Tag Archives: Steve Jobs

Year in review…

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My 2011 Prius outside My Pasadena Studio

In essence I prayed that 2009 would be my worst year of not just the decade but of my whole life. The audacity! 2010 was better (especially from a financial point of view)—but the imperial year 2011 was the worst of the three. The world is in turmoil and that sheltered child, Bryan, must remember that he has not been sheltered for over two decades—and that child no longer exists.

2011 was a year of survival—like reggae-music-lyrics of survival—even like Blues lyrics of survival. I can only sit here and write this because the year has ended with a positive twist (especially from a financial point of view). But the twisting is only around promises. Any serious reconstruction (especially from a financial point of view) begins next week. “The eagle flies on Friday” as the Blues lyrics say—and next Friday promises reconstruction. But the “civil war” is just beginning.

Just in case your life is as sweet and fuzzy as Georgia peaches here are a few links from around the world to put my words into not the rasx() context but your context:

“Gosling blows lid off Jobs Java nonsense” and other Google Starred Items

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 Cade Metz: “Steve Jobs has apparently weighed into the debate over Apple’s decision to deprecate Java on the Mac, and his terse explanation was promptly deprecated by Java founder James Gosling. According to MacRumors.com, a concerned Java developer emailed the Apple cult leader on Thursday to ask about Apple’s plans for the platform, and as he’s been known to do from time to time, Jobs responded.”

“Ubuntu moves away from GNOME”

Joe Brockmeier: “The big news at the Ubuntu Developer Summit? Moving to Unity as the default interface for Ubuntu Desktop with Natty Narwhal (11.04), rather than GNOME Shell. Earlier this year, Canonical representatives had to deny that they were forking GNOME with the work on the Unity interface.”

“F# Goes Open Source”

Miguel de Icaza: “F# is a fascinating language, but I had not really spent much time with it as we could not really distribute it as an open source compiler limiting its usefulness in the Linux and Mac worlds. Now F# can become just another language that developers can use.”

“Netflix finally brings ‘Watch Instantly’ to Macs via Silverlight” and other links…

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Netflix: Game Over Joshua Topolsky: “Netflix claims that the new implementation in Silverlight provides ‘breakthrough navigation for fast-forward and rewind,’ though fails to indicate exactly when this is all being rolled out (we assume immediately). Unfortunately for super-duper late adopters, the software will only work with Intel-based Macs, so if you’ve been holding onto a G3 for dear life, here’s one more reason to finally can it, along with your Xbox 360 HD DVD player, Von Dutch trucker cap, and gas-guzzling Escalade. Full PR after the break.”

“Steve Jobs explains why FireWire is dead”

Charles Arthur: “There’s been plenty of outrage and despondency from would-be Apple MacBook buyers over the fact that the latest versions of the low-end laptops don’t have FireWire, the high-speed data transfer system invented by Apple and Sony that basically kicks USB’s bum (even USB2.0). It’s being taken out the back and getting an icepick in the neck.” USB comes from the Intel camp so it appears that Steve Jobs is responding to ‘pressure’ from the Intel-based gift horse rolling out his new line of products.

“Silverlight 2 Released”

Scott Guthrie: “Silverlight 2 is small in size (4.6MB) and takes only 4–10 seconds to install on a machine that doesn’t already have it. It does not require the .NET Framework to be installed on a computer to run—the Silverlight setup download includes everything necessary to play video or run applications.” Yes, great Scott, but has the install experience improved?

“Mono 2.0 is out!”

Miguel de Icaza: “As the project matured, developers started taking advantage of Mono’s open source nature: essentially .NET on their own terms. A platform that could be adapted, morphed, ported and modified to suit many different uses. Today Mono is embedded in portable mp3 players and powers Unity3D’s game engine on the Apple iPhone, the Nintendo Wii, MacOS X and Windows (Some folks at Novell are working with Unity on bringing Unity3d to Linux!).”