Steve Jobs resigns as Apple CEO

All over the news and tech blogs this morning is the news that Steve Jobs has resigned as Apple CEO. To be honest this isn't unexpected as  he's been suffering with Cancer for a while now but it's still sad. The company is in safe hands with Tim Cook as the new CEO but it's still a great loss for Apple and the greater tech community  in general. I just read Steve's 2006 Stanford commencement address again and one passage struck a chord with me about the futility of life and speaks volumes about Steve's approach to running Apple as a company and to his own life:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

 I know some people are Apple fanatics and others don't have the time of day for Apple products but there's no denying that Steve has created something unique and special. I hope Steve is able to take time to get better and wish him all the best.

Push GMail for the iPhone - Finally!

It took long enough but you can finally get push GMail on the iPhone.

Full details on how to set it up at http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?answer=138740&topic=14252

Yay!

If you want to email me once you've set it up, you can get my address from http://scr.im/mindspace

Keeping your Mac up to date

A few years ago, CNET had an application for Windows that acted like Microsoft Update but for all the other programs on your computer.

For some reason they stopped making it :(

For a few months now on my macs, I've been using AppFresh. It uses online software version repositories to check your installed software against the latest versions.

I'll update this article when I feel a little better with a little more meat.

Restoring my faith in humanity

About 6 months ago, I happened across Throwboy. They had come up with the idea of making a set of pillows that look like the dock icons on OS X. At this point they were just trying to find out who'd be interested in buying them. A few weeks ago, I got an e-mail saying that they'd begun making them and was I still interested.

Much as I was, the cost was prohibitive being that I have to find a new place to live and so on. I e-mailed a simple reply saying that I couldn't afford them right now as I was in the process of separating from my wife.

The reply that I received near bought a tear to my eye:

Adam,

I'm very sorry to hear about your current domestic situation. That really sucks... for lack of a better phrase. Let's just say I can relate what you're going through and if it's alright with you, if you give me your mailing address I would like to send you a free Finder icon pillow. You will not be billed in anyway, and I hope it's a pick-me-up in a dark time.

As we say in the states, "bro's before ho's."

Thanks, Adam. Hope to hear from you soon.

Kindness like this was just what I needed and I feel I should make some effort to pay it forward/back/sideways.

If you read this and feel so inclined, visit Throwboy and buy a pillow from them. They make fantastic looking pillows and to top it all off are lovely people.

Tears are actually welling while i'm writing and I feel like a proper big girls blouse now so i think i'll leave it there.

UPDATE:

The pillow arrived and it's fantastic!

Apple Musings

So...

I've had my iPhone for a good few weeks now and i've realised one thing:

My original iPaq that I bought in 2001 did everything that the iPhone does

So why the big deal now? Well, as a friend succintly put it the other day, it ain't what you do it's the way that you do it.

The iPhone experience is packaged in such a way that it's just simple and intuitive.