From dave at davesevick.com Thu Dec 1 06:29:27 2011 From: dave at davesevick.com (Dave Sevick) Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2011 08:29:27 -0500 Subject: [NPMUG] =?windows-1252?q?Apple_Store_billing_phishing_=96_beware_?= =?windows-1252?q?bogus_emails!?= Message-ID: http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/12/01/apple-store-billing-phishing/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+nakedsecurity+%28Naked+Security+-+Sophos%29 Apple Store billing phishing - beware bogus emails! Phishing isn't just about stealing your banking details, your PayPal password or even your Facebook login credentials. These days it could be your Apple account that is being targeted too. With more and more people having Apple IDs (used by millions for purchasing software from the Mac or iPhone App stores, or downloading music and movies from iTunes) it's inevitable that criminals will show an interest in stealing your credentials. On the surface, the following email might appear to come legitimately from Apple. Dear Customer, It has come to our attention that your account Billing Information records are out of date. That requires you to update your Billing Information. Failure to update your records will result in account termination. Click on the reference link below and enter your login information on the following page to confirm your Billing Information records... Click on [LINK] to confirm your Billing Information records. Thanks, Apple Customer Support Take a closer look at the email, however, and if you hover your mouse over the link you will see that the email is attempting to take you to a German website, rather than the legitimate Apple Store. In this particular case, the webpage you are taken to is now suspended - but future messages could easily take you to a fake Apple Store login page. The emails appear to be being spammed out widely, and not just to Apple Store users. The cybercriminals are taking a shotgun approach, hoping that a good proportion of recipients have Apple IDs and might be fooled into handing over their details. Always take care over unsolicited emails, and be cautious of the links you click on. Sophos products are blocking the above message as spam. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://davesevick.com/pipermail/npmug/attachments/20111201/797a06b2/attachment.htm From peterc at windstream.net Thu Dec 1 09:26:24 2011 From: peterc at windstream.net (Peter Carras) Date: Thu, 01 Dec 2011 11:26:24 -0500 Subject: [NPMUG] iCal problems with iPhone 3gs Message-ID: <2E922A72-2282-43C6-B5F9-5B4ADC1DB33E@windstream.net> Hi, A friend at work is having difficulties synchronizing the appointments in iCal between his iPhone, an iPad, and Windows computers. The sync problems began around the time he updated the iPhone 3gs operating system to iOS 5. Here's his description of the problem: > When using iCal to manage a shared Exchange appointment calendar the > iPhone will not add an event. Events that are already on the > calendar can be modified in real time (on the iPhone) and will > propagate to all other subscribers of that calendar. If an event is > added via another device it shows up immediately and can be > modified. When I add an event on the iPhone it shows the event as > being added in iCal, but the event isn't reflected on the shared > calendar. I have read that iCloud settings can cause this to be an > issue. All iCloud settings have been turned on, tested, then turned > off and re-tested. I deleted the Exchange account and set it back > up. I have checked all the permission settings in Exchange account > the calendar is tied to. Since the iPhone can edit events already on > the calendar I doubt it's on the Windows side (how many times do I > get to say that!?!) Also, the iPhone is v-e-r-y s-l-o-w to respond to keystrokes, but this may be an unrelated issue. Any suggestions? - Peter --- Peter L. Carras -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://davesevick.com/pipermail/npmug/attachments/20111201/c822ff00/attachment.htm From markd at borkware.com Thu Dec 1 11:10:10 2011 From: markd at borkware.com (Mark Dalrymple) Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2011 13:10:10 -0500 Subject: [NPMUG] iPad and RAM prices Message-ID: Apparently the iPad is causing the price of dynamic RAM (what's used in laptops and desktops) to plummet: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/11/30/ipad_disrupting_global_dram_market_causing_chipmakers_to_lose_billions.html Crucial.com (my favorite RAM place) has 8GB of MacBook Pro RAM for $46. Cheers, ++md From patrick at cranstoninc.com Fri Dec 2 18:44:02 2011 From: patrick at cranstoninc.com (Patrick Cranston) Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2011 20:44:02 -0500 Subject: [NPMUG] Alert iCloud deletes Trash after 30 days Message-ID: Just wanted to let people know. If you use iCloud and sync Trash Folder with the server (ie the cloud) messages moved to the Trash folder will be deleted after 30 days. There is no way to turn this delete "feature" off. Your options are to not "store messages on the server" in Apple Mail. In webmail you can set deleted messages to be sent to a different folder. Patrick Cranston www.cranstonit.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://davesevick.com/pipermail/npmug/attachments/20111202/d3036f7f/attachment-0001.htm -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Safari1.png Type: image/png Size: 56142 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://davesevick.com/pipermail/npmug/attachments/20111202/d3036f7f/attachment-0001.png From bishopjosephsr at mac.com Sat Dec 3 06:05:28 2011 From: bishopjosephsr at mac.com (Joseph Garlington) Date: Sat, 03 Dec 2011 08:05:28 -0500 Subject: [NPMUG] Dragon Dictate for Mac 2.0 Message-ID: Is there anyone having success with this software? Any hints, etc. that would shorten my learning curve. Thanks for any help. Bishop Garlington Sent from my iPad From robertadonaldson at gmail.com Mon Dec 5 20:33:29 2011 From: robertadonaldson at gmail.com (robertadonaldson) Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2011 22:33:29 -0500 Subject: [NPMUG] Goodwill CRC update for Friday, November 2, 2011 Message-ID: Dear Mac friends: Many thanks to Charlie Hutchens, John Hamill, and Marty Swartz for joining me last Friday for our weekly workday at our Goodwill Computer Recycling Center "annex." The week was another lesson in All Things Must Pass. There were only three items de-manufactured this week, but one was another of my beloved LaserWriter Pros. It was a printer everyone, especially me, loved. It ran forever and hardly ever needed