Apple sued by Toronto lawyer over stolen MacBook Pro
From The Toronto Star:
Toronto lawyer Michael Deverett bought a MacBook Pro, an iPod Touch, cables and programs for $2,248.53 at the Apple store in the Yorkdale Mall.
He didn’t notice anyone following him…to his car. He didn’t notice anyone following him on the drive home or pulling up near him when he stopped at a convenience store to buy a soft drink for his daughter.
In the two minutes it took Deverett to buy a drink, thieves smashed a hole in the rear window of his car and made off with his Apple purchases.
Deverett sued Apple, claiming that…Apple had a duty of care to warn store customers of the danger.
I guess the next time my kid gets me sick I need to sue his doctor?
What’s wrong with education cannot be fixed with technology
From 9to5mac.com
I used to think that technology could help education. I’ve probably spearheaded giving away more computer equipment to schools than anybody else on the planet. But I’ve had to come to the inevitable conclusion that the problem is not one that technology can hope to solve. What’s wrong with education cannot be fixed with technology. No amount of technology will make a dent.
It’s a political problem. The problems are sociopolitical. The problems are unions. You plot the growth of the NEA [National Education Association] and the dropping of SAT scores, and they’re inversely proportional. The problems are unions in the schools. The problem is bureaucracy.
He’s right. Technology isn’t a ‘be all’ problem solver. Technology is an engagement enhancer. There are many other problems in the public education world that need to be addressed.
Apple CEO on Problem Solving
You can focus on things that are barriers or you can focus on scaling the wall or redefining the problem.” - Apple CEO Tim Cook
Well said.
Negotiations
Apple: Here is our new phone. It comes in black or white. We will let you sell it.
Apple re-wrote the rules
Android’s ‘Open’ History
What should have been obvious at the time but for whatever reason wasn’t (maybe because carrier representatives were at the event), the carriers hated this plan. And for good reason — it was going to turn them into dumb pipes that competed on price. There was no way they were going to let this fly, and they didn’t. Within a few months, citing weak sales of the Nexus One, Google scrapped their ambitious website and instead got fully in bed with the carriers.
But there was more.
What no one knew at the time, and I only heard months later, was Google’s original vision for the Nexus One. Google intended to sell it for $99 without a contract and unlocked. Yes, a $99 unlocked phone, subsidized by Google ads.
But the plan had one little problem: Google didn’t operate their own cellular network. They needed Verizon or AT&T or Sprint or T-Mobile to help them out. Google probably thought their open spectrum deal “win” in early 2008 gave them the leverage they needed here. Sadly, it did not.
All of the carriers laughed in Google’s face when presented with the ambitious Nexus One plan. And given that Google had just signed the all-important deal with Verizon, it was never going to happen.
This is a great read on Android’s original mission vs. what it has turned out to be.
Dropbox for Google Docs
From tuaw.com
Advertising itself as a cheaper Dropbox alternative with a better feature set, Insync has been in closed beta for the last 15 months. Now, they’re finally ready to launch with a service that tightly integrates into Google Docs. It’s “8x cheaper” than Dropbox, according to their marketing.
I’m downloading now. I think Dropbox is a bit expensive (especially for the enterprise version). As more businesses switch to Google Apps, this app could take off. The challenge will be if Google ever releases the same thing (they should). I’ll be watching this closely for considerations at my office.
Real Marriage by Mark and Grace Driscoll
Real Marriage is written by Mark and Grace Driscoll and narrated by William Dufris and Tavia Gilbert. Mark Driscoll is the pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, WA. Mars Hill is one of the fastest growing churches in America. I’ve heard multiple sermons by Driscoll and he stays very faithful to the Bible. While he might be unorthodox to some, he is focused on Jesus and helping people meet him.
The premise of the book is that its a book about marriage for real people. They’ve nailed it. To me, this book makes all other Biblically based marriage books seem like theory. In college, there are two types of professors. There are those who have been teachers their entire career and those are who teaching after being successful in their field. The former teach theory and the latter teach application. The Driscoll’s are teaching application. They help answer common questions about what marriage is really about. They discuss common problems, practical solutions, and potential pitfalls. I highly recommend this to teenagers, young adults, parents, and even grandparents. If I took one thing from this book is that marriage takes effort and God’s grace though Jesus.
The review is brought to you by the christianaudio.com reviewers program.
From paulgraham.com
Another way to resist acquiring stuff is to think of the overall cost of owning it. The purchase price is just the beginning. You’re going to have to think about that thing for years—perhaps for the rest of your life. Every thing you own takes energy away from you. Some give more than they take. Those are the only things worth having.
