My Time With Steve Jobs

My time with Steve Jobs happened a very long time ago. It was early 1980, or perhaps late 1979, and I was a freshman at Stanford. I heard that Steve Jobs was coming to talk to some students in a small group session. I don’t actually recall why it caught my attention. I had probably heard of Apple computers back then, but I had never seen one. The only computers I had ever seen where in huge boxes behind thick glass windows.

Somehow, I decided to go to the event. It was over in Branner Hall across the street from my dorm complex, Wilbur. We met in a big room. It was kind of dark and had a fireplace. I did a quick search on Branner and found a picture of the room.

We all settled in with Jobs sitting down at the head of our circle. He was a young guy. Full of energy. I listened with great interest to what he had to say. The thing I remember was his vision of what computers would look like in our future and his excitement about the day his vision would come true.

His vision was not the Mac. What he talked about was a computer so small it fit in our hands. It would go with us every where. It would be our personal navigator. His enthusiasm was so clear and intense. Even though it sounded like science fiction given the computers we had at the time.

We had about an hour of Jobs’ time that evening, but his vision of a personal navigator always stuck with me.

I remember later breaking into the computer science building to get access to a computer with a modem, as I must have run out of hours at the computer lab. I wandered around a bit until I came upon a room with some computer monitors and modems. Sitting next to the terminal was another monitor. This one was way cooler. It was something called a Star computer. I had never seen anything like it. It had a completely different screen and you could move the arrow around on the screen with this thing attached by a cord. I didn’t know it was a mouse. I played with it for half an hour trying to see what I could do with it. It didn’t seem to be able to do much of interest. I couldn’t figure out how to connect it to the Dec System 20 which is what I needed.

Even though it was not much use, it seemed very cool and I remember wondering in passing if Jobs had seen this thing. It turns out that the Star was one of the inspirations for the Lisa and later Mac.

In the mid to late 80s, I would own a few Macs and use them all the time at work. They were great until they were not. In came the Thinkpad and I have been locked into Wintel ever since.

In the mid 90′s, Apple released the Newton. I thought then that Jobs’ vision might be coming a reality with a Jobs less Apple. Like other enthusiasts I bought a Newton. I used it for a while, but it wasn’t easy. It was kind of hard to use, it was too big and way too heavy. The Newton failed and the Pilot took its place.

But obviously, Jobs was not done. He gave us the iPod, the iPod touch and iPhone and now the iPad. He did it. He delivered on his vision from 1980. These cool devices have become our personal navigators in so many ways.

I never met Steve Jobs again since that evening in Branner Hall. It was a short, but memorable time.

Whatever Steve Jobs does next, I wish him well. It would be interesting to hear Steve give that Branner talk one more time. What would his vision be now?

BTW, if you haven’t seen Jobs giving the commencement speach at Stanford you should. It’s quite inspirational. You can see the video here – How to Live Before you Die.

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Is Spotify an iTunes Killer?

spotify logoI was recently invited to sign up for Spotify, an online music service that has been big in Europe for a number of years and is just now coming to America.

So, I signed up. Pretty easy to do. Then, I was somewhat surprised that Spotify is a downloadable application that runs on your computer. I downloaded it, ran the install and fired it up.

Within seconds it was up and running, importing all my music from my iTunes folder. It got everything, except the files Apple DRMed into prison.

The application seems much lighter and faster than iTunes, which is a welcome change. It looks sexy, with a grey/black background and white font. (Makes it harder to read though.) You can see the screenshot below:
Spotify What's New
Next up, it asked if I wanted to sync my iPhone/iPod or Android device. I wasn’t about to test this on my iPod, so I tried the Android approach. I had to download the Android app to phone and install that. All I had to do was enter my name and password for it to start syncing. Worked great, until it didn’t.

It stopped and complained about memory problems. I looked and there was still plenty of memory available. Turn the app off and on, then an error message about my memory card. Turned in off and on again. Uninstalled and re-installed. Still got the error message. Finally turned the phone off and on and that got it working again.

Spotify tried to push 2500 songs to my Android, which choked as it ran our of memory.

I tried to un-select some play lists thinking that would take them off my Android, but that does not seem to work. Syncing seems to be limited to pushing songs from my PC to the Android phone, not taking them off the Android. Now my memory card is full and I’m not sure what to do.

I do wish the sync would work right. It should add and delete songs from my Android as I select them in the Spotify app. Maybe I’m doing something wrong, but I don’t know.

I decided to forget the phone for now and check out the Spotify desktop app.

