I found this great link on the fake steve jobs blog.  It is interactive, so be sure to click around and explore everything.  I especially liked the solitaire and word applications.  It has apparently been around for awhile, but still good nonetheless.

This is one of the most entertaining blogs I have read. It doesn’t hurt that it is mostly about apple products, but nonetheless, it is very humorous. It was in the news this week because a journalist from the NYT finally figured out who was writing the blog, apparently another journalist from Forbes. The entire blog is supposedly written by Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, and it is absolutely hilarious.

What is even more funny is that now everyone is up in arms at the NYT reporter who uncovered the real writer of the blog. The original article from the Times is here. Interestingly, the Times has removed the comments from the article. I first ran across the article a few days ago and the reporter, Brad Stone, was getting flamed by readers who were upset that he “ruined all the fun.” Here is a quote from one of the comments on nytimes.com.

Thanks, Brad! Couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you? I feel like a kid whose older brother just couldn’t keep his yap shut, spilling his ‘insider knowledge’ about Santa Claus. What a frigtard.

The good news is that the blog will still be written as usual, just sponsored by forbes.com.

I hope you like the new look of the site.  It is an Apple inspired theme, which, as you know, makes me very happy.  I will be updating very soon..like tomorrow probably.  I have updates on my thesis project in East St. Louis.  I apologize for my lack of writing.  I know many of you have been holding your breath for months…awaiting my imminent return.

For those of you who haven’t read the latest interview with Microsoft chairman Bill Gates about Window’s Vista and comparisons that the media are making with Apple’s OS X, you should really check it out. It is pretty funny to hear Gates attempting to defend an operating system which he knows is inferior. First of all, I’ve used Windows for almost the entirety of my computing life, which is about 16 years. I was never a die hard mac fan from the beginning. I remember one of my best friends from high school whose dad owned an old power mac back in the mid 90s. I remember playing prince of arabia and some other old skool games, but other than that, I thought it was a pretty weird computer. I didn’t know how to use the interface, and for the most part, I thought it was inferior to my Windows 95 computer.

Having said that, I would like to point out several of the humorous quotes that Gates said during his interview with Newsweek. As a response to why users should upgrade to Windows Vista, Gates said…

The most effective thing would be if I could sit down with them and just take them through the new look for a couple of minutes, show them the Sidebar, show them the way the search lets you go through lots of things, including lots of photos. Set up a parental control. And then I might edit a high-definition movie and make a little DVD that’s got photos. As I went through, they’d think, “Wow, is that something I could use, would that make a difference for me?”

First of all, the sidebar is completely useless. I am currently running Vista on my desktop PC, and even with a 24” widescreen monitor, I don’t use the sidebar because it just takes up space. Apple’s Dashboard is a much better option because the widgets never take up any space on your computer screen. They simply fly out of the way when you are ready to work again. Set up parental control? Sure, I’m all for parental control, but is this really the option that is just going to put the “wow” factor in Vista, which Gates and his team has been hyping for so long? Next he is going to edit a high definition movie and “make a little DVD with photos.” Hmm….iDVD and iPhoto have been around for years now, both of which do a much better job of editing and providing novice users the opportunity to create professional quality DVDs. Windows Movie Maker is a pathetic excuse for an editing program, and the built in photo viewer and organizer in Vista is years behind iPhoto. I understand that Gates and his team are doing the best they can to develop a quality operating system, but the fact of the matter is that Apple is 2 or 3 years ahead of Microsoft in software development. You can pin the problem on Microsoft’s engineers having to constantly work on security issues, which gives them less time and resources for innovation, but I don’t understand why the consumer doesn’t realize the vast superiority of the Mac operating system and switch from the Windows platform. Gates also stated that he hadn’t seen the “Get a Mac” commercials ever. Ever? Are you serious? The get a mac ad campaign is one of the most well known commercial campaigns currently on television, and the chairman of the company which it is talking about has never seen the ads? I find that extremely hard to believe. Does all of this add up to Gates becoming more and more detached from the industry which has given him wealth and fame beyond measure? It will be interesting to see the new direction that Microsoft takes after Gates steps down next year. In my opinion, Gates should stick to what he does well, giving out enormous amounts of money for philanthropic causes. I admire Gates for what he is doing around the word, for helping underdeveloped countries struggling with AIDS and continuing to be a spokesman for philanthropy. I just don’t admire him for his vision at Microsoft. The company has become stagnant, a bumbling dreadnought of the tech industry that is unable to innovate. Luckily for consumers, there is a viable alternative that is continuing to innovate and push the limits of quality and creativity.

As I mentioned in the last post. I am getting a Macbook, at some point. It seems as though Apple decided they should wait a week and a half at the least to ship the computer. A little disconcerting, but hey, if I can wait over 3 years for an Apple notebook, I can wait another week and a half right? I also installed the public beta of Microsoft Vista last weekend after a much needed re-format of the ole desktop. It is pretty impressive I must say, and I have had no real issues with stability yet. They definetely went a long way from Windows XP as far as looks and operation is concerned. Everything looks so much richer and deeper. All windows are completely animated with transparency, fading, rich text fonts, and shadows. I really wish they would have done something radically different in the way of the the taskbar, but it’s Windows, and I guess that is their heritage. The major differences are the overall graphic interface, and the updated file browsing and search features. I know I’m probably boring everyone about lame, geeky software crap, so I’ll stop. But I’m pretty impressed with the new offerings from Redwood. I don’t think it is quite up to par with OSX as far as reliabiliy, security, and overall functionality, but at least they fixed the most obvious shortcoming, which was an extremely outdated interface that desperately needed an overhaul.

Other than that, I have been working non stop at school. Teaching, working, photographing, printing, and writing. I have been photographing quite a bit lately, returning to my first love…documentary. I am documenting a small town just south of Carbondale for the semester. The project is already well underway, and I am happy with the way it is going. It has taken me awhile to get back into the swing of photographing and printing every week, but I am slowly getting back to my normal proficiency. I will hopefully get some images scanned and up on the main site this weekend. I’m really starting to worry about finding an idea for my thesis. I really feel like I want to do something in the documentary vein. I am just much more comfortable and happy when doing documentary work. I feel like it is my niche, and everything else I seem to do just doesn’t quite satisfy me as a photographer. I love documentary, I just need to find a compelling topic to get myself engrossed in. I’m really hoping that this project will spur some kind of ideas for a thesis. In the meantime, I will be doing everything I possibly can to keep my head above the water.

It’s in the mail.

I couldn’t resist the temptation.