Epiphany of the Day #4

Not sure if you noticed the 'DVDs are for losers' vibe at last week's Apple press event, but I sensed that there would be no next version of iDVD. See where I'm going with this? Among computer manufacturers, Apple sided with Dell and Sony in supporting the Blu-ray Disc format against notably Microsoft and Toshiba's support of HD-DVD. Other manufacturers have begun offering Blu-ray disc drives and burners on their computers, but Apple seems to be waiting for it to reach critical mass.

Count on Apple to jump in just before that moment with support in the Mac Pro and eventually in an iDVD replacement (iBD anyone?). iBD won't be a killer app or anything, but if released, is likely to mark the triumph of the format.

Look what I drew on the Etch A Sketch

Favorite little features of iLife '08

I didn't think I'd be upgrading my bundled version of iLife, Apple's Mac-only entry-level digital media lifestyle software suite. Every new Mac comes with iMovie, iPhoto, iDVD, Garage Band and iWeb. I think this time it's a good value even if you have to pay the full price to 'upgrade'. As a little introductory rant, iLife can be viewed as a package of demos for Apple's professional software offerings. iPhoto is an ultra light version of Aperture. iMovie is a basic version of Final Cut Express and Final Cut Pro. Garage Band is the baby version of Logic Express and Logic Pro. The two features I'm about to mention are so valuable yet deliberately left out of iLife for all the previous versions.

If you've ever taken video using your digital camera in the portrait orientation, you probably regretted it after loading it onto your computer since it'd only display in landscape view anyway. One cool new feature in the new iMovie is cropping and rotating video. Previously, this feature was also available from Apple as part of Quicktime Pro (29 USD) or sold as a third-party iMovie plugin. Windows users can use VirtualDub, although it's not the paragon of user-friendliness.

The other feature I liked that was only briefly mentioned in the press event is notation printing in Garage Band. In previous versions, Garage Band would show you the musical notation of tracks you create but the ability to print it out was found only in the premium Logic offerings. Now, even if you don't write music in your spare time, you can open up a MIDI file in Garage Band to view the notation and then theoretically print it out to play on the piano.

Sorry this is getting long, but if you're not already bored, bear with me for just a bit longer.

I can't talk about iLife without also mentioning the brand new iMovie. It borrows a feature of Windows MovieMaker where it will automatically create scenes within in your videos by looking at when the camera was stopped and restarted. It also has speeds up the process of creating videos by including a really fast way to 'scrub' through and select scenese by mousing over the thumbnails. Conservatively speaking, iMovie and iPhoto themselves are worth the 79 dollar cost of iLife, not including educational or corporate discounts. It's worth mentioning that iPhoto has a new feature to easily if not automatically group the photos in your library into events. I'm also going to get iWork. You've doubtlessly heard at least of past rumors about its slick new spreadsheet application, but I have less of a legitimate reason for getting it. Takers?

Product links: iLife, iWork

On my aging Dell laptop

My Dell Inspiron 6000 is getting old. I've only had it for about 18 months, and although I don't use it very much I still like it a lot. The first sign its aging was the increasingly intolerable slowness. I haven't reinstalled Windows on it but I will very soon. If you have a Dell, there's a good chance that you don't have installation media as Dell provides a recovery partition on the hard drive. Dell supplies one copy of backup installation media if you request it.

What you don't necessarily want to do is to get your replacement batteries from them. Dell doesn't have a huge incentive to keep making fresh batteries for old models like mine, so anything they have in stock is refurbished or old. Since lithium-ion batteries age from the day they're made, old batteries are almost as bad as refurbished ones. Plus, they still try to charge you as if they're fresh even though none of the customer reviews make three out of five stars.

I mentioned before that Dell batteries have indicator lights that show charge and battery wear. Check this out:
Unfortunately, that's not the charge; it's complete battery wear and it's completely accurate. I bought a higher capacity battery (80 to my 53 WH) on eBay for less than half the price of replacing the original. The after-market battery even comes with the charge-indicator lights.

Not the Apple headset

If you do not need your headset to match your iPhone, charge in the same dock, and have its battery charge status displayed on the screen of your iPhone, OR if you don't really need one and can't justify spending the list price of 129 USD, then you'd want to check out the Motorola HS850. I haven't put it through a battery stress test, but it gives no hint of losing a charge after casual use (an hour or two at a time) and charges super quickly.

• Standby time: 200 hrs
• Talk time: 8 hrs
• Accessories: AC adapter (different voltage than phone)
• Notable: Memory enables pairing with up to 8 devices (not simultaneously), but it only automatically seeks out the last device connected.

Although this probably originally retailed around the same price point as the Apple headset, you can get it at Buy.com for 35 USD including shipping.

Martha on iPods

Chances are that if you're reading this, you have an iPod or another portable audio player. Be sure to observer proper listening etiquette. In this month's WIRED magazine, WIRED staff interview Martha Stewart to find out 'how to make everything better'. For her home music setup, Martha suggests putting an iPod connected to wireless speakers in each room of the house, a simple and unobtrusive way to get the job done. She does have mixed feelings about digital media players, and when she was speaking the subject of blackberries and digital communication, she said the following:

[Martha] It's horrible. You can not forget human communication. When the Walkman first came out, I called it the Rudeman: Everybody who's listening to those is rude to me. I think part of the reason I got divorced was because of the Rudeman. [WIRED] Really? [Martha] Oh, yeah. I'd be in the garden, weeding and chatting away and no answer! ...

For more, check out WIRED's 'How to...' feature starting on page 101 in the August 2007 issue. On the cover, you'll see a photo of Ms. Stewart baking a Wii cake. FYI, the recipe is on page 119 but isn't attributed to her.

At the time of the post, I couldn't find a link to the article.

It's been said that Facebook is the new Google

An ex-googler who managed Page Creator said that Facebook is "the Google of yesterday, the Microsoft of long ago". Now, I'm not the biggest fan of Page Creator, but when you think of the best places to work, Google is no longer the indisputable choice for most [new ]software engineers [forget Goldman]. Blake Ross, creator of the alternative browser Firefox, co-founded a startup called Parakey to develop a web-based operating system. Now, he's still doing that, but now he's [just ]working for Mark Zuckerberg.

SOURCE: DealBreaker [at which a blogger dramatically understates Blake's contribution to Firefox: "they surfed the net a lot using Firefox, not Explorer"]

Apple TV's power consumption

The Apple TV is a nice addition to any HDTV setup. It's currently the hottest setup component we have next to the PS3. Taken literally, that's because the TV is always on and lacks any form of active cooling, leaving it very warm to the touch. While this is worrying from the perspective of power consumption, it turns out that I should be more worried about the 60 watt incandescent bulb above my head.

According to Apple Support forum-user rverwij, the Apple TV consumes about 14 watts in standby and between 17 and 19 watts while in use. The reason the Apple TV is always on is probably to increase responsiveness and to sync your content so quickly you don't have to ever manually intervene. Another reason might be to avoid startup times or even to reduce what could be constant wear and tear of booting and shutting down. This doesn't make it energy-start compliant, though, as rverwij also points out.

To be honest, I wouldn't mind going back in time to defer my purchase of the Apple TV, since clearly the best is yet to come. I also believe that to be the case with the iPhone, which I returned it unopened a week after purchasing it on release day.*

SOURCE: Apple Support Discussions

Updated 10:16 AM EDT: * The official reasons I returned the iPod[iPhone]: 1) I never really intended to buy it. 2) I just got a new 30 G iPod in February. 3) It doesn't have a killer feature like the Unix terminal. 4) I still have a contract with my current wireless provider Verizon Wireless that ends in October. 5) ...