attention. It got a new toner cartridge every year or so. But it got sick. Toner kept dumping into the inside of the printer, no matter what cartridge was put it. I just got tired of cleaning it out, and finally every piece it printed was covered with loose toner. I sat it in the corner and looked at it every day wondering what I could do to make it right. No matter I could buy a new laser printer for just over the cost of one of its toner cartridges. Last week, I decided. It's time had come. Even through MacTracker says it weighs the same at the original IMac, it just felt heavier as I put it in the car. And it wasn't even 20 years old yet... On the bright side, we refurbished 11 Macs bringing our all time total to 3,154. We de-manufactured two others, and, of course, Old Beige. We took in two bins of donated Macs during our two-week absence, so we'll gather again this Friday, December 9, for another workday. We hope to see you there! Robert A. Donaldson radonaldson at mac.com robertadonaldson at gmail.com (H) 412-922-3303 (M) 412-477-9188 From dave at davesevick.com Wed Dec 7 19:36:27 2011 From: dave at davesevick.com (Dave Sevick) Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2011 21:36:27 -0500 Subject: [NPMUG] Gillian Chase - iPhone 4s Music Video , Song: Don't Know Why Message-ID: http://vimeo.com/32407718 a CAMP 4 COLLECTIVE production Director: Tim Kemple Artist: Gillian Chase Song: Don't Know Why Audio Master: Garage Band Camera Operators: Camp 4 Collective Cameras: iPhone 4s x 2 Apps: Camera & TimeLapse -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://davesevick.com/pipermail/npmug/attachments/20111207/578009a7/attachment.htm From robertadonaldson at gmail.com Fri Dec 9 17:50:50 2011 From: robertadonaldson at gmail.com (robertadonaldson) Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2011 19:50:50 -0500 Subject: [NPMUG] Goodwill CRC update, Friday, December 9, 2011 Message-ID: <72EAB7AC-BDA6-486C-956F-9AC69BE46FFF@gmail.com> Dear Mac friends: Many thanks to Charlie Hutchens, John Hamill, Marty Swartz and Dave Sevick for joining me today for our weekly workday at our Goodwill Computer Recycling Center "annex." It was our last scheduled work day in 2011. Today, our delivery of donations "overfloweth." We took in five bins of Macs to add to the three bins delivered last week. We now have enough Macs on hand to keep us busy well through the month of January after we return from the holidays. Today, we recalled the astute observations of our colleague Tucker Trainor, still off on family leave, who once warned us of G4 PowerMac Towers with opaque start buttons. He observed some time ago those particular Macs really don't want to image with OS X. And today, I personally proved him right again. After spending more than an hour chipping away at this stubborn Mac, I remembered Tucker's wisdom. Sort of like in a TV show with a fuzzy balloon over my head with his picture and echoing voice, "Idiot! Those won't image!" We got even when his evaluation months ago of a G5 Tower with an unknown power connector was proved not to be "Frenchy," a visitor from Apple overseas, but just a "hospital grade" power variant. As we closed the books on 2011, we refurbished eight Macs today, and de-manufactured 13 others. Our all time total is now 3,162. I'll be adding up the numbers for the year, and post a report summarizing our activities for 2011 in the weeks ahead. We're taking our usual multi-week holiday break and will return on Friday, January 6, 2012. This will mean we have about 50 weeks to clear up all those Macs before the ancient Mayans destroy the world. Or the U.S. Congress after the election. Or Citibank. Sometimes I get confused... We hope to see you in 2012! Robert A. Donaldson radonaldson at mac.com robertadonaldson at gmail.com (H) 412-922-3303 (M) 412-477-9188 From dave at davesevick.com Fri Dec 9 19:18:00 2011 From: dave at davesevick.com (Dave Sevick) Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2011 21:18:00 -0500 Subject: [NPMUG] Apple on Apple on Apple Message-ID: <629BA902-1F8B-4A62-B65C-8459C8FB9FCE@davesevick.com> A look at The Beatles' album covers over the years to prime you for the holidays ! Uploaded by Apple on Dec 9, 2011 Let iTunes take you on a journey through The Beatles, from Please, Please Me, all the way to Abbey Road. http://youtu.be/ychmsJR6Rkk?hd=1 From Barbara.Mitchell28 at verizon.net Sun Dec 11 15:39:09 2011 From: Barbara.Mitchell28 at verizon.net (Barbara Mitchell) Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2011 17:39:09 -0500 Subject: [NPMUG] question Message-ID: <83C298AB-34A2-4FC1-A987-A010DB68B2F7@verizon.net> Should I take CD's or DVD's of Mac games for little/middle kids to Goodwill when I take my old computer? They are MAC and PC compatible for the most part, like Disney, some from Learning Company, etc? Or do they go in the round file here? Thanks, Barb From ronladams7 at gmail.com Sun Dec 11 21:15:08 2011 From: ronladams7 at gmail.com (Ron_A) Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2011 21:15:08 -0700 Subject: [NPMUG] Time Capsule... Message-ID: My son has a Time Capsule (about 13 months old). He said the light went out and the wireless network no longer functions. He can hear the hard drive spool up when plugging it in. Any thoughts? Ron From Dave at davesevick.com Sun Dec 11 21:20:30 2011 From: Dave at davesevick.com (Dave at davesevick.com) Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2011 20:20:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: [NPMUG] CBSNews.com: Holiday%20tech%20gift%20ideas%20from%20Techno%20Claus%20-%20CBSNews Message-ID: <1681677967.3515611323663630932.JavaMail.app@phx1-rb-legacy-app2.cnet.com> This email was sent from Dave at davesevick.com Message from sender: David "Santa" Pogue on Christmas .... Holiday%20tech%20gift%20ideas%20from%20Techno%20Claus%20-%20CBSNews URL: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3445_162-57340952/holiday-tech-gift-ideas-from-techno-claus/ %27Tis%20the%20season%20for%20electronic%20gifts%2C%20and%20New%20York%20Times%20columnist%20David%20Pogue%20offers%20his%20tips CNET: The source for computers and technology http://www.cnet.com From markd at borkware.com Mon Dec 12 08:37:17 2011 From: markd at borkware.com (Mark Dalrymple) Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2011 10:37:17 -0500 Subject: [NPMUG] Time Capsule... