More Apple Hardware Updates

Apple formally announces the introduction of 802.11n. Speed is definitely in the air. Apple is going to charge $1.99 for Core 2 Duo Mac users to enable this 802.11n feature. That doesn't sound nice or generous at all considering it's a software or firmware upgrade. Apple also claims to be "the leaders in wireless innovation ... and leading the way into a new generation with 802.11n." iThink Linksys came out with the 802.11n router way earlier. But Apple has gotten into the habit of ignoring and abusing Linksys anyway, like Apple totally took the iPhone name with no respect to Linksys ownership of the name. Well from day one, Apple had been pretty brazen in terms of name grabbing. The name Apple was used by Apple Records before there was Apple Computer but Jobs took it anyway.

For those of you whose wife thinks there is too much radiation going on inside your apartment and hence bans WiFi, I feel truly sorry for you.

More iPod Shuffles

Apple launches colored iPod Shuffle. The $79 Shuffle now comes with more colors, just in time for your Valentines.

Notice the ad above. It's apparently a Levi's trucker's jacket. But Apple did the right thing by photoshopping away the embossed words on the buttons and the label on the pocket flap. Levi's has become a lawsuit happy company according to this New York Times article.

Windows Vista

If you order any PC or notebook now, they will come with Windows Vista installed (or should I say pre-installed?), like it or not.

I have been really behind in the Windows world at home. At home, I still with a Dell machine with a blazing fast 900mhz chip and 256MB RAM, running pretty flawlessly on Windows Millennium edition. I don't have any compelling reason to upgrade. iTune doesn't support Windows Me, and plenty of softwares only load on Windows 2000 or XP but I don't care that much.

This month or so, I will probably get bombarded with Windows ads, which I don't really mind, I like ads especially good ones.

Other than Vista, Office is getting more than a face lift. I have been an Excel user for say too many years. From what I read, seems like the whole Office has been through some drastic interface changes. That can't be good news in the short run as I need to adjust and learn how to do things. I haven't really read anything regarding VBA support in the new Office environment but I hope and think it would, how can it not be? I am clueless as far as .Net goes.

Indoor Soccer

Untitled

Jan 18, 2007

Chinese School

Chinese School

New York Hall of Science

Dec 30, 2006

Firehouse

YMCA

New York Hall of Science

Arm wrestling, summer 2006

New York Hall of Science

Summer 2006

Australian Open Women Final

Williams is steamrolling Sharapova. Sharapova is down one set and is down 4 games now. Unless Williams is having a meltdown, I don't see Sharapova is going to win this one.

UPDATE:
Sharapova totally wilted under Williams firepower. Williams won the Championship in 68 or 63 minutes. Maria Sharapova just couldn't get into any rhythm the entire match, she still looks pretty though, despite just beaten so badly by Williams. Both girls delivered very gracious speech.

The Sun is shining again

The Sun is shining again. Solaris is going to run on Intel in addition to AMD. AMD's stock price has been taken a beating because of price pressure from Intel.

Further reading about "chipnostic."

State of the Union Address

The freak show that is called American Idol is going to lead in to the presidential State of the Union Address at 9PM Eastern time on Fox. I probably will watch some.

Trouble in Paradise

New Yorkers lead the way to sue Apple.

New York City Employees' Retirement System, holder of 1 million Apple stock, is the lead plaintiff in the shareholder lawsuit against Apple's option backdating. According to Bloomberg.com, Jobs was questioned by both the SEC and the Justice Department.

Jobs once said he is only indispensable to his family when asked if Apple can go on without him. Perhaps Apple can bring Steve Wozniak back to the helm, well, he never actually left to begin with, and bring back his Apple II. I am waiting for some solid hardware from Apple and OS X 10.5. The dropping of Computer from its name may not be such a good thing after all.

Oscars

I have not seen any of the nominated movies unless you count cartoons like Cars and Happy Feet.

Oscar Nomination news from Yahoo!

Gap

For every generation there is a Gap. Not so for the past couple of years.

Gap CEO Paul Pressler steps down following dismal holiday sales. And the company just hired Goldman, perhaps for putting itself on the block.

Gap used to be such a strong brand, now it's almost like a also-ran.

For the hopelessly preppy type, they probably go for something like J. Crew. And for oversexed young assholes who prefer to wear their polo shirt collar stand up and mistake flip flops as all seasoned footwears, they go for Abercrombie and Fitch. And for the oversexed downtown type with a conscience, they prefer American Apparel.

I just don't know who's buying Gap anymore . . . eh actually maybe me. Maybe not buying but I still wear their T-shirts, sweaters and jeans that I have in my closet since the beginning of time.