It’s fun to play with. You can listen to just about everything out there music wise, except the Beatles and few others. They insert some ads every now and then but that’s ok. You can get rid of the ads for $5 per month and for $10 you can have the same streaming experience on your mobile device.

Another nice feature is that the system integrates with Facebook so you can share play lists with Facebook friends.

Overall, I liked Spotify a lot, but it’s not quite an iTunes killer until the mobile syncing stuff works much better and without glitches.

iTunes is certainly vulnerable. On my machine, iTunes is bloated, slow and glitchy. It constantly asks to be updated with a cumbersome process. Spotify is slim, fast and aside from the syncing issues seems to work well. However, iTunes still seems to lead on the syncing front, which means I continue to be stuck using iTunes until Spotify works better with my mobile.

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Amazon filed a petition with the California Attorney General to suspend the law recently passed by the State Legislature that attempts force out of state retailers with affiliates in state to collect sales tax. The petition was approved by the Attorney General and Amazon can now go on to collect signatures to try and get it on the ballet.

I tried reading the petition, but it’s a bunch of legal mumbo jumbo to me. The Attorney Generals title and summary are as follows:

REFERENDUM TO OVERTURN LAW REQUIRING INTERNET RETAILERS TO COLLECT SAME SALES OR USE TAXES AS OTHER RETAILERS. If signed by the required number of registered voters and filed with the Secretary of State, this petition will place on the statewide ballot a challenge to an existing state law. The law must be approved by voters at the next statewide election to remain in effect. the law expands the definition of retailers considered “engaged in business” in California to include certain Internet retailers selling to California consumers, so that out-of-state Internet retailers also collect existing sales or use taxes.

That’s easier to read than the petition, but I still don’t know what their talking about.

It will be interesting to watch Amazon fight it out with the Wal-Mart shill Main Street Alliance and labor unions.

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The Long Beach Press Telegram continues to write misguided editorials about the recent passage of a law requiring out of state retailers to collect sales tax.  The last time I wrote to the editor, they totally censored my post.  So, here is the reponse I sent to them tonight.  I hope they have the guts to publish it entirely this time.

Here’s my response:

Supreme Court of the United States has already ruled that it is unconstitutional for states to force out of state retailers who do not have physical presence in the state to collect sales taxes.  This is the second time the Press-Telegram has advocated in support of an unconstitutional law on this matter.  Do your home work!

Secondly, you should realize that the biggest backer of the unconstitutional law is Wal-Mart, Inc.  Wal-Mart is not the friend of local small business. Because of their lobbying efforts and poorly informed editorial staff advocating unconstitutional positions, the State of California passed an unconstitutional law that caused thousands of people working for small business to lose their jobs.

California has lost jobs and tax revenues because of our legislature’s arrogant attempt to bypass the Supreme Court’s ruling.  Amazon is no saint, but like the Press-Telegram they have a right to fight for their constitutional rights.

If you’re going to write editorials, get your facts straight.

PS – either print this entirely or you don’t have permission to use it at all. The last time you edited my position you totally distorted my message.

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The Importance of Being On Frame

I spent the past few weeks enjoying the Women’s Soccer World Cup and it really made me think about the importance of being “on frame”.  That’s soccer lingo for putting your shot on the target.  In soccer, the target is with the frame of the goal.  Putting your shots on frame is the only way you’ll score.

The US National team was like magic to watch.  The game against Brazil was especially fantastic with a last minute tying shot that Abby Wambach put on frame.  Then, they win it in penalty kicks with 5 more shots on frame that all scored.

The final game had everything you could want in a quality soccer match.  Ups, downs, the stories of two incredible teams, sportsmanship, and everything left of on the field by all involved.

Congrats to the Japanese Team.  They fought hard and deserved their title.

The US team was equally worthy of winning and that made watching them choke painful.  They chocked on defense, on offense and in the PKs.  Really sad to see this from such great competitors.

The team had two defensive mishaps that allowed Japan to tie things up in both regulation and in overtime.  Then, Japan won the penalty kick contest.

But it wasn’t the defensive mistakes that cost the US the game.  The problem is that too their shots we not on frame.

Before the penalty kicks, the US had 27 shots at the goal, with only 5 being on frame.  Japan only had 14 shots, but put 6 of them on frame.  Then in PKs, the US had two shots blocked and one that missed the frame.

If you’re not on frame, you have no chance to score.

It’s like that in life too.  If you’re not on frame, you you have no chance of realizing your goals.

