Steve Jobs does have a shiny new liver

So, it's a good thing I'm not a betting man because as we all know now Steve Jobs did get a new liver. And, why, pray tell, am I so late with this acknowledgment? Well, as I've stated at least a couple of times before, a family member was in a horrific accident (they = pedestrian + car = not good for the body's well being) and I've been by their bedside pretty much constantly since they came in, 3 1/2 weeks ago. Not having a MacBook/Pro I've been utilizing said family member's Gateway laptop which runs Vista. Suckage all around.

I should also note that taking care of someone in need of great care kinda limits your ability to partake of frivolous/non-necessary activities. Now, if this were my actual job, i.e. I were being paid a decent sum to write this blog, I'm sure I'd be paying more attention. As it's not, and as I'm not receiving any money from advertising or donations, I have no economic incentive to pay attention to my little slice of the InterTubes. I'm open to making that change.

Anyway, enough of me, y'all don't come 'round these parts to hear about my real life. Y'all come 'round to read my amazing prose and analysis of the tech industry.

I know, I know, I'm good, and this recent lull has gotten all y'all in a tizzy, not knowing what to do with yourselves. Well, I truly apologize, and wish I could give you a timetable as to when I'll be back on a more normal basis.

That being said, I'll leave y'all with this tidbit. While I'm working off a Vista lappy, I've connected to my wonderful Mac mini at home via LogMeIn.com and am currently typing up this post on my Mac, through the InterTubes, and will, of course use MarsEdit to post said missive back to the InterTubes, through the InterTubes. Kinda nifty, eh?

Well, tomorrow is a big day on the homefront, a lot happening. Hopefully, there will be good news out of this.

Steve Jobs, WSJ, and the truth

So, the WSJ is reporting (yes, I know, it came out Friday night, and it's now Sunday afternoon) that Steve Jobs had a liver transplant a few months back (the WSJ says 2). I'd link to the story but I don't pay for online WSJ content, and I'm too lazy to go through Google. Besides, you can always hit up Daring Fireball. If you don't know the URL for that one you should be shot.

Fine.

Here it is, happy? DaringFireball.net

Now, the WSJ story lists no sources, not even an unnamed source who's remaining anonymous for fear of life and limb. So, do we, the credulous (some more than others) public believe, without blinking, the story from the WSJ just because it's the friggin' Wall Street Journal? Or, do we accept that journalistic integrity has completely died, buried 6 feet beneath the ground, and replaced in the hearts, souls and minds of journalists with the cry for more hits, more readers, more ad dollars? Or, as a third choice, do we accept the fact that journalistic integrity has always been a myth and what we are witnessing is merely the veil dropping away to reveal the little man at the controls, the Wizard's true identity exposed?

I don't know how to answer my own questions. All I can say are a couple of things. 1) Regardless of how horrible it is for any person to go through difficult and life threatening illnesses/injuries, there are more important events and issues in this world that need to be addressed than whether or not a CEO of some consumer electronics company has had a liver transplant; 2) Totally disregarding my preceding statement, without substantiation I remain wary of the truth and validity of the story. There's no way to know for certain, and I doubt that there will be much more coming from any source regarding Steve Jobs' health for quite some time.

Anything official that might come the way of Apple will most likely be along the lines of "Steve Jobs has returned from his medical leave of absence and is fulfilling his duties and role as CEO with the same vigor and excitement as he showed for the company, its products, vision and future before taking the necessary time to regain his health. Now, please go fuck yourself."

Something like that.

…

In other news, it looks like Dan Lyons is sick of being nobody again and has been posting to his Fake Steve blog. So, Dan, I take it you've got word Steve Jobs is healthy again, yes?

If you don't know how to find the Fake Steve blog …

Damnit, fine, here's the link, you lazy bastard: Fake Steve Jobs.

…

Okay, back to the hospital I go today. I will be ensconced there the rest of the week, stuck using a Vista laptop. Damnit, people, donate so I can get a MacBook Pro.

General Update

Geez, where the heck have I been? Well, the hits keep on coming here at Birdman Central. There's been a family emergency (and, no, I'm not going to be turning this little spot on the InterTubes into some sort of diary of my family member's medical journey) and I've been sitting in a hospital (well, spending an enormous amount of time there, at least) since last Thursday.

So, yeah, I missed the whole WWDC thing with the 13" aluminum MacBooks getting a promotion of a lifetime, the introduction of new iPhones (3G, now with extra-special "S"!), the price drop of existing iPhones (no "S", but still tastier than anything out there!), and Apple generally kicking ass on the whole providing real value for your money thing.