Updated (March 28, 2011): This post applies to the First Generation Apple TV. The newer Apple TV is smaller and more more power efficient than the original and only consumes 6-watts (it only has a 6-watt power supply). 

Pound vs Dollar

How I ended up buying the iPhone

So I get off work thinking that I'll just pop in to the Apple Store and check out the iPhone. You could say I was on the fence about it. I try making my way up to the Fifth Avenue Apple Store and see an excited crowd of people standing under some scaffolding, which turned out to be an AT&T store. I'm at the end of the line and happen to stand next to the guys on the front, who'd been on line since 2PM (iPhone went on sale at 6PM). It's about 8 so I think it's pretty futile so I keep on moving to the 59[8]th Street.

When I get there, I see a good number of people streaming by carrying iPhone bags (yes, special iPhone bags). One was actually walking towards the glass cube of an Apple Store. This unlucky guy got the iPhone but lost his wallet in the excitement. When we get to the GM building, which overlooks the Apple Store, I suggest that he talk to the journalists hanging around with their cameras. His would make a great story. The line folded over itself on the sidewalk not much differently than at the AT&T store, but it was moving noticeably faster. Apple had employees enthusiastically greeting and welcoming customers down through the glass doors and stairs at a controlled rate. Overall, I think it took about 15 minutes to get 75 people into the store.

Now, if you were on the fence at all, you probably wouldn't survive what came next. After spending 15 minutes online (which was pretty good), you wind your way down the spiral staircase right into an Apple Store [employee ]ushering you onto the line to pay for the iPhone. On finding out the iPhone displays were all the way on the other side of the store, I figured it was either get an iPhone right that instant or get back to the end of the line. That's pretty much all it took to get me to fork up my credit card and say "8 gigabytes".

I then spent the next half-hour or so testing out the iPhone. It was smaller than I imagined and more rugged. The screen was very nice and crisp and I was even able to call home to tell my parents what I had just done. I browsed to this page, checked my Gmail, watched the QuickTime guided tour on apple.com (yes, embedded videos work), and checked out pretty much all the standard features. It was very close to what I expected, and not really much more. I found the iPod interface a departure (for all the right reasons) from the one we're all used to. Nothing was disappointing, and if anything, it was in how large my thumbs were compared to my index finger. Some quirks: the screen only rotates in one-direction, you have to bring up the keyboard after you rotate the screen in Safari to get a landscape keyboard.

And, the keyboard.

How was the keyboard? It was very good at correcting my mistakes, but it will require some practice. Practice I'm not sure I'm going to get. The iPhone comes with a 14-day return policy and a 10% restocking fee for opened boxes. I'll have to sleep on it. The killer features like an X11 unix terminal are just not there yet. VI would be perfect and doesn't require arrow keys or ctrl and alt keys. I have to give it to Apple, though. They had enough iPhones. I was slightly worried that the lines to actually buy stuff tapered off by the time I left, but there is hope. Around 8:45 PM when I walked out flanked on both sides by cheering store employees (not kidding), there were still about 50 people online waiting to check out the iPhone.

If anyone is proficient at typing using iPhone's on-screen keyboard, a lot of it will be due to Apple's adaptive keyboard software. If you haven't already seen the video, here's a behind-the-scenes look at all the stuff happening in the background as you type.

iPhone Keyboard Demonstration

SOURCE: Digg

Vindicated by Walt Mossberg

Mr. Mossberg, tech reporter for the WSJ, says that after five days, he's able to type on the iPhone as fast as he does on his Treo, which has a physical qwerty keyboard. Also, it looks like the only way you'll get Exchange email on iPhone is if you enable POP or IMAP on the server.

SOURCE: Testing Out the iPhone [WSJ] via Digg

An account of the iPhone keyboard's ineffectiveness

Engadget's Ryan Block posted the thoughts of an early iPhone user about a pretty bad experience with the on-screen keyboard yesterday. The language Ryan uses in the post is a bit odd, most likely paraphrasing notes from a conversation meant to hide the gender of the source. The gist of it was that typing on the iPhone is "disappointing" despite the built-in error correcting having had days of practice. The source goes further to specifically cite the difficulty of typing with two thumbs, having to press hard, and the iPhone registering "multiple key presses". These are all surprising to me given the 'on-release' behavior I observed from Apple's videos as well as last week's news about the new glass screens. [I've had my fair share of doubts, but for different reasons.] I guess we'll have to wait and see for ourselves.

SOURCE: Engadget

An effective finger-based keyboard

It would[n't] be fair to just say that the iPhone is unsuited for use while driving due to the lack of a keypad without mentioning why it'll be quite comparable to typing on a physical keyboard for sighted people.



From left to right:

1. a finger hovers over the letter 'u' (another is over the letter 's')
2. the finger touches the screen, prompting visual feedback before the input is actually registered
3. on release, the letter us is registered and appears in the text input field. Until the release, you get the chance to correctively reposition your finger in the event that 'u' was not your intended keystroke.

The visual feedback you get from letter magnification combined with 'on release' behavior instead of 'on click' behavior suggest that typing will be a breeze on the iPhone. Multi-touch, or the ability to touch different parts of the display at the same time, means fast two (or more) fingered typing.

SOURCE: iPhone UI videos at apple.com

Google Mashups and Google Web Toolkit

So it looks like Google Mashups uses GWT to do its magic. At least part of it. Anyhow, I've updated my bitty Zinc, Inc webpage to include a Google Mashup of a photo album. That's not really mashing anything together, but I also I've also done a quick rendering of most of that page which is a bit more of a 'mashup' of different feeds here. One killer feature of Google Mashups that I haven't tried yet is the ability to create your own feeds and update the data behind it.

Here's a real mashup some googlers made: SF Giants Baseball Mashup

SOURCE: Google Mashup Blog

Dealing with text message spam

A couple of months back I failed to use my better judgment and unleashed my phone number onto a website that allows you to schedule a call to be made to your cell phone, say during a social event, to make you seem more popular. Let's be clear. I was just testing it to see how it worked, and for your information, I couldn't keep up with the recording's fast paced conversation. Regardless of whether this slip was the cause of my small misfortune, I start receiving about 30 spam messages a month on my Verizon Wireless phone. This was OK back when text messages (sans texting plan) cost a mere 10 cents. On calling customer service, they informed me I could fill out a form and block particular email addresses from sending me messages. Since spammers don't use real email addresses (or at least not their own), there wasn't value to be gained by using that form.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks back, Verizon increases the cost of sending and receiving text messages by 50% (sans texting plan). I'm starting to think of switching to Cingular and using an upcoming Apple iPhone just to avoid paying the $3 spam tax. Luckily, there's a feature to turn off receiving text messages from the internet as well as from vtext.com.

If you're a VZW customers can rid yourself of internet stalkers and spammers, go to http://www.vtext.com/ to change your text preferences (account registration necessary).

SOURCE: Lisa from Verizon Wireless 611

"We reduced your account balance to zero because the amount owed was so small"

Yup, that's what the IRS said about my account. In case you were curious about that $38 I neglected to pay the US Treasury for 2005. I ended up owing 7% interest and then 8% for the following three quarters, amounting to $2.87. They were practical enough to tell me to forget about it, though.