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Some time capsules have had hardware problems, although usually it's complete power death. Here's a site that tracks them : http://timecapsuledead.org/ . You might be able to get a replacement from Apple. Cheers, ++md From sevick at computereach.com Thu Dec 15 05:14:08 2011 From: sevick at computereach.com (Dave Sevick) Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2011 07:14:08 -0500 Subject: [NPMUG] "Speedy Delivery" in Dormont - A Beautiful Day in this Neighborhood Message-ID: <7FF4C6BC-D8F9-4910-8E97-BB5D4F5042D8@computereach.com> Dear Apple folks, 10 Macs went to the Dormont United Methodist Church, "Youth Steps" program for teens ages 12-15 after school, located on 1614 Potomac Ave in Pittsburgh, PA. On Dec 13, 2011 Mr. McFeely the "Speedy Delivery" mailman character from Mister Roger's Neighborhood joined with ComputeReach in a "Speedy Delivery" of 10 G4 eMacs to the teens attending the Youth Steps after-school program at the Dormont United Methodist Church. Pastor Annette Bolds and computer lab director Millie Rutkoswki greeted us with Boy Scout Troop #23 and several neighborhood children. New YouTube video of the event here: http://youtu.be/uxP_V26LaVU?hd=1 More info at : http://www.gbgm-umc.org/dormont/ Mr. McFeely keeps the wonderful memory of Fred Rogers alive at: http://fredrogers.org Find old TV shows of Mister Rogers Neighborhood at http://www.pbs.org Thanks in large part to Marty Swartz for his work behind the scenes preparing these computers. And for all the Apple and Linux volunteers at Goodwill of Southwestern PA for collecting and refurbishing these computer from all over our Western PA schools. And for Easter Seals of Western PA for cleaning and testing and shrink wrapping each keyboard and mouse. And for Construction Junction that provides us space to store and stage our shipping efforts. And for the Methodist Church Union for funding this new neighborhood educational tutor-based support project called "Youth Steps - Striving Toward Excellence". You can see Mr. McFeely in person at a special public event at the Hollywood Theater in Dormont tomorrow night Friday Dec 16, 2011, 7PM, with the airing the Fred Rogers tribute movie called "My Tale of Two Cities, A Comeback Story" http://thehollywooddormont.org/ 1449 Potomac Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15216-2616 (412) 563-0368 http://www.mytaleoftwocities.com/ My Tale of Two Cities: A Comeback Story In A Nutshell Filmed in the style of "Super Size Me" and "Roger & Me", "My Tale of Two Cities" is a funny and heartfelt movie that has been called a "Mr. Rogers & Me" as it tells the comeback story of "St. Elmo's Fire" screenwriter Carl Kurlander who moved back to the real-life "Mister Rogers Neighborhood" only to find both himself and his hometown of Pittsburgh in mid-life crisis. In an attempt to help his hometown while exploring with honesty and humor whether you can go home again, Kurlander asks his neighbors, from the famous (Steeler Franco Harris and Teresa Heinz Kerry) to his old gym teacher and the girl who inspired "St. Elmo's Fire", how this once great industrial giant which built America with its steel, conquered polio, and invented everything from aluminum to The Big Mac, can reinvent itself for a new age. With the rest of America wondering the same question about their neighborhoods these days, "My Tale of Two Cities" is a charming, engaging feel-good film that proves "it's never too late to come back!" and that the whole world really is "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood." -------------------------------------------- Dave Sevick ComputeReach, humanitarian computer outreach http://computereach.com 724-779-0099 sevick at computereach.com -------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://davesevick.com/pipermail/npmug/attachments/20111215/22aea0ae/attachment-0001.htm -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: title_02.jpeg Type: image/jpeg Size: 88824 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://davesevick.com/pipermail/npmug/attachments/20111215/22aea0ae/attachment-0001.jpeg -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: computereach_1x3.gif Type: image/gif Size: 10619 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://davesevick.com/pipermail/npmug/attachments/20111215/22aea0ae/attachment-0001.gif From kim at equiparts.net Fri Dec 16 15:00:37 2011 From: kim at equiparts.net (Equiparts - Kim Coles) Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2011 17:00:37 -0500 Subject: [NPMUG] Automator | New Mail Message Message-ID: <8AA8A93E-6D83-4358-B3A4-FE93F8E0A2EE@equiparts.net> Does anyone know if you can add "Reply To" address in Automator? Only To:, Cc:, Bcc: appear in Message window. Thank you. -- Kim Coles From dave at davesevick.com Fri Dec 16 21:34:05 2011 From: dave at davesevick.com (Dave Sevick) Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2011 23:34:05 -0500 Subject: [NPMUG] =?windows-1252?q?Pittsburgh_Dad_=85_Betcha_Yinz_are_gonna?= =?windows-1252?q?_love_diss?= Message-ID: Filmed on an iPhone. Pittsburgh Dad http://www.youtube.com/user/pittsburghdad They first began posting on Oct 23, 2011 as a "love note" to some guy's dad who says the best Pittsburgh stuff. Now over 95,000 views of the very first video. About Pittsburgh Dad A 60-second "sitcom" featuring the phrases we heard growing up with a Pittsburgh Dad. New episodes every Tuesday! P.S. Reminds me of Greg and Donny http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBWnS2RrgxM\ Enjoy ! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://davesevick.com/pipermail/npmug/attachments/20111216/89abab2b/attachment.htm -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 187856_234699749921081_571135169_n.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 12631 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://davesevick.com/pipermail/npmug/attachments/20111216/89abab2b/attachment.jpg From dave at davesevick.com Sun Dec 18 16:58:07 2011 From: dave at davesevick.com (Dave Sevick) Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2011 18:58:07 -0500 Subject: [NPMUG] =?windows-1252?q?=22You_have_3=2E7_billion_appointments_?= =?windows-1252?q?=85=2E=22__says_Siri_to_Santa?= Message-ID: <8338E3AB-47F6-4BB9-BB76-E5C301B66D8B@davesevick.com> http://youtu.be/5qcmCUsw4EQ?hd=1 Apple - iPhone 4S - TV Ad - Santa Uploaded by Apple on Dec 18, 2011 Siri can help anyone get through a busy day... Or night. