A mere 5-1/2 weeks ago, I spoke of Steve Jobs, Apple visionary — “what will we do without Steve,” I asked. Remember him, appreciate him and enjoy what he gave the world. While I am a computer consultant and work in both the Mac and Windows world, my computer of choice has always been Macintosh since I first saw this computer in 1983.

Steven Jobs changed the world and he impacted my world tremendously. One of the best remembrances I have seen is from The Gaping Void cartoonist, Hugh MacLeod.

He added:

In Memoriam (Steve Jobs)

I remember the first time I saw the TV Ad

It changed my life.

It was the first commercial I’d ever seen in my life, that actually spoke to me, my true self, and not just to (like pretty much every single other commercial out there), whatever short-term, trivial needs I had going on that day.

It was then I knew that I wasn’t just one of the crazy ones, but that it was also IMPERATIVE to actually be one of the crazy ones. That my life and soul demanded it.

It’s not what Steve Jobs created in his his brief but incandescent life- the computers, iPods, iPhones etc etc- that isn’t the big story.

And what we created with his his products, that isn’t the big story, either.

The big story is what Steve helped us believe about ourselves. By putting his balls on the line, again and again, he made it easier for us to do the same.

And so we did.

Thank you, Steve. You will be missed. Of course you frickin’ will…

I don’t think I can add anything to Hugh’s memoriam. You can download this image for free. Or you can order the a limited edition of this In Memoriam – Steve Jobs free except for the price of shipping only.

Chesa
www.computergoddess.com

I have heard Steven Jobs over the years say, “Let’s make history,” again and again. And he has made history like no one in the tech industry ever. From a garage in 1977 where he and Steve Wozniak built the Apple II (my first computer was the Apple IIe) to the sleekest smart phone yet conceived, Steve has been known as a visionary and consistently expanded that role.

Have you ever felt like you discovered someone or something?  You were there before the madding crowd?  That’s my Apple experience. I was in Palo Alto, CA, on January 24, 1984 taking a Mac training class on the day Apple announced the Macintosh to the shareholders and the world. I turned in my order form and was one of the first to have a Mac in Reno. And the romance has never stopped.

Today, I have four Mac laptops, two iPods and, of course, an iPhone. I can’t even count how many Macs I have had altogether, but I still have my first Mac, upgraded to a Fat Mac, in my closet along with the dot matrix printer to match.

Vintage Macintosh lamp advertising used in retail stores

Among my many Apple treasures is this wonderful lamp — vintage Apple advertising in the retail stores.

One of my favorite Apple-related websites is RedLight Runner, which sells Apple collectible items of all kinds. I used to see these lamps on RedLight Runner’s website, but there aren’t any there right now.  Last time I looked the light was priced at about $1,200, which tells you how much I like my Apple/Mac stuff not to let it go. And I have pins, t-shirts, pens, hats, glasses and almost any item you can think of. I’m a Mac Junkie.

So what do we do without Jobs? While he continues on as Chairman of the Board, his day-to-day role has been very limited over the past year or so due to his illness.  And I wonder what it must feel like to be someone who revolutionized the world; someone who made a difference; someone who will leave the world poorer for his reduced presence. Well, who could feel like Steve Jobs? He’s one of a kind.

CNET did  retrospective on Steve Jobs.  It’s worth checking out.

One more thing…over the years I have had the great pleasure of seeing many of my associates, clients and friends coming over from the dark side to become Mac Users. In fact, just today I got a call asking me if I could spend a little time showing her my world of the Mac because she’s making the move to the light side.

Funny, I’ve never had someone go over to the dark side. Little wonder. Thanks for everything, Steve.

Chesa Keane
www.computergoddess.com
www.chesakeane.com 

With this acquisition, Google obtains a portfolio of 17,000 patets with another 7,000 patents pending globally. Their move stems from their drive to control the Adroid world from beginning to end.

Although the smart phone market is still dominated by Apple’s iPhone popularity, there are probably 150 million Android phones, which commands the largest smartphone market share.

This is an interesting event in the world of technology.  Read more at TechCrunch.

Chesa
www.computergoddess.com

I have a client who was not so cautious and even though he is a home user with personal needs rather than the more demanding business requirements, it was a headache for him when he updated to the latest Apple operating system, Lion.

Two issues created a problem for him:   Quicken and iPhoto.  Quicken 2007 and earlier will not run on Lion (OS 10.7) and unless you have the latest version of iPhoto, you will feel a heart-stopping jolt when iPhone is simply gone after the upgrade.

The iPhoto issue is pretty easy to resolve — simply go to the App store and download the newest version of iPhoto for $14.99. However, the Quicken problem is not so easy to fix.

Intuit has made the decision that they will no longer support or upgrade Quicken for the Mac.  They are suggesting that you upgrade to Quicken Essentials.  For the most part, this is a good solution unless you use the online banking function in Quicken, which will no longer be available in Essentials.  But here’s the annoyance:  if you do not move your Quicken to Essentials and use their conversion tool before you update to Lion, you’re out of luck.  You will have to find someone who can take your Quicken data file to their pre-Lion Mac and create an export of your accounts using the Quicken export function.  From here, Essentials Conversion Utility will bring the Quicken data into the new Essentials program.

The problem I see is not that Intuit has made the decision not to upgrade Quicken to Lion, but that their conversion utility won’t import your Quicken data into Essentials while in the new Lion operating system. Check this Intuit support page for more information.  There is a 50% discount right now on Essentials if that makes you feel a little better about the process. If you have already done the Lion update and you didn’t make the transition to Essentials first, then you will need to find a Mac friend to help you out — one who uses Quicken and has not updated to Lion yet.