Reason not to get a BlackBerry

...trying not to look like you're working too much. Anyhow, I think carrying an iPod, a BlackBerry and an iPhone (or other PDA) might be too much.

Let's be realistic

While it's interesting that AT&T may be marketing the iPhone to businesses (I think business people might be more plausible), I thought the reasons a Gartner analyst used in warning against such action was somewhat amusing.

Business customers should also be weary of the iPhone's various other shortcomings, the Gartner analyst said. For instance, he notes that it lacks a physical keyboard, which will make it difficult to dial while driving.

Dial while driving? On second thought, as long as a New Jersey state governor can get seriously hurt in a car accidentcollision while not wearing a seat belt, Ken (the analyst) was just being a realist.

SOURCE: Apple Insider

Something you didn't know about Robert Jordan

Amazing war stories from author Robert Jordan:

I think I need to put a few things straight about this whole shooting down an rpg in flight thing...

SOURCE: Dragonmount

Apple's new product mix delivers not so much differently... yet

Apple is seeing certainly greater growth in Mac sales than iPod sales despite shedding the Computer part of their name. The iPod family's year over year growth was 24% whereas Mac sales grew 36%. To put that into perspective, this is including the new aluminum iPod shuffle (#2 in Apple's Top Sellers list) and the Apple TV (last in the same). I still think this is due to the lack of substantively new iPods since the iPod nano and video enabled iPod in Fall 2005 as well as the impending iPhone release in June. I stand by my emphasis on Apple's downplaying of record iPod sales last quarter as due to a meeting of supply and demand.

Although I haven't finished the conference call, other tidbits of interesting info from the conference call includes the following: 1) commitment by Apple to provide software updates to both Apple TV and iPhone [. That means more functionality is coming at no cost!], 2) Still no restatement of past earnings due to options backdating!, 3) iPod still key in Apple's amazing profits (despite probably not growing much faster than the market), 4) Mac grew 9-10 times faster than PC market in US...

SOURCE: Apple 2007 Q2 Results

Last updated: Fri 4/27/2006 12:54 AM EDT

So we're even?

Today I discovered that my check to the US Treasury was deposited into an account at Bank of America. I had owed 38 dollars as the result of capital gains in 2005 that I failed to report. Thanks to sharp reminders from my accountant friend Jehangir, I finally am square with the IRS. I figured I shouldn't guess how much interest they wanted.

The schedule d is surprisingly simple, but not intuitive. I'm glad I got a discounted old version of TaxCut for a couple dollars. That, in turn, made it easier to file taxes for 2006 as you can import last year's data into TaxCut.

Video podcast from inside the CIA

I was sick with a fever late last week and downloaded a bunch of cooking videos from iTunes. My favorite is Epicurious.com's Inside the CIA (iTunes link) series. You know, the Culinary Institute of America. The mini-series includes 10 episodes so far, plus a weekly video blog for each of four principle characters. Some are getting associates degrees while others are getting bachelors degrees. They don't provide recipes but gives you insight into the history of the CIA and how chefs are trained. That, along with interesting tidbits about cooking.

I highly recommend these except for Markos' video blog in which he jokes about young Chinese hos. I really don't know where people get that idea.

Not so sure about the iPhone anymore

While the PC and Mac guys depicted in Apple's television commercials are caricatures of America's desktop dichotomy, the stereotype that Windows is for work and Mac [is for fun stuff] seems poised to strengthen when we look at Windows Mobile 6 and the upcoming slimmed down OS X for iPhone. This is at least in part because they inherit the best from their parents with Windows Mobile 6 expressing a stronger synergy with Microsoft Exchange and Office and Apple with iTunes, Mail, Calendar, Address Book, etc.

While Apple's iPod has been long-capable of running more powerful applications than music playback, they have focused on what what's essential to an MP3 player, even deferring video playback until being able to offer an unprecedented experience (i.e. being able to download network TV shows via iTunes). They've done a great job resisting convergence for the sake of convergence. Microsoft had to learn the hard way since bringing the Windows 95 experience to the your hand in the form of Windows CE 1.0. Since then, they've gotten rid of the keyboard, redesigned the interface, gotten rid of the touch screen [(in the successful 'Standard' edition)], then brought the keyboard back, taking years to gain a market dominant position over Palm. Getting the right balance has not been easy. This is certainly proof that convergence is not wrong, but takes serious innovation. Palm Pilot's "we don't need color" approach and Steve Jobs' assertion that "video is a passive experience" are clearly no longer relevant considering Apple's Widescreen iPod of an iPhone and that the last monochrome Palm handheld was a discount stocking stuffer several holiday seasons ago.

Windows Mobile 6 stands to be both a winner and a loser in the mobile phone market with its three evolved brands, Standard, Classic and Professional (formerly Smartphone, Pocket PC, and Phone Editions). It may lose some of its niche consumer market to iPhone but also reclaim territory previous lost to RIM's Blackberry. RIM started for push-based email where email is sent directly to a Blackberry without the user having to actively check their email. This was achieved through integration with Microsoft's own Exchange email servers. Microsoft's come a long way, finally beating Palm in terms of shipped devices. Growing on the success of the slimmed down Smartphone Edition that ran on cheaper hardware (sans touchscreen), Microsoft is building into version 5 robust Office document editing features previously only available on more expensive Pocket PC and Phone Editions. Cooler computing-intensive (power-hungry) features like opening up a Unix terminal or controlling a Windows desktop with the Terminal Services Client in VGA resolution are still restricted to what is now called Windows Mobile Professional.

At the cost of a larger touch-screen interface and expensive graphics accelerators found on Windows Mobile Pro, Windows Mobile Standard Edition seems to have matured very nicely from an initially dumbed-down version of Windows Mobile developed for mobile phones to really fleshing out to meet the needs of business users and improving security and manageability. Both the new iPhone and Windows Mobile will have a richer browsing and [Exchange-less push-based] email experience than their competitors. Both purport to suport the dynamic content manipulation via AJAX in web-pages. However, it is exactly the ways in which iPhone is so much like Windows Mobile Standard Edition that I'm becoming more wary of it.

These two devices buck the overambitious, all-in-one convergence that had Windows Mobile Professional over-promising and under-delivering. They intend to reinvent the phone by stripping out what was non-essential and perfecting what remained. While Apple's device has seemingly limitless potential and you could argue that it is comparable to a PDA, Apple's closed-system nature restricts third-party developers from making software for the iPhone. This essentially reinforces the concept that the device is less of a converged computing platform than a ... "revolutionary phone, breakthrough internet device, and widescreen iPod".

The iPhone is by far the more ambitious of the two devices because it also promises the best music and video experience. While it's easy enough to throw away (recycle/reuse) both my cell phone and my clearly obsoleted Pocket PC, asking someone to give up their 30GB video-enabled iPod may not be so simple. Of course, we haven't seen the whole story from Apple and maybe there will be a terminal app hiding somewhere on the iPhone enough to convince me to leave behind most of my media content. There it could have been a deliberate decision by Apple to delay third party software development in the beginning to have more control over a very critical stage of the iPhone product line.

