Follow the money…

Psystar’s Sales just 768.

Courtesy of Mac Daily News.

Gregg Keizer reports for Computerworld. “According to a slide presentation that Psystar showed to venture capitalists in 2008, the Florida-based computer maker projected sales during 2011 of between 1.45 million and 12 million, with the first figure its ‘conservative’ estimate and the second number representing an ‘aggressive’ growth model.”

I don’t know who to be more surprised at, Psystar for assuming that they could take somebody else’s copyrighted product and market it for themselves, or the venture capitalists for seriously thinking this was a good investment.

Well, one (or more) of them thought it was – the one question that remains unanswered in this whole sorry debacle, who exactly gave Psystar their capital to start up their company to begin with, and who continued to fund them through the courts?

Calacanis? (There I said it). It would explain his attitude towards Apple of late, and his erratic diatribe against Apple.

It’s doubtful that the evidence still exists, it being shredded, stamped on, burnt, recycled, bleached and shredded and burnt again, during the period when Psystar went into their hiatus when the money ran out.

It can’t exist, because if it did, it would change everything.

Now we see why there’s no Apple Netbook…

Interesting article over at ZDNet, concerning Google’s Chrome OS.

Chrome OS, the good, bad & ugly.

One quote that caught my attention was this:

It’s interesting that Chrome OS doesn’t represent a direct threat to Windows, Mac or Linux because the OS can’t be downloaded and installed onto existing systems. However, given that Google is earmarking netbookesque form factor devices to get the Chrome OS treatment, this still means that Google could capture market share from both Windows and Mac, especially those looking for a simple, fuss-free web-based solution.

It’s difficult for me to see how the Chrome OS will affect Apple, with them publicly stating that they want nothing to do with Netbooks. Jobs has stated, “Apple doesn’t know how to build a sub-$500 computer that’s not a piece of junk.”

It seems to me that Apple also doesn’t want to build a netbook because they new all along that the Chrome OS was perfect for netbooks, and will whitewash this sector completely.

No proof of that of course, but it does seem a little coincidental.

Microsoft, please carry on…

Courtesy of Rixstep:

Spontaneous Shoplifting @ MSFT Store

Words don’t often fail me, but the sight of a dozen minor-geeks, awkwardly clapping and trying to dance, under the guise of spontaneity… well I don’t know what to say or where to begin.

Microsoft, you’re making a complete fool of yourself. You really don’t know what (hopefully) irreparable damage you are doing to your brand (such that it is) and your public image.

Years from now, when Microsoft are long, long gone, people will look back at the YouTube video and say that this was one of the 10 or so key moments where severe blows were dealt that added to this company’s downfall.

The reason why Microsoft have survived and prospered this far, is because of the army of Windows IT Professionals that have propped up this loose assortment of sloppy hacks and ass-backwards ‘me-too’ and ‘just good enough’ coding.

They have survived because of the mass-ignorance of your average PC-buyer, who needed their hand held whilst buying their computer.

But now things have changed. Apple, Google, Twitter, Facebook and dozens of others have caught up whilst Microsoft were sleeping, and Microsoft’s customer has changed – they are armed with geek-knowledge and they know how to use it.

Ballmer, like the captain on the Titanic, tried to ignore it, but now, with market-share and mind-share slipping he has to do something.

He calls on his troops, but more and more of these troops are bringing in laptops with Apple logos on them. They have iPods, and iPhones, they use Google instead of Bing, and Office is the last thing on their mind with free alternatives readily available.

So he does something – Vista. A total failure that would have finished most companies – but Microsoft isn’t ‘most’ companies.

He tries ‘new’ and ‘different’ advertising campaigns. They are met with derision, confusion and worst of all – laughter, the ‘at’ kind, not the ‘with’ kind.

Plan B. If you can’t beat them – join them. Or copy them. Copy them in exactly the same way you’ve copied them before, back when that ‘computer for the rest of us’ was first released.

Copy it backwards and upside down. In such a way that although all the pieces are there, they just don’t quite fit together.

What you are seeing in this poor, poor, sad video above, is Microsoft in the raw. When the support from all the IT professionals has gone.

They have to compete. On their own. This is who they really are.

I’ve often thought Microsoft were indestructible and I would be writing this blog to the end of my days with them always there, always copying, always getting it totally wrong.

You know I’m beginning to see, at last, the end of this once never great company.

The whole widget…

With all the fuss around Psystar’s attempts to rip-off Apple IP, certain publications have been attempting to take the logical inference to all Psytar’s efforts, that it doesn’t really matter that Apple makes both the hardware and the software.

PC World (via MacDailyNews) – Is Psystar’s judicial deathblow a win for consumers?

This is as we all know – rubbish – but it’s not always easy to quantify to a PC user. I have little experience in maintaining a PC from day to day. I am predominantly a Mac user – I expect my Mac to work, and it does.

Apple’s crown jewel is the tight integration between hardware and software. To a Mac user, things just work, with minimal, or totally no, effort.

Yes there’s a few niggles but the one thing that has always worked is my wireless connection.

I keep Airport on all the time. I close the lid, it disconnects, I open the lid it connects in milliseconds. It works.

