Posts tagged ‘apple’
Page Up and Page Down Shortcuts in Mac OS X
By Chad Upton | Editor
Unless you’ve specifically bought the full size Mac keyboard, you’re missing dedicated page up and page down keys.
But, you’re not missing out on the functionality; here are the shortcuts: (more…)
How Steve Jobs Got His 2009 Liver Transplant So Quickly
By Chad Upton | Editor
When I was about 7 years old, my grade school classroom had an Apple II computer stashed in the corner of the room. I remember the excitement when our teacher said we could use the computer after we finished all of our work, even though I had no idea how to use it. Nobody knew how to use it, except for Woody.
Woody was the only kid who had a computer at home and it too was an Apple II. Since that was the first affordable mass-market computer, if any home or small business had a computer, it was usually an Apple.
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak started the personal computer revolution. There’s no doubt it would have happened without them, but who knows when. Steve Wozniak had the drive to build prototypes of computers just for fun while his partner Steve Jobs had the vision and drive to sell them to people who didn’t know how to use them, like some other products Apple has recently been successful with.
When Steve Jobs passed away, his assets were estimated to be around $6 billion. With that kind of wealth, you could buy almost anything. So, when he received a liver transplant in 2009, a lot of people suggested that he bought his way to the top of the waiting list. How else could he have skipped ahead of 16,000 other people?
His wealth did help him, but not in the way that some have implied.
He was on the transplant waiting list. Well, he was actually on more than one waiting list. Some have even speculated that he was on all of the waiting lists.
So, why doesn’t everyone do this? The rule at the time was that you needed to be within 4 hours of the transplant hospital. For most people, that significantly reduces the number of transplant lists you could be on. But, if you’re a billionaire with a private jet on standby, you’re within 4 hours of a lot of places.
Even still, with so many people waiting, how did he get to the top of the list so quickly?
The United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) audits the transplant centers to ensure fair treatment. So, he didn’t likely get to the top of the list because of his wealth or social status.
Since his jet gave him access to almost any transplant center in the country, he did what any smart analytical person would do: he figured out which transplant center had the shortest wait and made sure he was on that list. That’s how a guy who lives in Northern California ends up with a liver transplant in Tennessee. It turns out, the median wait time in Tennessee was 85% shorter than the national average.
The technology that Steve brought us will fade, but his approach to everything, including saving his own life, is the real gift he gave us. When Steve rejoined and began to rejuvenate Apple in 1997, the slogan was, “think different” and that sentiment is Steve’s real legacy.
Rest in peace.
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Sources: digital journal, cnn, slate, the daily beast
Microsoft Invested in Apple in 1997
By Chad Upton | Editor
Microsoft and Apple are mortal enemies, at least, that’s what their TV commercials will have you believe.
They’ve always been competitors, originally trying to dominate our preference in computers, and now music players and mobile phones. Apple has a strong lead in music player and mobile phone segments, but Microsoft has a big lead as the dominant operating system. That said, Apple has become much more competitive in that space, especially in the past few years.
Their competition is most visible during commercial breaks, when they take jabs at each others potential flaws. Forget on court trash talk, when you’ve got as much money as these guys, you can trash talk in the form of multi-year, multi-million dollar ad campaigns — it’s so much more fun.
You see, Apple CEO Steve Jobs and Microsoft founder Bill Gates have a long history as friends. In the early days, they used to take their girlfriends on double dates with each other. They didn’t see a lot of each other after Bill moved to Washington State, but they’ve remained friends.
In fact, when Steve Jobs came back to Apple in 1996, the company needed help. To be a serious player, Apple also needed competitive office software.
Mac fans and developers were shocked on August 6th, 1997 when Bill Gates appeared via teleconference during Steve Job’s presentation at Macworld.
Steve and Bill announced that Microsoft would invest $150 million in Apple. Today, it sounds crazy, and at the time it sounded pretty crazy too. Jobs was booed when he announced the partnership and Bill was booed when he appeared on screen. But, it actually made a lot of sense for both companies. Steve said it best, “We have to let go of a few notions here. We have to let go of the notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft needs to lose.” (more…)
Corporate Logo Secrets
By Chad Upton | Editor
A well designed logo is simple, easy to identify and conveys important information about the brand it represents.
