Tuyen's Blog

'Immense Pressure' Leads to Cancellation of Steve Jobs Figurine

...noting that it will cease production out of respect for Jobs and following "immense pressure" from lawyers representing Apple and Jobs' family.
via macrumors.com

I wrote about this earlier. Glad to see appropriate action was taken. I had a discussion with some friends about why I felt something like this was wrong but could care less if say someone printed a bunch of non-NBA licensed Monta Ellis jerseys and sold them. First off, this is clearly someone trying to cash in on someone else's death. There's just something morbid about that. And two, it's more "human" than say counterfeiting a jersey or putting someone's name on a product to trick people into thinking they endorse it. You're taking someone's very likeness/image and profiting from it. That's where it crosses the line for me. Would I have been as bent out of shape if say it was Amy Winehouse or Dan Wheldon? Probably not because I don't have a strong opinion about these people. But in principal I still would think it's wrong and would have no issue with their families suing the profiteers.

This is pretty deplorable

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via venturebeat.com

I don't know if this is just profiteering or a misguided homage. Either way, it's pretty disgusting. I knew people were going to try and make money off the death of Steve Jobs. Some were authorized, this is obviously not. The company behind this could have made some veiled attempt at sincerity by donating a portion of proceeds to cancer research. I hope Apple legal is on this and gets them shut down before they sell a single one.

How to get the Steve Jobs memorial issue of BusinessWeek

If you missed out on the Steve Jobs memorial issue of BusinessWeek, here's how you can get it directly from Bloomberg. I got frustrated with all the opportunists trying to sell copies above the cover price on eBay.

From Marcia @ BusinessWeek...

Back issues of BusinessWeek may be purchased for $9.95 each by calling our toll free number at 1-800-298-9867. Our office hours are from 8am until 5pm Central Time.

 

Bay Area loses another legendary innovator - Raiders owner Al Davis dead at 82

"Al Davis was unique, a maverick, a giant among giants, a true legend among legends, the brightest star among stars, a hero, a mentor, a friend."
via m.espn.go.com

This phrase would hold true for Al Davis or Steve Jobs. The Bay Area, especially Oakland, lost another legendary figure today. One of the true innovators of American sports, Al Davis forwarded the game of football and helped make it the true national pastime and possibly the biggest sport in the world. Like Steve, he had a public persona - hard nosed, unyielding, always striving for excellence - and a private one people rarely knew about - loving family man, fiercely loyal, generous. Rest in peace, Mr. Davis.

Steve Jobs and how he impacted me … RIP Steve

I was driving when my wife texted me... "RIP Steve Jobs".  I wasn't really prepared for the response I would have.  It kind of caught me off guard.  There was sadness but not the usual sadness associated with hearing about the death of a "celebrity".  I didn't know Steve Jobs personally.  I've never met him.  I've never seen him in person.  There will be many people who will celebrate his impact on Silicon Valley, the tech community, even the world of every day people.  All true and all well deserved  But that wasn't enough for me to feel sad about his passing.  Was it because I like using Apple products?  Shouldn't be.  I like using a lot of other products and it wouldn't matter much to me if the people involved with their creation pass on.  What was it specifically about Steve Jobs?  Was it the showmanship?  His vision of how products should affect our lives for the better?  His brilliance?   I realized it was none of those things.

Steve Jobs was afflicted with the same disease that took my father 7 years, 6 months and 27 days ago.  It's a disease that rarely sees people live beyond a few months after diagnosis - my father died a little over 8 months after his diagnosis.  A few months after that horrible day, Steve Jobs announced that he also had pancreatic cancer.  I remember sending off an email to steve@apple.com wishing him the best and hoping that he pulls through.  After the ordeal I had just been through, I had little hope that he would survive past 2005.  But when 2005 came and went, then 2006, then 2007, then 2008, and he was still with us, I saw it as something of a ray of hope for all people who have been affected by pancreatic cancer.  Every keynote he gave was like an affirmation of life to me.  Here was someone living and living well after being given a death sentence years earlier.  That was his impact on me.  More than the slick design or the neat gadgets.  So with his passing, I am forced to revisit in some small measure the feelings I had back in March of 2004.  Like my father, I hope he now has peace - free from the pills, the chemo sessions, the needle pricks, and the constant pain.  My thoughts go out to his family, especially his kids.  I know EXACTLY how you feel.

Steve Jobs at the Cupertino City Council Meeting


Steve Jobs spoke at a Cupertino City Council Meeting tonight re: the building of the new Apple HQ on land they previously purchased from HP.  Interesting tidbit re: his early interaction with Bill Hewlett and his connection with the city where he grew up.  Given Apple's importance to the area, I'm sure his presence wasn't required at this meeting so it's a good sign that he was able to attend given his recent health issues.  Still looking physically frail, it's clear his mind is still as sharp as ever as he answered questions from the council members.  At times he looked somewhat perplexed at the questions asked which it was clear had no bearing on anything of true importance.  I loved his response to one council member who questioned whether this new building would be "good for Cupertino".  
Council Member Wang:
"People are curious as you know what city residents could benefit from this new campus?"

Jobs:
"Well as you know, we're the largest tax payer in Cupertino.  So we'd like to continue to stay here and pay taxes... Because if we can't then we have to go to somewhere like Mountain View...  And the largest tax base would go away."
How's that for an answer?  Typical Steve.  Get well soon.

Is a phone really that important?

