Category Archives: Tech

The Steve Jobs Retirement-palooza

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In case you missed the news last week, Apple’s long time CEO and rock star, Steve Jobs, turned in his executive restroom key and retired. Despite the way so many people reacted, no, he didn’t die. He just called it quits for the full-time Apple thing — and since I can’t shut my mouth, I had plenty to say about the whole thing.

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If you need to get up to speed on what went down, Bryan Chaffin covered Steve’s retirement announcement at The Mac Observer, and followed up with Apple giving the CEO title to Tim Cook, the man that’s been running the company for the past few months.

Turns out a couple news outlets wanted to chat with me about Steve’s retirement. Here’s a list of the interviews and podcasts I did. For your viewing pleasure, of course:

  • Forbes This is an Associated Press article, so you can find it other places, too.
  • The Huffington Post Want to see how Trip Chowdry from Global Equities Research and I have very different views of Apple’s ability to perform without Steve? Here you go.
  • MacJury Along with Chuck Joiner, Katie Floyd and Bryan Chaffin, we talk about what to expect now that Steve has dropped the CEO title and taken up his new role as Chairman of the Board.
  • Reuters Insider Me, live, on Reuters TV. Guess who’s on with me? Yeah, Trip Chowdry. Just in case you don’t get how different our views on Apple post-Jobs are, you totally need to check this out.

There’s a good chance I missed something because the day of and day after Steve’s resignation were crazy busy. If there’s something I need to add to the list, just let me know and I’ll take care of it.

And my opinion in a nutshell: Don’t worry about Apple. It’s still business as usual, and we’ll still see awesome products for years to come. And thanks for all the hard work, Steve.

It’s that Time Again: Macworld Expo 2011

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Macworld Expo is only weeks away, and as always, I’ll be there. The event is filled with a week’s worth of vendor meetings, interesting conference sessions, awesome parties, and is an annual reunion with cool people that I may not see again for another year. Did I mention that I’m speaking at this year’s conference, too?

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My User Conference session this year is “Working in the Cloud: Best Online Services for Storing and Sharing Your Data,” and I’ll have plenty to talk about. Here’s my session description from the Macworld Expo Web site:

Dropbox, Evernote, Google: The Internet is loaded with cloud-based services designed to make your life easier, keep you connected with information, and help you share files. Some are free, some require payment, and some are “freemium,” giving you a handful of features for free and even more when you pay. In this session we’ll take a look at the best freemium services for the Mac, iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, and how to use them effectively so your important information is always just a mouse click or finger tap away.

My session runs from 3:30PM to 4:45PM on Friday, January 28, 2011. The conference runs from Wednesday, January 26 through Saturday, January 29 at the Moscone West center in San Francisco. Dress warm, kids.

If you’re looking to save a few bucks at Macworld Expo, you can get a 15% discount on a conference package just for having the patience to read this far. The Mac Observer has a sweet deal on hotel rooms at the Intercontinental — which just so happens to be right next to Moscone West.

I’ll be running around all week checking out the latest Mac, iPhone, iPod and iPad software and gear during the day, and hanging out at the after hours events, too. If you happen to see me, be sure to say “hi.” After all, Macworld Expo is like one big family reunion. But in a good way.

Holiday Gift Guides: 2009

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It’s the holiday season again, so that means it’s time for the most sacred of rituals: Tech holiday gift guides. So far, I’ve offered up some ideas on two episodes of the MacJury podcast, and part 1 of The Mac Observer’s holiday gift guide is ready for your reading pleasure, too.

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The MacJury podcast episodes (Part 1 and Part 2) were loads of fun thanks Chuck Joiner’s ability to throw together just the right mix of people to ensure an, um, eclectic mix of gift ideas. I was lucky enough to get to rub virtual elbows with author Joe Kissell, Jean MacDonald from SmileOnMyMac, TUAW’s Steve Sande, Pat Fauquet from MacMouseCalls, Julio Ojeda-Zapata from the Pioneer Press, and TMO’s own Nancy Gravley.

The holiday gift guide over at TMO includes staff picks for the Mac, iPod and iPhone lover in your life — and it’s only part 1, so there’s more to come.

Even if you don’t celebrate any gift giving holidays, the lists still include some fun ideas for tech stuff you can pick up for yourself. And if anyone is keeping track, I don’t have a TARDIS USB hub of my own yet. *Cough*

Periodic Table of Elements, But Cooler

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Our ability to categorize and catalog our surroundings is pretty amazing, and the periodic table of the elements is one of the best examples of how we’ve used those traits to add structure to the chaos that surrounds us. Imagine my delight when a friend gave me what I consider to be the coolest periodic table I’ve ever seen. Yes, it’s on the wall in my office so I can check it out every day.

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The PTE Charles gave me is actually a photographic table, which adds the extra coolness of being able to see the elements instead of just referencing their properties. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that elements like Rutherfordium, Meitnerium and Einsteinium actually look like real people. Amazing!

You can pick up your own photographic PTE at periodictable.com. It’s available as posters, 3D lenticular posters, place mats, and decks of playing cards.

Can I Super Size That?

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For some, McDonald’s is just a quick place to grab some lunch, but for others it’s a way of life. Based on this map by Stephen Von Worley, I’m going out on a limb and saying Micky-Dee’s is probably a way of life for more people than are willing to admit it.

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Stephen’s map visualizes the distance between McDonald’s restaurants for the continental United States with glowing orange lights. The brighter the lights, the closer the restaurants are.

While the sheer density of McDonald’s locations in the U.S. is staggering, I was equally impressed with the technology that went into whipping up this map. Stephen was able to get ahold of the raw data from AggData, massage a CSV file with some coding magic, and build a map that shows there are plenty of places all over the country for people that think they really do deserve a break today.

That said, there’s a frakking ass-load of McDonald’s restaurants in the U.S. I can only imaging what the map would look like if it also included all the Burger King, Wendy’s, Chik-Fil-A and KFC joints, too.

Holy crap. I think my arteries are clogging just thinking about it.