References: Windows Mobile Standard Video Demo, Download Squad

Last updated: 1/9/2023 7:56 PM EST (fix broken images)

Epiphany of the day #3

After watching the latest episode of Rocketboom, I was left wondering which product/service, if any, had been placed during the show. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

SOURCE: Rocketboom: backwards through time

Note that Jersey or Joisey wasn't one of the questions

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Northeast   Judging by how you talk you are probably from north Jersey, New York City, Connecticut or Rhode Island. Chances are, if you are from New York City (and not those other places) people would probably be able to tell if they actually heard you speak.
Philadelphia
Boston
The Inland North
North Central
The South
The West
The Midland
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

If you like these polls, here's another one Chess found.

SOURCE: Jeff Maurone

Keeping promises

This is probably not what you're going to expect. Anyhow, a couple of years ago, I said I'd be doing various things once I got a job and money. I said I'd buy a quieter power supply for my computer, order a copy of Microsoft Office, and get a Powerbook.

How've I done? Well, I did get a new power supply by virtue of getting a new case + power supply for Christmas from my sister two years ago. I didn't get a Powerbook, but I did get an iMac. It would seem as though I'm still missing a copy of Microsoft Office. I've been using the beta version of Office 2007 for a while and on Tuesday, it ships along with Vista. I finished up college using Open Office and I'm somewhat committed to using Google Docs and a future version of iWork. I still get to keep my word, though, since my family gives me an excuse to buy Office.

Now, Microsoft seems to have gotten real and decided to stop calling the ultra cheap Outlook-less and non-upgradeable version the "Stuent and Teacher" Edition, but rather the "Home and Student " Edition. That conveniently makes for guiltless saving without a proxy student (despite our having a student in the family).

You can now get this cheaper home version (without Outlook) for around $130 (check your favorite online retailer)-$150 (in stores). While we're on the topic, if you haven't already seen these, Apple Mac vs. PC ads for the UK [via digg.com].

"Unless that person is me"

...or my mom. Now, I have two nanos.

Apple's conservative earnings guidance

I don't have as much to say about Apple as I did last time I talked about an earnings conference call, but an important thing to understand about why this past quarter's sales increased so much from last year was illuminated around 10 minutes into this last one. Forgetting the $50 price drop in iPods, Apple achieved the right balance of supply and demand for the MP3 players in contrast to last year. This means that unless Apple releases a new iPod soon, and I hope they will, consumers' appetites will be satiated more than last year. Will their usually conservative guidance will more sound than we'd prefer? Or, are they truly masters of managing expectations?

Then, again, it isn't much longer until Adobe CS3 and Leopard will be available, not to mention a refreshed iLife and iWork. It'd also be a nice time for Apple to offer Blu-ray burners for the Mac Pro line. Before we know it, it'll be summer and iPhones will start ringing around the US. Soon after, the cheaper versions will be available for everyone who held out because of the price, and we'll be right in the midst of the next holiday season. It's good to be an Apple fan.

SOURCE: Apple Q1 Earnings Conference Call

Epiphany of the day #2

What is the iPhone good for? Selling more Macs : )

BONUS: Robert Jordan, master story-weaver, has some good news.

Congratulations on finding a 1st gen iPod nano

I've given up on the chances that I'll find my iPod. Today (rather yesterday), my new one arrived. Incidentally, I'll have 3 pairs of earphones and 3 sync cables. One pair of earphones from the original, one replacement due to rattling, one from the new one. Then, there's the replacement USB cable to replace the original that I lost, the extra one I bought just in case, and the new one.

Ironically, whoever found my iPod will have no sync cable or earphones. Unless that person is me.

Epiphany of the day #1

SIXAXIS is a palindrome.

Yes, we got a PS3. I'm not going to try posting a review of the system, but it's internetsy features are nice because I can download unrestricted MP3s from eMusic to my hard drive and play them. YouTube also works, albeit slowly, as it supports Flash. Gmail worked ok as it degrades into plain html mode, but I suspect AJAX or fancy javascript causes the browser to crash. As far as games and Blu-ray, I'm satisfied but not overjoyed or anything. Then again, I wasn't overjoyed at playing the Wii or XBOX, either. That type of joy is unfortunately only achieved by watching certain keynotes. Oh, by the way, I wish you a happy new year.

Ever felt like you needed a drink?

Well, I didn't. That is, until a couple of weeks ago when I finished what may have been considered a brief hazing period if we were pledging to join a fraternity. It was two straight weeks of coding day and night (evening), weekday and weekend, workday and holiday. It was a meaningful, courteous, well-supported haze. Then, we had a party. Then, we had a holiday. Finally, we started working for real, and this really should pre-date my post entitled C++.

The point of this isn't about working, but really drinking and how little of it I do and how the only time I felt like it I was too tired and by myself (adding a last minute feature to our project). Well, this last Saturday, I felt like it was alright to want to have a legal recreational drink in a social environment to celebrate the one year anniversary of the time my friend brought a civil sampling of beers for my 21st birthday. In the end, we didn't end up at a bar and I hadn't brought it up. Maybe it was the organizer of the gathering's aversion to drinking, or maybe it was my own newness to the practice.

That isn't to say it didn't go well. We set out to visit the Cathedrals of Consumer Electronics along Fifth Avenue in NYC but were side-tracked by the promise of free ice skating then by the marble enclosed Dining Concourse of Grand Central Terminal. We skipped the Nintendo Store (as one of us had recently visited it just several hours prior) to try the Sony and Nokia stores. When we made it to the Sony store, the employees were cleaning up behind locked glass through which we beheld several PS3s that were free and open to the air (and presumably not overheated). We kept our spirits high as we pressed on and made it to the Nokia store just as it was closing. One employee stayed behind while we were dazzled by the array of well-crafted phones and asked whether we needed help before we realized how late it was.

It would never be too late for the Apple store, which we saved for last. It was a beacon in the night for weary pilgrims who relied upon its ever present glow.

Google to let employees capitalize on option 'forwarddating'

That's not exactly what's going on, but Google is working with Morgan Stanley to create a market where financial institutions can buy vested options directly from employees via a web-based auction system. The benefit for employees is that they can get more money than they would from exercising the stock on the market as prices will factor in potential growth in the future. Why would banks pay for a premium instead of just buying the stock on the open market?

For one thing, instead of paying say $500 for each share, a bank could just pay $25 on the hopes that in a year, the price will exceed $525. By investing in the options instead of the stock, you increase the potential return because you can buy many more $25 options than $500 stocks. Google explains the bigger picture better in their page "The Market for TSOs" and talks about letting employees capitalize on the time value of their options. Hence, forwarddating as opposed to backdating : ).

The other interesting thing readers of this blog may appreciate is that while Goldman did Google's [last] stock offerings (and I speculated that they handled the YouTube aquisition), Morgan Stanley was picked to handle a technical solution for both their innovative online dutch auction IPO as well as this TSO auction system. [Incidentally, I missed the news that Morgan and CSFB underwrote Google's first secondary offering of (Pi-3)E8 shares.]

SOURCE: Official Google Blog

UPDATED: 12/14/2006 8:06pm EST

C++

After reading these interviews with Bjarne Stroustrup (I can now spell the name of the inventor of C++), I remembered that I should post about my new job. I'll be starting tomorrow with a team that develops middleware... in C++. This is a fairly large departure from my comfort zone. To be honest, I would not have imagined using C++ prior to the starting our training program, but my fears are being displaced by the anticipation of earning (albeit slowly) the credibility associated with mastering C++. This isn't to say that Java programmers don't deserve respect or that there aren't really bad C++ programmers. It's just that much harder to be good at C++. Whether you have to be is a different story.