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://davesevick.com/pipermail/npmug/attachments/20111218/51e8d9f7/attachment-0001.htm From ronladams7 at gmail.com Sun Dec 18 21:38:45 2011 From: ronladams7 at gmail.com (Ron_A) Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2011 21:38:45 -0700 Subject: [NPMUG] CARPE DIEM: Apple 1991 Powerbook 100 vs. 2011 MacBook Message-ID: <82238F0D-E993-4D5D-B4AA-F0E672184E5B@gmail.com> http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2011/12/apple-1991-powerbook-100-vs-2011.html ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://davesevick.com/pipermail/npmug/attachments/20111218/3e205baa/attachment.htm From ronladams7 at gmail.com Tue Dec 20 15:14:46 2011 From: ronladams7 at gmail.com (Ron_A) Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2011 15:14:46 -0700 Subject: [NPMUG] Apps... if you want a free promo code, let me know Message-ID: <34BEDD90-0286-4FB8-AEF4-13151B38EDA4@gmail.com> http://the4eegroup.wordpress.com/ ? From ronladams7 at gmail.com Thu Dec 22 08:30:55 2011 From: ronladams7 at gmail.com (Ron_A) Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2011 08:30:55 -0700 Subject: [NPMUG] =?utf-8?q?Who_Was_Steve_Jobs=3F_by_Sue_Halpern_=7C_The_Ne?= =?utf-8?q?w_York_Review_of_Books_=EF=A3=BF?= Message-ID: <9143F8E2-ED0E-45C9-A67E-D1DA37D4D116@gmail.com> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/jan/12/who-was-steve-jobs/?pagination=false Who Was Steve Jobs? Anthony Dickson/AFP/Getty Images A man wearing a mask of Steve Jobs pretending to present new iPads outside an Apple store in Hong Kong, in a protest against conditions at Foxconn factories in China where Apple products are made, May 2011 Within hours of the death of Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs, people began to show up at Apple stores with flowers, candles, and messages of bereavement and gratitude, turning the company?s retail establishments into shrines. It was an oddly fitting tribute to the man who started Apple in his parents? garage in 1976 and built it up to become, as of last August, the world?s most valuable corporation, one with more cash in its vault than the US Treasury. Where better to lay a wreath than in front of places that were themselves built as shrines to Apple products, and whose glass staircases and Florentine gray stone floors so perfectly articulated Jobs?s ?maximum statement through minimalism? aesthetic. And why not publicly mourn the man who had given us our coolest stuff, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad, and computers that were easy to use and delightful to look at? According to Martin Lindstrom, a branding expert writing in The New York Times just a week before Jobs?s death, when people hear the ring of their iPhones it activates the insular cortex of the brain, the place where we typically register affection and love. If that?s true, then the syllogism?I love everything about my iPhone; Steve Jobs made this iPhone; therefore, I love Steve Jobs?however faulty, makes a certain kind of emotional sense and suggests why so many people were touched by his death in more than a superficial way. By the time he died in October at age fifty-six, Jobs was as much an icon as the Apple logo or the iPod or the original Macintosh computer themselves. Known for his casual jeans-and-black-turtleneck look, Jobs had branded himself and, by extension, his company. The message was simple: I?m not a suit, and we don?t make products for suits?suits being a euphemism for buttoned-up, submissive conformists. America loves its business heroes?just a few years ago, books about General Electric?s former chief executive Jack Welch, the investor Warren Buffett, and Chrysler?s Lee Iacocca topped best-seller lists?and it also celebrates its iconoclasts, people who buck the system and make it on their own terms. As Walter Isaacson?s perfectly timed biography makes clear, Jobs aspired to be both, living as if there were no contradiction between the corporate and the countercultural, and this, along with the sexy hardware and innovative software he bequeathed us, is at the root of the public?s fascination with him. Isaacson?s biography?which is nothing if not a comprehensive catalog of Jobs?s steps and missteps as he went from being an arrogant, mediocre engineer who had been relegated to the night shift at Atari because of his poor hygiene to one of the most celebrated people in the world, widely credited with revolutionizing the businesses of personal computing, digital publishing, animated movies, tablet computing, music distribution, and cellular phones?is distinguished from previous books about Jobs by the author?s relationship with his subject. This is a book that Jobs solicited in 2004, approaching Isaacson not long after being diagnosed with cancer, and asking him to write his biography so his kids would know him, he said, after he was gone. Jobs pledged his complete support, which included full access to himself and his family with no interference or overt editorial control. As was widely reported in the press in the run-up to the book?s release, Isaacson, who was unaware of Jobs?s diagnosis at the time, demurred. Five years later, after Jobs?s second medical leave from Apple, at the urging of both Jobs and his wife, Isaacson took on the project. Two years, forty interviews with the primary subject, and six hundred pages later, it was rushed into print just two weeks after Jobs?s death and a month before its scheduled publication date, which itself had been moved up from March 2012. Upon Jobs?s death, preorders for the book jumped a record 54,000 percent. When Isaacson asked Jobs why he wanted him to be the one to write his authorized biography, Jobs told him it was because he was ?good at getting people to talk.? Isaacson, who had been both the editor of Time magazine and the head of CNN, professed to be pleasantly surprised, maybe because two of his earlier, well-received, popular biographies were of men who could only speak from the grave: Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein. More likely, Jobs, who considered himself special, sought out Isaacson because he saw himself on par with Franklin and Einstein. By the time he was finished with the book, Isaacson seemed to think so as well. ?So was Mr. Jobs smart?? Isaacson wrote in a coda to the book, published in The New York Times days after it had come out. ?Not conventionally. Instead, he was a genius.? While the whole ?who?s a genius? debate is, in general, fraught and unwinnable, since genius itself is always going to be ill-defined, in the case of Steve Jobs it is even more fraught and even more unwinnable. In part, this is because the tech world, where most of us reside simply by owning cell phones and using computers, is not unlike the sports world or the political world: it likes a good rivalry. If, years ago, it was Microsoft versus Apple, these days it?s Apple versus Android, with supporters of one platform calling supporters of the other platform names (?fanboys? is a popular slur) and disparaging their intelligence, among