Some logos do that by looking the part: cool, stylish, funky, formal, casual…etc. Logos may also represent the brand with meaningful imagery.
Although you may have seen these logos hundreds of times, you may have have missed some of the meaning.
Apple
With the cachet of this brand, it’s hard to believe it was nearly bankrupt ten years ago. Now, it’s one of the most valuable consumer electronics brands.
There are many stories floating around about how the Apple logo got its bite mark (or “byte” mark). The ad agency that created it, claims it is a biblical reference that symbolizes a bite from the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge. In the story, a serpent promises Eve that eating the fruit would make one wise.
BMW
Bayerische Motoren Werke (BMW) originally made airplane engines and there is a popular theory that the logo shape represents a spinning airplane propeller. Although that makes a lot of sense, the design is actually based on the colors of the checkered Bavarian flag, the German State where the automaker started.
Fedex
See the arrow between the “E” and the “x”?
Toblerone
Look at the white space in the mountain. It’s a bear, a symbol of the town where Toblerone started.
Tostitos
Two of the letters are sharing a Tostito and a bowl of salsa, which happens to be the dot on the “i.” That’s a legal double dip.
Baskin Robbins
They have 31 flavors and the number is right in the logo.
Milwaukee Brewers
In the old Milwaukee Brewers logo, the letters “m” and “b” form a baseball glove.
Cisco
You may not have seen cisco’s products, but chances are good that some of them are responsible for letting you view this web page — they make telecommunications equipment. The company was named after the city of San Francisco. The waveform bars in the logo represent the Golden Gate Bridge, a well known San Francisco landmark.
Sun Microsystems
The letters “U” and “N” are arranged to create the letter “S”, spelling “sun.”
Amazon
They have everything, from A to Z.
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Sources: Logo Blog, Wikipedia (Apple Logo), Kelly Advertising, Wallet Pop, CorporateLogos.ws, NY Times
iPhone and iPod Tricks
Apple has sold 50 million iPhones and 35 million iPod touch devices, so there are a lot of people who can benefit from these secrets.
This is by no means a complete list, but I wanted to provide some of the most useful and least well known iPhone tricks. Most of this list also applies to the iPod touch; if you know someone with one of these, be sure to send them a link to this article.
Double Click the Home Button
The button on the front of the phone is called the “home” button. You can choose what happens when you double click it. Mine is set to go to my phone favorites, making it quicker to dial my people. You can get to this screen by going to Settings > General > Home.
As you can see on the option screen above, there is an option for “iPod Controls.” When those are on and the phone is in standby mode (blank screen), you can double click the home button to see the current song/artist/album cover and show audio controls (volume/forward/back/play/pause) — see below for example. If you want to fast forward or rewind, hold the forward/back buttons respectively.
How to Accelerate and Slow Banana Ripening
I love bananas.
They are a nearly perfect fruit. They taste great. They’re fairly inexpensive. They have their own protective skin and they contain many nutrients such as: vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B9, C, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Potassium and Zinc.
But, if I had to register a complaint about bananas, it would be their shelf life. Keeping them perfectly ripe is a fine art — one worth mastering.
The first trick is something my wife, Kristen, taught me: don’t buy all your bananas from the same bunch! Pick a couple green ones and a couple that are ripe/near ripe. Then you have some you can eat right away and others that will be ripe when you’re ready for them.
The interesting part is that those two bunches are likely the same age. You assume the less ripe ones are newer, but the food distributors control ripeness. They have large, air tight banana ripening vaults that give them very precise control over banana ripening. They’re usually divided into multiple sections, so bananas can be kept at different stages of ripeness. If they’re selling a lot of bananas, they can accelerate the ripening so they will be ripe when they arrive at the store. If sales are slow, they can slow ripening to avoid waste.
How do they do that? (more…)
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