Stjernstrom.com

As everyone knows by now, Jobs resigned yesterday because of health reasons. Here are my three favorite Steve Jobs quotes from the past few years.

“Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”[BusinessWeek, May 25, 1998)
-Simple Good, Complex Bad . Ironically an IBM slogan from the 90's.

“Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything. … One is very fortunate if you get to work on just one of these in your career. Apple’s been very fortunate it’s been able to introduce a few of these into the world.” [Announcement of the iPhone, Jan. 9, 2007]
-Powerful and true statement.

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.” [Stanford commencement speech, June 2005]
-Happy to say that I’ve found this job several times. I consider myself very lucky to have worked with the products I have. PGP, CyberCop Scanner Ballista, Gauntlet and ExpectID IQ to name just a few. I loved working on all of them. And of course the product I’m currently working on that I’m not allowed to say anything about yet . The feeling of accomplishment after a release and working with people as passionate as you are about the product or solution is what gets me to work excited every day of the week (and on weekends)

More Steve Jobs quotes available over at WSJ.

Share on Facebook

Some people asked, so here are the instructions.

What you’ll need:

-Apple Developer Account ($99/year).
-An iDevice (iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch)
-A Windows Machine

If you happen to be a close friend who’s reading this, I might be able to help you with step 1 above. Ask nicely.

How to do it:

First you’ll need to install a copy of iTunes 10.5 for windows. You’d think this would be available on the main download page from Apple like the Mac software, but it’s not. Instead, head over to the iCloud section and find it at https://developer.apple.com/icloud/downloads/ under Windows downloads. While you’re there, grab the iCloud control panel too.

Install iTunes 10.5, connect your device and grab your Device ID. You’ll need it to provision your device in the iOS Provisioning portal on the Apple developer site. Once you have it, go ahead and add your device at http://developer.apple.com/ios/manage/devices/index.action.

Sync your device.

Next, download the beta code from http://developer.apple.com/devcenter/ios/index.action#betadownloads

Once downloaded, on windows, you’ll need to extract it. The way to do this on Windows is to get TransMac. (15 day trial). Simply open the downloaded file, click on it within TransMac and drag it to your desktop. Once extracted, it’ll take a few minutes, head back over to iTunes and click on the summary page for your device.

Hold shift down and click “Restore”. This will open up a prompt for the file you just extracted. Select the file and press submit.

Then walk away and cross your fingers (or hold your thumb) while waiting for your device to restore to iOS5. Once done, sync your music, etc and you’re done.

If you’d like to sync your Photo Stream to your Pictures folder on your Windows box, go ahead and install the iCloud app that you downloaded earlier. It’ll sync all photos you take to a folder on your box and also allows you to sync misc items with Outlook. Barf.

A few notes on the beta:

-It’s a beta. A few things aren’t working. The most annoying one I’ve found so far is Qrank not working.
-I have not tested any actual phone functionality. Heh.
-The new notification center rocks. You’ll never want to go back to iOS4 after trying it.
-Tabbed browsing on the iPad is glorious
-Photo Stream works, but you can’t delete any photos from your stream yet. Workaround: Don’t take bad pictures.
-Reminders. Buh-bye every to-do list app I’ve ever tried. Being able to set reminders based on location and time will change the way you work. It also syncs across all your iDevices with the same Apple ID.
-Music in the cloud. Buy a song with your iPhone, if set up correctly, it’ll download on your iPad, iTunes libraries and any other device that’s connected to your Apple ID. This is magic. MAGIC.

Share on Facebook

I read. A lot.

Before Kindle, I bought and collected hundreds, if not thousands of books. Most of them are now in my garage, except for a few select copies that I want easy access to that are in one of the three bookshelves in the house. Or they just look good together on a shelf. There’s something comfortable having books nearby to browse and discuss, like my friend Chauncey argues. I still buy the occasional book from Half Price Books to complete collections I have, and love to spend a weekend afternoon browsing a bookstore, but I rarely buy anything these days.

The thing is, since getting hooked on Kindle, I read more. I re-read more books.  I love collecting and building my Kindle Library. Currently at 221 books and growing every week. I wouldn’t have room in our house to store these even if I wanted to. Just like I don’t have room for my CD or DVD collection. Meaning that if I bought the physical/dead tree versions of those books, my only option would be to sell some books to Half Price Books or give them away. Instead, now I have access to them wherever I am, whenever I want.

Which brings me to my next point. I don’t actually read books on my Kindle, because Holly uses it most of the time.

I read on my iPad, my iPhone, computer, and sometimes even on my laptop. Living a busy life working on multiple things at the same time, I can now take advantage of those 10 minutes before a meeting/conference call to read a chapter or two in a book of my choice. When going on  a trip, I don’t have to try and fit 3 books into my luggage, I just bring my iPad.  The Amazon vision is that any internet connected device will have access to your Kindle library. Whatever phone or device you have, you can get Kindle. There’s no need to actually buy a Kindle Device unless you only read in the sun. (The iPad sucks in sunlight).

