It was a shocking morning when I learned about Steve’s death from a friend’s message on my iPhone 4. Then, I confirmed the news by reading Apple’s website and Twitter on my iMac.

No words can adequately express my sadness. My condolences to his family.

Steve, you have been a great inspiration to me. Well, I worked today to its fullest and always will be. ”Never settle!”

Here is a video “The Crazy Ones” with Steve Jobs voiced over.

The new OSX operating system 10.7, code-named Lion, was officially released by Apple, Inc. on July 20, 2011. In astrology, it was just two days before the Sun begins occupying Leo from July 22 to August 22. And I ordered my iMac and received it before the Sun leaves Leo.

In astronomy, Regulus or Alpha Leonis is the brightest star in Leo constellation. In Chinese, it is known as 轩辕十四, the Fourteenth Star of Xuanyuan. Regulus is also one of the brightest stars in the night sky. Together, with Eta Leonis (a fourth-magnitude star), they mark the lion’s heart.

My new 27″ iMac is a top range CTO model and will be the power horse for my works which include software development, some photography and design works. It is also the most powerful personal computer I have ever owned/purchased. Thus, Regulus is the best and most beautiful name for my new iMac.

Pluto will be passed down to my wife and kids after the data has been completely migrated to Regulus and a stable working environment is established.

The above screenshot shows the signal bar on my iPhone 3GS with iOS 4. By comparing with the screenshot below, it is obvious that the signal bar (especially bar 1 and 2) has become taller.

At the same location (my desk), I covered the back of my iPhone 3GS with my palm, the signal would drop 1 to 3 bars after about 22 seconds. After updating to iOS 4.0.1, I repeated the test. The signal bar would reduce 1 bar after more than 25 seconds.

Well, this is a very low tech test and is not accountable to conclude that the new software in iOS 4.0.1 has displayed the signal strength more accurately. Anyway, there is a huge difference before and after.

Two years later, I bought a Sharp Zaurus SL-5500. It ran Zaurus and OPIE GUI environment. The Zaurus SL-5500 was Sharp’s first PDA to run Linux. Linux was the main reason I chose Zaurus. It was fast and colorful (at that time). It came with a couple of useful apps and desktop sync software. Syncing to a desktop running on Linux was good. After using it for a few months, some commercial apps which I bought, began to crash more often after I updated the operating system. I gave it up after a few attempts to restore the original operating system. Here is the photo of Zaurus (I managed to find its charger) with iPhone lying beside it. Well look at its size! The iPhone 3GS is half the thickness of Zaurus.

The other drawback of the Zaurus is its retractable physical keyboard. The keys are too small for my fingers and typing is real pain. So, BlackBerry with physical keyboard is totally out of the game. Here is the picture of Zaurus with its keyboard and iPhone with the virtual-touch keyboard for comparison:

I was tempted by HP and Toshiba but, hey, they ran on Windows. No way! In early 2008. I purchased a 2nd generation, 32GB iPod Touch. I was immediately captured by its charms. In December 2009, I got a 32GB iPhone 3GS. My response was: “Damn! I should have gotten it earlier.”

Both PalmPilot and Zaurus need stylus to tap on their screens. If you lose your stylus, you need to buy a new one. iPhone is more convenient because everything is manipulated with your fingers. Apple’s innovative multi-touch screen gives more user experience and more operability to the device.

All I can say, I have never used other PDAs like I use my iPhone. I mostly use my iPhone in my work (especially) and for fun during leisure (social networking, music, games and etc.) Here are some apps I use to boost my productivity while I am on the move and even at my desk.

Paymo is a free online time tracking and billing service. With a small fee, user can upgrade the service for unlimited users and invoices. I use Paymo to track my time spent on various projects and business/work related activities. The Paymo free iPhone app works in both online and offline mode. When I am out to support my clients, and/or having business or technical meeting and discussion, I can easily track my time with this tiny useful app.

With design based on the concepts and techniques described in David Allen’s book, “Getting Things Done”, OmniFocus for iPhone is a powerful to-do app that let you stay focused in whatever you are doing or trying to complete. The app is priced at $19.99 which is a little bit on the high side. I was hesitating for a while because of the price. After using it, I will say, “Save your money for OmniFocus and forget about other to-do apps.” Before this, I was using Things and I am still using it. The only reason I want to keep Things is that it allows assigning teammates to your tasks. OmniFocus is more comprehensive than Things and it let you stay focused in getting your jobs done, which is most important. Besides, you can sync your data via MobileMe, Bonjour, WebDAV server or locally mounted disk on your Mac. Personally, I think it is worth the investment.

