Steven Joniak – the Blog

As anyone who knows me will already know, the last April 1st post was indeed an April Fool’s joke (or at least attempt at one). Apple and I go together like peanut butter and chocolate and what a tasty combination that is! mmmm, resse’s pieces…

Just to clarify, my last post was sarcastic as I have had a much better overall computing experience since the early ’90s using Macs. I’ve spent a number of years using PC’s for work and found them to by MUCH more problematic, virus ridden, graphic-less and overally frustrating to use on a day to day basis. Overall, the Mac OS has been far more produtive, problem free and pleasurable to use day to day then any Windows or Linux version I’ve tried to use. The fact that its really only my PC friends who ask for help or advice to ‘fix’ their computers, where as my Mac friends only ask, how do I create this or that IS a testament to the stability and different computing nature of the two platforms. 

Neither Mac or PC is perfect by any means, but the Mac is far more an elegant, refined and productive OS with just as aesthetically pleasing hardware to boot. Truth be told, if I was to match up the features and hardware of a PC from Sony, Dell, HP or any the other main brands I’d be paying as much or even more then a comparable professional Mac, which for me being a creative professional is absolutely perfect. Add to that there are so many other little details in both hardware and software you just don’t find on the PC side. PLUS, I can STILL run a full version of Windows XP Pro INSIDE my Mac OS X, running both OS’s at once, for the occasional testing of websites for clients – and it all, just works.

Since 1995, I’ve only ever run into 1 hardware failure (old Mac died), 2 viruses (harmless ones in ‘98 that simply kept restarting the Mac) and only ever lost files because of my own ‘tinkering’ with Unix commands (d’oh!) and with each version of Mac OS X am finding having very bad crashes only happen, at most 1-2 times A YEAR. The rest of the time I can just keep working away happily without much hassle at all.

And that is why I will always love my Macs.

For a long time I have been a devout Mac fan – always defending, always buying the newest and best when it comes out and thinking that I was ahead of the curve. But recently I’ve been feeling less a Mac zealot and more a Mac idiot.

But no more paying Steve Jobs – its time to start paying this Steve right here! To think of the countless hours I wasted watching keynotes and reading up Mac sites on every rumour, detail and new feature only to come to realize that it was all a show – a smoke screen – but I nolonger have the wool pulled over my eyes. So now I’m going to begin decrying a new mantra – Turn your back to the Mac.

Once I finish up these projects I’m going to sell every Mac related item I know and fully embrace the other side – the PC – and I can say my eyes are nolonger wide shut. I mean if everyone else is using them, why can’t I join in on the fun? Besides, if I want real fun I can just use my PlayStation 3 now anyways, so its a win-win! Sure I’ll have to contend with a less appealing interface, bloated software, driver issues and constant virus checks BUT I’ll be saving money and all that time I spent reading and watching all that Apple ‘cult-like’ media.

If it feels a bit chilly around here, its probably because hell hath frozen over since I’ve decided to make the switch as its THE LAST thing anyone would  have thought I could do. The new theme will help reflect my change to the darker, more worn side of the tracks where I give up the forbidden fruit for the Windows into a new soul.

Besides, I always did like the ‘PC’ better in the Apple commercial.

Update: After some testing of the drives in the ol’ G4 and reading an online tip that lack of power may be a culprit, I managed to further figure out a way to temporarily rig the pair of drives to be recognized. Seeing how the drives powered up (but not readable) when tested in the G4 proved that the drives themselves may be ok but required the original RAID controller built into the LaCie to properly read the drives in their current RAID configuration (see pic below).

Its Alive, ALIVE!

The solution involved using the G4 as an extra power source through the use of a Y-Connector Power cable – this allowed to independently power each hard drive and ensure they spun up properly. The next hope was that the original LaCie power cable would have enough power to run the controller board and allow access to the drives.

A final connection was a FireWire 400 cable between my G5 and the LaCie to hopefully access the files on the hard drives from my desktop. So I powered on both Macs, turned on the LaCie, and…

SUCCESS!!! ‘Six’ mounted on my desktop without a hitch and I was able to access all the files just like before. So what does this now mean? It may be that either

a) the LaCie power adapter needs to be replaced or

b) the controller chips have burnt out on the LaCie preventing enough power to get to the drives.

I need to find a source with a working adapter to test this, but in the very least I know the hard drives are fine and if needed I can pick up a new RAID controller enclosure. Just NOT a LaCie.

