Steve Jobs, 1955–2011

It must be something when my first reaction during the day as soon as I woke up today is shock, because the most recent tweet I saw in my Twitter gadget was the unexpected passing of Steve Jobs, former CEO and co-founder of the largest tech company in the world today. While I’m not exactly a fan of his creations, I do acknowledge his contributions to tech, and his role in shaping the field by making innovative products that set the standards against which everything else will be compared.

His inventions easily and almost single-handedly defined Apple as a company. All of these devices were built on solid hardware, and I think this is Apple’s definitive edge over its rivals: Microsoft, which is primarily a software company, or Google, THE Web company. Heck, Apple devices managed to challenge other hardware companies as well in other fields, such as Nintendo and its handheld game console.

Go Open Source!

One of the major benefits of having an Internet connection is gaining access to a vast repository of files for everyday consumption. Media, computer programs and documents can be readily obtained through different means, such as straightforward downloading, P2P and torrent. However, in recent years, this has also brought up rampant illegal distribution of copyrighted materials. Just typing in the name of the program from your favorite search engine yields websites where you can download commercial software at absolutely no cost, but at the expense of leaving behind “Thank you for visiting our site” souvenirs that can compromise your security, causes instability in your system and fill your system with annoying crap and worthless junk. It is basically a matter of accepting more serious annoyances in exchange for a small piece of convenience.

Internet Goodies: AudioScrobbler – Friendster for Music Lovers

[URL: Last.fm] Simply create an account then download the plugins for your music player (Media Player, Winamp or iTunes). Audioscrobbler automatically picks up the tracks you play on your PC and then effectively broadcast it via your own last.fm site. In addition, the site will also search for users with musical preferences similar to yours. Be warned, though, you might gawk at what the others are listening on theirs. The site also offers enhancements for your personal site.