other things. Call Steve Jobs a genius and you?ll hear (loudly) from Apple detractors. Question his genius, and you?ll be roundly attacked by his claque. While there is something endearing about the passions stirred, they suggest the limitations of writing a book about a contemporary figure and making claims for his place among the great men and women in history. Even though Isaacson has written what appears to be a scrupulously fair chronicle of Jobs?s work life, he is in no better position than any of us to know where, in the annals of innovation, that life will end up. The other reason nominating Jobs to genius status is complicated has to do with the collaborative nature of corporate invention and the muddiness of technological authorship. Jobs did not invent the personal computer?personal computers predate the Apple I, which he did not in any case design. He didn?t invent the graphical interface?the icons we click on when we?re using our computers, for example?that came from engineers at Xerox. He didn?t invent computer animation?he bought into a company that, almost as an afterthought, housed the most creative digital animation pioneers in the world. He didn?t invent the cell phone, or even the smart phone; the first ones in circulation came from IBM and then Nokia. He didn?t invent tablet computers; Alan Kay designed the Dynabook in the 1960s. He didn?t invent the portable MP3 music device; the Listen Up Player won the innovations award at the 1997 Consumer Electronics Show, four years before Jobs introduced the iPod. What Jobs did instead was to see how each of these products could be made better, or more user-friendly, or more beautiful, or more useful, or more cutting-edge (quite literally: there is a popular YouTube video making the rounds that shows the sleek new MacBook Air being used to slice an apple). A few years ago, in a profile in Salon, Scott Rosenberg called Jobs a digital ?auteur,? and that description seems just right. The template for Jobs?s career was cast in 1975, months before he and his friends set up shop in his parents? garage in Los Altos, California, near Palo Alto. Jobs, who had dropped out of Reed College and moved back home, was hanging around with his high school buddy Steve Wozniak. Wozniak, a shy, socially awkward engineer at Hewlett-Packard, was drawn to a group of phone hackers and do-it-yourself engineers who called themselves the Homebrew Computer Club. It was at a club meeting that Wozniak saw an Altair, the first personal computer built from a kit, and he had the insight that it might be possible to use a microprocessor to make a stand-alone desktop computer. ?This whole vision of a personal computer just popped into my head,? Isaacson quotes Wozniak as saying. ?That night, I started to sketch out on paper what would later become known as the Apple I.? Then he built it, using scrounged-up parts, soldering them onto a motherboard at his desk at night after work, and writing the code that would link keyboard, disk drive, processor, and monitor. Months later he flipped the switch and it worked. ?It was Sunday, June 29, 1975,? Isaacson writes, ?a milestone for the personal computer. ?It was the first time in history,? Wozniak later said, ?anyone had typed a character on a keyboard and seen it show up on their own computer?s screen right in front of them.?? Wozniak?s impulse was to give away his computer design for free. He subscribed to Homebrew?s hacker ethos of sharing, so this seemed the right thing to do. His friend Steve Jobs, however, instantly grasped the commercial possibilities of Wozniak?s creation, and after much cajoling, convinced Wozniak not to hand out blueprints of the computer?s architecture; he wanted them to market printed circuit boards instead. They got to work in the Jobses? garage, assembling the boards by hand. As Wozniak recalls it, ?It never crossed my mind to sell computers. It was Steve who said, ?Let?s hold them in the air and sell a few.?? It was also Jobs who pushed his friend to sell the circuit boards with a steep mark-up?Wozniak wanted to sell them at cost?and Jobs?s idea to form a business partnership that would take over the ownership of Wozniak?s design and parlay it into a consumer product. Within a month, they were in the black. Jobs was twenty-two years old. He hadn?t invented the Apple computer, he had invented Apple Computer. In so doing, he set in motion a pattern that would be repeated throughout his career: seeing, with preternatural clarity, the commercial implications and value of someone else?s work. After the Apple I, whose innovations were all inside its case, Wozniak went to work on the Apple II, which promised to be a more powerful machine. Jobs, however, recognized that its true power would only be realized if personal computing moved beyond the province of hobbyists like the Homebrew crowd. To do that, he believed, the computer needed to be attractive, unintimidating, and simple to use. This was Jobs?s fundamental insight, and it is what has distinguished every Apple product brought to market since and what defines the Apple brand. For the Apple II itself, Jobs envisioned a molded plastic case that would house the whole computer?everything but the keyboard. For inspiration he looked to the Cuisinart food processors he saw at Macy?s. With those in mind he hired a fabricator from the Homebrew Computer Club to make a prototype, and an engineer from Atari to invent a new kind of power supply, one that ensured that the computer would not need a built-in fan; fans were noisy and inelegant. Thus began Jobs?s obsession with packaging and design. Isaacson reports that when it came time to manufacture the Apple II case, Jobs rejected all two thousand shades of beige in the Pantone company?s palette. None was quite right, and if he hadn?t been stopped, he would have demanded a 2001st. Still, by any measure, the Apple II was a major triumph. Over sixteen years and numerous iterations, nearly six million were sold. Despite the huge success of the Apple II, it turned out to be the out-of-town tryout for the computer that would become the company?s big show, the Apple Macintosh. (Nearly three decades later, the words ?Apple? and ?Mac? have become interchangeable in popular conversation.) Jobs jumped aboard the project when it was well under way, after being booted from a group at Apple working on a computer named Lisa that its developers, who had come over from tie-and-jacket Hewlett-Packard, envisioned selling to businesses and large institutions. The Mac, by contrast, with a target price of $1,000, was meant to appeal to the masses. It would be the Volks-computer. By the time it