Well, it’s that time of year again. Santa and his merry elves have been busy all year building Xbox 360’s and Playstation 3’s (Coming SOON!) to fill the stockings of all the good girls and boys whose parents have mortgaged their futures for 30 seconds of peace, tranquility and good feelings between their sons and daughters.
Of course the holidays are not simply a matter of what toys are under the tree, it’s also the time of year that the Salvation Army hordes will be ringing their bells outside every retail establishment. I’m all for charity and I certainly do give whatever change I might have in my pocket, but is it too much to ask that they stop ringing those furshlugginer bells for 10 seconds?
The news this year has not been especially good for the politicians either. Apparently some backlash against 6 years of Republicans being pretty much solely in charge has commenced as well. I find it interesting that all the Democrats who voted overwhelmingly for passage of the act that led to American troops in Iraq are now calling for an investigation into the intelligence reports that claimed that Sadaam MIGHT have had Weapons of Mass Destruction and that he would use them if attacked. Of course as it turns out, he either no longer had them (remember that he did have chemical weapons and used them on the Kurds), or his underlings knowing the cause was lost either shipped them to Syria or buried them somewhere in the desert. The scary part is that somewhere, a Republican is unhappy that Hussein didn’t use them just to prove to his Democratic rivals that they were there.
While George Bush is most likely no one’s idea of a genius, can anyone explain why Ted Kennedy (that paragon of virtue) is one of the loudest voices calling for this investigation? Considering that (lets be kind) faulty intelligence led his older brother and then LBJ to ramp up American involvement in Vietnam. To all you hard-core political junkies out there, let me say this: The Republican suck. The Democrats suck. There is a thimble full of real difference between them and both sides will do anything and screw anyone to get elected. Don’t kid yourself into thinking that either party has the high moral ground.
Iraq is turning into a quagmire. The Republicans really don’t have an exit strategy and frankly neither do the Democrats. It’s easy for the Democrats to say, ‘Just pull them out’ because it’s not their political ass on the line. No matter what the Republicans do, they lose in the forum of public opinion. What it comes down to is, are you willing to just give up and leave the Iraqis to the probable fate of a strictly religious government (ala the Taliban) and have the sacrifices made by American soldiers and Iraqi civilians be for nothing? If we leave now, the fledgling Iraqi government most likely falls and thousands, maybe millions die. It’s tough to say stay the course when it’s not me or my loved ones on the ground. On the other hand, the loudest voices for a pullout aren’t there either. How many of the sons and daughters of members of Congress are serving? You can bet it’s not many.
On yet another hand, have we forgotten already the painful lessons learned from 9/11? There are fanatics out there who would gladly kill you or me simply because we’re Americans and if you think standing there saying ‘But I’m a Democrat and opposed the war!’ means squat to them, please go to Iraq and find out for yourselves. The one thing I have to agree with President Bush on is that this IS a war. No war is won without sacrifice. No war is won by sitting on your hands and hoping the problem will just go away. Before you go to the next anti-war rally, remember the over 3000 people who lost their lives in New York, Washington D.C., and Pennsylvania. One of those names was my good friend and father of triplets, Jeff Simpson. He was visiting New York that day and when the emergency hit, he did what his EMT training taught him to do. He went to the towers and helped. He also paid for it with his life. Lets not forget the men and women of the armed forces from around the world who have paid as well. The professionalism of most of them makes me proud and I feel safer at night knowing they are there to protect my family and me.
My last words on this. The people who trained the terrorists (but were no where to be found during the actual deeds) would do worse if given the chance. Don’t believe for a second that giving in to whatever demands they make would change anything.
I am aware that this is a Macintosh advocacy site and I will get to Apple in good time. Have patience pilgrims.
I want to talk about the iPod (See? That didn’t take long). What an amazing year it has been for the little portable music player that is crushing all known competition and smiling while it does so. Can anyone count the number of ‘iPod Killers’ that have been announced with great fanfare and subsequently reduced in price just to move what little hardware actually makes it to the shelves? The iPod/iTunes combination is one that no other manufacturer has been able to compete against. It seems so simple to me. Just make hardware and software that works, with a decent amount of content. Yet no one seems to be able to make the whole widget (Welcome again to the Dashboard minute!) like Apple can. Fortunately, Apple has one thing going for it that no one can seem to get over. The greed of their competition.
The makers of competing MP3 players won’t work together and come out with software and hardware that will run on everyone’s players. Why? Greed. For all their complaints about Apple’s tactics, what they’re most upset about is that it isn’t them in the catbird’s seat.
The content providers have been screaming for Apple to raise their prices to the point that it looks like Apple might actually do it. Amazing since it essentially costs them nothing extra for the content they provide, that iTunes might have actually led to an overall drop in music piracy, and that they get the lion’s share of every penny collected. Oh, one or two might threaten to stop providing tunes, but it’s an empty threat. With iPods having over a 70% share in MP3 players, where else are they going to go? They made their bed with Apple and now have to stick to it. Again, greed prevents them from really going elsewhere. So the iPod juggernaut rolls on. Good news for Apple and therefore good news for me.