Things is an easy-to-use to-do app priced at $9.99. It’s a good alternative to OmniFocus if you are on a tight budget. The price tag of $9.99 is considered quite high especially there are some free to-do apps, but to do a good job, Things will be above average. Unlike OmniFocus, syncing can only be done with a WiFi at your local area network where your Mac is running the desktop version of Things. One feature which I don’t like is its ability to assign more than one tag to your tasks. Too many tags confuse me.

Evernote is a free online service which let you save your ideas in the form of texts, voice memos or photos. You can save a web clip or PDF. Syncing between multiple devices and Macs over the Internet is a breeze. I use it while I am writing computer codes to note down what I have done and new ideas that come along. You can tag your documents for easy retrieval later. If you would like to enjoy a larger storage and monthly usage bandwidth, you can upgrade the service to Evernote Premium for $5 a month or $45 a year. Evernote is a good companion for notetaking while you are working, engaged in meetings and discussion and even at leisure.

Invoice2Go allows me to issue invoices on the go without a notebook or desktop computer. With it, I no longer need to go back to office to issue invoices. It saves me a lot of time from traveling back and forth between office and clients. Just email the invoices to your clients and you can make the delivery right away. For only $9.99, it saves you time and gasoline.

Dropbox is a free online storage service. You can take any file with you on your iPhone to meetings. Your co-workers or clients can drop files to your Dropbox and you can pick them up anytime, anywhere on your iDevice or Mac, provided they are connected to the Internet. It also allows you to share your files on Facebook or Twitter via link. By getting your friend to sign up you can earn 250MB of extra free disk space (up to 8GB) for every new account created. Click here to sign up.

No single person or thing is perfect. Soon after people got hold of their new iPhone, there came the reception problem. The antenna of the new iPhone 4 is located at the bottom left corner of the phone (away from the user’s skull/brain), which is a clever requirement forced by FCC. By holding the iPhone in your palm will short-circuit the antenna and the signal will be attenuated after a few seconds. Some people have even experimented on this issue so well that they have concluded that the signal (and call) will be totally attenuated within 10 seconds.

Then, there is even a Steve Jobs sham on Twitter spreading unofficial information that Apple may recall iPhone 4. And then a legitimate news media (read here) has fallen into this takeoff.

Since Steve returned to Apple and started to revamp Apple’s product lines, there have been constant stimulations and endless excitement and rumors you can religiously look forward to for every 3 months. Even if you are not an Apple user, you will be affected as well.

I am fascinated by the propelled rumors and how Steve Jobs deals with these grapevines. Steve Jobs is undoubtedly the CEO of 21st century!

This video shows the young Steve Jobs revealing the insanely great Macintosh in 1984. It is so classic and what a nostalgia!

A week or two before Apple published Job’s open letter, I learned about an open source Flash project called Gnash from Twit. You can listen to the podcast here.

I really don’t believe in develop-once-deploy-everywhere development concept. I am more a native application guy because I only believe in native performance without relying on third party software components to run the applications. My experience with Tweedeck served as a wonderful example.

Tweetdeck was developed using Adobe’s AIR and Flash technology and is a develop-once-deploy-everywhere kind of application. Its user interface on the Mac really sucks. It looks more like a Windows application rather than Mac’s native Cocoa application. One thing annoyed me was that I had to upgrade Adobe’s AIR whenever it became available. I feel happier for not running Tweetdeck now.

A Java application has its downsides as well. It too depends on Sun’s JVM (Java Virtual Machine). Java has never become an implementation language in my software development career. Only recently when I began to involve in web application development, I have to work with JavaScript. The experience is awful, in my experience.

It is understood why Adobe is so furious about Apple’s decision not to allow Flash on its mobile platform. The reason is obvious: Adobe loses its grip on Apple’s mobile devices and has been discounted in Apple’s mobile computing gameplay. But Apple is not an easy-to-squeeze apple, it is huge and capable.

Apple has been working on an open web standard HTML5 and Apple’s own version of Flash, Gianduia. With HTML5, Apple’s computing platform becomes even more open, unlike otherwise as Adobe claimed. Both are exciting new technologies which I would like to implement to the web application I am developing.

I will write more about HTML5 and Gianduia when I have found time to research more about these two.

Well, I admit that I was wrong. I am developing a cloud/web-based MIS (Medical Information System) which enables patient to be able to view certain information and interact with the clinic/doctor from anywhere. Likewise, it also provides doctors greater mobility and still are able to care for their patients while they are away.

