Author: sailorj

Ok, so iPhone OS 4.0 is going to be announced this week! Can I get a resounding Woo Woo!

What do I want to see? Well it’s pretty obvious:

Multitasking. I don’t want to exit Pandora because I want to check some email… Jeeze! I think we should at least be able to have 2 or 3 apps run simultaneously. I can understand if there is a limit.
Better App Navigation. For those who only have 30 Apps, well, this doesn’t apply to you. For those of you and you know who I’m talking about; you are laughing and crying with 11 pages… you need much much more. But you know, the pages thing kinda sucks, I’d rather have a most frequently used page, and be able to navigate using some sort of hierarchal method.
Printing. Yeah, it would be WiFi based, but with a home network, wouldn’t it be great if it could find a printer and send the job out, especially for the iPad.
Better integration of Mobile Me, so when a family of people who all have their own accounts want to share music or Apps, they don’t have to just have one account and sync multiple devices, rather that App or music (DRM) is considered purchase for all of the account holders under that family plan.
I don’t think I’m asking for too much. I think we’ll see at least one of those things, but I won’t hold my breathe. Let me know what you think. The announcement can’t come too soon, huh! 🙂

Ok, Apple, what’s up with your new developers terms?

People are up in arms over the new developers terms that effectively are going to shut Adobe Flash developers out of the iPhone.

There are accusations flying and terms that aren’t making a lot of sense regarding how Apple operates, and let’s just cut to them.

Apple designs a complete ecosystem, hardware and software. No one complains about the closed ecosystems for gaming platforms such as the Wii, Xbox or PS3. And they are unarguably very successful.

The real question you might ask yourself is who is Apple’s customer for mobile devices. Is it Adobe? Microsoft? Google?

It’s the end user, and quiet honestly, the end user has pretty simple needs. How often have I heard a person riddicule the iPhone or smartphones saying, all I want to do is make a phone call! Simplicity!

Apple got it with the simple apps that come with the phone.

Flash support means that Apple will have to support another technology on it’s phone and ensure it is stable and doesn’t interfere with the product. According to Apple, it drains battery life significantly faster.

But what about…

What about what? Apple makes both the hardware and software. They don’t license it to anyone. For 1 full year the idea of an App was foreign unless you jailbroke your phone. One page of Apps was it. People still bought the phone. No one complained that it didn’t have Java Apps or lots of other stuff.

Why? Because there was no expectation.

Oh yes, I’m a fan of Apple. But I also offer criticism when that’s due too.

Personally I believe that the flash/CS5 deal has more to do with Adobe’s lack of OS X support for 64 bit with Photoshop, which may have moved Mac Sales to Windows PCs.

Who bit whose hand first? Huh?

Of course you can’t write terms of service that say, if you use flash, it won’t be supported, now can ya, so they made it generic.

I think that the people who have more room to criticize are Independent Musicians who use iTMS to sell their music.

But atleast music has gone DRM free.

If you don’t like the Apple mobile experience, there are plenty of other well established competitors, Blackberry, Android, Palm, Windows7 mobile. Just to name a few, not to mention all those feature phones out there.

Criticism is good, but let’s not call it a monopoly.

I wrote this a while ago when the Iran stuff was going on, and I can see with hindsight that green avatars were a flash in the pan.

————–
Are you Green for Iran? Well, I’m with you in spirit, but I’m not changing my avatar. And why not may you ask? First off, symbols like this lose their meaning or even worse don’t really have meaning when you think about it. What does it really mean that you are changing your color to green or you believe that the elections in Iran were totally fraudulent?

Hey, There was fraud in Iran, better change my avatar to green! That’ll show ’em.

Do you really think that the Mullahs and other religious spiritual leaders in Iran give a fuck about Twitter or whatever social network you are on, and the color of your avatar? You don’t live there, you’re not volunteering to take up arms against this “fraudulent” government, you’re not willing to do anything but send a condolence card by way of a watermarked ICON.

Sorry but I call BULLSHIT!

Do you want change in Iran? First off why? Are you convinced that a regime change might change their Nuclear Weapons development program to a screeching halt? Do you think that this country is a true democracy that is being denied majority rule? What is your angle?

Point me to a website with your view, because I don’t really know what YOU stand for.

How long will you be green? Until the next folly comes to Twitter perhaps? You know where we need to change Healthcare, Climate Change, Gay Rights in the US, better health care for our wounded vets?

OK, turning green brings awareness, but it’s like carrying coal to Newcastle. (you can look that analogy up). The Twitter audience is keenly aware of many things, and they are the people that need to used for a call to action rather than call for awareness.

Do you want to have a call to action, then what will you do?

Write letters to world leaders that could influence the Muslim world particularly in Iran.
Tell Oil companies not to buy their oil from Iran until t

A mystery yet to be solved.

A philosophy yet to be learned.

I sit and contemplate the future,

I sit and contemplate the past.

We are the creatures of today and yesterday,

Molded like clay, carved like blocks of ice.