A bit on my new job. In that first interview, Stroustrup talks about how most users want stuff fast and cheap--and if they get buggy software, then so be it. Our environment often supports a nicer sounding version of that attitude, but my team gets to do it to a lesser extent because people depend on the quality of what we make. Anyway, I'd like to be more candid about work like coffee cup Mike (I interned at IBM, btw) but it's too early. Plus, I'm not sure how to be both self-deprecating and uplifting at the same time.

SOURCE: Technology Review [via Slashdot]

Pirates of Silicon Valley (the must see classic)

I finally got to watch Pirates of Silicon Valley last week. This and an interview with Guy Kawasaki have vastly improved my opinion of Steve Wozniak. A proper one, unlike the one with Steve Colbert, that interview is both inspiring and humbling by virtue of Wozniak's genius and humanity. Back to the movie, though, you really don't have perspective unless you know the environment under which Wozniak/Jobs and then Gates/Allen won over the industry.

First of all, the Apple I and the II to a lesser extent, were truly revolutionary. Windows is a really direct rip-off from the Macintosh, but the inspiration for that really came from developers at Xerox. Interestingly, the scene where they spill all the beans to Apple engineers shows the Xerox developers really reluctant to share their management-stifled innovations. That leads us to the infamous quote by Bill Gates that Mike shared via a comment:

Get real, would ya? You and I are both like guys who had this rich neighbor - Xerox - who left the door open all the time. And you go sneakin' in to steal a TV set. Only when you get there, you realize that I got there first. I got the loot, Steve! And you're yellin'? 'That's not fair. I wanted to try to steal it first.' You're too late."

The movie starts with Jobs announcing a new partnership with Microsoft after which it goes back to the beginning of why Bill Gates drops out of college and the founding of Apple. It delves deeply into Jobs' personal life (with many scenes of him very much a cult leader) and leads all the way back to the opening scene. Anyhow, the movie is dramatized to the extent that dialogue was imagined and gaps were filled, but as far as I know, those impersonated in the movie don't object to its content.

SOURCES: TUAW [via DIGG] for the Kawasaki interview, DIGG for the Colbert interview

Revisiting the Rwandan genocide

Is a French court considering the possibility that Tutsi rebels brought a genocide upon their own kind? Supposedly, what triggered the genocide was the death of the former Rwandan president, which the Hutus blamed on the Tutsis. A French judge issued a warrant for the arrest of people in the current Tutsi controlled government relating to his murder.

SOURCE: BBC News

Not desperate enough

I have been without my iPod for a while and it's taking it's toll. This is not to say my iPod experience is flawless (need better headphones). I'm thinking of getting a shuffle to avoid cleaning my room as there's a small chance it could be somewhere there. Oh, and it also doesn't help that I rely on it to motivate my jogging.

BONUS: Zune is virtually a Windows CE powered portable media center edition that doesn't support Vongo : /

It's Election Day

Will you express your preference?

If you don't know, check OnTheIssues.

Wow, the bush administration is desperate

Hey, at least people take Kerry seriously (in contrast to when Bush screws up). Sorry for the lack of context, but I'm not sure it's needed.

Google Web Toolkit now for Mac OS X!

Google's java-based AJAX widget framework, the GWT, has a new version:

Mac OS X | gwt-mac-1.2.11.tar.gz | 22 MB | d649c6a6e30d4ba942576fb37b329841

SOURCE: GWT Blog

I have a strange relationship with my conscience

I have a strange relationship with my conscience. I think I ignore it too much because I rely too much on external cues (including physical ones saying eat another cookie!) or momentum in making decisions. Conscience, let's start over.

You can trust me now

I'm free from potential conflicts of interests as I've closed my positions in Apple and Google. Sad, but not a bad time, right. Apple still didn't revise the their earnings to take into account the options irregularities, but oh well. No more silly half-hearted disclosures like "the author of this article owns shares of the aforementioned company".

A more palatable color

Apple colors its logo for the Fifth Ave Apple Store in Manhattan to promote the (PRODUCT)^RED initiative. Plus, more red products on the way?

Behind Google's acquisition of YouTube

You will not get anything out of reading the rest of this post.

Sometimes, the people who don't ask questions know a little something. Following are a list of analysts present during the YouTube acquisition conference call.

Analysts:

Mary Meeker, Morgan Stanley
Imran Khan, JP Morgan
Doug Anmuth, Lehman Brothers
Mark Rowen, Prudential
Justin Post, Merrill Lynch
Kevin Allison, Financial Times
Daniel Arnell[?], ABC News
Victor Anthony, Bear Stearns
Laura Lach[?], Time Magazine

Also, if Goldman handled the acquisition details, why have they been getting more Google business? Was it because they got on Google's good side after hanling their secondary stock offering almost for free?.

SOURCE: Seeking Alpha [via Google]

Maybe Jobs should pay up...

Whether or not Steve Jobs improperly benefitted from the backdated options really depends on whether Apple restates it's past earnings to account for costless shares (as far as earnings statements go) they gave him in return for him not having gained anything from the options they initially awarded him. It's worthwhile to note that he didn't really receive any other compensation (asides from a private jet, I think).

We'll know by October 18th, hopefully, when they announce their latest quarterly earnings.

SOURCES: Bloomberg [via TUAW], FASB

I currently own some Apple shares, but I probably won't sell them until after the earnings are released for all the stuff I've been posting and even then for some [innocuous] work reasons.

YouTube and Google

That's the way to do it:

It also means that Google just picked up YouTube for about 1 % of its equity. That’s the power of a $125 billion market cap.

SOURCE: DealBreaker

Former Apple CFO resigns following addition of Schmidt

Apple's former CFO, Fred Anderson resigned from its board of directors at the conclusion of an internal investigation that exonerates the rest of Apple's senior management. This follows the addition of Eric Schmidt to the board, lending credence to the speculation that Apple wanted to reinforce the credibility of it's corporate governance.

It's unclear as to whether this is the end or the end of the beginning of the controversy over it's past practice of options backdating, as it's the SEC's turn to review the findings. Anderson's comments over the situation in the quoted context imply that while he was responsible for the implementation of the practice, he wasn't directly responsible so.

UPDATE 1:46 AM: TUAW reports that two officers no longer with Apple were singled out in the report in relation to options accounting issues.

SOURCE: digg

A pill

Mohandas K. Gandhi:

Hate the sin, not the sinner.

On the new iPods

Personality is back in the world of iPod. While some may opine that the iPod is too popular, too conformist and losing appeal, Apple Computer seems to have deliberately let the iPod line run out of steam and flat-line in sales before releasing a revamped version in a variety of colors (5 including the original black and white). This comes after almost 10 months after releasing the original iPod nano.

A common theme with Steve Jobs' marketing strategy is to limit the amount of unecessary choice for the consumer and concentrate marketing efforts. Give them a great product. Differentiate later. This applied to the original iPod (white, then black), the minis (three-then five colors), as well as the original iMacs (one, then many). The original iMac came only in one color.

Finally, I wanted to note that the new shuffle fulfills the promise of an artist's conception of what was to be the budget under $100 iPod that led to some disappointment upon the announcement of what Apple actually released.