After reading articles (on Apple’s website) how iPhones help hospitals in the U.S. to provide better healthcare at lower cost, I decided to build the MIS with iPhone support. I based my decision on these reasons:

1. Ease of use. I have been toying/using around with an iPod Touch for a few months and I find that it is easy to navigate/use. iPod Touch is essentially an iPhone without the phone. You get what I mean.
2. Beautiful UI. Apple is well known for its brilliant UI (User Interface) in Mac OS X and iPhone OS. Nothing else comes closer to it.
3. Security. All applications must be approved by Apple and be signed with license keys issued by Apple. Apple’s iTunes Store is the only place to download applications. I can be rest assured  to have less (or none) headache about spooky applications from unreliable sources. Of course, there are jail broken iPhones which do not play by the rules but I am not too worried about that.

So, I went ahead ordering one last week. Last night, I went to Maxis center to collect my 32GB Black iPhone. It is such a beauty.

Give me a couple of weeks mingling with it and I promise you I will write about my experience.

Here’s the screenshots (click to enlarge):

On this page, it says “iPhone 3.0 Software Update for iPod Touch – Already have an iPhone? Update it with new features, free.

On the other page, it says “Download software update. Only US$9.95.”

On the page found at Singapore site, it says “Buy now for $9.95″

I hate misleading advertisement. I checked various websites and found out that iPhone owners are entitled for free update but the iPod Touch owners are not. What the ….

I am not going to pay for the f&$@*?# update so I searched the web. I found one blogger from Sarawak has written a blog entry about this. I also found some links to download the free iPhone 3.0 here.

It seems like, according to dzimonotion, Apple has mistaken published a free upgrade for download but the link has been taken down later. Someone was quick enough to discover that and downloaded the free upgrade and sharing it now.

You can download the iPhone 3.0 free upgrade here or here is a torrent link.

After downloading, connect your iPod Touch and option click the Update button in iTunes (8.2 or later). Look for a .ipsw file and select. The upgrade will begin immediately. The upgrading process will take a while. Do not disconnect your iPod Touch. When the upgrading process is completed, your iPod Touch will reboot. Enjoy!

Now, I can connect a bluetooth stereo headset (I don’t have one now), I can do copy-cut-paste, etc. Check the Apple website for new features in iPhone 3.0 Update.

Not too long ago, I wrote an article about Apple’s business practice, Is Apple Dirty? Why iPhone owners are entitled for free upgrade? Why iPod Touch owners are not? Now, you judge.

The iPhone 3G that makes you drool...

I was truly disappointed after reading the details on Maxis’ website. The selling price is very high and apart of this, Maxis locks you in with either 24 months or 6 months contract. The worst thing is that if you breach the service contract or choose to opt out before the contract matured, there is a huge penalty awaiting you ahead.

We have paid so much for the iPhone with our own pocket, why is there still hefty monthly service fees and contract commitment?

Is that another dirty Apple‘s trick?

It looks kind of odd for an Apple enthusiast like me to comment about Apple negatively in two consecutive blog entries.

In my opinion, Apple’s marketing and sales strategies have  leveraged Apple to become the most successful and profitable computer company. Ever since Apple released the first generation iPhone, it has become a hit globally including Malaysia. You will not be surprised to read petitions from fellow Malaysians to urge Apple to make available iPhone in Malaysia as soon as possible.

Well, like else everywhere, Apple does not only make profit from iPhone sales, it makes another tier of profit from the service contracts. The arrangement is made with service provider prior to the launch of iPhone. That’s why Maxis’ iPhone service contract comes with huge unfair penalty.

Very well, to me, iPhone is a nice to have it but not a must have but still wants to have it kind of thing. It is cool. It will make heads turn and eyes pop when you take your iPhone out of your pocket.

If you read carefully Maxis iPhone 3G rate plans here, you will find the data service is not unlimited. There is additional data usage charge after you have used up the allocated usage stipulated under your contract.

Now a dangerous pitfall that will lead you to huge phone bill is that if you are using some iPhone apps which automatically connect to Internet to update itself or sync information, your usage meter will be running without you knowing it until your bill arrives. Most applications will connect to Internet automatically even your iPhone is in standby mode. Beware!

Personally, I prefer using an iPod Touch and a regular cell phone to having the all-in-one iPhone. I will have total freedom to change my phone as I wish or when necessary. With iPhone, you are locked in with it unless you become to hate it so much and will just chuck it away into the garbage.

