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The Companies of Steve Jobs

October 17, 2011 by · Leave a Comment

The passing of Steve Jobs was met with a huge amount of Tweets and messages on every social media platform. The man was a business icon with an exceptional brain, having created some of the most popular products and industry trends in the world today. Most commonly known for his role as Apple CEO, Jobs also had his hand in other big business ventures too.

NeXT

NeXT was the company that Steve founded after being fired from Apple in 1985. The company produced personal computers and software that was tailored for higher education and business market purposes. The company stopped manufacturing hardware in 1993 and concentrated on creating software instead. The name changed from NeXT to NeXT Software Inc and the software they created was later used as the base for Mac OS X and iOS – the operating system of all the i products. The operating system was also used on Intel systems and was called NeXTSTEP. NeXT created WebObjects, which was a platform used to build web applications on. It is still used on the Apple iTunes Store and also on Apple’s official website. Jobs got Apple to buy  NeXT for $429 million and with the buy he returned to Apple on a limited advisory role. Jobs got 1.5 million shares in Apple as well.

Pixar

Pixar is a common name in the movie industry and has created some of the best animation movies of our time. The company, however, started as a computer hardware company that designed computers for government and medical sectors only. It was first known as The Graphics Group until Steve Jobs bought the company in 1986 and renamed it Pixar. The company brought us movies like Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc and Cars. They hold the title for the highest grossing animated film of all time with Toy Story 3 racking up $1 billion globally. They make an average gross of $602 million which is far more than any other film studio at the moment. Steve Jobs became a billionaire after Pixar went public in 1995. In 2006 Disney bought Pixar for $7.4 billion and Jobs got 7% of Disney stock.

Apple

Steve founded Apple in 1976 with his two partners, Steve Wozniak and Ron Wayne. The company started out making computers but the first one ever created came with no casing, keyboard, power supply or display. In 1977 Apple released the Apple II which was extremely successful and was actually the start of computers in general. After convincing John Sculley to join Apple, Sculley and the board of directors at Apple fired Jobs from his role in the Mac Division. He resigned from the company in 1985 but joined them again in 1996 after having major success with Pixar and NeXT. His role at that time was iCEO and even though he returned to the company he still held his position as CEO of Pixar. Jobs launched the iMac and brought Apple back on the technological map. Apple opened their first retail stores in California and Virginia in 2001. That same year they also launched the iPod, which would go on to sell more than 100 million units in the next six years. They then created the iTunes Store which was another great success. Apple then put their stamp on the computer industry by using Intel processors in their Mac Books. In 2007 Apple released the iPhone which was and still is an extremely popular phone worldwide. In 2010 Apple introduce the iPad to the world and it became the fastest selling electronic product of all time. The last introduction Jobs made was the iPad 2 in 2011. He stepped down as CEO of Apple and left Tim Cook with one of the best jobs in the world – to continue the Apple legacy.

Steve Jobs was more than influential to many people, he was a technological legend and his legacy will live on forever through his many magnificent creations.

Darren Vrede is an online content writer who writes various articles concerning the latest news and facts. Currently he’s writing articles about online surveys and employee surveys

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Steve Jobs: The Life of an Innovator

October 11, 2011 by · Leave a Comment

Steve Jobs made his mark on the world as the man that helped start Apple Computers. But it was for the innovative transition from Apple Computer to just Apple Inc. that Jobs will be most remembered. After Steve Jobs had conquered the world of home computers, he set his sights on consumer electronics. By the time Steve Jobs passed away on October 5, 2011, he had developed a business model that completely revolutionized the way that companies market consumer electronics to a very eager public.

Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded Apple Computers in 1976 when Jobs was only 21 years old. Steve Jobs was not interested in the technology the company was inventing, he was interested in how that technology could change the world. In 1984, Steve Jobs presided over the introduction of the Apple Macintosh computer. The company used one of the most memorable Super Bowl commercials in history to launch what would become a computing empire.

Steve Jobs was a brilliant marketing professional, but he was an erratic manager and often overly emotional. In 1985, Apple CEO fired Steve Jobs from the company Jobs had started just nine years earlier. In true Steve Jobs fashion, he purchased an animation company called The Graphics Group in 1986. The Graphics Group would eventually be renamed Pixar and strike up a very lucrative agreement with the Walt Disney Company.

During his time away from Apple, Jobs started a new computer company called NeXT Computers. In 1996, Apple purchased NeXT and brought Jobs back into the fold. Jobs immediately went to work pioneering the research that would eventually lead to the invention of the touchscreen cellular device known as the iPhone. Jobs created a music download service called iTunes that has gone on to become one of the largest providers of online music on the Internet.

Jobs also helped to market other products such as the handheld multimedia device known as the iPod and, eventually, the tablet computer known as the iPad. Apple was struggling when Jobs came back on board in 1996, and Jobs is credited with saving Apple from bankruptcy and making it into a multi-billion dollar corporate giant.

It was known since 2004 that Jobs was fighting pancreatic cancer. Jobs had surgery to remove a tumor from his pancreas and went on an experimental diet designed to combat pancreatic cancer. It seemed like he was winning the fight until he appeared at the annual Apple World Developers Conference in 2006 looking very thin and frail. Rumors surfaced that Jobs was fighting cancer again, but Apple and Jobs denied the rumors.