SOURCE: Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos meet Ginger via digg, new iPod nanos

Don't judge

While waiting for the bus the other day, I noticed a man wearing his iPod headphones oddly. They didn't protrude properly from his ears. It turns out that he had them switched--the left channel was playing in his right ear and vice-versa. I tried this and found it to enhance the volume of the sound.

Too bad they don't stay in my ears either way. My right-ear is not receptive to earbuds.

Arial vs. Helvetica

I'm on my new iMac 17" and thought the following might be interesting to analyze:

The goal for me is to be able to spot the difference between the classic Helvetica font from the Microsoft version, Arial.

Top 400/600 Image Labeler

A couple days ago, Google launched a beta product called Image Labeler. It asks people to dedicate 1.5 minutes at a time to tagging images so they become easier to find. It's like a game because you work with an arbitrary partner to cooperate on the task. When you both tag the picture with a common keyword, the picture is matched and you get a new picture. The more images you can successfully tag, the more points you get (as you can see here):


The only bummer is that it's hard to find compatible partners. Dead-beats that give up half-way are frustrating to encounter, but it was good partnering with you, nzodd.

added some context 5:15 PM 9/3

More than speculation

It turns out Schmidt isn't the only one who's cross-directing between Apple and Google. The New York Times also raises a good point (that I heartily agree with) about Schmidt's addition to Apple's board of directors--he's an outsider who can bring an (relatively) independent and trusted mind to a board whose credibility is hurt by the options backdating exposure. Interestingly, he refused the 300,000 options automatically granted directors of the company. That seems more of a gesture than a conservative action.

SOURCE: New York Times and StreetInsider [via digg and digg]

Remake of All the King's Men!

I saw an interesting trailer for a modern remake of All the King's Men! It's based on the story of Huey Long, a fascinating Democratic politician from Louisiana. You can get the old version on Vongo.

Saw my first first run movie

I've been meaning to see The Illusionist for a while since seeing Paul Giamatti on Charlie Rose (fast forward to 47:10 for free). Oddly enough it wasn't playing anywhere near my area, the closest theater showing it being in NYC. Since I am already there on weekdays for work/training, I saw it with a coworker after work.

The movie, starring Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti and Jessica Biel, is set in pre-WWI imperial Austria in a time of industrialism and civil unrest. A brilliant illusionist named Eisenheim (Norton) puts on a show that mystifies Vienna and attracts the attention of the crown prince but the heart of his fiancee Sophie, with whom he renews a youthful romance. The Chief Inspector of Vienna (Giamatti) warns Eisenheim about risking the ire of the tyrannical prince. The serious, but sympathetic admonishment falls on deaf ears because Eduard/Eisenheim embarasses the prince in his palace. In refusing to give up on his childhood love, he sets in motion a series of tragic events.

The Illusionist falls in the category of Drama, Romance, and Fantasy, bringing alive a short story by Steven Millhauser with good 'special effects'. [But don't be fooled, this isn't a movie about magic. They even stay true to the illusions performed in that historical era, in cases even completely avoiding special effects.] The role of the Chief Inspector as a storyteller and is developed in an interesting way and the plot is truly a piece of work made even better in movie form (speculation).

If you do see the movie, I'd like to know which movie, if any, it reminded you of. And about the title, I was confused for the longest time why the movie was playing so few theaters, but I just found out from a friend that today was the last day it was in limited release.

Eric Schmidt joins the Apple BOD

Reinforcement! How could I resist posting about this.

Got carried away truncating the URL.. fixed link.

120 USD for a Mont Blanc Stylus?

An eBayer won an auction for a 14K gold (plated, I suspect) stylus that looks like it fits the Palm V. The seller claimed the item is no longer available and this is partly true. You just have to buy it along with a case now and I've seen it in two separate stores. It no longer makes sense to sell stylii for the Palm V since it doesn't fit in the silos of current PDAs. The eBayer was willing to pay about $120 (but in pounds) not including shipping. I'll admit I bid for a similar item but stopped at around $45. Yes, a Mont Blanc PDA stylus is very cool, but you can now buy this in a store with a leather PDA case in platinum/gold for $200. Below is a picture just for reference (the platinum one).

SOURCE: eBay and jough.com for the pic but I doubt he'll take credit. Incidentally, he paid $5 dollars for it!

Google Software Distributed with Thinkpads

Google is partnering with Lenovo (in addition to Dell) to distribute its desktop software. Excellent, because Google's free software is actually good. Not as good as iPhoto (Picasa) + Spotlight (Google Desktop), but good.

Included software (preloaded)
Adobe Reader; Diskeeper Lite; Google: Google Toolbar, Google Desktop, Picasa from Google; Multimedia Center for Think Offerings, including: InterVideo WinDVD (DVD, DVD/CD-RW & DVD-RW models), InterVideo WinDVD Creator (DVD-RW models), Sonic RecordNow & DLA (DVD/CD-RW & DVD-RW models); PC-Doctor; Symantec Client Security (with 90 days of virus definitions); ThinkPad Utilities (Power Manager and Presentation Director); ThinkVantage™ Access Connections; ThinkVantage Fingerprint Software, ThinkVantage Productivity Center with Away Manager; ThinkVantage Rescue and Recovery™; ThinkVantage System Update

---

(downloadable)
ThinkVantage System Migration Assistant

---

(license–CD not included)
IBM Lotus® SmartSuite,® IBM Lotus Notes® stand-alone client

I'm not looking to upgrade my Dell, in case you were wondering just checking out stuff for my sister. Bonus: If you missed this on slashdot, an 'inside look' into IBM's mainframe sales force.

Reference: Spec sheet for Thinkpad X60 (pdf)

Zune has built-in RDBS! See the manual

Sorry, didn't realize this got slashdotted. I guess this is what happens when you work...

Looks like Microsoft deliberated didn't request confidentiality on this FCC filing so it could get some feedback. If you didn't know, Zune is Microsoft's upcoming Digital Audio Player with video and social sharing features. It's great-looking (much like the iPod 3G) and even has a built in FM tuner with RDBS, which displays track info. Another cool feature is being able to act as a DJ and broadcast your own music over wifi to other devices. Here's the manual.

Thanks: Zune Insider Blog

So, as I said... that was pointless

As a followup to the Creative vs. Apple Zen interface patent (Creative pioneered the first hierarchical interface to navigate gigabytes of songs on it's iPod-preceding hard drive-based MP3 player), the two parties have announced a one-time licensing agreement and have settled all of their patent disputes.

Apple is paying Creative $100 million (or about 6% of their 2005 profit) that will ensure Creative's profitability this year along with expected holiday sales. So, how do I feel that Creative's stock price rise in one day eclipses[comes close to matching] my return on Apple stock over the last couple of weeks? Eh... I don't entirely regret my switch, but obviously I would've come out ahead if I did NOTHING. Damn you, Jehangir, you just might be right. Of course, it is after hours trading so we'll see how it goes. At least I am ensured the right to avoid capital gains this year if I hold on to Apple through the holidays (won't realize gains if I don't sell).

BTW, don't get all worried about Apple (no one's really worried), since they have billions in liquid assets (I think around 8?).

SOURCE: Red Herring via Google Finance

I feel older and more sophisticated already

I feel older and more sophisticated already. After like 5 reminders, I finally signed up for a free trial of emusic. It's the second largest music download service after iTunes targeting (according to USA Today) 'older, sophisticated music fans' not prone to file share. You have several packages to choose from, but I picked the cheapest, or 40 songs for $10 a month. Basically, I was going to buy the Genius Loves Company album featuring Ray Charles collaborations for $9 on Amazon, but I can download it for free under a free trial.