I still will consider getting an iPhone if Apple allows iPhone users to choose any service provider they like. I believe iPhone sales will leap even higher with this restriction removed.

As for the running meter of data service, I am not too concerned as I will be able to comprehend and prevent it as I am technically savvy. How about people who are not? They will either have to pay huge bills or to disable iPhone apps. What use then if you disable iPhone apps?

Why?

There are numeral reasons for that:

1. All Macs work straight out of their boxes. No configuration, no installation of sort. Gadgets like MiniDV cameras just work by connecting to any Mac with a FireWire cable, basically any well known brands of digital cameras will work straight out of their boxes with any Mac without installing any drivers (iPhoto), calendar and contact will sync with any supported cell phones and many more.
2. Friendly and stunning user interface make it easy to work on Mac.
3. Colors and graphics are superb on Mac. Nothing comes close to it.
4. The damn Mac just works without crashing the entire system (although sometimes they do but negligible) comparing to other systems running Windows and Linux.
5. Applications running on Mac are very easy to use and always come with great features and usability.
6. and the list goes on and on….

In plain simple words, Macs get your jobs done.

The other two compelling reasons are Apple’s brilliant packaging and product finishing which give value for money kind of feeling. The packaging boxes are usually compact and slim, using less material and they are environmental friendly. As long as the product design and finishing are concerned, no other PC manufacturer can rival Apple’s ingenious design.

Apple is notoriously well known for its secrecy. Apple was also the largest participant in Macworld Expo and Conference as well as several other similar trade show. Last December, Apple abruptly announced that it would stop participating in future events. Macworld 2009 which was held in January this year was Apple’s last participation.

By tradition, Apple would announce upcoming product release. Users would usually stop buying Apple’s until they got an idea of what was coming along and would wait until a new product was available. This hurt Apple’s business prior to every expos and conferences. The change of strategy will leave speculation high up in the stake.

The new aluminum MacBook lacks of FireWire port is under fire by many MacBook and especially MiniDV tape camcorder users. Without the FireWire port, it becomes not possible to transfer video from MiniDV tape camcorders.

The lack of FireWire port also disable the FireWire disk mode which is quite useful to salvage the contents of hard disk if there is any problem to boot. By connecting MacBook via FireWire, user is able to transfer data from one Mac to another.

New DV camcorders support USB for transferring video images, responded Steve Jobs to unhappy new aluminum MacBook users. Indeed, all new DV camcorders (with built-in hard disk or flash storage media) support only USB for transferring video. But there are still many old MiniDV tape camcorder users like me wanting to be able to transfer from an old MiniDV tape camcorder. My Panasonic MiniDV tape camcorder which only supports FireWire is still in excellent working condition and I have no intention to change a new camcorder. I have no intention to “upgrade” my white MacBook to the all new aluminum MacBook either.

Apple has been deleting all posts (about lack of FireWire in new aluminum MacBook) in its forum. You can read about users complaining in other forums here and here.

The all new aluminum MacBook is something nice to have but not must have. To a seasoned Mac user like me who is cautious in choosing my Mac, it does not have any better contribution to my computing other than its stylish outlook, the new multi-touch-buttonless-smooth-glass trackpad.

Although it sports 2GB of DDR3 SDRAM, the price which differenced by $300 (RM1,100 in Malaysia) between 2.0GHz aluminum and white MacBook does not worth the performance per dollar. There is also a difference of 40GB between both models and other technical specifications are identical. With the extra $300 (or RM1,100), you can upgrade the 120GB hard disk drive to 250GB or 320GB plus AppleCare Protection Plan. If you top up about $100 (or RM390), you can upgrade your 2GB DDR2 SDRAM to 4GB in the white MacBook and it still will run as fast as the aluminum MacBook with original spec.

Let’s come back to the lack of FireWire port in new aluminum MacBook. All white and previous MacBook have built-in FireWire 400 port while the MacBook Pro series supports FireWire 800. FireWire 400 can transfer data between devices at 100, 200 and 400 Mbit/s half-duplex data rates. The actual data transfer rate is slightly lower, for example, at 98.304, 196.608, and 393.216 Mbit/s respectively.

Data transfer over FireWire 400 interfaces generally outperforms similar transfer over USB2.0 interfaces though it nominally runs at signaling rate at 480Mbit/s, slightly higher than FireWire 400.