I’ve now stopped accumulating stuff. Except books—but books are different. Books are more like a fluid than individual objects. It’s not especially inconvenient to own several thousand books, whereas if you owned several thousand random possessions you’d be a local celebrity. But except for books, I now actively avoid stuff. If I want to spend money on some kind of treat, I’ll take services over goods any day.
I’m actively trying to de-stuff my life (especially of physical objects). Digital goods are much easier to deal with.
What I Learned About Small Business From The Office
Robert California:
“Let me tell you how I buy something these days.
I know what I want, I go on the Internet and I get the best price.
Or, I don’t know what I want, and I go to a small store that can help me.
The era of personal service is back. You are back.
You’ll find that customers will pay our higher prices and then they will thank us. And we will say to them, you are welcome.”
I love small businesses that create value around their products rather than simply compete on price and ‘buying local’. Fast Break Athletics (in Chattanooga, TN) routinely gets my money over discount websites because I usually have no idea what I’m buying (especially what size/brand of running shoes) and they help me. They’ve created a value that is worth something to me (in real money).
David Pogue on the New Kindles
From nytimes.com
Most problematic, though, the Fire does not have anything like the polish or speed of an iPad. You feel that $200 price tag with every swipe of your finger. Animations are sluggish and jerky — even the page turns that you’d think would be the pride of the Kindle team. Taps sometimes don’t register. There are no progress or “wait” indicators, so you frequently don’t know if the machine has even registered your touch commands. The momentum of the animations hasn’t been calculated right, so the whole thing feels ornery.
Magazines are supposed to be among the best new features. Most offer two views. There is Page View, which shows the original magazine layout — but shrunken down too small to read, and zooming is limited. Then there is Text View: simple text on a white background. It’s great for reading, but of course now you’re missing the design and layout, which is half the joy of reading a magazine. And Text View sometimes loses words, cartoon captions and so on.
Is the $199 tablet the new $499 laptop? A market Apple simply doesn’t care about (and for good reason).
Thoughts on Technology in Education
Every so often, inventions come that revolutionize the education world. The printing press was invented by Johannes Gutenberg in 1436. The projector was invented in 1837. In the 1970’s, the first personal/consumer computers came onto the market. in 1984, the first computer with a graphical user interface was born (The Apple Macintosh). In 2010, Apple released the iPad. I believe the iPad was the product that Steve Jobs aimed to produced when he begin to develop a computer for the mass market back in the early days of Apple. In fact, Jobs often talked about building a Macintosh in a ‘book’ form. We’ve arrived at ‘personal’ technology.
The future of technology in education looks bright. I believe that technology is going to get more advanced while getting simpler to use. I like the call this ‘simplicity’. Lets look at many of the common tasks we do on a modern personal computer: virus scans (on a Windows PC), disk defragmentation (on a Windows PC), installing drivers, managing files, saving documents (pre OS X Lion and Windows PC), and changing display resolutions. Does all that sounds like a good use of your time? We accept these ‘problems’ because they have always been there. What would happen if we invented a computer today? What would it look like? I think it would look very similar to the iPad and its iOS operating system. With the release of iOS 5 in 2011, this becomes even further cemented. iOS 5 is one of the most simplistic operating systems in the world, but it’s also highly powerful. It hides the power and complexity behind an easy to use (and amazing) graphical user interface. My personal printer is ‘AirPrint’ compatible (what allows an iPad to printer natively to a printer). Do you know what I did to make it work with my iPad? Not a thing. I hit print and it found the printer. A mac is just a bit more complex (it downloads and installs the drivers automatically when you connect it). A PC requires a CD and takes about 15 minutes to install. The iPad also manages all of your files for you. Each individual application handles their own files with no management required by the user. You won’t see a ‘Save As’ button, either. It just handles it for you. Do you see the trend? Technology is getting more powerful, while becoming simpler and more personal.
How does this affect your child? Powerful technology is not enough. The technology needs to be invisible. Students need to be able to focus on writing the research paper rather than worrying about saving their work. Students need to be able to find exactly what they need without reading though 15 websites.
Steve Jobs Book: What I Learned
1. I need to love what I do.
2. I need to pay attention to details.
3. I need to work hard at being a great husband and dad.
Incredible book
Here’s that rare Steve Jobs story, one that’s never been told, about the company that got away
From forbes.com
Here’s that rare Steve Jobs story, one that’s never been told, about the company that got away. Jobs had been tracking a young software developer named Drew Houston, who blasted his way onto Apple’s radar screen when he reverse-engineered Apple’s file system so that his startup’s logo, an unfolding box, appeared elegantly tucked inside. Not even an Apple SWAT team had been able to do that.
Dropbox is great, but I’ll agree with Steve that syncing is a feature and not a product. An average person doesn’t think about making sure there stuff is in the right folder. They just expect it to be there on all their devices. With that being said, I still love Dropbox and I’ll continue to pay for it.