Now, I can also put my songs on my Motorola E815.

Reference: USA Today via TUAW

Second time's a charm

Contrary to the last time I attended a work-related cocktail party, I didn't ask totally dumb questions or whip out my new iPod nano in front of an interviewer the moment it came up in the most tangential of conversation. Tonight, my training class got a chance to meet with alumni and top IT executives. After standing glassless through two toasts, I finally went over to the bar and picked up a plastic glass of white whine. The friendly bartenders introduced me to the concept of wine tasting opportunities (although I should've done my own tasting right there) after I asked about the quality of my woot wine. They also said that if I wanted tickets for Shakespeare in the Park (Merryl Streep is in it this weekend), it was necessary to get in line at 8am.

All in all, I'm having a great time in training (and the technical training hasn't even started) and meeting interesting people, although I have to find time to check and act on my emails. I don't get a personal computer for training because we have workstations... Oh, and I met my first peer advisor and he seems like a nice guy. A superb group of people overall, many with UK accents : )

Fighting a cold so I shouldn't really blog further, but I'll try harder next time.

Is Amazon Prime for you?

If you're considering Amazon Prime's promise of great prices delivered even faster, consider reading this simple analysis. Prime membership costs $80 a year, can be shared with 4 household members (spanning 4 generations, no less), and gives you an upgrade from standard free shipping (but with no minimums) to overnight for $3.99 and two-day at no extra cost.

Tuesday will be the three-month anniversary of my free trial and I'm evaluating whether I should cancel it before it automatically renews. The factors I'm considering include whether my use of the service during the trial justifies the cost, how much accelerated shipping means to me now and in the future and, unfortunately, how much I want Amazon's strategy to succeed.

You're probably thinking, that last part should definitely be struck from the thought process. Don't make this an emotional decision. Ok, you're right, I shouldn't think that way. Limiting myself to either cancelling now or letting it renew is also irrational, since I could easily subscribe the next time I need it (if ever).

Cost/Savings

I made a total of six orders on Amazon.com using the free two-day shipping each time. While this would've cost me about $75 without the Amazon Prime, I only benefitted (even marginally) from the expedited shipping half the time. This leaves me about $30 in savings since the priority items were books/music.

If I extrapolate my spending over the course of a year, I'd have probably spent $120 on two-day. Subtracting $80 for membership, I would save $40 each year on shipping, or $2 per item.

Alternatives

It's not actually fair to only consider expedited shipping or standard shipping. Say for example, I really wanted to hear an album before a long trip. I could simply purchase the music on iTunes and burn it onto a CD. Or, I could run to the store and pay a couple extra dollars. So, actual savings is the savings on shipping in excess of the bricks and mortar premium. To tip the scales against the favor of Amazon Prime, to actually get the convenience of a local retail store, next-day would cost an additional $4, effectively nullifying the savings.

So, for a casual consumer of books and music (two items or less per month), Amazon Prime is not for you.

The need for speed

A former co-worker (the only Amazon Prime subscriber I know) says the overnight is useful during the holidays. This is especially valuable for procrastinators, especially if you amortize the cost over the rest of your casual purchases.

It's important to ask whether the savings increases my spending. This might be the case for my Amazon spending, but not really for spending in general. That would, of course, explain why it can still be worthwhile for Amazon.

Conclusion

I guess this doesn't conclude much for most people, but if you enjoy finding packages at your doorstep or enjoy shipping them to other people and know a couple of household members who are the same (you can share the membership with 4 others), this might be a good investment. If you're looking for tangible savings, nothing's cheaper than the existing free shipping. Remember that Amazon isn't always cheapest (I always check Buy.com and BarnesandNoble.com), but when it is at least twice a month for you, you'll probably get your money's worth. Just do it for the right reason.

Reference: Amazon's shipping rates schedule

Dynamic publishing in Blogger beta

No more publishing (for Blogger users, that is). Try switching to the beta after logging in with your Google account. It'll mean the end of publishing and waiting. Unfortunately, labels work with the new layouts, which can't yet be updated at the HTML level [YET].

Labels are coming...

Blogger's being updated but to see the new interface immediately, you have to start a new test account. Read more about it on blogger buzz.

SOURCE: PC Magazine [via] Google Finance

The scope has widened

It is not outside the scope of this blog to talk about Dell stuff. I have mentioned my Dell consumption in the past. First, there was my initial purchase of a Dell laptop. Then, I transformed it into a powerbook, then I talked about the wonders of the built-in battery meter.

Now, I will report that my battery has refused to take part in the mass exodus back to Japan. I checked out whether the part was part of Dell's unprecedented recall of 4.1 million batteries made by Sony (poor souls). This accounts for over 16 percent of all batteries shipped between 4/2004 and 7/2006. I'm guessing that most of these were either high capacity or super slim batteries, both not characteristic of my humble 53-Whr clunker.

Check: Identify if your battery is affected<-Dell.com<-digg

Six more days

Just a bit of notice that my blogging volume will be changing. I'm not sure whether I'll be posting more or less, but I'm starting work next Friday! I think it will be great and I'll definitely be focused since they have fairly strict web usage policies.

The obligatory bad news

Now, I wouldn't want you accusing me of witholding bad news, so... I'll make it brief.

Apple's need to delay it's quarterly SEC filing (to correct past earnings to account for those options grants) resulted in a warning from NASDAQ to the effect that it could be delisted. The good news, is really that this is likely to end up in a hearing and everything will be fine (if Apple's accountants have to work all day and all night, I'm assuming).

LINK: BetaNews

The Phil Morrison Connection

categorized under it's a small world

Whether or not you think those Hi, I'm a Mac commercials were effective, you must admit that they were at least... well-directed. It's with great pleasure that I present the movie Junebug, which is directed by the same guy, Phil Morrison. It was partly to his merit that Justin Long, who plays the Mac, decided to do the commercial despite it being something of a step down from movie acting:

Seriously. I thought that. But I grew up in a house where my mom was a commercial actress; she made a living making commercials, so I recognize the value of them.

He was also a big fan of the movie and the director. What isn't a reason is his love of Macs, since he apparently never owned a computer before shooting the commercial. Also according to the story, there are many more commercials coming.

Totally related, yet not at all (had to throw this in), ad critic Seth Stevenson calls the ads "mean-spirited" and gives the commercials an average score, mostly due to the ineffective message. I'm not sure I agree that every PC user is in the target demographic, but he also liked Junebug.

SOURCE: Not strictly commercial (latimes.com) [via digg]

"Was it good for you, too?"

Forgive me, for I have been unfaithful. No, this isn't about my spirituality. Rather, it's about my violation of what Amber Simmons says is important to be an engaging writer in the online world. Her article Gentle Reader, Stay Awhile. I Will Be Faithful is about how to improve your writing in a way that encourages readers to invest their time and attention, ultimately making it worthwhile for both the writer and the reader.

And, this must be true, because as good as her writing is, I only got to read it now after bookmarking it yesterday. What I'll try to do:

• Provide more context.
• Imagine writing for a real person who has questions and limited time/background.
• Write a better title/intro paragraph.

And this post's headline? It's how every ALA (a list apart) article ends, leading into the comments section. Well, was it?

SOURCE: A List Apart [my cached copy here]

Exclusive question! What is Steve Jobs holding?