Breaking: Hillary Rodham Clinton: I'm In

Hillary Clinton announces she is entering the 2008 presidential race. If she got elected, it's like buy one get one free. Bill Clinton might not have brought dignity to the Oval office but everybody kind of having a good time when he was around.

UPDATE:-

"I'm in. And I'm in to win."


Vice President's laughter Liz Cheney used I'm in to win against Clinton's flip-flop on the war on terror, or precisely the Iraq war. One of the real or perceived weaknesses of Clinton is she doesn't have backbone, she just goes with the poll. Look like it's the beginning of some cat fight.

The Devil Talks Prada

LG just up the ante by introducing its own touch screen cellphone a week after Apple made the iPhone announcement. The PRADA phone is a collaboration between The South Korean technology company LG and the Italian fashion powerhouse PRADA. Unlike the iPhone, the LG model is almost readily available in Europe and in Asia. There is no date for an America launch yet.

Now the devil not only can wear Prada, she can talk Prada as well.

(MORE) BORING SHIT follows:-

Apple usually makes its new products readily available right after their announcements, iPhone was a glaring exception. Perhaps the Apple tv wasn't big enough to carry the whole MacWorld show, or perhaps Apple wanted the launch before LG so the iPhone doesn't look like a copycat. Or perhaps Apple wanted iPhone's announcement to somehow deflect some of the bad press involving the options backdating scandal. The official explanation was because of the FCC filing will give it out anyway. In any event, the six-month gap between the launch and announcement cannot be such a good thing. Six months is long enough to cool off some impulsive hysterical buying. I am not sure if iPhone is 5 years ahead of the competition but I am quite sure America is pretty backward in terms of integrating cell use with daily life when compared against Japan or other European countries.

Top 10 Clichés of 2006

|=============================================|
|Cliché                       Press citations |
|---------------------------------------------|
|1 At the end of the day               21,430 |
|2 In the black                         8,394 |
|3 In the red                           7,719 |
|4 Level playing field                  4,821 |
|5 Time and again                       4,525 |
|6 About-face                           2,509 |
|7 Wealth of experience                 2,298 |
|8 Split second                         2,201 |
|9 Time is running out                  2,154 |
|10 Outpouring of support               1,649 |
|=============================================|

Source factiva via the Wall Street Journal, Wednesday, January 17, 2007

American Idol

Sometimes, watching American Idol is like watching a train wreck, it's bad but you can't take your eyes off it.

Breaking: 曹達華 1915 - 2007

picture from http://zh.wikipedia.org/, copyright belongs to its rightful owners.
曹達華

Thank you for "Buddhist Palm" and all the black and white wuxia movies. You'd made my childhood afternoon TV worth watching. Looking back, you and your characters looked absolutely ridiculous but I remember how much my childhood classmates and I loved your movies. 曹達華 was an entertainer in the best possible sense of the word.

This Week in Review

The big news of course was iPhone. Steve Jobs, the purveyor of cool finally answered the perennial prayers of its fanboys and gave them and the world iPhone. Cisco, without missing a beat, say iSue, claiming trademark infringement of the name iPhone.

For $250 million for 5 years or $1 million a week, David Beckham is moving to LA. Does America care about soccer? It never did and probably never will.

More iPhone

If you are not yet sick and tired of the iPhone already, you may want to get yours right here right now. You don't need to wait till June or sign any 2-year contract with Cingular. Sid, don't say I don't do anything for you.

permalink from Boing Boing.

The Future has Arrived.

After months of speculation, Apple's Steve Jobs finally unveiled the much anticipated cellphone that is known as the iPhone. It's not the Christ's second coming, but I guess it comes close.

It's not like we don't have cellphone now, it's just that people dig Apple's sleek design.

Other than the iPhone, there aren't that many new developments except for the new Apple tv which I am not too crazy about. I rather see some hardware improvements and price reduction on the MacBook and MacBook Pro lines even though it's very unlikely given the momentum that Apple is enjoying.

See iPhone yourself.

Anybody digging Vista and Zune ....

UPDATE: Cisco is suing Apple claiming the ownership of the name iPhone. I thought Apple would have used a different name for its cellphone but apparently Jobs is so hung up on the i everything branding. Personally, I think podPhone, MacPhone work too.

Apple Store Offline

A cell phone sans buttons introduced by Apple's Steve Jobs. JPGs from macRumors.com

When other ecommerce stores go offline, it means offline or some screwed up. But when Apple goes offline, it means only one thing - new products.