We are so fragile.

Where did it go?
I don’t know where it went.

All I know is I didn’t even know.

It was too late from what I was told,

I felt like not a chance,

I missed the signs,

I should have known.

I’m smitten, and bitten, and still not shy.

I want it back, but alas that’s not to be.

You are so lucky when you find out what love is,

And sometimes, you just have to pine away.

I don’t know where it went,

I don’t know where did it go.

Written 31 DEC 91

Welcome inside

The place where miracles hide.

I can’t figure out all the answers,

yet there are things I surely know.

I want to fall… In Love,

Closer than just a friend.

Me and you on the horizon,

Forever to the Day.

Our binds shall never break,

And our love shall never depart.

So naturally, I can hope that

Miracles will happen.

Breathe Deep….

I sit at the water’s edge, and I wonder what I should be thinking. I walk the shore and look out and see the boats and the sky and the water. It’s calming to some degree, feeling the breeze on your face, and warmth of the sun beating down.

I’m thinking about a lot of things, what the future brings. I’m not certain any more what lies in that road ahead and in a lot of ways, i’m pretty happy with that.

Sometimes you don’t want stability. Sometimes you want the unknown. Sometimes you want the ability to change, you want to be able to change course whenever the moment, the whim strikes you.

I’m taking a deep breath, I’m not sure what will happen next.

You know, I wonder about a lot of things these days. I’m sitting here going through a ton of papers and things. Shredding and sorting paper. I keep looking around and wondering what to do. I’m hungry, but for what.

Just thinking

It doesn’t matter I suppose for the moment. There is still time though to know what I should do next. Something tells me it’s time for dessert.

I Tweet, I Facebook, and occasionally I blog. But what the heck is Blogging? I read an article posted by someone I follow on Twitter (@purplehayz), and was taken back by the premise of the article. It said that no one has any original stuff and we’re all just a bunch of youtube watching, LOLCATS Surfing, dudes and dudettes. Ok, maybe i’ve gone too far with that, essentially, I don’t think they had it right. People don’t blog much these days because we have become too accustomed to condensing our thoughts into 140 words or less. We have become accustomed to giving people just a few sentences of thought, rather than something to read.

The truth is this expanding Internet, which is quickly filling up with non-tech types just don’t care to read. They have short attentionspan theater running around in their heads, and it’s just as well.

Hollywood used Betty White in a promo for some movie when she mentioned, “I’m on THE Twitter” When you realize that there are millions of people who don’t necessarily “get it”, you can quickly see why people don’t blog much.

Another thing is that it is hard to write for people when you feel like you’re just writing for yourself. We express ourselves and post it online because we hope our messages in bottles will reach that unknown person and have an affect on them that says, “I hear ya!” It would be cool if there was a like button on my blog. You don’t have to comment, but rate my post. Tell me something, positive or negative.

I think with so much going on out there, Microblogging (Twitter and to some extent Facebook), is the distraction. It leads to great conversations and threads, but limits complete thoughts.

There are tools that will fill the gap, and people will use them, but one last thing is contributing to all this, and that’s the size of the platforms used to access the Net.

The iPhone and other smart phones have made these microblogging sites a great success. They owe a lot to them. You can be in the conversation 24/7 and you don’t need a computer. That’s why blogging is getting lame. It’s just too hard to do on these mobile devices with any great clarity. I’m writing this blog posting on an iPad with a REAL bluetooth Keyboard. I wouldn’t attempt it on the screen. But 140 Characters? I’m there. Post a Photo, I’m there. And most of my blogging is probably lame, but I’m there! 😉

1st Amendment watchdogs and other well intentioned protectors of the Constitution be wary of defending this whole WikiLeaks thing. I know what you’re thinking, First they came for proletarians, but I was not a proletarian, so I didn’t do anything… This is not about the same principles that you think your standing for.

Are you willing to sell out your own government to stand up for freedom of speech? Is it really that black and white? Going back to your high school civics class, you might remember that it still is illegal to yell fire in a crowded theater. It is recognized that there are limits to that freedom of expression.

Seriously, what whistle was blown by leading out US classified information? Did this uncover some diabolical plot or criminal activity?

Quite honestly NO!

The purpose was to embarrass the US Government, create rifts between nations, and make the level of trust between US State Department and other foreign nations strained. And at worse, many of the diplomatic corps could be in harms way.

There are valid reasons for whistleblowers to have a forum like a WikiLeak, but publishing government classified Cables isn’t one of them. It doesn’t move forward the debate on anything. It doesn’t free the enslaved, it doesn’t reduce censorship, it doesn’t make the world a better place for it.

There seems to be a pervasive thought that everything should be open and made public, but we all know that isn’t true. There are somethings that need and should be left private and this is one of those things.

Show me the trail that publishing these documents will forward progress, you won’t succeed.

I firmly believe in the 1st Amendment, and this is not freedom of the press. This is the work of traitors.