Steve used to use a little blue box as a remote control for advancing slides during presentations. But this year, it's different. I attribute this to the need for more than one. Anyhow, if anyone knows what Steve Jobs and his fellow presenters are holding, I'm curious to know.



I've looked for readily available presentation remotes and slide advancers, but can't seem to find a match. It also looks like a cell phone, so it could be running some sort of software and controlling something via bluetooth. Otherwise, it just might be proprietary related to the venue or custom-hacked.

Post WWDC06 keynote

Come to think of it, typically OS X stuff gets announced at WWDC and not consumer/iPod stuff. Anyhow, OS X Leopard will come in Spring '07. Tiger came out in May '05 I think, but I have a feeling that Leopard will be earlier than May.

In other news, the Mac Pro and Xserve complete the transistion to Intel. I've said before that my next PC will be a Mac, right? I'm not sure I can afford the $2499 base model, but it certainly a good value. I wouldn't mind upgrading to Leopard come Spring.

If you want to see the latest of Apple Keynotes (less Steve), check for the video [via comment by andrewcod on this digg] to be posted later.

Apple's Options Trouble: A Closer Look

Apple announced Thursday that it would have to restate past earnings since September 2002 and delay it’s FY2006 Q4 announcements. As a long-time investor in Apple Computer Inc., I was naturally concerned, especially with a drop in it’s stock price in such proximity to expected product announcements on Monday afternoon at WWDC ’06 (covered live here starting 2PM Pacific10AM PT).

What was wrong? Why was September 2002 significant? What are the possible implications? After digging around, I was able to get a clearer picture of the issue at large. I’m going to try to summarize what matters to investors and Apple enthusiasts, as well as to provide some background on the topic of options and the practice of backdating. If you don’t need the background, simply skip past the following section. What I won’t do is say what you should do with your stock (if you hold any).

What are options?

Options are contracts that allow the holder to purchase or sell an asset (in most cases, stocks) at a specified price until the contract expires. What’s relevant are call (buy) options that are issued as part of a compensation package for a companies employees. There are many reasons why you pay employees with stock options as a complement or alternative to cash. First, you may not have much cash. Startup companies usually can’t afford to acquire and retain talented people with cash, instead offering them partial ownership in the company. This offers as incentive for them to do good work and promises a big reward in the event the company goes public (is put on the market). When this happens, an employee can exercise their options to buy the stock at a price discounted relative to the current market value and then cash them in for money.

So, while Apple has large cash reserves, it’s still a good idea to offer non-cash compensation in the form because they can use these reserves and more effectively reward good employee performance. For example, what’s another couple million dollars to Steve Jobs when you promise him the gains (or losses) he effects in the company’s share price. This is an effective way to award rich executives and keep them working hard.

There is a cost, however. Companies that are already publicly traded have a limit to the number of shares it can issue, and must get approval to increase this amount. This is necessary because although it doesn’t directly cost the company anything to issue new stock, increasing the number of shares dilutes the fractional ownership of each outstanding share. [Giving these shares to employees at a discount costs, on paper, that discount. -updated 10/12/06]

Forbidden fruit

While there’s nothing wrong concerning the practice in general, manipulating the date on which options are issued constitutes fraud. According to Reuters (via the Scotsman), at least 80 companies are suspected of backdating by the SEC. In late June, Apple announced an internal investigation (via an independent party) over options issues occurring between 1997 and 2001, probably hoping to pre-empt action by the SEC. It was during this period of extraordinary growth (bolstered by sales of the original iMac) that tempted executives to risk fraud.

But why would anyone commit fraud when they could afford to compensate executives legitimately? Because they didn’t think they could get caught.

Cheating the system

Prior to August 29, 2002, companies didn’t have to immediately report options issued to employees to the SEC. This allowed them to essentially choose whatever date the company’s stock was low and put that down on paper, thereby locking in gains since that date. After Enron and the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, companies were held to higher standards of accounting requiring them to report the “transfer of economic value” (Morningstar: Options Backdating: Will Your Stocks Pay the Price?) as an expense that factors into a company’s earnings.

If companies had to report options grants to the SEC, they would not be able to fraudulently manipulate dates. So if companies only started reporting the transactions in 2002, why does the period between 1997 and 2001 matter? How would anyone know if fraud was committed?

The evidence left behind

In an academic article written in 2005 (Does backdating explain the stock price pattern around executive stock option grants?), Randall A. Heron and Erik Lie demonstrated that one could detect whether a company employed backdating by analyzing past stock performance around the dates options were supposedly granted. If a stock skyrockets exactly after the date options grants were recorded, that was probably a fraudulent date, especially because this behavior only consistently occurred before regulation began.

The article’s abstract:

Extant studies document that stock returns are abnormally negative before executive option grants and abnormally positive afterward. We find that this return pattern is much weaker since August 29, 2002, when the SEC requirement that option grants must be reported within two business days took effect. Furthermore, in those cases in which grants are reported within one day of the grant date, the pattern has completely vanished, but it continues to exist for grants reported with longer lags, and its magnitude tends to increase with the reporting delay. We interpret these findings as evidence that most of the abnormal return pattern around option grants is attributable to backdating of option grant dates.

Consequences

Summarized from the Morningstar article by Pat Dorsey, the material impact of a confirmed scandal and its fallout would include unpaid taxes, lawsuits from shareholders (of which there are two), accounting, legal and auditing costs, as well as the impact on the company due to stress on executives involved. The one that really concerns Dorsey is the concept of governance and “corporate stewardship”. Backdating seriously calls into question the character of the executives in breaching the most basic corporate responsibility to shareholders. Earnings restatements from companies mired in similar (although maybe darker) waters resulted in $750 million over a two year period. [Restatements typically factor in the opportunity cost of giving employees options versus selling them on the market. -updated 10/12/06]

What about Steve?

In the Reuters article, analysts said the recent news didn’t change their valuation of Apple shares, but declared the dismissal of Steve Jobs as the unlikely, but worst case scenario. [His position on the board of directors also means he's liable.] We know that Steve Jobs was issued options to purchase up to 10 million shares but he could have been saved by the decline of Apple shares since 2001 and cancelled the options in 2003. Instead, he was awarded actual stock (at market value).

Conclusion

The internal origin of the inquiry and apparent non-involvement of CEO Steve Jobs are reasons for optimism, but in my memory, the integrity of Apple’s senior management has never been this deeply called into question. Backdating was by no means uncommon, but the extent to which Apple employed the practice has yet to be uncovered by the investigators. FYI, in case you think I’m shorting the stock, I’m holding onto it until further development and definitely through Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference taking place August 7-11.

Size comparison of upcoming Creative Zen audio players

All of these three players currently have a maximum capacity of 4 GB.

The first two short ones are the Zen V Plus and Zen Neeon 2 with video playback. The nano is the tall one and doesn't. Just an interesting use of Google Sketchup that took way too much time. [This updated picture took like 5 minutes with the useful 'value control' feature in Sketchup.]

With nothing really wrong with it and a classic along-the-side button placement, will the Neeon 2 (the one in middle) be Creative's bittersweet swan song before Apple's torrent of product announcements at the next Jobs keynote?

UPDATED 7:33 PM ET: pic
UPDATED 8/4/06 3:36 PM ET: added alt property for picture with dimensions in mm

SOURCE: apple.com, creative.com, gizmodo.com