Steve Jobs 'changed our lives'

Steve Jobs 'changed our lives'

Here are some more views about the death of Steve Jobs, who changed the lives of global villagers in ways few have ever done in a century or even two. Ken Auletta in The New Yorker: ``Steve Jobs is dead. One big question is whether the unbelievably innovative culture he forged will live. Jobs was not a great human being, but he was a great, transformative and historical figure. Many books were dashed off describing what a tyrannical person Jobs could be ― how he took the parking spaces of the handicapped, how he reduced employees to tears. Those tales will fade like yesterday'snewspapers. What will stand erect like an indestructible monument are the things Steve Jobs created that changed our lives: The Macintosh; the iTunes store that induced people to pay for music and other content; Pixar, which forever changed animation; the iPod, iPhone and iPad. … For three decades, even as he got older, Steve Jobs and Apple remained 'cool.' " John Biggs on TechCrunch.com: ``Call him prickly. Call his products overpriced and underpowered. Call Apple a toymaker, not serious, not real. But remember that everything Steve Jobs touched was a masterpiece of engineering in a world where 'just OK' is increasingly the norm. His products outsell almost anything else by an order of magnitude. He's not being praised here because millions of people are bewitched and ignorant. He's being praised because millions of people see the future as he did: a place where things get increasingly better, where we are more connected, better informed and generally happier." The (Portland) Oregonian, in an editorial: ``Jobs was known as the quiet neighbor in a small town not far from the Stanford University campus. His signature dress ― black turtleneck, jeans, running shoes ― was as familiar there as it was at the office or onstage, as a rapt world awaited his latest invention. His understatement in life and work, coupled with an unrelenting drive for excellence and good taste, bespoke the man as well as his regime-shifting technologies that seem to show up someplace new every day. In this modern world of increasing technical complexity and dependency, it was good knowing Steve Jobs was around." David Pogue, The New York Times, on Pogue's Posts: ``Suppose, by some miracle, that some kid in a garage somewhere at this moment possesses the marketing, invention, business and design skills of a Steve Jobs. What are the odds that that same person will be comfortable enough ― or maybe uncomfortable enough ― to swim upstream, against the currents of social, economic and technological norms, all in pursuit of an unshakable vision? Zero. The odds are zero. Mr. Jobs is gone. Everyone who knew him feels that sorrow. But the ripples of that loss will widen in the days, weeks and years to come: to the people in the industries he changed. To his hundreds of millions of customers. And to the billions of people touched more indirectly by the greater changes that Steve Jobs brought about, even if they're unaware of it." The Christian Science Monitor, in an editorial: ``Jobs never had to worry about the Next Big Thing. He created an entrepreneurial culture around him, as many companies and cities now try to do. He welcomed diversity, especially in the form of foreign-born techies. He used the patent system (thankfully, now just reformed) to provide incentives for original creativity. He had confidence that the United States is better off with $100,000-plus jobs in creating high-tech ideas than trying to compete with $2-an-hour workers in Asia merely assembling products like the iPad. Rather than mourn the loss of Steve Jobs, America can sustain his model of collaborative innovation. Call it iJobs 2.0." This article was compiled and provided by USA Today.

What to Do With a New PC

Everyone has their own I-just-bought-a-new-PC ritual. Some folks start by loading their pristine PC down with all their utilities and apps. Others immediately jump into the new games their old machine couldn't handle. A few others install Linux.

That’s all well and good--but before doing any of those things, you should take a few important steps. Prior to diving headfirst into your new laptop or desktop, read these tips and tricks, all of which are designed to keep your system feeling brand-new for as long as possible.

Step 1: Update Windows

After you're done pulling the plastic off your new PC and plugging it in, the first thing you should do is grab all the Windows updates your new machine can handle. Of course, you'll need a network connection for that; just link your PC to your modem or router by inserting an Ethernet cable, or if your PC supports Wi-Fi and you have a Wi-Fi network, open the Control Panel, go to Network and Sharing Center, and click Connect to a network.

Once you’re connected to the Internet, go to the Control Panel, choose Windows Update, and click Check for updates to make sure Windows Update pulls in as many updates as possible.

Depending on how long your PC was sitting on a store shelf without an Internet connection, this process could take anywhere from a few minutes to more than an hour. Each update may require a reboot, and some updates prompt even more: You'll probably have to grab updates, reboot, and check Windows Update again for updates to those updates you just installed.

Step 2: Uninstall the Crapware

Unless you built your PC yourself, it likely came with a whole bunch of preinstalled apps and utilities. Many of these are undoubtedly well-intentioned inclusions--and some might even be useful--but you don't have to hang on to your 30-day Norton AntiVirus trial if you know that you're just going to use Microsoft Security Essentials instead.

If you know exactly what to keep and what to get rid of, a deep uninstaller utility such as Revo Uninstaller is all you need. The free, basic version scans your system to ensure that it eliminates applications that Windows' built-in uninstaller sometimes misses.

