Pajama Entrepreneur

You’d think it was the end of the world. Today on CNBC, I listened to one of the most ridiculous exchanges about whether companies should get their IT departments to support iPhones and Mac laptops.  What triggered this discussion is a Businessweek article (The Mac in the Gray Flannel Suit) on how employees are demanding Macs. Goodness, what is this world coming to?

The moderator of the CNBC discussion asked why should your boss get you a Mac — so you can be “unproductive” since you’ll bring in your iPod and download music while working. This question is a common one among corporate Wall Street types. There’s still this assumption, especially in the business news area, that Macs are for fun and are not for business (productive) use. Haven’t these people seen the catastrophe that is Windows Vista?

That millions of people, including serious businesses like ad agencies and film companies, have managed to “get by” using Macs has completely passed them by. The iPhone is a wonderful device. It has an elegant interface and is easy to use. The people who use it know they are more productive with it it. Same with any of the Apple laptops. Why not ask the user why he or she likes it so much instead of making assumptions about their productivity/non-productivity? Apple puts so much effort into designing good interfaces and beautiful devices that make people fall in love with them — ask the users why.

I switched to the Mac around 2002 and never looked back. It’s not just how beautiful their devices are, it’s also the ease of use, the operating system, etc. They’re not perfect, for example, they need to fix the wireless networking problems in the Mac Book. But I’ll take beauty (Macbook Air) and a good interface design over the horrid Windows Vista and those hideous clunky Dell laptops.

Coming in Q3 2008, the follow-up to the N95: the N96 has 16 GB of flash memory which allows one to enjoy up to 40 hours of video, full Flash built in, FM and Internet radio, Nokia Maps application and GPS receiver. This is one of my absolute must-haves for the year.

Like a lot of Mac fans, I spent the early evening (in Amsterdam) following the keynote of Steve Jobs live from Macworld in San Francisco. For the past few weeks, rumors have been flying around about what Steve would announce today: a new tablet? WiMAX in laptops?

So when he announced a beautiful ultra-thin laptop called the MacBook Air, I thought, I must have one. But I already have a 15″ Mac Book Pro, so I guess I’ll have to pass. The MacBook Air comes with all the goodies — 802.11n, 80 GB hard drive, Intel Core 2 Duo processor, full-sized keyboard and glossy display. What it does not come with is . . . an optical drive (CD/DVD) which is one of the reasons why it’s so light and thin. Another major innovation is the trackpad that allows users to control the size of the screen, to scroll, etc. using the same finger movements that one uses on the iPhone’s screen. Go to the Apple website to see the demo.

Steve Jobs also announced the following at the keynote:

• movie rentals via iTunes store
• upgrades to iPhone software, for example, the iPhone can now tell your location on a map (thanks to Skyhook Wireless’s Wi-Fi triangulation service and Google Maps)
• major upgrade to iPod Touch (but for an extra $20 for current users): mail, Google maps, weather, stocks and notes
• Time Capsule: new wireless router using 802.11n which also has a built-in hard drive so that all the computers in the home or office can be backed up easily
• Apple TV 2: new version of Apple TV

Watch Steve Jobs keynote by going to the Apple site.

I am tired of office supplies stores and catalogs that sell the same ugly office accessories - pens, pads, calendars, pen holders . You know the ones I’m talking about: cheap and ordered by the bulk and totally depressing to look at. Fortunately, there are alternatives. Check out See Jane Work, an online shop where you can find gorgeous desk calendars, binders, pens, organizers, and whatever you need to create an office environment that inspires creativity.

Stats: iPhone has 0.09 percent of Web usage — yes, that’s a lot: In this post Valleywag points out that iPhone users tend to use the Web more than non-iPhone users. Excerpt:

Windows CE, which encompasses every Windows Mobile device shipped, holds a 0.06 percent share; Danger Research’s Sidekick product family holds a tiny 0.02 percent share; and the Symbian S60 smartphone platform, favored by Nokia, has 0.01 percent.

My take is that it has everything to do with the user interface and how easy it is to visit sites, check maps, look for information online. A lot of phones are clunky (terrible design) with the typical phone dialing pads or have ugly, impossibly small screens. Who would want to browse a website on that?

Farhad Manjoo, Salon’s tech columnist, did quite a bit of research and showed that Macs are indeed cheaper than PCs. Moreover, their eBay resale value is higher:

Even for computers, brand matters. This week I compared prices of several machines from Dell, Gateway and other PC vendors against Apple’s lineup of Macs. In most cases comparable Macs sold for within $100 more than the PCs. But the Apples had something extra: that logo, the design, the history . . .

I switched to the Mac in 2002 and I don’t understand why people still use Windows PCs.

I found a new Wordpress theme for Pajama Entrepreneur at the WP Designer website. This theme is called Pride. He has other excellent themes called Greed and Wrath. I also updated Rose Cantine, using the Exhausted theme. If you are looking for a new Wordpress theme, go to WP Designer.