was released in 1984, the price had more than doubled, in part to cover the heavy investment Jobs had made in promoting it, making it one of the more expensive personal computers on the market. Both the Lisa and the Mac shared one critical trait: they were built around a novel user interface developed by the engineers at Xerox?s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) that manipulated every pixel on the screen using a process they?d pioneered called bit-mapping. The geeky commands of the text-based DOS operating system that had been necessary to get a computer to move along were gone. Now there could be color and fonts and pictures. Using the metaphor of a desktop, the PARC engineers placed small, graphical representations of documents and file folders on the screen, and they built an external, hand-operated pointing device?called a mouse, since that was sort of what it looked like?to navigate the desktop by pointing and clicking to open and close documents and perform other functions. When Steve Jobs saw all this demonstrated at the PARC labs, he instantly recognized that PARC?s bit-mapped, graphical interface was the key to making a computer user?s experience nontechnical, simple, fun, and intuitive. Do this, he knew, and it would realign the personal computer universe. ?It was like a veil being lifted from my eyes,? Jobs told Isaacson. ?I could see what the future of computing was destined to be.? What Jobs could not see was his own future at the company he?d cofounded. A year after the Macintosh was released, Jobs was ousted from Apple. He cashed out his stock options, walked away with about $100 million, and cast about for something to do. Eventually, he made two investments. One was to found a new, high-concept computer company called NeXT. The other was to buy a small computer animation studio being sold off by the filmmaker George Lucas. Apple, meanwhile, was foundering. Jobs?s guiding philosophy?that to maximize the user experience it was necessary to control both hardware and software?had led to superior products, but it was out of sync with the marketplace, which wanted cheaper and faster, even if cheaper and faster were unattractive and unwieldy. Microsoft?s CEO Bill Gates understood this and licensed his company?s operating system, MS-DOS, to any number of hardware manufactures, IBM among them, and before long both IBM and Microsoft came to dominate the personal computer world. With Jobs gone from Apple, the new leadership tried to have it both ways, continuing to sell Apple?s own branded, closed, hardware-software systems like the Mac, while also licensing the Apple operating system to clone makers, but this only served to cannibalize hardware sales. By 1996, Apple?s share of the PC market had dropped from 16 percent to 4 percent, and the company was being written off in the business press. As Apple was falling apart, Steve Jobs?s two investments were not doing so well, either. His computer company, NeXT, aimed to build affordable, Mac-like workstations powerful enough to be used by universities and other research institutions. Mac-like meant stylish and intuitive. Powerful enough meant having sufficient computing power to perform high-level functions. A small cadre of software engineers, some of whom had come from Apple (prompting a lawsuit), set about developing a new operating system based on UNIX, which had come out of Bell Labs in the late 1960s and was the first operating system that was not machine-dependent. While they did this, Jobs turned his attention to NeXT?s design, which he envisioned as a perfect cube. According to Isaacson, the near impossibility of constructing a perfect cube resulted in outrageous costs, like a $150,000 specially designed sander to round off rough edges, and molds to make the sides that cost $650,000 each. Though Jobs?s intent with NeXT was to create an affordable research computer, by the time it launched, the NeXT cube cost $6,500, and needed a $2,000 printer and a $2,500 external hard drive because the optical drive Jobs had insisted upon was so slow. At that price, no one was buying. Instead of the ten thousand units the company estimated shipping each month, the number was closer to four hundred. As Isaacson points out, the company was hemorrhaging cash. It was the same for Jobs?s computer animation studio, which kept needing infusions of money to stay in business. If he could have found a buyer, he would have unloaded it. Instead, he poured $50 million into it?half of what he had made selling his Apple stock. Almost as an afterthought, the company?s animators made a short film as a sales device to show off its unique hardware and software package, which cost well over $120,000. Remarkably, the film was nominated for an Academy Award. This led to other short films, one of which, Tin Toy, did win an Oscar in 1989, and to a deal with Disney for a full-length computer-animated feature film. Released at the end of 1995, Toy Story was the top-grossing film of the year. Betting on the film?s success, Jobs had arranged for the company, which had taken the name Pixar, to go public the week after the movie opened. By the end of the first day of trading, Jobs?s stake in Pixar was worth $1.2 billion. Then, in an even more unlikely turn of events, Jobs?s investment in NeXT also paid off, less in money?though that would eventually come in the form of significant stock options?but in something more valuable: vindication. Apple, which looked to be close to dissolution, made a deal with Jobs to buy NeXT?s operating system, and he came along with it. Eleven years after his ouster, Jobs was back at the company he?d founded. Paul Chinn/San Francisco Chronicle/Corbis Steve Jobs introducing the iPad while standing below a photo of himself from the early days of Apple, San Francisco, January 2010 The next part of the Steve Jobs story?call it act three?is the one that we are most familiar with because it coincides with a key flashpoint in the lives of even those without the means or desire to buy Apple products: the metastatic growth of the Internet. Jobs was prescient in understanding how deeply the Internet could reach into our lives, and that it was not limited just to networking computers. Once the iPod came out, then the iTunes store, then the iPhone, then the App Store, then Apple TV, then the iPad, and the iBookstore, and now iCloud, Jobs and his team at Apple had created an entire, expanding, ensnaring iUniverse. (And now Siri, the recently released natural-language-processing ?personal assistant? built into the iPhone 4S, has the potential to contract the competing universe created by Google since it will