Next year begins the ‘Grand Experiment’. Can Apple successfully transition to Intel chips and keep their souls? OK, maybe that’s a little melodramatic (ya think?). It does mark a new beginning for the Mac. When it was first announced, I was on the side of those screaming that the APOCALYPSE is now upon us! Obviously, evil was ruling the earth, and I was on the watch for rivers of blood and rainstorms of frogs and all those other biblical prophecies. Well, I was wrong. Pat Robertson did not suddenly have ‘666’ tattooed on his forehead (Though I found it odd that he called for the head of a foreign leader. Has anyone checked his meds lately?). What really happened was that Mac sales rose, iPods have been selling like miracle cures, and Apple’s stock is at its highest level ever. This means two very important things: 1. The corporate heads at Apple are smarter than me. 2. I suck at predictions.
Some time next year I will buy an Intel based Mac. I’ve held my current machine together with spit and bailing wire and while they work fine, they’re too slow for the things that I want to do with them. I bought my kids a refurbed 17’ G5 iMac and I’m envious. I want to stop being envious and be able to laugh at the pitiful speed of their 1.8 GHz G5.
Now, on to my ChristHannaKwanzmas thanks.
First off to my Wife: I know I’m not the smartest man, nor the best looking. My attention drifts off in the middle of sentences and sometimes you must wonder who needs more care, the kids or me? Thanks for putting up with my nonsense.
To my two boys: I love you both very much, but would love you more if you would just listen to your Mother and do what she tells you to do. This way I wouldn’t drift off in the middle of her complaining about you and I would get more attention from her.
To my family: Thanks for including me. I really do enjoy your company; I’m just not always the best at showing it. Please know that I’ll be there whenever you need me.
To my friends: Thanks for just being you and deciding that I was worth knowing.
To my co-workers: Hi. How are you? Oh yeah, Merry holidays. Except for Tony who is more in the friends’ category.
To the people in my Dojang: Thanks for helping me get through my Black-belt test and for not hurting me when we spar. Sometimes I actually think this old man could compete! Then I wake up in the morning with bruises in places I didn’t know existed.
To my fellow writers at MyMac: Thanks for all the laughs and contributions to this great site. John: I haven’t forgotten ‘Problem Solving Guy’; I just haven’t been able to write much lately.
To the Miami Dolphins: Thanks for having such a crappy season that I was able to concentrate on more important matters than whether or not the ‘Fins’ would make the playoffs after their inevitable December collapse every year. Oddly enough, I wrote this exact same thing last year and see no reason to update it.
To Apple Computer:
Dear Steve Jobs
(Care of Apple Computers),
WOW! Stellar year dude! Frankly I have no idea how you can top this one. Of course I have a few suggestions (You must have known that was coming).
Video iPods look great and I could hear the jaws dropping when you announced it. Picture an MP3 player maker of choice listening to the announcement: But..but’¦but, he said he wasn’t gonna MAKE a video iPod!
Heh, just to be a fly on the wall’¦
They are pretty sweet and while I wouldn’t turn one down, I doubt I’ll buy one in its current form. You were right when you said 2.5 inches was too small a screen. Turn it sideways with a 4-5 inch screen and then try to keep me from getting one.
The new G5 iMacs are fantastic. Built-in iSight and multi-media software. Could be better though. Turn it sideways, tweak the software to make it a DVR and you could have a true multi-media server that the competition just dreams about. Time for some more strategic partnerships I think.
The G5 Towers. Eh, same old same old. Even with quad-processing, it doesn’t thrill me (mostly because I couldn’t afford it even if I wanted one’¦which I do). Time for a new look when the Intel towers come out. Speaking of towers, how about a mid-range tower for those of us with credit limits?
Powerbooks and iBooks. Getting long in the tooth as well. I’m itching to see what Ives has come up with when the next gen is released.
Then there’s the eMac. The one that you just hated to make. Especially after declaring the CRT was dead. It was the one that kept the original iMac form factor alive when it moved on to looking like half a volleyball with a lamp on top. I guess its run is almost done. Sayonara eMac. I’ll miss you even if no one else does.
Moving on to software. Last year when I wrote this column, I said the following, ‘Dashboard doesn’t seem nearly as neat or useful as Expose was’. Since I’m the host of the Dashboard Minute (on the MyMac.com Podcast), it would behoove me to try and forget those words. OK, everyone pretend like I never said that.
Anyway Steve, I hope this finds you well and happy. Keep making and cajoling cool things from my favorite hardware company and we’ll both be happy. All my best.
Guy
PS. Merry ChristHannaKwanzmas and a happy New Year to all you MyMac readers!
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