In August 2011, Steve Jobs resigned his post as CEO of Apple. He cited health reasons for his departure but would not elaborate. He died on October 5 and leave behinds a legacy in consumer electronics that makes him one of the most significant figures in the history of corporate America.

David has been deeply inspired by Steve Jobs. In addition David works for a company that pays cash for clunkers, assisting people when they ask “Who will buy my car“?

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Shared SAS Storage – Advantages and Attributes

October 11, 2011 by · Leave a Comment

Serial attached SCSI arrays, more commonly known as SAS storage arrays, are one of the hottest new technological trends; they are highly versatile and functional tools in the corporate IT world. Because SAS storage is component-based and modular in nature, it can easily be configured to meet the needs of various corporate and business oriented concerns.

The Benefits of SAS Storage

SAS storage provides a number of benefits for business use, including the following:

• Fewer physical connections when transmitting data via SCSI interfaces rather than parallel ports

• Compatibility with advanced RAID implementations

• Modularity of the devices and the ability to switch out devices on the fly

• Easy expansion when business needs and increased traffic require it

• Backwards compatibility with existing SATA data storage solutions

Additionally, the modular nature of SAS storage ensures that it is ideally suited to use in server applications. SAS storage arrays can easily be upgraded as the technology advances, and they are designed to provide compact, modular solutions that can fit into relatively small spaces and that require minimal physical connections. Serial connections take up less space and require fewer connections than parallel port connections, making them an ideal space-saving solution in smaller offices and server spaces.

Storage Solutions with Cutting-Edge Technology

Companies like LSI create solutions based on shared SAS storage arrays that incorporate next-gen ROC technology, allowing these storage devices to maintain cutting-edge speed and reliability. State-of-the-art SCSI technology continues to advance and diversify with SAS products, encompassing a wide range of RAID and MegaRAID controller cards, integrated RAID-on-Motherboard cards, SAS switches and host bus adapters and a wide variety of other products that are designed to make storage simpler and more cost-effective for business concerns.

One important element to any data storage system is the management of bandwidth for remote and local uses of that data. For smaller businesses, the issue of bandwidth may not be a significant factor in the remote storage and use of data resources. Larger companies and corporations, however, will need to incorporate bandwidth monitoring and sequential performance methods to ensure constant access to data and continual service for customers and remote users.

SAS storage arrays are the perfect solution for most business data storage needs. Companies can start small with the bare minimum required and add additional modular units of memory to their server arrays at any time in order to upgrade or simply expand the data storage capacities and functions. By electing to use SAS storage solutions, most companies can position themselves favorably to take advantage of many of the hottest trends in technology, including cloud computing services and other remote access solutions. This can provide enhanced stability and improve the company’s productivity and reputation with clients and other business contacts, leading to greater profitability in the future.

 

Jessica writes about a wide variety of topics.  She especially enjoys writing about technology. You can learn more about Shared SAS Storage at http://www.lsi.com

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Internet TV – World TV at your Fingertips

October 10, 2011 by · Leave a Comment

Internet TV has a whole range of advantages ordinary TV can not provide. To begin with, no cable or satellite connection is required, saving the extra cost for subscription to providers of such services.

All that is required is an Internet connection, something most families have in any case. In addition, most stations will require users to sign on, or set up an account, which is usually free. This may result in receiving the odd e-mail, which shouldn’t really present a problem considering the advantages.

Some online TV stations may also require the download of a specific player, as a rule also free and requiring very little time, both for the download and set-up of the required players.

Once this has been completed the world is a viewer’s oyster. Depending on which service, or station, has been selected, TV shows and movies, sports, news and whatever else the viewer is interested in can be watched either live, as they are being broadcast, or selected from well organised lists of available shows, movies, etc.

Most of the sites offering free Internet TV actually list and link to hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of different TV stations around the world. With a single click, a viewer is then able to select from the shows available at each of these stations.

As well as being able to watch these shows streaming there and then, viewers are also able to download complete shows, enabling them to view these shows when it is most convenient for them.

This means that no more episodes of one’s favourite TV show will ever have to be missed again. More often than not, it is not even necessary to download them at the time they are being shown, as they are added to the lists of shows and kept available for some time.

Being based on IP-platforms, Internet TV viewing is also far more interactive. Viewers can personalise their viewing experience, pause shows, repeat scenes, etc. Often, it is possible to merge services through a so-called converged service, making it possible to create new, added value services to suit one’s taste. This may involve adding voice mail and/ or chat facilities and a range of other interesting options.

For viewers in politically controlled areas, it is possible to obtain real news from around the world, keeping them better informed of what is going on both abroad and within their own countries.

For language students, Internet TV offers the opportunity to improve their skills by watching TV in the language of their choice. Being able to hear a language spoken by natives is known to improve the ability to learn a language quickly.

Whether or not subtitles are available, pausing every now and then to look up specific words or phrases, as well as repeating scenes to really get hold of pronunciations works wonders in improving language skills.