send fewer and fewer queries through Google?s search engine, which is the core of Google?s business.) Jobs?s original premise, that Apple needed to manage the user experience by controlling both hardware and software?the premise that nearly destroyed the company in the 1980s and 1990s?was still his guiding philosophy. But this time around it catapulted Apple from niche brand to mass-market phenomenon?in part because once consumers entered the iUniverse there were costs associated with leaving it, and because Jobs made sure it was a pleasant place to be. And even though it became a mass-market brand, it retained its cachet. The coolness factor set Apple apart from the start. Jobs?s Zen aesthetic (he was a longtime student of Buddhism), his passion for design, his good fortune to hire Jony Ive, who must be the finest industrial designer working today, and his other guiding philosophy?that function should not dictate form but, rather, form and function are integral and symbiotic?resulted in unique-looking products that, almost without exception, worked more smoothly than anyone else?s. And just in case that was not enough incentive for consumers to part with their money, Jobs transformed the product launch into a theatrical production, building suspense in the months and weeks beforehand with leaks and rumors about ?revolutionary? and ?magical? features, and then renting out large auditoriums, orchestrating the event down to its smallest detail, and, on launch day, holding forth, typically on an empty stage, in his blue jeans and black turtleneck, using the words ?revolutionary? and ?magical? some more. The original Mac launch took place shortly after a chilling, Ridley Scott?directed ad suggesting that anyone who used an IBM PC was a drone, while Mac users were people who defy conformity, aired during the 1984 Super Bowl, and has become the model for every Apple product launch since: The television ad and the frenzy of press preview stories were the first two components in what would become the Steve Jobs playbook for making the introduction of a new product seem like an epochal moment in world history. The third component was the public unveiling of the product itself, amid fanfare and flourishes, in front of an audience of adoring faithful mixed with journalists who were primed to be swept up in the excitement. (It should be noted that Apple product launches are now live-blogged in The New York Times and other major newspapers as if they were sporting events or breaking news.) Jobs was so good at this show-and-tell that it did not feel like he was on the stage selling but, rather, that he was up there offering, and what he was offering was the chance to share in the magic. Who wouldn?t want in? As others have before him, Isaacson writes about what those who worked with Steve Jobs called his ?reality distortion field??Jobs?s belief that rules did not apply to him, and that the truth was his to create. ?In his presence, reality is malleable. He can convince anyone of practically anything,? an Apple colleague told Isaacson. What this meant in practice was that when Jobs told Apple employees that they could do things that had never before been done, like shrinking circuit boards or writing a particular piece of code or extending battery life, they rose to the occasion, often at great personal cost. ?It didn?t matter if he was serving purple Kool-Aid,? another employee said. ?You drank it.? And so, in many ways, have most of us, and not just by buying what Steve Jobs was selling?the products and the feeling of being a better (smarter, hipper, more creative) person because of them. Through his enchanting theatrics, exquisite marketing, and seductive packaging, Jobs was able to convince millions of people all over the world that the provenance of Apple devices was magical, too. Machina ex deus. How else to explain their popularity despite the fact that they actually come from places that do not make us better people for owning them, the factories in China where more than a dozen young workers have committed suicide, some by jumping; where workers must now sign a pledge stating that they will not try to kill themselves but if they do, their families will not seek damages; where three people died and fifteen were injured when dust exploded; where 137 people exposed to a toxic chemical suffered nerve damage; where Apple offers injured workers no recompense; where workers, some as young as thirteen, according to an article in The New York Times, typically put in seventy-two-hour weeks, sometimes more, with minimal compensation, few breaks, and little food, to satisfy the overwhelming demand generated by the theatrics, the marketing, the packaging, the consummate engineering, and the herd instinct; and where, it goes without saying, the people who make all this cannot afford to buy it? While it may be convenient to suppose that Apple is no different than any other company doing business in China?which is as fine a textbook example of a logical fallacy as there is?in reality, it is worse. According to a study reported by Bloomberg News last January, Apple ranked at the very bottom of twenty-nine global tech firms ?in terms of responsiveness and transparency to health and environmental concerns in China.? Yet walking into the Foxconn factory, where people routinely work six days a week, from early in the morning till late at night standing in enforced silence, Steve Jobs might have entered his biggest reality distortion field of all. ?You go into this place and it?s a factory but, my gosh, they?ve got restaurants and movie theaters and hospitals and swimming pools,? he said after being queried by reporters about working conditions there shortly after a spate of suicides. ?For a factory, it?s pretty nice.? Steve Jobs cried a lot. This is one of the salient facts about his subject that Isaacson reveals, and it is salient not because it shows Jobs?s emotional depth, but because it is an example of his stunted character. Steve Jobs cried when he didn?t get his own way. He was a bully, a dissembler, a cheapskate, a deadbeat dad, a manipulator, and sometimes he was very nice. Isaacson does not shy away from any of this, and the trouble is that Jobs comes across as such a repellent man, cruel even to his best friend Steve Wozniak, derisive of almost everyone, ruthless to people who thought they were his friends, indifferent to his daughters, that the book is often hard to read. Friends and former friends speculate that his bad behavior was a consequence of being put up for adoption at birth. A former girlfriend, who went on to work in the mental health field, thought he had