mikeg's blog

So, many of you know that I lost my bet last year that Apple would close over $200 at the end of the year -- The beginning of our "Bagel" (that's what we're calling the recession now) caught everything pretty hard, and Apple is just now pulling out of the hole (See picture). Putting this in perspective a little, Apple has almost completely recovered it's December 2007 value, while both the Dow and NASDAQ indices are still in their valley wallowing in general sadness. Mind you not all of my investments are doing so well with the bagel-recovery (The mutual funds you're seeing are all still down compared to 12/2007 value, VMWare is still a net loss b/c of a 12/07 correction when they announced financials), but Apple continues to be a rising star in my long-term portfolio. For the record, my Apple stock is up 161.64% over cost (across multiple purchases during its rise in 2005-2007; The initial purchases back when it was a $50 stock with an uncertain future are up well over 200%). I'm pondering additional buys, but I'm really waiting for a split (& possible buy-back from Apple, Inc.). How's everyone else doing? :-)

Y'all seen it.
The Apple iPhone has come to town. And yay verily it's fucking cool looking, and behold the faithful want them and will give up their left nuts to have one... Ya even me. So for those of you who don't know, I use a crackberry. A RIM 7520 to be precise. And it's not a bad little device, except for everything that's wrong with it:

• eMail
  The one thing the crackberry is good at, and it aint that good at it. In order to make my crackberry work with a UNIX mail environment, I need to forward my mail to my crackberry address. This means I need to manage two different copies of my mail (one in my inbox, one on the crackberry).
  It also means I have an @nextel.blackberry.com email address, that gets spammed up the ass because it has no antispam protection. Can we say UberSuck?
• SMS (Texting for you pflaming pfaggot kidiots)
  Put simply, the crackberry BLOWS for SMS. On a good day, it shows me 1234567890@provider.com as the from address. On a bad day it just says "|". Either way I have NO clue who messaged me.
• Linear Voicemail
  OK, so I don't NEED visual voicemail. I don't NEED to be able to pick and chose whose messages I listen to...
  I WANT IT! I WANT IT BAD AND I WANT IT NOW! GIVE IT TO ME!
  Sorry... better now... but yeah... Apple is good at that -- You never realize how much you NEED something until they show it to you and say "Wait 6 months and we'll let you have it".
  The bastards.
• Browsing for a Browser
  I want Safari on my phone. I want Firefox on my phone. I want to be able to view a page with FUCKING FRAMES!
  I'm sick of being treated like a backward retard who is still running Nutscrape Navigator 2.x (If you dont understand this, you're too young to use the internet. Kill yourself. NOW!). I want FRAMES and JAVA and AJAX and Quicktime and I want it NOWWWW!
• Goodies
  OK Steve-O... you said it runs OS X. Bitch, gimmie my fucking terminal! And where's my ssh client? And you DAMN WELL better ship a VNC client (or let me run one).
  This device could well be the answer to my mobile management dilemma - VNC, SSH and I'm good to go. All the better if it works over WiFi.

Of course the iPhone has some disadvantages too...

• Price
  I've never known Apple to compromise on this. $499. That's a tough nut to swallow. Not insurmountable, but ouch though.
• Cingular
  I've never had them... I've had friends who had them. They were unimpressed.
  They lose bonus points from me for not being able to do WLNP ("keep your number") on my 914 number. T*Mobile said they could - why can't Cingular? (Note that this is based on their online "Thingy" -- I'll look into this in greater detail as I prepare to bail on my Nextel contract ;))
• Battery
  So am I the only one who noticed the seamless back? I don't know about you, but I happen to abuse the living shit out my cell phone batteries, so I'm kind of worried about iPhone possibly not having a replaceable battery.
  More to the point, I think Apple should make it possible to replace batteries in ALL their products. How many of you have a 2G or 3G iPod that you dont use because it plays for 45 seconds and then goes splat? Wouldn't it be nice if you could use that iPod by just chaning out the battery?
  Yeah, I'm t3c KrayZee.

SO, yeah... short version: I want an iPhone, but I can wait until July and do some more research first :-)

CF: Mac Observer Article and the original blog article. See below the cut for my take. Continue reading "Rotten Apples?"

Long time no blog. I promise I have a good excuse, and as soon as I think of it I'll post it. AAAAAAAAAAAAAANYWay... As I predicted based on the Rumor Mill, right after I got my MacBook (Core Duo), Apple went and released Core 2 Duo machines. FUCKERS. So, here I sit with a problem that is equal in scale to Dr. Krish Pumping his Llama in the middle of the Automata Theory class. To Upgrade, or Not To Upgrade - Whether 'tis nobler in the balance of my bank account to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous hardware prices, or to take my medicine and hang on to the MacBook for 2-3 years like a good disciple of the Upgrade Cycle - and in so doing, save $2000. Continue reading "CoreDump Two Duo?"

Apple Stock closed over $80, Just like I said ($80.85) iWeb - Just like I said OS X Upgrade (Not a leopard but still, it's something) Intel-Based Dual-Core MacBook (So it's not a powerbook) Intel-Based Dual-Core iMac. Only thing I don't like is the price... $2500 is a lot for a new laptop... I'll consider it eventually. That's all... Oh, and One More Thing that's not Apple-related :)