Sometimes it good to be a geek

Today I was out shopping on a beautiful sunny day after yet another big snow fall the day before and was stunned to have a total stranger come up to me and ask me if I had lost my phone. Now I have a Treo 650 smart phone – loaded with features, emails, software and info that IS practically my life in the palm of my hand – and for the first time I can ever remember, I had lost the phone in the snow as it somehow popped off my belt clip without me knowing. But what a relief that such a nice woman was courteous enough to search me out and then ask me if I had lost the phone when she could have so easily kept it! That restored some faith in humanity for me and really made me day! A special thank you again to you!

That was the good. But when I got home, I felt the balance of the universe kick in and give me the bad.

My backup external 600 GB Lacie d2 Extreme hard drive died. It would not mount or startup and simply flashes its blue light, mocking me. Of course, its 6 months past warranty so I’m left to my own devices to find a way to see if I can fix it or get some of the info back. Its mostly used for backing up all my important data and also the drive for my EyeTV software which acts like a PVR with my cable connection on my Mac. So if anything, I lost all my backup data (not the main data thankfully!) and ALL my recorded TV shows and can’t remember what else was on the drive besides that.

So my Sunday afternoon has turned into a Geek-fest Resuce Mission – taking apart the LaCie drive, pulling out old Macs from the closet, lots of cables testing, trial and error, Googling any ideas and help I can find *sigh* this is still supposed to be a busy work day (and it will) so there’s only so much I can do for now. But what I have learned are the LaCie drives have a vast history of failing just after warranty – so lesson learned AVOID LACIE products!!!

On the plus side, I’ve gotz me some cajun catfish with sweet potatoes and corn to be cookin’ up this evenin’! Yum!

Steve, Steve, Steve! How could you? We are the ones who MADE you the man today at the helm of our beloved Apple by believing in you and all that Apple and its products stand for. But to turn like this on your fans, and even worse, one of your most famours iTunes based podcast bloggers? Even worse is you have your VP of Worldwide Communication Katie Cotton laughing and Senior VP Philip Schiller also just idly standing by. Would a picture really killed you? For shame Steve, for shame!

Snippet from Violet Blue’s blog tiny nibbles …

“… So, I saw that Steve Jobs was just hanging out on the Macworld expo floor, not in conversation, not talking to anyone, and poking at his phone in the middle of the public so I walked over. Thinking a girl — in this case, a fangirl, me — will never get anything if she doesn’t ask for it, I lightly touched his arm and said “hi”. He looked at me, and I blushingly asked if it would be okay for me to ask if I could take a picture with him. I didn’t say my name or anything else, I was just a girl. He told me curtly, flatly that I was rude. And turned his back to me. The small circle of people around him sniggered. That woman you see actually snort-laughed at me, and rolled her eyes.

I walked two steps away and stopped to take this picture of his back; then I was instantly filmed and livestreamed by Robert Scoble. Watch my reaction in the video, “Violet Blue Gets Told Off by Steve Jobs” is embedded after the jump, or you can click it here.

It’s not a happy feeling to have been the poster child for iTunes podcasts for so long (I still hit the top ten, yo) — even famously when it launched — and be humiliated like that. Steve Wozniak was so much nicer.

That’s the first time I’ve ever “fangirled” anyone. And it’ll be my last.“

iPhone surprise!, originally uploaded by savagelettuce.

During the keynote of MacWorld 08 in San Francisco, Steve Jobs unevils a number of new features of the latest software update to the iPhone including the Google Maps add-on feature called ‘iCan See U’. During the demo, Steve locates me with Google Maps and then proceeds to surprise me by initiating an impromptu video conference from seemingly thin-air – and I don’t even have an iPhone! Amazing! What will those clever Cupertino crew think of next?

*original photo credit CNET.com

A wha?, originally uploaded by savagelettuce.

During the MacWorld keynote in San Franciso, Steve Jobs pauses to wonder aloud ‘who is that other Simpsons character’? Hmmm….

*original photo credit CNET.com

Once I saw the new iPod Nano with its shorter, wider shape the first thing I thought was what happens to all of us who bought Nike+ armband accessories that fit the previous tall & slim Nanos? Or even worse, was this the end of the Apple/Nike partnership? Far from it thankfully. The new Nano’s are fully Nike+ ready and use the same sensor and transmitter attachment of old, and the site shows a slightly modifed screen display, thanks to the Nano’s now wider (2x?) screen over the previous model.

So to all those I’ve told to wait – aren’t you glad you did? For more details on Nike+, clickie here.

