they do something spectacular that wipes their slate, if not really clean, then a sort of dirty charcol grey.

The latest saving grace is a small iPod/iPhone application simply called “Remote”.

I have a relatively nice media setup at home. A good amplifier, a great plasma TV and among other things a Mac Mini attached to the lot. I use the Mac to play all the music and movie files I store on my NAS storage in the loft and it works great.

The one thing that has always been a bit lacking in the setup was that I had to either turn the TV on or remote control into the Mac from my laptop to play music (or at least choose the music I play).

This is where that Remote application comes in.

Remote gives you exactly the same UI as the iPod’s internal player except instead of playing the music on the pod, it controls iTunes on the designated Mac and plays the media from there. Not just music but Movies too. The volume control in iTunes even moves relative to the one on the Remote. It can even divert the music to an Airport Express. As ever the devil is in the detail.

It is so well integrated and slick that I think it is almost perfect.

So just when I begin to be frustrated and my faith tested, Apple is redeemed, and all is well again.

….another bloody fiasco.

I have been an Apple engineer for over 20 years and I can’t remember the last time there was such a cluser F*ck as the release of the iPhone 3G.

A catalogue of disasters starting with MobileMe, which should have been up and running 2 days ago but is still as flakey as heck. Culminating in the pile of poo that is the 11th of July.

All around the world Apple customers old and new are swearing at Apple, frustrated (like I am) that they can’t activate, upgrade, run or buy the new releases. It doesn’t mater that it was O2 or AT&T or whomever’s system that cocked up, the perception is that Apple are to blame because they are The Brand and that is all that matters.

Personally I have tried repeatedly since 10am UK time to update my iPod but to no avail. Every time (and I am not alone in this by a long chalk), every time I try to upgrade (when it offers to do so that is, because that isn’t consistent either), I am told that the Apple iTimes store is not available. Most of the time however I am inaccurately told that the software I have IS the latest version.

What did Apple expect? Of course everyone will upgrade as soon as it is available, of course they will need extra capacity on their systems to meet demand. Why wasn’t this catered for?

As for the new iPhone, well I tried to get one this morning however I over slept and by the time I reached the Carphone Whorehouse they had sold the two 16GB phones they were allocated (no that isn’t an exageration, they had 16 iPhones in total delivered for today and only 2 of them were of the higher capacity).

I am resigned to waiting – waiting for my iPod firmware (I NEED to play Monkeyball!) and to really wait for the phone which judging by today I will have to wait for about a month for the madness to abate.

Where did I leave my E61?

it’s been a good run.

I joined iTools (as it was originally) on day one at MWSF Jan 2003 right after the keynote and apart from a couple of minor issues, the service has been really reliable. I hope the new one will be as dependable!

when you google your website and this is what you get:

The post I made on the “I hate my iPod” website was in defense of the pods of course and just to set the record straight it read:

Guys, take a chill pill. The iPods have no higher fault rate than any other electronic devices (better in fact) it is just that when you ship the things by the millions there are statistically going to be more “Friday afternoon” units.
I have had five iPods and my family another four. We love em. Not one has gone wrong for us, we upgraded because we wanted the latest and greatest.
Look at the alternatives, Zune? Creative (OK they have some nice HW but the software still sucks badly).
The iPod will never please everyone all the time, nothing ever will.
If it broken and you feel agreeved, speak to Apple.
If you broke it – well shucks, it’s a fragile piece of elecronics and thats life. Claim on your home insurance, thats why you have it.
If you just don’t like it, sell it – there are thousands of ebayers that will gladly buy it off you for the right price.

Simply awesome:
Video

Day 8 Last bit of training to finish the book and then the Exam, I was going to take the exam after lunch however I didn’t think my tiny brain could cope with much more revision so I plumped to go for it and did the exam after mid morning break.

Well I passed with 89.2% – bit of a cockup with the file on my memory key means that I have no screenshot which is a bugger however I have already recieved the mail from prometric:

Thank you for using Prometric Prime Testing Systems.  Below are the
results of your recently attempted test:

=============================================
Name: Bradley
Name of candidates company (if provided): “Large Multinational company here”
Student ID:
Test Title: Mac OS X Server Essentials v10.5 Exam (PREPAID)
Start time: 7/1/2008 10:34:10 AM (GMT+0:00) (cst)
End time: 7/1/2008 11:48:19 AM (GMT+0:00) (cst)
Passing Score: 69%
Your Score: Pass – 89.07% (80.16 earned out of 90 possible)

- Hold on how can you get 0.16 of a point – that’s just bizarre?

Oh well a pass is a pass (is a pass)