I wonder how Microsoft's going to respond?

Anyway, the moral of this story is this: Family first, so don't expect much out of me for quite some time. We're talking at least 2 months.

Yeah, that good.

Anyway, Summer is supposedly coming (unless you live in the Southern Hemisphere), so take this downtime to get out there and enjoy the great outdoors.

Yes, the thing with the blue sky, real trees and clouds. 

No, the Wii simulation does not count. Put the controller down and slowly back away from the TV. That's right. Now head for the front door, open it, blink until your eyes adjust to the sunlight, breathe deep the fresh air. Now, put one foot in front of the other and head outdoors.

Good.

WWDC items of note and other nonsense

If you're curious there are spy shots of some of the banners and other singage going up for WWDC. Go run about the InterTubing to find the goods (though, I know that AppleInsider has a bunch. Of course, everyone seems completely bummed that there aren't any specific signs for Snow Leopard. Get over it. I'm sure that if Apple has anything to say, they will say it.

Let's see, nothing else on WWDC. Sorry, kids. If you have anything of note, let me know.

Here's a goody for you. Microsoft wants to rename "netbooks" to something easier to remember: Super Lowcost But Ppiffy And Ultraportable Computers With The Computing Power of a 1998 Gateway. Or, BLOWS for short.

And Microsoft can't figure out why they're losing the PR/advertising war to Apple.

Anyway, that's all for today. Go back to your regularly scheduled mid-life crisis.

Quick note regarding the last few post's links

Some of you may have noticed that my links were broken. Or, rather, they were pointing back to my blog. While I'm sure many of you believe that that was done on purpose all to appease my rather large ego, it was completely accidental. If I really wanted to appease my rather large ego (would you like to stroke it?) I would have actually had those broken links link to the correct information, on my blog.

No, it seems that I set my text editor to use smart quotes, which appear to be too smart for either me or my blogging software. Possibly both. I will look into this matter, either right away, tomorrow, or some later date when I get really pissed off about having to constantly fix the quotes around URLs manually.

In the meantime, please continue rotting your brain on useless TV, streaming videos, blogs and well respected news sources. Oh, and send me cash, you're not spending it anyway.

American, preferred, but I'll also take Euros.

WWDC is coming! WWDC is coming!

So much to talk about, so little time.

First, next Monday marks the start of Apple’s WWDC. Yep, kiddies, it starts on June 8th and runs to June 12th. If you haven’t got your tickets yet, well, from what I hear you’re really SOL. In fact, from what I understand, WWDC this year is bigger than the Beatles, who, from what I understand, were bigger than Jesus.

Maybe they meant they were taller, or fatter, or maybe just bigger boned. However you slice it, though, WWDC is huge this year. So big Microsoft’s gone and pissed its pants. This is on top of the bed wetting. Sounds like years and years of therapy are ahead of the software giant. Poor little guy, I bet it’s hard constantly getting your balls kicked in by the pacifist, hippy artist, even when they do call Ball Kicking Performance Art (though I think Sacking the Romans sounds even better).

Second, the hype surrounding Palm’s Pre just keeps, uh, inflating. It’s getting there, but I’m not sensing the frothing at the mouth that Apple Rumor Junkies were displaying when iPhone was rumored to be coming. In fact, I’m sensing more excitement surrounding the possibility of 4 (4, 8, 16, & 32 GB) different capacities for iPhone than anything Palm is doing.

Oh, speaking of Palm and Apple, it seems that Palm is touting the Pre’s ability to sync up with iTunes (dig through Google yourself, what do I look like, your mother?). From the whispers I’ve been hearing floating down the Halls of the Intertubing (real place, just one block West of Purgatory) Palm is doing some voodoo that Apple can easily shut down with an update to iTunes. Something about the Pre masquerading as an iPhone. The other whisper I hear is that if this is true, Apple, while they could sue Palm into non-existence, will wait for Palm to shrivel up and die, saving Apple the legal costs. Sounds like a good strategy to me. Or, maybe Apple will wait for Palm to almost die, come swooping in with a buyout offer, automatically get in with Sprint, thus neutralizing a non-competitor competitor and giving them an easy out with AT&T. Twisted, I know, but totally doable.