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Battling the Ups and Downs of Google

The past month has been a frustrating battle with Google’s search results.  My audiobooks for ipod site has been bouncing between the first page of Google search results and the last page of results.  When it gets pushed to the back, the whole site seems to be affected.  It will be on the first page for thousands of keywords one day and then the next it won’t show up for just about anything.  Very frustrating.

I think it has to do with duplicate content that Google has indexed.  First, I had set up some subdomains to serve images faster, but Google began duplicating content like mad so I cut of the subdomains. Now, I’m seeing Google index XML feeds which create duplicate content.  I added noindex to those last week, but it seems to take forever to get out of the doghouse:<

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More Companies Terminate Affililates, More Jobs Lost

The new job killiing California law that claims that affiliates (independent businesses that advertise products on a pay for performance basis) create sales tax nexus for out of state retailers and therefore subjects them to collecting sales tax, continues to claim victims.

While the focus has been on Amazon, more companies are terminating their relationships with 25,000 small businesses here in California. The law is intentionally vague and given that there are networks and sub-networks of affiliates it is very difficult for a company to see if their relationships with advertising networks or affiliates causes the nexus to kick in.

To avoid the risk, out of state retailers are choosing to do the simplest thing and that is to fire their California small business affiliates. That means less revenue for small businesses, more people getting fired and less income tax collected by the State. And, no extra sales tax to compensate. Way to go Sacramento.

Here is the most recent termination letter I have seen:

Dear Affiliate,

Thank you for your participation in the Total Gym Affiliate Program in the Google Affiliate Network. We greatly appreciate all of the hard-work and effort you have put forth to make our program a success. Unfortunately, due to recent state legislation in California, we are forced to remove all affiliates located in the state.

Today, June 29, 2011, your account was expired from our Google Affiliate Network program. Thus, we urge you to take down all banners, text links, etc. from your sites immediately.

Please note, if the location of your business changes, please feel free to reapply to our program.

If circumstances do change, we will notify you. We sincerely wish you the best in all of your future endeavors.

Regards,

The Total Gym Affiliate Team

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Jobs are being lost at 25,000 small businesses in California today due to a new law passed by the California Legislature. The new legislation is part of the budget package recently approved by the California Assembly and Senate. The legislation is an attempt to get Amazon to collect sales taxes by claiming that independent affiliates who choose to promote Amazon on a pay for performance basis create nexus for Amazon.

The Supreme Court has ruled that it is unconstitutional for States to force out-of-state retails to collect sales tax. California is trying to bypass this rule by claiming independent companies create a nexus for Amazon. It will likely end up in the courts, but not before lots of people lose their jobs.

The only thing that could turn this around is if Gov. Brown comes to his senses and vetoes the bill.

My condolences to all who have lost a job or a livelihood today.

Below is a copy of the letter being sent to Amazon’s California Affiliates:

Hello,

For well over a decade, the Amazon Associates Program has worked with thousands of California residents. Unfortunately, a potential new law that may be signed by Governor Brown compels us to terminate this program for California-based participants. It specifically imposes the collection of taxes from consumers on sales by online retailers – including but not limited to those referred by California-based marketing affiliates like you – even if those retailers have no physical presence in the state.

We oppose this bill because it is unconstitutional and counterproductive. It is supported by big-box retailers, most of which are based outside California, that seek to harm the affiliate advertising programs of their competitors. Similar legislation in other states has led to job and income losses, and little, if any, new tax revenue. We deeply regret that we must take this action.

As a result, we will terminate contracts with all California residents that are participants in the Amazon Associates Program as of the date (if any) that the California law becomes effective. We will send a follow-up notice to you confirming the termination date if the California law is enacted. In the event that the California law does not become effective before September 30, 2011, we withdraw this notice. As of the termination date, California residents will no longer receive advertising fees for sales referred to Amazon.com, Endless.com, MYHABIT.COM or SmallParts.com. Please be assured that all qualifying advertising fees earned on or before the termination date will be processed and paid in full in accordance with the regular payment schedule.

You are receiving this email because our records indicate that you are a resident of California. If you are not currently a resident of California, or if you are relocating to another state in the near future, you can manage the details of your Associates account here. And if you relocate to another state in the near future please contact us for reinstatement into the Amazon Associates Program.

To avoid confusion, we would like to clarify that this development will only impact our ability to offer the Associates Program to California residents and will not affect their ability to purchase from Amazon.com, Endless.com, MYHABIT.COM or SmallParts.com.

We have enjoyed working with you and other California-based participants in the Amazon Associates Program and, if this situation is rectified, would very much welcome the opportunity to re-open our Associates Program to California residents. We are also working on alternative ways to help California residents monetize their websites and we will be sure to contact you when these become available.

