You Mad Bro' ... Does everything have to be controversial?

I was actually surprised to read that the giveaway of the new U2 album by Apple has managed to upset lots of people:

Free U2 album: How the most generous giveaway in music history turned PR disaster

To be honest, I think the headline is feeding the flames a bit by calling it a PR disaster. But the question is this: has the Internet community been overwhelmed by whiners, complainers and trolls?   

Perhaps there's just as many or more people that are happy about getting some free music in their iTunes account. Those stories don't get such clickable* headlines as the one above.

On the other hand, maybe it was just a bad choice of delivery:

Why the Free U2 Album is Pissing Off Apple Users

So, just dropping the free album into everyone's iTunes account is a bad way to do it.  Next time (if there is one), just give everyone the option to accept the offer?  Anyway, now there's a nifty tool from Apple to remove the offending album.  Isn't technology fun???

* The spell checker doesn't like this word ... is it legit or did I just make up a new word?

Thirty years of Personal Computers

My first introduction to computers was in 1978 at Eastern Illinois University. Although it was not my major (Medical Technology), I took a summer class in Basic programming, which was offered through the Mathematics department. The Computer Science department didn't exist yet. Programs where typed in on a keypunch machine, the stack of punch cards handed over to someone at the computer room and then wait until the next day to retrieve your output printed on paper.

Fast forward to 1984 when, after working in the forensic pathology lab for a couple of years, I was able to purchase my very own personal computer.  It was an used Tandy TRS 80. I was quickly frustrated by the limited 4K of RAM (yep, that's 4,000 bytes of memory) and excruciatingly slow cassette tape method of loading and saving programs.  So, just a couple of months later I purchased a bright and shiny Apple IIc with monochrome monitor (green screen), a whopping 128K of RAM and two (count them, two!) 5.25 inch floppy drives.  It was, at the time, amazing!

The rest, as they say, is history.  I could write a long list of computers I've owned since then, but maybe that will be another post someday.

It wouldn't be a decent blog post if I didn't link to something, so for old times sake, go take a look at the Jargon File - where you'll find all sorts of interesting history and terminology.  And happy 38th birthday to Apple, which was founded in April, 1976.

iTunes on Windows Vista = No Fun

Dear Apple iTunes team:  the 11.0.2 update takes way too long to install.

Or is this yet another incompatibility with Windows Vista?

Sincerely,

Loyal Apple Customers who still use Microsoft Windows