Now leaving aside the configuration of the router, I assumed that all computer’s act like this. I’d heard one or two stories about Windows wireless connection being flaky, but never paid it much attention.

Until last week. My little iBook is now over 5 years old. It’s a workhorse – I push it to the max, running all Adobe applications, ripping DVD’s & CD’s, watching movies, streaming TV, just about everything.

But then things started to go wrong. Kernel panic, after kernel panic was narrowed down to the Airport card.

I had the hard drive upgraded last month, and maybe, just maybe the damage that caused this ‘upgrade’ (I dropped a plate onto it) also may have damaged the Airport card.

Unfortunately the Airport card is on the motherboard, so it was a case of buying an external card on a USB stick.

A chose a good one, not too cheap, a well known brand and installed the driver, restarted and plugged it in. A USB utility program started up and sat there and did nothing. I configured it with my router’s settings.

It didn’t work.

Looked up ‘troubleshooting’ in the pdf manual. There wasn’t a ‘troubleshooting’ section.

Unplugged it. Plugged it back in again and looked at the network preference pane. It said it was there and had an IP address.

Went back to the USB utility program and saw that it had found 5 wireless routers. None of which were mine.

Pressed the ‘rescan’ button.

All of them disappeared and the network preference pane said that the USB stick wasn’t plugged in.

There then followed 15 minutes of going round in circles, unplugging, plugging back in, checking settings, changing settings until, all of a sudden, it worked.

Don’t know why it worked. It just decided to work.

Since then, every time the iBook goes to sleep, or restarts, you have the 5-15 minute merry-go-round of coaxing the USB wireless stick into life.

Not exactly a good example of hardware and software working in complete harmony is it?

It is though, a good example of Apple’s crown jewel, it’s tight integration between the hardware and software inside every Apple product – is worth paying for, everytime.

Apple Crushes Clone Maker in Court – BusinessWeek

 

Frankenmac

 

 

Not much to add here, glad to see it’s over (bar the shouting).

The only thing left that’s interesting in all this is to see whether we find out who their backers are – I assume now they are long gone, with all the paperwork and evidence efficiently destroyed.

If I were Apple I would ask Psystar to name their price – to name the scum that’s funded them for so long.

Apple Crushes Clone Maker in Court – BusinessWeek

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Mac users a cult? Hmm…

You know al those Windows drones who constantly well, you know, drone on about we Mac users are an elitist cult, worshipping at the church of Apple?

Maybe they’ve got a point:

Press Pass photos of 67th-Broadway Store | 9 to 5 Mac

A bet that backwards Apple logo really irks Steve though…

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An exploit of Microsoftian proportions…

New Malware Allows Hackers to Access Personal Information on Jailbroken iPhones – Mac Rumors

So the iPhone’s security situation worsens. This time it’s a really bad one. You can have your data stolen from your iPhone without even realising it.

You could walk past a coffee shop and someone with the right software could scan your phone and get at all your data. You wouldn’t even know it. Wow.

Of course this doesn’t affect me. Or just about anybody else who owns an iPhone.

Just those morons who took the advice from certain Mac-gurus and jailbroke their iPhones to ‘free them from the tyranny of Apple’s closed system’.

I think it’s time to admit that maybe Apple ‘knows best’.

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‘iPhone’ worm? Not quite…

Via MacDailyNews (sub-via the BBC, but I’m not linking to their FUD).

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So there’s a ‘worm’ that’s been discovered in the wild (or should that be outback?) in Australia.

Our intrepid license-fee paid for reporters at the Beeb, gleefully point out that it changes the wallpaper to a picture of Rick Astley, and as a side issue also point out that it only affects jailbroken iPhones.

In my opinion, a jailbroken iPhone is not an iPhone – not the iPhone that most people viewing the BBC news item would buy and use, so the headline ‘Worm attack bites at Apple iPhone’ is a little inflammatory.

Leaving aside that issue, where does this leave all the whiners who have constantly asked, nay, demanded that Apple make their iPhone an open platform?

(I’m thinking of such high-profile ‘Apple-supporters’ such as Laporte, Inakhto, to name a few).

Does this not validate and verify Apple stance of a closed system, with only approved apps allowed?

Apple said at the time that a smartphone is a far more vulnerable computer than a traditional laptop or desktop, and therefore needs a different approach in terms of what is allowed to run on it.

Maybe the oft-used and derisory statement that ‘Apple knows best’ is correct after all.

An insight into Jobs…

People in the know speak about Jobs…

Recently on CNNMoney, 8 people gave a rare insight into Steve Jobs, and it makes enlightening reading – choice quotes are:

“He does it in a very black-and-white way, while the rest of the world gets caught up in the gray — or caught up in themselves.” – Andrea Jung

“It struck me that there wasn’t furniture good enough for Steve in the world. He’d rather have nothing if he couldn’t have perfection.” – Larry Ellison

“He set the performance standard for product thinking and product execution that all the rest of us should aspire to hit.” – Marc Andreessen

And this is why we don’t see a tablet from Apple – yet. Many tablets have been created – and rejected.

I’d rather have nothing at all, than a tablet-like product looking for a market to fit into.