Regards,

The Amazon Associates Team

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I recently sent a letter to the editor of the Long Beach Press Telegram in response to an editoral they published called “Online Sales Should be Taxed”.  The editorial’s position was that we needed a law to make online retailers collect tax to make it fair for offline retailers.

The editorial board obiviously does not know what it’s talking about and has fallen prey to Walmart et al lobbying efforts, just like the Democrats in Sacramento.

Below is the full letter to the editor.  The bold parts were edited out, much to my disappointment.  I guess that’s what happens when big media wants to censor the public.

 

For your information, online sales ARE taxed already. Every good sold
in California that is subject to sales tax is already taxed whether it
is sold online or in stores. All Californian’s are responsible for
paying the sales tax regardless of how they purchased the goods.

The issue is the State’s ability to force retailers to collect taxes.
For retailers with a physical presence in California, the state
government forces retailers to do the State’s job of collecting the
sales tax.  That uncompensated tax collection burden applies to both
retail store operators and online stores operated by companies that
have a physical presence in California.  Just try buying something
from Walmart.com and they will collect sales tax from you.

It is unconstitutional for the State to force retailers who do not
have a physical presence in the state  to do the State’s job of
collecting taxes. . In Quill Corps. v. North Dakota, the Supreme Court
ruled that a business must have a physical presence in a state for
that state to require it to collect sales taxes.

Our State representatives are trying to create physical presence,
where one does not exist, to force out of state retailers to do the
State’s tax collection work. The way they are doing that is by saying
that if an independent publisher or marketer based in California
promotes the out of state retailer’s products and gets a commission
then the retailer has to collect taxes.  Its like saying that because
Amazon ran a pay for performance ad in the Press Telegram they are now
based in California and can be forced to collect taxes.

If the law passes, out of state retailers will discontinue
relationships with an estimated 25,000 businesses in California to
avoid being forced to collect sales tax.  That will mean we don’t get
the sales taxes and that lots of tax paying Californian’s will lose
their jobs and livelihood.  We will end up with fewer jobs and the
loss of of income tax receipts. It’s a lose, lose proposition.

The only constitutional solution is to have the Federal government
pass a law to make it happen.

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Why Verizon Fios Customer Service Sucks

There is just no other way to say it. Verizon Fios customer service sucks.  I spent about an hour ranting about it on Twitter last night, but still need  a bit more venting to clear my frustration with them.

The issue started when Heather and I decided to rent a VOD movie instead of going out.  Bad decision on our part, because the resulting service just ruined the night.

It all started when we select the movie we want to watch, “The Adjustment Bureau”, and click on the rent button.  Then we wait and finally an error box pops up.  We try this a few times, unplug the set top box to reset it and try again. Still getting error box so we hit the troubleshoot button which is useless, but it does give a number to call at the end.  So I call the number, and the Verizon call systems asks for my phone number.  Why they don’t have my number is beyond me.  My bank always knows my number when I call.

After I enter my number, I go through a mind numbing phone tree only to get disconnected somewhere.

We decide to try something different and use the VOD system to view a movie from HBO, but again we get an error message.  This one tells us we do not have enough credits to rent this movie and provides another number.  I don’t know what the credits thing is all about, we pay plenty to have Fios and we pay extra to have HBO and access to it’s VOD library.

After we find the same problem on Starz and some other premium channels, I call the number that this error message says to call.  It’s different than the last one so I try it.  There is a short code to enter when I call.  Again, the call system asks for my phone number.This time it tells me my phone number does not exist or something like that. After some other phone tree mumbo jumbo I get asked to enter the short code.  I enter the code and wait.

The phone tree seems to be doing something….then the computer voice says “there is no answer at that number and the call will be disconnected.”  Now I’m pissed.

So I drag up my browser on my phone and go to Verizon.com and try to find a number.  Their contact numbers are well hidden behind lots of pages trying to deflect you from calling.  I find them after some serious problems trying to get through two modal pop up windows on my phone.  Modal pop ups on mobile devices don’t work very well, but that’s a different rant.

So I get the number and call.  Phone tree asks for my number again, then try’s to make me go away by leading me all over the place.  I just want to talk to a person, but the phone tree is the Resistance Monster incarnate.  It really does not want me to talk a live person.  Finally, I beat the phone tree and get to a person.

Sounds like the lady is very far away,  has an Indian accent and a name I don’t quite get.  Maybe I got sent offshore? Don’t know.  Don’t really care as I can understand the lady and she seems nice. The lady asks for my phone number again.  Click, click as she types away.  Now she asks what my problem is and I tell her.