So with that said, let me try and break down and respond Chauncey’s points in his post about why he doesn’t own a Kindle:

1. Memory of reading a book together with someone. I completely agree. Having a memory of doing something together is great, and having a physical part of that is awesome. I have a shirt that I bought in Sweden on a recent trip there that I’ll always cherish because of the memories associated with it.

2. Collections. Chauncey collects books and gets them signed by authors. I have a football signed by Tony Dorsett and an autographed photo by Mats Sundin. Authors would still hold events where they meet with readers even if there weren’t any physical books because it’s good marketing. Wil Wheaton for example, holds events in bookstores and elsewhere where he reads from his books. With beer.

3. Having books in our homes. We agree on this one. Love it.

Chauncey, I’m not trying to talk you into getting hooked on Kindle, but if you want to promote reading and get people to read more, don’t hate the Kindle. What is wrong with people reading more?

Share on Facebook

I’ve been playing around with AirPlay recently, getting 3 Airport Express and one Apple TV. Since we’re an iPhone household, it made sense to use Apple products for streaming music and video. Also, you can get an Airport Express from eBay for $60 or so. Compare that to the cost of Sonos (The only real competition I’ve found out there), and it’s a no-brainer for whole-house audio and video.

Once you’ve attached (easy) and configured (easy) an Airport Express and attach it to a powered speaker or receiver and iTunes & iPhone, it’ll show up as an option in Airplay enabled apps on your iPhone/iPad/iTunes. We use it to play music to multiple speakers throughout the house and backyard and to stream video to the AppleTV. Instead of having someone look over your shoulder or give them your iPhone or iPad, simply stream it to the TV. Simple as that.

It’s good to live in the future.

Share on Facebook

Just got the notification email today that my iPhone 4 shipped and will (hopefully) arrive on Thursday. Going to convert the old one to an iPod Touch. Here’s a list of the apps I’m going to re-download on the new phone.

• Pageonce – Finance
• Toodledo – To-do list
• Evernote
• Shazam
• Fluent News
• TripIt
• USA Today
• The Weather Channel
• TFLN
• Local News
• Discovery
• Trendz
• ESPN Scorecenter
• Sportacular (Best sports app nobody has heard of)
• Google
• Time Mobile
• eWiFi
• Facebook
• Skype
• HeyWAY
• Yelp
• Pegasus News
• Dragon Dictation
• ShopSavvy
• Meebo
• Dropbox
• Apple Remote
• Last.fm
• WunderRadio
• Voice Memos
• Live Cams
• Tungle
• NASA
• OrbLive
• GWJ
• LinkedIn
• Mark The Spot
• WordPress
• SVT Play
• Amazon
• pUniverse
• Kindle
• Bump
• OpenTable
• Now Playing
• Pizza Hut
• IMDB
• SR Play
• Alice
• Ringtones
• Trapster
• Sonar Ruler
• iDisk
• Blacklist
• Analytics Lite
• FML
• Aftonbladet
• Chartbeat
• Flickr
• Zillow
• DrHorrible
• You’re #1
• FIOS DVR Manager
• City Guide Stockholm
• Kayak
• BookLover
• NBC DFW

What other apps should I get? Anything you’re using that I’m not?

Share on Facebook

• What isn’t included in iPhone OS 4.0 for us 3G iPhone owners.
• Another day, another tablet.
• The awkward situation Survival Guide.
• Joss Whedon to direct The Avengers. I wonder what beloved character he’ll kill?
• NHL Playoffs start tonight. Time to find the Versus channel again.

Share on Facebook

What it is:
An IM client that supports AIM/Google Talk/ICQ/Jabber/MSN/mySpace IM/Yahoo & Facebook IM on your iPhone. The version that got published live today to the iPhone App store includes Push Notification. I.e. when you get a new IM, you’ll get an SMS/Text-like notification on your iPhone screen telling you who sent the message and the content of the message. You have the option to either close the message box or view, which automatically opens the application and opens a chat box in which you can chat with your buddies.

The good:
-Nice UI.
-Easier to chat on the iPhone than I thought it would be.
-Error correction works great and once you get used to typing, you’ll be chatting away fast on it.
-Supports landscape view.
-Push notification is very nicely implemented, although logging off before you go to sleep is recommended.

The bad:
-Yahoo IM doesn’t work. Every time I attempt to log in, I get the error message “Connection failed on all fallback ports”. Not sure if this is temporary or not, looks like it’s not specific to this version of Beejive based on a quick Google search.
-Frequent crashes. I’ve had it for less than a day and it has crashed 3 times on me back to the home screen.
-The cost. $9.99 for an IM app? If it had been $4.99 I wouldn’t have complained, but $9.99 is more than this app is worth right now given the issues above.

Recommend that you wait and see what Meebo is up to or for Beejive to drop the price.

Update: Now getting “error: received invalid data” when trying to log in to Yahoo

Update: June 24th – looks like Yahoo is working now, at least somewhat. I could log in to one Yahoo account, but not two at the same time. Log out of all accounts and log back in.

Share on Facebook

Share on Facebook