Apple store is taken offline so be prepared for some new updates there. Jobs is now doing his presentation. If he's not going to demo a "podPhone," the stock is going to nose dive I think. Entering the cell market is perhaps the next right thing for Apple to do but they are going to uncharted territory. There are talks that Apple may even operate the phone network so as to have end to end control of everything. Or it's going to be exclusively on Cingular for its debut.

OKAY, according to MacRumors.com, Wifi n is officially supported for its streaming video device. Speed if not love is definitely in the air now....

3 revolutionary products:
Widescreen iPod. Good I didn't buy any old iPod. this is the one...
Mobile Phone. So the rumors are just valid.
Internet Communicator. What the hell that is. I guess it's like a Tablet or such.
I take it back, it's actually one device doing the above three things. So this is drastically different from iPod's philosophy: do one thing and do one thing really well.

Apple's shares shot up minutes after Jobs introduced the "phone."...

Guys, get ready for a lot of touching and fingering ... that is if you can afford to spend $499 or $599 for a 4GB or 8GB model with a 2-year contract with Cingular.

Blogger is pretty down now

Blogger is stalling. For some reason my blog is still up and running. Not that it matters.

podPhone is imminent

Let's see if today is the day for the introduction of the much anticipated podPhone from Apple. 2oo7 is going to be another exciting year for the technology inclined, just think Vista and Leopard. The whole IT industry probably is going to benefit from these two significant OS's rollout.

NYC stinks

NYC stinks and it's confirmed and reported.


UPDATE:
NYC is blaming NJ for the source of the stench. Yes, that explains it, it's all New Jersey's fault.

Further reading here:-
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-NYC-Gas-Odor.html

While Dems are taking control of the House ...

Asians are crowding America's top colleges.

Stanford 24%
Harvard 18%
Princeton 13%
MIT 27%
Cal Tech 33%
Johns Hopkins 22%
Columbia 13%

Sources: College Board, fall 2005 via Little Asia On the Hill by Timothy Egan published on the Education Life section of the Sunday New York Times on January 7, 2007. JPG from The New York Times.

Take for example, Berkeley. Asians compile 12% of the California population but 37% in Berkeley's undergraduate program. So you can see Berkeley is the "Asian Heaven." So if you are Chinese and want to experience diversity on campus, don't even try. The reality is people generally respect and celebrate differences but they don't necessarily mix socially. There are debates whether the system should bring back affirmative action in campus as to mere meritocracy as it is now to diversify the campus experience...By the way, Asians aren't considered minority for affirmative action, so Asians are pretty much on their own without the benefit of any federal guilt trip let's level the playing field program.

iWoz: Book Report Part II

Let me see where I left off first. I didn't write much at all.

iWoz is Steve Woziniak's autobiography to set the record straight, or essentially telling people what an asshole Steve Jobs was . There were several events as mentioned in the book that leads me to conclude that Jobs could be an asshole.

On p.109

"In the meantime, trembling with fear, Steve passed the Blue Box to me. He didn't have a jacket on, but I did. I slid it into my pocket."

The Blue Box was one of Woz's brilliant hacks to make free (read illegal) phone calls. Jobs passed the Blue Box to Woz thinking that the police approaching them knew they were making illegal phone calls. So Jobs shit his pants and just wanted Woz to have the Blue Box when the police came.

On p. 147-148

"... Steve paid me half the seven hundred bucks he said they paid him for it.... Later I found out he got paid a bit more for it - like a few thousand dollars - than he said at the time."

So Jobs was a greedy liar, even to his friend and partner. Woz on the book says "I was hurt. But I didn't make a big deal about it or anything." Yeah, right. Many years later, like now, he still remembers and writes about it so the whole world knows Jobs was a liar and cheated him more than a thousand dollars. This was about the video game Breakout the two Steve's did for Atari, then Jobs employer. They did it in four days and ended up with mononucleosis.

On p. 195

"Steve Jobs made what I thought was the most ridiculous statement. He said, 'You might just want to buy this product for a few hundred thousand dollars. I was almost embarrassed....Steve added, 'A few hundred thousand dollars, plus you have to give us jobs working on this project."

Woz was talking a meeting they had with Commodore's bigwigs when they tried to raise money for their Apple II personal computer. So Jobs was not only greedy but ridiculously so.

It just gets better, on p. 269

"From what I heard, he threw it against a wall and put in a box and said, "Send it to him." As if Apple owned it. The Frog guy told me that Steve told him they couldn't do any work for us because Apple 'owned' Frog."