Oh, no.  She’s not part of Fios.  She’s part of some other operation.  She offers to transfer me and asks for a number in case we get disconnected.  I envision more time waiting and then getting disconnected.  So, I demand a warm transfer where she stays with me until I get to the next rep.

There we sat waiting.  Verizon music playing away.  Me and the Indian lady. We wait and wait.  I’m not giving up now, I’ve got one of their reps and I am going to keep her waiting too.  10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 40 minutes. Some more waiting and then there is a different person picking up the phone.

It’s Debbie.  Debbie is from Fios. The Indian lady signs off.  At least she stayed with me, even if she could provide no help.

I think Debbie asks for my phone number again, but I’m not sure what she said.

She asks me what my issue is and I tell her.  I hear her give a friendly chuckle.  This is not going to be good I think.

The VOD system is down.  She tells me that it’s not just me, it’s affecting everybody.  She tells me like she thinks that is going to make me feel better.  Doesn’t work.

I ask why the system is down.  She mumbles something about maintenance.  That I find hard to believe. Who would schedule VOD maintenance on Friday evening in prime time?  No competent person would do that.  But then again it is Verizon Fios.  Maybe they would be so stupid as to bring down the VOD system on a Friday night for maintenance.

I ask if they will give me a credit for their system being down.  She says it needs to be six hours.  Ok, I say.  When will the VOD be back up and available.  She tells me an hour sometime on early Saturday morning.  Well that’s more than six hours I say, how about that credit.

Debbie can’t give me a credit.  I have to talk to the billing department.  I complain about having to wait some more, but tell her ok.  Get me to billing I say.  I want my credit.  I know it would only be few dollars, but now I’m in it to win.

Debbie does the normal, can I have a number to call if we get disconnected thing.  Again, I tell her I want her to stay with me and do a warm transfer.  OK she says.  I wait and then the music again.  Debbie tells me it will be 13 minutes, do I want to wait?  I say yes and I want her to stay with me.  Ok she says.  Then moments later Debbie is gone.  She comes back after 5 minutes or so to check up on me.  Do I want to wait more?  Yes and I tell her I’m mad at her for not staying with me.

Debbie sneaks away again.  Finally, I get to billing.

I don’t know the billing ladies name, but she asks me what I want.  I tell her my VOD is down. Debbie said six hours and I get a credit.

Billing Lady says no.  No credit for the VOD system being down.

I ask why not.  She tells me VOD is a free service and they don’t give credit on free service.

My blood pressure must have gone up 20 points at that statement.

I pay big bucks to Verizon every month for the Fios service.  The service I pay for has a feature called VOD.  If I don’t pay, I don’t get VOD or Fios.  There is no way it’s free.

Billing Lady tells me it’s free because everyone gets it.  I say only if they pay for Fios.

Billing Lady sticks to her position. No credit.

I ask about HBO VOD.  I pay for that.  It’s not available to everyone.

Billing Lady says no credit.

I ask why Debbie told me it was possible and made me wait to talk to Billing Lady.

Billing Lady tells me she doesn’t know.  I think she thinks Debbie was an idiot.

I tell Billing Lady I’m pissed off.  She says that she apologizes for me being upset.  She doesn’t apologize for the VOD system being down. She doesn’t apologize for their terrible service.  She doesn’t apologize that she can’t or won’t help me.  She doesn’t apologize for my time waiting and the awful experience.

She’s sorry that I got upset.  Like I’m not supposed to get pissed off when treated this poorly.

I think I lost it at that point, because the Billing Lady was gone.  Just silence.  I lost.  Verizon Fios awful service won.  It’s no wonder that the last thing the phone company wants is to talk to their customers.  It’s awful for me and probably costs them a fortune.

The sad thing is it never needed to happen.  All Verizon needed to do was tell it’s customers that the VOD system was going down, or was down and tell us when to expect it back up.  They could have done that via the set top box.  They could have put that on the web site. They could have had the phone tree tell me.  They could have tweeted it and it would have been more effective than the experience I went through.

They could have put a link on the error message to get help and then tell me VOD was down.  They could have put phone numbers on the error messages that actually get answered.  I could go on and on about fixes, but I’m sure they just don’t care.

And why does the phone company keep asking for my phone number when I call? They’re the phone company and they know my number.

Come on Verizon, at least fix that.

Unless maybe Verizon thinks people will get frustrated with this stupid procedure and drop off before they actually get to talk to a person.  Sounds cynical, but that’s how big companies think.

 

 

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