The FireWire enables remote control (play, rewind, etc.) of connected camcorder/device. With the exclusion of FireWire support on latest digital camcorders, remote control of the devices becomes not possible.

Again, why does Apple discontinue FireWire support on the new aluminum MacBook? Is it an oversight or plainly to cut costs?

Does it indicate Apple’s intention to move MacBook users for video capability to higher and more expensive hardware such as MacBook Pro? The speculation is not without fundamental analysis. The argument for getting a USB-FireWire converter or even upgrade to newer digital camcorder does not justify dollars spent. Why should one spend extra money for extra gadget? Why should a person throw away a still working old camcorder just for a USB connection?

With the economic downturn, Apple is no exception to be affected by this world financial crisis. In the last week or two, Apple slashed prices and spiked up the specs to lure buyers. The white MacBook is there to stay to help ramping up Apple’s sales. How long will it be before Apple sends the white MacBook to EOL (End Of Life)? Definitely not within these few weeks. Three months later?

Another trend you can see or forecast is the new Mac OS X Snow Leopard will be released sometime around June or September, as we can already see that Apple has rolled out all new models from its arsenal. By then, Apple would have sold many Mac and those new Mac owners would be rushing to upgrade to the new Snow Leopard optimized for dual/quad core processors, unleashing more powerful multi-core processing power horse. Apple will cash in again for the upgrade. If you are not in urgent need to buy a Mac or upgrade or replace a Mac, do wait till Snow Leopard is released. It will be worth the wait.

Talking about Mac OS X upgrade, my iBook came with Jaguar. When Panther was released about a year later, everybody was rushing for the upgrade. I waited until Tiger was released and unfortunately, my iBook died not long after I gave it a Tiger. When I purchased my other Macs, they came with Tiger. I acquired a Leopard upgrade at someone’s disposal. I wanted the Time Machine feature to safe guard my data after my iBook was dead. I had sleepless nights worrying about my data and thank God that my data was safe. 

If you are in need of a lower cost MacBook with FireWire capability, do grab the white MacBook now because we have no idea when Apple will pull the plug.

Apple’s marketing and sales strategy exploit human psychology very well. Trend and new state-of-the-art hardware will make heads turn. Apple understands that perfectly well and it uses this intuitive human behavior to cash in. New and unseasoned Apple users, oftentimes teenagers, who are not giving a thought and are not following up Apple’s strategic plan will likely fall prey to coughing out hard-earned dollars for the new cool leading edge hardware to impress people around them.

Is Apple playing dirty tricks to feed its share holders? You judge for yourselves. Apple is no doubt the world most profiting computer company with very happy investors. So, if you ever need to buy a Mac now, do consider the facts and justify your needs and dollars wisely.

It seems like a good head start for me. Everything I planned for today seems to be smooth sailing although I am having one problem which I do not know why it happens. I guess I will need to toy with it and/or hack it to learn why it isn’t behaving as it supposed to be. If everything is running perfect before end of this month, I will acquire an iPod Touch to proceed further. This will be my first wish on this very first day of 2009.

Another criteria is that I want a phone to look like a phone. The 6300 has got a classic phone look after Nokia releases so many garbage. Deciding on a model is never easy. I listened to many live user experience from friends and relatives and even youngsters who own phones as a hobby. Reading comparison and comments on Internet is never as good as listening to real people talking straight out of their minds.

Apple’s iSync and Nokia do not support this model for syncing via Bluetooth. I did some research and found the 6300 is using Nokia’s Series 40 software and there are many similar phones have been supported. I need to do a hack to iSync so I referred to the following sites:

1. Koos Kasper.nl: How to iSync a Nokia 6300
2. dabgotra.com: Nokia 6300, iSync, and Contact Photos…

By following Koos’ hacks, I managed to setup Bluetooth link and iSync away in less than 2 minutes. Now, my 6300 is populated with so much data from my Calendar, To-do and Contact. I have yet to try dabgotra’s hacks to iSync contact with photos.

Time Machine is a repository with version control system to keep track all the changes to your files and directories. When you plug in a FireWire hard disk, Leopard will automatically version all your files and directories onto the external hard disk. You are able to go back in time to look for a file (or directory), which you have deleted or modified, and to restore them.

Desktop Space gives you more desktop spaces to organize your works on the screen. It makes switching from task to task simple and easy with a click of the mouse.

It will be a nice upgrade but if you are developing software with Ada, unfortunately, you have to wait for a while. Ada does not come with xcode yet. The folks at MacAda is still working on a stable and working version of Ada compiler.