However, determining what's crapware and what's worthwhile isn't always easy. Pc decrapifier does a good job of identifying a lot of the common crapware culprits--toolbars, trial-application installers, shortcuts for setting up old dial-up services, and so on. You get to review the list of recommended items to uninstall before you pull the trigger, so you don't need to worry about accidentally losing something you want to keep.

Alternatively, you could give SlimComputer a shot. Like PC Decrapifier, SlimComputer aims to take out the junk, but it uses feedback from other SlimComputer users to make recommendations and provide brief notes as to why a program may or may not be useful. As always, we’d balance out a lot of the user-supplied comments with a healthy dose of common sense, but they are a helpful point of reference for any applications you're on the fence about.

Step 3: Update the Drivers

Semper Driver Backup can create a library of your drivers and back it up.The drivers are what turn the collection of parts in your PC from a generic Windows-running box into a processing powerhouse. Your ideal driver setup, though, depends in part on your PC's configuration--and on your tolerance for risk.

Generally speaking, you want to have the newest drivers available for all your gear. For example, making sure your graphics card's drivers are up-to-date will usually fix bugs and enhance performance with each new revision, and you might not be able to perform basic functions such as networking or audio input/output without your motherboard's full set of current drivers. If you're still having problems getting certain devices to work, updating the BIOS might be in order.

If you stick around the PC scene long enough, however, you’ll inevitably come across a driver update that breaks something that used to work perfectly. That's why some people prefer to stay with whatever driver version works for them--and leave it at that until something doesn't work. Short of clinging to an older, working driver, you can fix many driver-related problems by rolling back to a previous driver version, or you can uninstall the updated drivers and reinstall (from scratch) a version that worked fine.

If you're on a new, store-bought Windows 7 PC and all of the component drivers are preinstalled, you're probably better off with the existing drivers (though you may want to check for BIOS and graphics-card driver updates for the performance benefits anyway). Also, you don't necessarily need to worry about finding drivers for everything on your PC: Windows has generic drivers available for USB drives, keyboards, mice, webcams, and so on.

On the other hand, if you're breaking in a PC that you made yourself, it is recommend updating everything to the latest stable drivers available. If things aren't working seamlessly after that, find out whether the component manufacturer offers a beta driver that works better.

Once all your drivers are in working order, you'll probably never want to deal with this stuff ever again, so grab a driver-backup tool such as Semper Driver Backup or Double Driver. These tools make a quick copy of all your current drivers, so you can easily restore the drivers if (or when) something goes wrong.

Step 4: Install Everything at Once

Ninite lets you batch-install and update dozens of common useful Windows apps.By this point you're probably itching to install the applications and utilities you've grown accustomed to using on your previous machines. The hard part is remembering every single application you use--probably not difficult for those you work in on a daily basis, but a bit harder for the ones you touch only every week or month or so--and spending the time to seek out and download each and every one of them.

When it comes to tools that can help with this monumental task, Ninite does the job. Head to that site, and you can view a huge catalog of common free apps--Web browsers, antivirus utilities, file-sharing and media-playback programs, and so on--and get them all bundled in one installer file. You just choose the software you want, download the custom installer, and download everything in one fell swoop. Ninite even selects the 32-bit or 64-bit version as appropriate for your PC, and it skips all the adware and toolbars that, ordinarily, you might install by accident while clicking Next over and over.

One more tip: Resist the urge to delete Ninite's installer once it's done working its magic. If you run it after you've already installed all of your apps, it will check for any updates and automatically download and install the ones you need.

Step 5: Disaster-Proof Your PC

Windows Backup is a free, basic backup tool built into Windows 7.Congratulations! By now, your PC should be primed for action, just the way you like it. Get out of your seat and stretch for a minute. Then sit back down--you still need to do two things before the system is fully prepared for everyday use. You don't want to have to repeat this whole process if something goes wrong with your hardware or Windows installation, so this step will create a sort of “reset button” that brings your PC back to its ultimate state.

Take a moment to preserve your machine's pristine, work-ready existence with Macrium Reflect Free, which creates an image backup of your hard drive that you save to a backup drive. If anything terrible happens during your computing adventures, you can just restore the system from this image backup.

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Google Takes Gmail, Calendar, Docs Offline: A Big Plus For Chromebook

Google has added offline access to its web apps such as Gmail,Google Calendar and Docs..
Offline mode is a key feature in Google’s Chromebook push, which is itself a plank in its battle with Microsoft Office and Microsoft Windows.
Prior to the change, if you were offline, you couldn’t really use most of the Chromebooks, because you had to have Internet access to run almost everything on the devices. I’ve tested out a Chromebook, and despite some nice features, without offline mode it’s tough to use.