Third, Microsoft has an official release date for Windows 7, October 22. I’m assuming they mean this year, 2009. Everything I’ve been gathering is that Windows 7 is everything Vista should have been. In other words, it sucks less. It also has an XP compatibility mode, which was definitely missing from Vista.

I don’t mind the GUI elements of Vista. What drives me nuts is that things that should be simple are convoluted, and everything else is just a plain pain in the ass to get done. For example, in order for my in-laws to use their Gateway laptop running 64-bit Vista to output both video and sound over HDMI they have to right-click the volume icon in the System Tray, select Output Devices, select the HDMI port, make it the default output device, log off and then log back in. Why the fuck can’t I just plug the Fucking HDMI cable into the Fucking HDMI* port and have one of two things happen: 1) Windows automatically outputs sounds over the HDMI cable without me having to do jack shit; 2) Windows plays stupid (tough role, I know) and asks me “Hey, buddy, I feel and HDMI cable has been slipped into my HDMI port, and it feels real good. Now, this POS laptop I’m running on has internal speakers that sound like two mice talking through tin cans. Do you want to play the sound for The Dark Knight through those POS speakers, or do you want me to pipe the full, rich and luxurious sound experience through your really expensive home theater setup via the Fucking HDMI cable?”

Yeah, I know, tough. I’d get into the fit my father-in-law threw when trying to copy a CD, but I’ll just leave it at I took the disk and inserted it into my Mac. Problem solved.

TechNewsWorld (I don’t think I’ve ever heard of them) has a piece about Microsoft’s Project Natal. Sounds cool, but I think the lede says all that there needs to be said:

Microsoft wowed the E3 video game convention with a demonstration of Project Natal, a motion-sensing Xbox technology in development. With Nintendo's popular Wii, players use a handheld wand; however, Natal uses cameras to sense a player's full body movements. Despite the riveting demo, Natal is still unproven in terms of its actual gaming performance, and release timing is up in the air.

This, coming from Microsoft, means either giant flop or decent market performance. Either way, it won’t reach its full potential until version 3, and even then it won’t contain all the features promised.

Hmmm … that looks to be about it. Oh, I’m thinking of putting together a Podcast. What do you think? You’ll finally get to hear the Birdman speak! Ooooh, how exciting is that?

*I’ve been told that “Fucking HDMI” is the actual official name of the connector technology. Someone in marketing didn’t think it would play well on TV, so it was shortened to just HDMI.

The truth about Apple security

PC World has reprinted a piece done by Rich Mogull for their sister publication, Macworld. And, surprise, surprise, it’s not a hit piece, but a rather well balanced, well informed article concerning the fact that while Mac OS X has as many, if not more, vulnerabilities as other OSes (yes, including Windows), it’s still safer. Vulnerable, but safe.

My experience on both Mac and Windows systems has been this: I received one (1) virus on my Win 98 box because a friend of mine became infected. It was one of those worms/viruses that grabs ahold of your address book and then sends copies of itself to all of your soon-to-be ex-friends and loved ones. Anyway, the email looked legit, and even though my virus definitions were up to date, I still got whacked. I had to reinstall Windows to get rid of the plague. As for my experience with my Macs, well, I’ve never been infected, even back in the days of Mac OS 8/9. Not even a Word macro virus.

Now, my in-laws have been infected, my younger brother downloaded something nasty that ate my father’s machine, etc., etc.

The conclusion to be drawn here is that we Mac users, regarding security, sit somewhere in the middle between All Is Good and Safe in the Land of Computer Eden and Hell Has Unleashed Its Hordes of Malicious Demons Upon the Unsuspecting Mac Using Public. I agree with Rich Mogull when he says

If Macs start being compromised on a wide scale, or security concerns otherwise start affecting buying decisions, no amount of Apple advertising will be able to cover it up. Market forces will engage, and Apple will either provide a more secure platform, or we'll all move on to something else. The more we pressure Apple for security, and not just relative safety, the less likely we are to experience future real-world security compromises.

From what I can tell, though, Apple is definitely beginning to put serious effort behind their security work. They recently hired Ivan Krstic, the man behind the OLPC security architecture.

Let’s hope that any security fixes Ivan brings to Mac OS X are easily implemented as a point update to, at the very least, Leopard (10.5.x) and Snow Leopard (10.6). I also hope that Ivan there is actually working on Mac OS X, not just iPhone OS and the iPods. Remember, Apple, you still make computers and software.

You know, just incase you forgot. What with all the iPhone, iTunes and Steve Jobs health rumors coverage.