I don't know if this is a long-term change, or just an effect of the network going into war-mode, but CNBC is currently showing "CNBC World" instead of doing their regular reruns of their evening shows to balance out the east and west coast feeds. Right now they're on CNBC Europe, and it's almost as good as having BBC World (which my package does not have). It's much better than "Kudlow and Cramer" (one of the most obnoxious pair-of-barking-head shows). So, here's hoping this continues. CNBC is actually a bearable network (most of the time), but it's terrible that it goes into infomercial mode on the weekends, while MSNBC is wasting almost as much air as the infomercials.
Nicely, the one of the local NPR providers does carry BBC World Service throughout the night, so I can be lulled to sleep by those intoxicating British voices and brain twisting sport scores. :)
Now if only Fox News could replace their barking head programming with... Oh hell, just about anything. O'Reilly was entertaining for about a week, but now I just want to punch the guy.
I remember the day the iMac launched. Apple's web site, except for the Support section, was replaced with a single page saying "Pro. Go. Whoa.", and the subtext of "Don't miss what will happen here today". The day was significant in a couple of ways. First, it was the unveiling of the four-box plan: Apple's computer lines would be pared down to four categories - a laptop and desktop line for consumers, and one for professionals. Just a couple of years previous, Apple had up to 40 different models. One of Amelio's big plans was to pare that down, and he at least had halfed the models by the time he was ousted. I think this plan was what really saved Apple. They had a plan that proved to the world that they were actually focused. This all came after many of the other shakeups that had happened during and after Amelio left, which included the end of Apple Research Labs, the Newton, and other distractions. Apple's pretty much stuck to this plan since, with their only major gaffe being the Power Mac Cube, which didn't fit so neatly into the four-box strategy. (The strategy's gotten a bit bigger since then, with the XServe and iPods now sitting at different ends of the spectrum).
And then there was the iMac. "Whoa" was right. It was exactly what I had been wanting (although I wouldn't actually own one myself until the DV editions perfected the concept). At the time, I wanted a computer that was simple and self contained that would be like an appliance, useful for web browsing, chatting, etc. There were plenty of "NC" concepts floating around at the time, and I was even considering getting one of the larger-class Windows CE devices, but suddenly here was a full featured computer at a reasonable price that pretty much met all my requirements, and more. It was a well timed knockout. The iMac DV series improved many of the outstanding issues of the original iMacs (better speakers, firewire, etc), and I've happily had one at home for the past three years, and have had very few issues with it (except for the 13 Gb hard drive which once seemed so big no longer satisfies me - and there aren't even any mp3's on this box!)
It's a little surprising to see them go away (almost) completely. I think Apple could just as well price them at $300 and dump them over the next few months.
Europe's leading anti-war nations lash out against the decision by the US and UK to go to war against Iraq unless Saddam Hussein quits. [BBC News]
I just finished reading "Apple: The Inside Story of Intrigue, Egomania, and Business Blunders" by Jim Carlton. As I mentioned earlier, Amelio's book about his time at Apple is very interesting to me. As well as anything that covers the turnaround that happened between 1997 and now. It's not that Apple's doing extremely well, but considering their problems in the mid-1990's, the new Apple's a champ - one that can suffer minor debacles like the Power Mac Cube and come out relatively unscathed. One that finally delivered (still extremely late) a viable new Macintosh operating system that kept a high degree of backward compatibility while (hopefully) paving the way for some exciting new developments. One that returns to the hopes of the Object Oriented Operating System concepts that were all the rage in the early to mid 1990's, but with a degree more maturity and humility (well, as humble as Aqua can be). It's amusing to read the epilogue of Carlton's book, which covers the time between Amelio's exit and Jobs' taking on the mantle of "interim CEO". The future seemed so grim that few believed Apple could stand on its own at that point. Carlton did make some great calls for what the next CEO, whomever that would be, would have to do. The one that stands out the most is his saying that the R and D budget would have to be significantly curtailed. In fact - just all out cut down. I remember the day that Apple Research Labs went away, and all the cool things within it scattered (Squeak, MCF (later to become RDF), Dylan, etc). I knew even back then that it was a good idea - as cool as Squeak was, it was never going to deliver financial results for Apple.
I've also just become a fan of Amazon's zShops and other such sellers, as I'm trying to get my hands on the one actually published book about Copland, published in August 1996 (the same month that Copland was cancelled in favor of a piecemeal plan that delivered the every-six-month strategy that kept Mac OS 7.6 - 9.x development alive). There are some other OpenDoc books that I'm curious to pick up for the right price (ie: around $5) to see how compound document component development was taught at that time. I had always been leery of Amazon's "Used and New From ..." links, but they're proving to be quite useful.