Woz quit his work at Apple (but still an employee and draws a salary up to this day) and started his own company CL 9, to make, gasp, universal remote. He was trying to get Apple's design firm, Frog Design, to do the prototype but Jobs wouldn't have any of it. So Jobs was a greedy asshole. (As an aside, Woz emphasizes more than once that the Wall Street Journal reportage was wrong on saying that he wasn't happy at Apple and was disgruntled. Woz says his reason to leave Apple was to start his company making universal remote. I wouldn't believe it let alone The Wall Street Journal.)

So you see it's not too farfetched that Apple has this option backdating scandal, because like Woz mentioned Jobs could be very not honest and greedy. Jobs name was cleared of any wrong doing by some internal committee, though the whole thing is still under SEC investigation as far as I know.

Also, Woz likes to point out that it was he and only he who single handedly designed Apple II, not he and Jobs. They didn't found Apple in Jobs garage as the legend would have it. It was HP, Woz beloved company that was started in the garage. Woz worked in his room in his apartment while Jobs worked in his room in his parents' house. Apple II, the one designed by him rocks while Apple III really sucks ass. Woz blames the constant crashing of Apple's OS 7 on Internet Explorer, at the same time without citing any evidence, at least in my mind.

In conclusion, Woz gives some words of wisdom to todays engineers, screw the committee and team work. Work alone. He promises it is worth it.

The book is easy to read, even I can finish it in a few days. I think any parent, engineer, entrepreneur can benefit from reading it.

Breaking: NYC high 72 F

I can almost hear the iceberg cracking and melting away in Antarctica for good.

Macworld, Jan 8-12. The podPhone introduction is imminent. More crap from Apple. Just sit tight and see what Steve Jobs has to offer.

iWoz: Book Report Part I

I was no good at writing book report. Actually that should come across as pretty obvious.

I checked out iWoz a few days ago. The book isn't like Shakespeare or something and perhaps just because of that it's very readable to me. iWoz is an autobiography of Steve Wozniak, the other Steve that founded Apple.

... to be contined.

Asia Birth Rate is going up in 9 months

According to a research scientist in Flushing, New York, whose identity shall remain anonymous, the birth rate in Hong Kong is likely to perk up due to Internet outage caused by a 6.7 or 7.1 magnitude earthquake happened outside Taiwan on Christmas Eve 2006.

Instead of surfing porn and having sex with PC or Mac or blogging in the virtual world, people in Hong Kong re-discover hardcore sex and like Justin Timberlake says "bring sexy back" in the bedroom or even better on the kitchen floor.

Sex is healthy and good in general, however local health officials express concerns on the already stressed out prenatal care system ....

Reporting live from cubicle farm from yours truly...

News Digest

Or otherwise known as The New York Times Rip-off.

January 2, Wall Street will be closed in honor of the death of a former President, hint, not Saddam. It's Gerald R. Ford (1913- 2006). The Masters of the Universe in Wall Street kind of get another day off. The launch of the new Wall Street Journal on Jan 2 is inadvertently affected and inconvenienced and hence made fun of by the New York Times.

Microsoft gave out Ferrari to Bloggers. Wait, it's the $2,200 Acer Ferrari laptops not the bank breaking muscle car. Bloggers, apparently have lower or no journalistic standards than real journalists. The laptops are intended for tech bloggers to review Vista that came loaded with the laptops. FOM, or Friends of Microsoft (yes, they even have a acronym for that) sure have benefits.

2006 was the deadliest year for journalists and media workers. 155 deaths were reported by the International Federation of Journalists. As for bloggers, anyone can be a blogger...and the number of bloggers killed in front of their keyboards is ... zero I think. And the number of self important and delusional bloggers who think they are building a rocket ship or something that are changing the world is countless, The Time's ass-kissing Person of the Year issue certainly fans this delusional thinking.

The 60s is the new 40s. Stallone's final (don't bet on it) Rocky movie is swinging in the Christmas and New Year box office. Not surprisingly, the Indiana Jones money making franchise is making a come back (did it ever go away?). The fourth chapter of the Indiana Jones will be released around May 2008. I hope it's not about Jones fighting ED and AD (as in erectile dysfunction and Alzheimer's disease). The last Indiana movie was the 1989 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. I was immensely delighted by the Raiders of the Lost Ark, I even have a LD for that movie.

The most popular Wikipedia Citations are
10 RSS file format
9 Snakes on a Plane
8 Wiki
7 Meme
6 Ajax
5 Mark Foley scandal
4 World War II
3 Blog
2 Steve Irwin
1 Web 2.0

Sources: The New York Times, Monday January 1, 2007 paper edition