You may want to look at Apple’s Lion Technical specs page before you run the update. And be sure to check that all of your applications are Lion compatible using this Roaring Apps Compatibility Chart.

Chesa
www.computergoddess.com

Obviously as revenues drop in this fear-based economy, it makes sense to look at the corporate expenses more closely.  Maybe the company institutes a hiring freeze. Perhaps business travel can be replaced or reduced by online meeting and webinar services such as GoToMeeting.com or FreeConferencing.com. Maybe those executive expense accounts can be looked at more closely. This all makes sense.

But what does not make sense is a reduction to the marketing and advertising budget. These expenditures are revenue-producing and not expenses that should ever be cut. In your industry you may have noticed that there are fewer players; you see fewer ads on TV and radio; and you can see less competition online from your competitors. This is perfect proof that maintaining or even increasing your marketing and advertising budget is the right, competitive move for this kind of economy.

When this economic cycle shifts — and all cycles come to an end and change into something else — if you have maintained or expanded your marketing efforts, your company will be on the top looking down at all those companies who cut back their marketing efforts and expenditures and now are having to catch up with you.

Chesa Keane
www.computergoddess.com

I turned in my order form for this new wonder computer and was probably the first in Reno to get a Mac.  it has been a love story ever since.

I still have that Mac, upgraded to a Fat Mac (512k RAM with a double-sided floppy disk) and it works beautifully.  Slowly, but it works.  I have owned more than a 20 Macs (probably more; I can’t remember the Mac stream that has flowed through my office) and now own four laptops.  My love for Apple has never died.  In fact it has spilled over to several iPods and my 3rd iPhone.

An article that I recently came across was especially interesting, John Sculley On Steve Jobs, The Full Interview Transcript, published in Cult of Mac on October 14, 2010. When Apple was first building computers, all computers were manufactured in the U.S.  Now, like all other computer manufacturers, their computers are built overseas.

Regardless of where they are built, Steve Jobs still has the touch that has always been the genius behind the success of Apple. John Sculley calls it the Steve Jobs Methodology, which is based in the beauty, simplicity of design and intense perfectionism.

I had a financial investment client who purchased a Mac simply because it looked good on his desk.  He did this in spite of the fact that there was no Mac software for his industry; it was all windows-based PC software.  He took the painful steps required to run Windows software in emulation mode.  But he looked good to his clients, who were investing large sums of money with him, and he believed that image was all.

John Sculley brought marketing to Apple, something that Steve Jobs did naturally through his innate focus on the user experience. But John Sculley brought true marketing to Apple. Read the interview with John Sculley.  It’s refreshingly honest.

Now there are new Macs coming out and I am still a Mac peep and probably always will be. I wonder which laptop will be the next addition to the stable of Macs I work on every day. It’s always a feeling of Christmas when I open the box to a new Mac. I can already feel the itch.

Chesa
www.computergoddess.com

What they don’t realize, however, is that every image taken or created in the United States, as well as most other countries, is owned and considered to be copyright-protected by the artist. This means that if the owner of that image chooses to, they can sue you for copyright infringement.

Often website owners take extra measures to protect their images and this makes it necessary for you to take care not to grab the wrong image — the one that will get you sued.

Don Crowther (www.doncrowther.com) has written a great article about how to both protect your images from unwanted downloads and how to find free and legal images that won’t violate the artist’s creative rights.

In the article, he explains how the website, www.creativecommons.org, provides licensing agreements clearly outlining what rights an artist may assign to his work and what the restrictions and allowances are for the image you want to use.

Crowther describes how to find good images with licensing rights assigned and explained by using Flickr’s advanced search function to seek Creative Commons-licensed images. Creative Commons is a website that offers free licensing agreements that you can use on your website stating the restrictions and parameters of usage for that photo or other work found online. When a license and the rights are clearly associated with the work, the legal system will support that artist should their rights be violated.

We have recently learned a very valuable lesson in this regard. Over six years ago, I was asked by my client to create four websites to represent their four sister-businesses.  The client wanted the sites to be different, yet complementary to each other.  Since four sites were being created at the same time, we chose to use a subcontractor for the base design while we would do the content management.

Because the subcontractor was a referral from a trusted associate, I did not think I had to be concerned about the copyrights on images used for the project. The sites were completed, the client was satisfied, and the project completed.  All seemed to be good.

But wait! Three months ago I received a call from the client — the sites were still up and running — informing me that they had received a call from Getty Images who was notifying them that they had Getty images on two of their websites that had not been paid for and as a result were in violation of the artists’ rights.  To the tune of $875/per website.

After some negotiation with Getty, I managed to get the settlement amount reduced to $675 per site.  Of course, this is our responsibility, not the client’s and we agreed to pay the bill.  We assured both Getty and our client that we did not know about the infringement, nor would we have willingly used these images without paying for the license to use these images on the website.

Two lessons here:  1) if you use a subcontractor, be sure that you are aware of the source of any artwork used by them for the work and 2) be prepared to step up to the plate and take responsibility should this situation unknowingly occur.  Even though it was the subcontractor who illegally used these images, there was never a question that we were the company contracted to do the project and it was up to us to make situation good again.

You can prevent this major headache by exercising strong control over the creative used by your subcontractors.  Frankly, we feel fortunate to have avoided a worse situation with the settlement we managed.

For further detailed information check out on Don Crowther’s site.

Chesa
www.computergoddess.com

JESS3 / The State of The Internet from Jesse Thomas on Vimeo.

Chesa
www.computergoddess.com

Check it out:  www.mywebwill.com

Chesa
www.computergoddess.com