Narcissistic Personality Disorder. John Sculley, who orchestrated Jobs?s expulsion from Apple, wondered if he was bipolar. Jobs himself dismissed his excesses with a single word: artist. Artists, he seemed to believe, got a pass on bad behavior. Isaacson seems to think so, too, proving that it is possible to write a hagiography even while exposing the worst in a person. The designation of someone as an artist, like the designation of someone as a genius, is elastic, and anyone can claim it for himself or herself and for each other. There is no doubt that the products Steve Jobs brilliantly conceived of and oversaw at Apple were elegant and beautiful, but they were, in the end, products. Artists, typically, aim to put something of enduring beauty into the world; consumer electronics companies aim to sell a lot of gadgets, manufacturing desire for this year?s model in the hope that people will discard last year?s. The day before Jobs died, Apple launched the fifth iteration of the iPhone, the 4S, and four million were sold in the first few days. Next year will bring the iPhone 5, and a new MacBook, and more iPods and iMacs. What this means is that somewhere in the third world, poor people are picking through heaps of electronic waste in an effort to recover bits of gold and other metals and maybe make a dollar or two. Piled high and toxic, it is leaking poisons and carcinogens like lead, cadmium, and mercury that leach into their skin, the ground, the air, the water. Such may be the longest-lasting legacy of Steve Jobs?s art. ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://davesevick.com/pipermail/npmug/attachments/20111222/cbe31e72/attachment-0001.htm From genemyrapa at gmail.com Mon Dec 26 20:55:02 2011 From: genemyrapa at gmail.com (Gene & Myra Fozard) Date: Mon, 26 Dec 2011 22:55:02 -0500 Subject: [NPMUG] NYT - Love on the Spectrum Message-ID: The article is about the lives of 2 college students with autism. Watch it to the end. http://video.nytimes.com/video/2011/12/25/us/100000001242343/love-on-the-spectrum.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=thab1 Gene O! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://davesevick.com/pipermail/npmug/attachments/20111226/738dfd4b/attachment.htm From ronladams7 at gmail.com Mon Dec 26 22:40:27 2011 From: ronladams7 at gmail.com (Ron_A) Date: Mon, 26 Dec 2011 22:40:27 -0700 Subject: [NPMUG] 5MB Hard Disk Drive, 1956 | Retronaut Message-ID: but did it have a firewire port? http://www.retronaut.co/2011/12/5mb-hard-disk-drive-1956/ ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://davesevick.com/pipermail/npmug/attachments/20111226/9526ec26/attachment.htm From genemyrapa at gmail.com Tue Dec 27 10:43:33 2011 From: genemyrapa at gmail.com (Gene & Myra Fozard) Date: Tue, 27 Dec 2011 12:43:33 -0500 Subject: [NPMUG] PA Cyber featured in article on "FuzeBox" Message-ID: Right in our own back yard in Midland, PA: https://www.fuzebox.com/press/releases.html?pr=2011120101 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://davesevick.com/pipermail/npmug/attachments/20111227/a0bd1c6e/attachment.htm From robertadonaldson at gmail.com Thu Dec 29 10:56:51 2011 From: robertadonaldson at gmail.com (robertadonaldson) Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2011 12:56:51 -0500 Subject: [NPMUG] Goodwill CRC Apple 2011 Annual report Message-ID: <804FEBC7-1ACB-4D83-BAF8-933DC3180228@gmail.com> Dear Mac friends: The numbers from our volunteer efforts on behalf of the Goodwill Computer Recycling Center have been tallied. Here's the fruits of our labor this year, and a comparison with 2010. 2011: 376 Macintoshes refurbished, weighing 13,538.8 pounds. 269 items de-manufactured, weighing 9,276.9 pounds. (includes Macs, displays and printers) 2010: 516 Macintoshes refurbished, weighing 18,732.88 pounds. 480 items de-manufactured, weighing 16,814.4 pounds. (includes Mac, displays and printers) This is the third straight year we've seen these numbers decline. They reflect the clearing of the channel of G3 iMac models that came to Goodwill by the pallet load when we relocated at Goodwill in 2007. There were several hundred of that model awaiting us when we arrived, and more soon followed as they were phased out of mainstream use in local school districts. Today's donations to Goodwill are largely from individuals who are recycling their old Macs as they upgrade. With the trend of schools leasing computers, we will probably never see the volume of incoming Macs that we have in the past. We'll be gathering for our first workday of the new year on January 6. March will mark our fifth year being associated with Goodwill's Computer Recycling Center, and it's been a rewarding experience for us all. The address is 2400 East Carson St. on Pittsburgh's South Side. There's free parking in the Goodwill lot across the street. If you plan to join us, please drop me an email with your make of car and license number so I can let Goodwill know you're with us. We normally gather about 8:30 a.m. (traffic permitting) and break for lunch at a nearby restaurant for about an hour. We normally leave between 3:30 and 4:00 p.m. You're welcome to join us and leave at any time during the day. My cell phone is below if you need to reach me quickly. We hope to see you there! Robert A. Donaldson robertadonaldson at gmail.com mobile: 412-477-9188 From charles at firthconsulting.com Sat Dec 31 07:29:47 2011 From: charles at firthconsulting.com (Charles Firth) Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2011 09:29:47 -0500 Subject: [NPMUG] Sir Jonathan Message-ID: <3FDFBBC3-D54E-4D5E-A27B-CB5C0805766E@firthconsulting.com> Apple's design expert, Jonathan Ive, is now "Sir Jonathan" - having been granted a full knighthood by Her Majesty the Queen. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16367022 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://davesevick.com/pipermail/npmug/attachments/20111231/469bb628/attachment.htm From genemyrapa at gmail.com Sat Dec 31 18:08:35 2011 From: genemyrapa at gmail.com (Gene & Myra Fozard) Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2011 20:08:35 -0500 Subject: [NPMUG] Ex Apple Employee takes Apple to task Message-ID: It may sound like a "he says, she says" but IMHO there is probably a grain of truth in the article and the give & take of the responses: http://www.ifoapplestore.com/db/2011/12/31/ex-genius-apple-no-longer-values-retail-staffers/ Plug: I have never been on the receiving end of inferior service of any kind @ MACOUTFITTERS. Gene O! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://davesevick.com/pipermail/npmug/attachments/20111231/25d28ab5/attachment.htm