Now people can read or write an email, and archive or organize messages in Gmail while offline. They can also view or edit calendars or RSVP to calendar invites. Gmail and Calendar will sync once you get back online. Offline editing with Google Docs does not work yet but is coming. For now people can just view docs or spreadsheets offline. The changes have been expected since Google launched its Chromebooks at its Google I/O conference in May.
For offline mode to work, people have to install the Gmail Offline app in the Chrome webstores. The HTML5 Gmail app is based on the Gmail HTML5 tablet app. Google previously had offline mode for some of its services with Google Gears, but it retired that service a while back.
With offline mode, Chromebooks will be a more viable option for everyday use, particularly with businesses, which are a big target for Google. Particularly in the enterprise, Google is pushing its Chromebooks as an alternative to windows laptops. Google is renting the Chromeooks out software-as-a-service style. Businesses pay about $28 per month for the devices, which are automatically replaced with new machines after three years. The operating system is Chrome–you do everything in the web browser–which is updated automatically from the cloud. So IT managers don’t have to do massive upgrades as they do with Windows machines.
At the same time, the offline access only works in the Chrome browser. So people not using Chrome won’t have access to the new features.

Windows 8′s New Explorer: This One Goes To 11

The Building of Windows 8 development blog has been an interesting read for a while. Hearing straight from developers and then seeing unfiltered responses from users and secondary devs is refreshing, even if the topic isn’t particularly compelling or I don’t agree with their design choices. Today is perhaps the most extreme example of this so far. The discussion of the new file manager for windows 8 is worth reading — but is the file manager worth using?

The new ribbon UI for the explorer window is so cluttered with different-sized buttons, labels, multi-part icons, and tabs that I can barely parse it. It’s more like a hall of mirrors than a task-oriented workspace. Is this really the new, streamlined Windows?

Microsoft appears to be going in two directions at once. With the sleek Metro interface that was released , they are pushing towards the full-screen, super-natural, gesture-based navigation that people have come to expect to some degree in tablets. But under the hood, it looks like Windows is only getting more and more Windows-esque. I wrote some time back that Windows is the Hummer of all OS, and this seems to support that.

At the same time, Apple is comfortably moving in one direction, not that this is better. The UI changes in Lion are questionably efficient and powerful file management is simply not a priority. I don’t want to inject my personal preferences into it too much, but I think it’s beyond dispute that for some users, this is good, while for others it is frustrating and counter-intuitive.

But is there anyone who thinks that this wilderness of buttons is an effective way to communicate options and present actions to inexperienced users? The debate about the ribbon has gone on for a while, and again, it really seems like for some it’s a good idea, for others not so much. But this one in particular seems rather overpopulated. This is mainly because of the way Microsoft has designed the ribbon — it’s not a limitation of the grouped-buttons idea itself, which is something I see implemented well elsewhere every day. Look at the sheer number of arrows! Just in the top part of the window I count three up, ten down, one up and down, four right, and two left. With different contexts, weights, graphics, colors, and purposes.

HTML5 Mobile App Framework PhoneGap Adds Facebook Connect Plugin

Nitobi, creators of the HTML5-based mobile app framework PhoneGap, have today launched the PhoneGap Facebook Connect plugin. The addition of the plugin means that developers building apps using Web technologies like HTML and JavaScript can now simplify the log in process for their apps by allowing users to login with their Facebook credentials.
To enable third parties the ability to integrate the Facebook Connect technology, Facebook provides a JavaScript software development kit (SDK) to developers.
However, Nitobi says that using the Facebook SDK was a challenge because it requires the use of the OAuth 2.0 standard, an open standard for authorization. This sign on process doesn’t always translate gracefully for the PhoneGap developers’ apps, the company found. Typically, a login box pops up on the user’s screen because their Facebook username and password credentials aren’t likely stored on the device.
“We got working on a Facebook plugin because we’re user experience advocates,” Dave Johnson, CTO at Nitobi Inc. says. “The OAuth authentication workflow for a mobile app isn’t ideal so we created the PhoneGap Facebook Connect plugin as a way to streamline that process and improve the experience for the end user.”
The new plugin uses the same API (application programming interface) as Facebook’s own SDK, but instead of replicating the same workflow you would see on the Web using a desktop browser, it works with the native Facebook application installed on users’ own devices. The end result is a less cumbersome log in process for an app’s end users.
The plugin is now available for download from Gitub here.
Nitobi, which is now seeing over 40,000 PhoneGap downloads per month, says it expects this new plugin to be popular.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs Resigns

Steve Jobs the behind Apple computers has resigns from his post of CEO.Tim Cook, formerly Apple, Inc’s chief operating officer, has been named the new CEO, Apple's Board announced on Wednesday. Jobs has been appointed chairman of the board.

His resignation is due to health reasons as his was diagnosed with a rare form of pancreatic cancer in 2004. In January of this year Jobs stepped aside to “focus on his health.” He has declined to elaborate on his condition.

Steve Jobs co-founded Apple in 1976 with Steve Wozniak, Mike Markkula, and others. Together they ushered in the Apple II, which went on sale in 1977. It was the first “practical” personal computer, eventually dominating the education market in particular. Jobs left Apple Computer in 1985 and set out to develop a new OS and computer company, dubbed NeXT. He returned to Apple in 1996 when the company purchased NeXT for $429 million, and took over as chief executive in 1997.

Jobs’ letter to the board:

To the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple Community:
I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.
I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.

As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.
I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.
I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.
Steve