January 2009 Archives

After yesterday’s announcement concerning Steve Jobs’ state of health and 6 month leave of absence, it was expected that AAPL would start low today; however, it has been showing a steady increase over the past couple hours.

2009-01-14 Ended $85.33
2009-01-15 Started $80.57

UPDATE: 2009-01-15 Ended $83.38

Original Article

Google is currently reassigning people and letting some go. From an economy standpoint, this is similar to what other companies are doing, but in addition to personnel changes, Google is killing off a few of their projects. One in particular I have questioned the existence of since Google acquired YouTube, Google Video.

I had forgotten that Google Video existed prior to reading this article. Back when Google purchased YouTube, I thought they would merge the two services, but they never did. YouTube had the brand recognition, so Google would never have been able to re-brand it into Google Video with much success. Although I don’t believe they wanted to do this, they still held on to the lesser of the two for longer than expected.

So, bye bye Google Video! Will you be missed?

If you jailbreak your iPhone and like to use it for tethering to a laptop or other computer for internet access, you may find that you will have to pay for one of two apps.

iPhoneModem is only $10, but uses proxies and is more complicated than PDAnet to set up. PDAnet was free up until version 1.33, but costs $30 if you upgrade past 1.33. Besides some minor bug fixes and a few “enhancements” I didn’t care for, I didn’t see a need for the update; however, I updated to a newer version prior to realizing it was no longer free.

Now, if like me, you would prefer to go back to version 1.33, follow the below instructions.

1. Jailbreak your iPhone if you have not already

2. Install MobileTerminal with Cydia

3. Launch MobileTerminal

4. Follow the below commands. Use ‘alpine’ as the password when prompted to login as root (unless you have changed the password, then use that).

   The following will log you in as root, change directories to root’s home, install wget, download pdanet1.33.deb, and install the deb package.

   su  
   cd /var/root/  
   apt-get install wget  
   wget http://modmyi.com/repo/2debs/pdanet1.33.deb  
   dpkg -i pdanet1.33.deb
   

5. Launch PDAnet and use it for free.

Next time you launch Cydia, it will show PDAnet as a package to upgrade. As long as there are no new features in the app you are willing to pay for, do not upgrade.

Feel free to delete the deb file, or just leave it in case you need to reinstall later.

The above steps can be modified. I found this method to be easy way that allows you to do it over wifi or the cellular network. If you prefer to ssh to your iPhone, feel free to do all the steps using ssh and simply exclude steps 2 and 3.

The following letter went out to all Apple employees today regarding Jobs’ leave of absence from Apple.

Team,

I am sure all of you saw my letter last week sharing something very personal with the Apple community. Unfortunately, the curiosity over my personal health continues to be a distraction not only for me and my family, but everyone else at Apple as well. In addition, during the past week I have learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought.

In order to take myself out of the limelight and focus on my health, and to allow everyone at Apple to focus on delivering extraordinary products, I have decided to take a medical leave of absence until the end of June.

I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for Apple’s day to day operations, and I know he and the rest of the executive management team will do a great job. As CEO, I plan to remain involved in major strategic decisions while I am out. Our board of directors fully supports this plan.

I look forward to seeing all of you this summer.

Steve

This comes shortly after last weeks letter to the Apple community stating that Steve’s health issues were nothing more than a hormone imbalance that was being treated and would resolve itself over the course of a few months.

It’s still too early to see the effect on the AAPL stock as this announcement was made shortly prior or right as the markets closed, and although there will be much speculation that this is the start of Steve exiting the company, one item in the letter makes me comfortable for the time being. Jobs stated:

As CEO, I plan to remain involved in major strategic decisions while I am out.

I certainly understand the idea that Jobs is in the middle of making transitional moves over to Tim Cook, but the idea that he will be out sooner than 2010 simply wouldn’t make sense to me; however, there have been too many times in my life where I have been wrong. Expect this to be no different.

Get well soon Steve.

I have been back from the holiday’s for almost a week now and am slowly making my way back into everyday life. It has yet to slow since I returned, but got an opportunity to write a small bit. Onto the advice.

1. Never fly out of Dulles International Airport heading to Midway in Chicago on December 26th.

2. Don’t even bother asking for meal vouchers or an airline paid hotel when the weather is involved. No amount of begging will help.

3. Always check to make sure you are looking at the Departure monitor rather than the Arrival monitor prior to jumping in a 2 hour long line at a gate you read on said incorrect monitor.

4. When you finally find an actual seat at the gate, do not get up to throw away trash; even if the trash receptacle is 3 feet away.

5. Also, when you find that seat, and it is next to walking traffic, make sure to fall asleep with your head away from the foot traffic else someone’s bag may feel the need to introduce itself to you.

6. Lastly, never ever use a “free, no black out date” ticket fare for flights that have a high chance of cancellation during the holiday season. Save those for “100% guaranteed leaving the ground and landing in your destination” flights.

I’m still in the middle of a nice much needed holiday. My stay was extended a couple of days due to being stranded in Chicago for 2 days. I have limited access to a computer and a little too busy to make any meaningful posts, so I will post of my fun times in Chicago and a few tips of what not to do when traveling around the holidays later next week.