Steve Jobs held a special Apple event at the Moscone Centre in San Francisco this morning and unveiled an entirely new and revamped iPod lineup, including the brand new iPod Touch which offers nearly all the features of the iPhone, sans the phone part.

The complete lineup, revamped include the iPod Shuffle (new colours, including a (Red) version), iPod Nano (a new, stubby shape ‘a little video for everyone’), iPod Classic (formally known as iPod video), iPod Touch (touch screen for all!) and the iPhone (8GB model price drop from $599 to $399!).

For a complete rundown of the days events, check out EnGadget’s excellent coverage here (clickie).

So this evening I finally watched the full Pirates of Silicon Valley movie (download FREE on Google Video – clickie!).

Ok, so first this movie is like nearly 8 years old and not entirely an accurate depiction of what happened between a young Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, but from the articles I read and first hand stories I heard from people who worked with Steve Jobs (during my stint in San Jose in ‘02) the overall sentiment and feel for how things went down during the late 70’s and 80’s is pretty well depicted in this movie. You do get a sense of the vast differences between the ‘visionary artist’ personailty of Steve Jobs and the ‘ruthless capitalist’ of Bill Gates and earn a glimpse into how it all utlimately led to the place where both companies stand today. The qutote that seems to set the tone for the movie, and still rings true today, is one from Picasso:

Good artistis copy, great artists steal.

One thing that really crashes my hard drive are the people I continually read online who ‘think’ they know how it all went down and continually get it wrong – so here is my simplest explanation of how the computer world came to be as we know it today:

Xerox invented and created the graphic user interface, the mouse, ethernet, basically everything you are using right now, whether Mac or PC, you owe thanks to engineers at Xerox for developing the basics of the computer experience as we know it today. Their Executives unfortunately didn’t see the potential, invited Jobs and his team to scope out their labs and research and then basically gave Apple the intellectual know how at the time to build out what would become the world’s first graphic user interface for a personal computer.

Apple built the first commercially available user interface and personal computer in the world with the Lisa and more notably the Macintosh based primarily on their meeting with Xerox engineers. Steve Jobs had the foresight and vision to truly see what how much a world changing device the personal computer could be for everyone to use and are credited for giving the world the mouse and point and click desktop metaphor interface we all are familiar with today whether it be Mac, PC, or Linux.

Microsoft saw the commercial potential of selling a licensed software operating system to hardware manufacturers. They were not concerned so much of the ‘vision’ like Steve Jobs & Apple as they were in capitalizing on the overall idea of making people believe that they needed their DOS and Windows system and then selling them on their software which wasn’t the best but simply worked ‘good enough’. Bill Gates was smart in realizing the potential was not in the quality but in the consumers want for the quantity which enabled Microsoft to make billions of dollars to date.

But what is truly interesting is to see the modern 2007 juxtapostion of fortunes between the companies and how the overall perception of fortune, quality and coolness has turned the table to a certain degree. Microsoft is still by far the dominant player in the PC business, but Apple has forged incredibly aggressively into a powerhouse in music and media – an area which Microsoft continues to struggle to gain mindshare never mind market share – hello Zune? Hardly a blip on the radar of the music world.

The Mac OS X level of sophisticated quality and attention to detail also stands up well against the Windows XP and Vista OS systems to the point of causing a number of Windows only pundits to drop their Microsoft only stance and turn to Mac! Macs & iPods are increasingly cool to both consumers and business people. Macs run OS X AND Windows. The press and people in general are highly anticipating the new Apple iPhone. Everyone is literally hanging on Steve Jobs words as if he was a prophet guiding this generation into a new age of digital nirvana while Microsoft, well, they seem to be regarded as the stodgy old fogies who simply don’t get it, with the only exception being the XBox division.

Overall, these are the most interesting times for the computer world as it seems the tides are a changing in what consitutes a computer and who will be the ultimate champion to the computing world in general.

Apple innovates, Microsoft immitates, and everyone else tries to keep up.

My prediction is that within 5 years, the operating system as we know it will become less relevant as the internet becomes our ‘operating system’ ala Google. And further down the road, maybe 10-15 years, Apple and Microsoft will become one as it comes to light that the weaker company simply can nolonger compete on the OS market. This notes of course that Googles CEO currently sits on Apple’s board so it is Microsoft who will be forced to split off its successful XBox division into its own entity, while its OS system convenes an alliance with Apple.

Only time and the markets will tell the outcome. One day I may delve deeper into my thoughts with greater detail of what I forsee, though if know anything it is to simply expect the unexpected.