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This is the Top News Stories section from My Yahoo start page. The first 4 stories seem quite appropriate for this section. These are important news stories that have real life altering impact to many people. The 5th story is just absurd. Honestly people, it's just a damn phone. People are dying in the world and the Gulf of Mexico is a disaster zone. Those are important stories. Whether a phone loses cellular signal just doesn't really seem that important in the grand scheme of things. Granted, Apple brings a lot of this upon themselves with the way they handle PR but I would hope that the powers that be that shape and deliver our news would have elected to push a story like this to Page 2. But in the ever growing chase for eyeballs, news outlets want to push what brings in the most readers. Who cares that only 3 million iPhone 4's have been sold versus the hundreds of millions of other phones on the market. There's only one thing that people love more than fawning over winners and that's to watch them fall.

For the record, I own an iPhone 4. Haven't had any issues with it - antenna related or otherwise. The damn thing does slip out of my hand more often than the previous model so I'm happy to cash in on my free case courtesy of Steve Jobs. If the outcome of all the hoopla is that I get free stuff, so be it. I just think we all need to gain a little perspective of what's truly newsworthy.

I really want to need the iPad

(download)

So the announcement came a couple of days ago and everyone is deciding (or has already) whether to get the new Apple iPad in March/April. Let me start by saying I really like the device. Looks slick, great screen, great UI, and the few apps that were demo'd look really good. Let's not forget the price of $499 which blew me away - very affordable given what the device does. Imagine all the eBook readers, portable DVD players, digital picture frames, etc. that already cost between $100-$300. Those devices are pretty much screwed.

As part of Steve Jobs' demo, he talked about a third class of product between the iPhone and a laptop. He said this new class needed to do a few things much better than either of the other two. To some extent, I agree with him that the iPad does do certain things better - photos and eBooks in particular. But I guess they don't do them better enough for me to buy yet another device. I split my time between two indispensable devices - my laptop (Macbook 13") and my phone (iPhone 3GS). If I were to lose either one of these, my productivity is pretty much shot. However, a tablet computer just hasn't made itself indispensable to me just yet.

So if not adding a new device, what about replacing one? Well, the iPad can't replace my phone because it's too big and can't make phone calls (VOIP, maybe?). As far as my laptop goes, I don't really do much on it besides email, web browsing, word processing, spreadsheets, occasional presentations, image manipulation, and some light HTML. I guess the iPad can handle all of those save for the image manipulation (is there an app for that? basically Photoshop light) and HTML (also, an app for that? Dreamweaver light?). But the biggest thing that I need is to be able to access a file system where I can create folders, move files around, etc. Without that it's impossible for me to replicate my day to day job on the pad. I toyed with the idea of getting this for my mom or wife because they don't do much besides email and web browsing but both like to watch videos online and without Flash support, they'd still be using their desktops half of the time.

All in all, I'd love to buy this. If I had all the money in the world I'd buy two. I'd also buy a 60" Kuro Elite, Tesla Sedan, and NetJets fractional. All of which fall into the "nice to have but not needed" category.

Woulda... Shoulda... Coulda... In a parallel world, I'd be richer

Let's rewind to 1996..... My first job out of college was at a database marketing consulting division of American Express called Epsilon. There I was introduced to the lovely world of Excel grunt work and Mainframe TSO queries. However, one of the highlights of the job was that the first account I was put on was Apple Computer. Epsilon basically compiled the direct marketing lists that Apple sent promotional mailers to. Though my exposure to Cupertino was quite limited (Epsilon's offices were near the Transamerica Building in San Francisco), I did get to meet a lot of the folks in the marketing department at Apple. The atmosphere there was somewhat muted. Gil Amelio was in power at Apple and seemed to be running the company like any other computer maker - trying to sell as many cookie cutter machines as possible while cutting costs. The only difference was nobody wanted Macs and Gil wasn't really interested in doing much besides running a lean operation. As you can probably guess, that's the formula of someone looking to streamline a business either for sale or the slow inevitable march to oblivion.

One day towards the end of my first year there (as things were getting progressively worse for Apple), news came of an unexpected bold move - the purchase of NeXT Computer and their NeXT OS which is the basis for today's Mac OS X. However, the more important asset in the purchase was the return of Steve Jobs though at the time, his role was as of yet undefined. At this time, Apple's stock was hovering around $4 (split adjusted) and languished for years. No one thought much of the purchase, in fact, a lot of folks panned Amelio for over paying for NeXT. Why would you, a company with an OS the vast majority of the world doesn't use, buy a company with an OS even fewer people used? Didn't really make sense until July of 1997 when Amelio was ousted and Jobs took over. I remember on the date of the announcement, I popped my head into the Epsilon Account Director for Apple and said, "Have you heard the news?" She replied, "Yup, I'm on the phone with my stock broker now." Apple stock price was about $3.80. I bought about $5,000 worth - almost my entire portfolio was now Apple stock.

Fast forward to today, Apple just announced its most profitable quarter ever. Buoyed by iPhone sales and the impending launch of its tablet computer, Apple's future can't be any brighter. That $5,000 worth of stock would be worth about $250K today. The operative word here is "would be" since I sold it once the stock doubled a year or so later. I guess you can't really cry much over a stock transaction that netted you a positive gain but still, no one thought Apple would hit these heights 13 years ago. If you had asked me in 1997 to bet on whether Apple would still be in business 13 years later, I would have given it a 50/50 chance. Gotta give them all the props in the world. A testament to one man's blinding adherence to doing insanely great things.

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