Having a party at home or the Apple Pie

We had someone coming from US. Since he was coming after many years, it was a big event. We had it all planned out, to give him a welcome and make him sing and all that. The house was filled with joy and people. We had cooked good food and had set a keyboard for the kids to play the welcome song on. We were to make all the singing talents to show off.

Being a small house to give everyone a view to what was going to be performed was not easy. The Dining room and the living room were connected by a small passage which cuts off part of the view from the living room. So if I set the stage in dining room, people in living room will have to crowd in into a small wedge of viewing area. That is when I saw the Apple TV kept near my 42" TV in Living room!

I perched my iPad in front of the performer and mirrored the camera into the Apple TV! The Video gets shown on the TV in the Living room with the audio clearly streamed in via my connected speakers!

And another day, just back from a trip, I had some photos on my iPhone and I could right away show it on the TV using Airplay. I normally have my photos in my computer which is kept upstairs connected to slightly bulky an external hard drive making it extremely difficult to move around. I can easily show them off as a slide show on my TV by streamed into the Apple TV.

Though we cannot get many of the services in India dished out in US like Netflix etc, these makes my purchase of Apple TV worth its price!

Tribute

I had my first encounter with Apple around the time I woke up from the spell of windows which I was in from 1993 and started to feel the pain. Being from unix background, what got me in to windows was the GUI and the GUI alone. The spinning cursors and running dogs and other funny stuff you don't see in a normal character based system.

I was back in unix's arm soon, but I could not shake away the GUI effect. And then I came across this UI mod which allowed me to make windows interface look like some white simplistic interface with different font sets. I was not quite impressed with that.

Years passed and may be after a long six to seven years, I saw this semi egg shaped thingie connected to a key board and mouse. Well, the mouse was connected to the keyboard! Brilliant. From the crowded desktop it was a view to behold.

I started following the brand Apple then on. I took quotes again and again of apple machines hoping, one day I will be able to get one.

Years went by and some time in mid 2000 I ordered my first apple product. An iPod 80gig. I was so thrilled when I squeezed it out of the black cloth case they come in. But it took me some more time to see a round rimmed glass and a sharp nose behind it all.

I think it was in late 2000 I saw a video of a man called Steve Jobs. Some guy who worked in Apple. Was he the CEO? No idea!

Slowly the man grew on me. Just like his products. He walked in with the same steady pace and determination and self belief he walks on the podium each time. I watched him disclosing one last thing, many times then.

Now, sitting in the middle of an apple ecosystem at home, with the enthusiasm a bit low to watch another keynote, I realize, I deeply miss that man. What made him different was his faith in what he did. It's very personal and he took it very personally. He took everything about Apple, very personally. People said he was a difficult man to deal with. People called it arrogance, I believe it's part of the re assurance I got as a customer. If Steve says something was amazing, he truly believed that. And Steve was not a fool.

When I write about technology, I have to start with Steve. Because I doubt if there was another one like him. Ever. There had been technologists, there had been other Steves. But no other Steve Jobs.

Geeking Out Loud

I hated Electronics when I did my graduation. Millman and Halkias were not my favorite people.

Today,  I am like a kid in candy store at an electronics store. I like all things geek. People joke about me being an Apple products fanatic. I have more wires in my shelf than a spaghetti in a bowl and first thing I read in a day is RSS feeds from sites including Gizmodo and MacRoumours.

I have some discussions, on and off about gadgets and geeky stuffs with in my circle. Sometimes I have to put the listeners to bed and tuck them in, some times they wake up by the end of it. I talk about different stuffs I have seen, stuffs I have read about, or heard about.

This blog is what I talk or think or think of talking.

Did you brush your teeth? Happy reading, folks!