Where multiple computers are present in a household, they can be set up to enable family members to watch different shows at the same time, ending those remote control battles once and for all.

The article is contributed by Calvin Scott. Calvin is passionate about new technology and expensive gadgets. Visit his site for interactieve televisie and tv en internet.

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PhoneCurry.com to help users in India decide which phone to buy?

August 3, 2010 by · Leave a Comment

PhoneCurry.com is an interesting new website that is designed to answer a question that many people struggle with these days – which mobile should I buy  ? As an increasing number of Indian look to the internet to research phones before making a buying decision, there is a need for an India specific website that helps them in the process, and PhoneCurry fits the bill quite well.

The site differentiates itself in a number of effective ways:

1. The simple, easy-to-use interface strikes you immediately when you visit the site.
2. Everything is search oriented to help people find phones according to their specific requirements. For instance, a user can do a search such as “Nokia and Samsung phones, costing between Rs 8,000 and 10,000, launched during the last year, having touchscreen, 3G support, full keyboard and in-built social networking”
3. Phone features are not just listed, but also explained, in simple layman terms.
4. Overall opinion is provided around each phone (collated and summarized from various publicly available phone reviews), as well as an overall rating, to make it easy for the user to make his decision.
5. Video reviews are provided for popular phones, which add a nice touch and allow you to see how the phone software etc looks like (something that is often not possible in mobile stores as they have only dummy handsets)

On the whole, the site does very well at presenting a no-nonsense interface to help people decide on a phone quickly and easily. This approach has helped it gain good popularity in short time with about 8,000 unique users a month, almost entirely through word of mouth (the site was launched in February this year, and has done virtually no advertising till now).

About the Founder

The website has been founded by Sahil Bajaj, an alumni of IIT Delhi (2008 Batch). Sahil worked on the website part-time while working in a management consulting firm, and finally quit his job in February this year to launch the website, and focus on it full-time.

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Street Entrepreneurs Meet

July 9, 2010 by · Leave a Comment

Aspiring entrepreneurs / Entrepreneurs in UK, StreetEntrepreneurs is a place where you can come, share and learn about entrepreneurship. I attended the street entrepreneurs meet twice and it was really informative. Thanks to Alan, Bruce, David and Jo-Anne for organising meet ups. The meet will happen every second Wednesday of the month. The next meeting will happen on 11th of August 2010 at All-Bar-One, St Vincent Street at West Nile Street, Glasgow, you can contact jo-anne@ suzy@ alan@ bruce@ david@streetentrepreneurs.com to register with opt-in mailing list.

Yesterday, I attended a session about protecting your idea in the pre-patent phase. Thanks to Alan who taught us an unconventional way without investing any enough money to protect the idea which was really helpful. Though it was not foolproof idea, but it was an idea that can worth try.

Finally, I found some interesting thing yesterday, the majority of participants were females. It was really interesting and surprising for me that more females are taking their career path as entrepreneurship.

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Microsoft acquires its first fictional company Allure Bays Corp. (ABC)

June 11, 2010 by · 3 Comments

Microsoft is proud to announce it’s first acquisition of a fictional company. After getting clearance from the NASA (they had no clue how to block a fictional acquisition) Microsoft is acquiring Allure Bays Corp. (ABC).

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Moneyvidya.com launches new, sophisticated beta version

May 27, 2010 by · 2 Comments

moneyvidya.com, in its efforts to provide quality recommendations to its online community for investors, traders and stock market enthusiasts, launched a fresh new beta version recently.

Besides tracking the performance of every pick made on its site, rating stock pickers (‘analysts’) based on the actual performance of the picks and more, the beta version is also more intuitive, more user friendly.

Moneyvidya analysts are regularly being featured and can be found on moneycontrol.com.

The average 5 star analyst on Moneyvidya.com has made 178 stock picks. He or she beats the nifty by +3% per month; in the last 30 days, our typical 5 star analysts has beaten the nifty by an average of +14.1%.

Also, on an average, the non premium members, in the last 30 days, have managed to beat the market by 8.6%.

moneyvidya.com is now giving a cash prize of Rs 100,000 to its top analysts:

moneyvidya.com rewards its top Analysts not only by giving them recognition, but also by giving them cash. This has increased the competition for top spots and is ensuring quality results are consistently generated on the website.

On June 1, 2010 our 5 Star rated analysts will share a pot of Rs. 100,000. As moneyvidya.com becomes more popular, we aim to increase the size and frequency of cash payouts to our top ten best analysts.

About moneyvidya.com:

All the analysts on moneyvidya.com are accountable for their opinions. Retail investors therefore, know whose opinions are worth following and whose should be ignored.

Approximately 17,500 recommendations have been made on the site to date, out of which 20% have been made in the last 1 month! This number is growing at 20% per week since the last month

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Microsoft is looking for developer feedback

April 8, 2010 by · Leave a Comment

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hucYQHeMlo4

The Microsoft DevDiv Team is looking to share the voices of developer’s all around the world.  To do this they are asking developers to leave a video response to the video above.  You can check out some personal stories on their YouTube channel here: http://www.youtube.com/user/developerstories

Check out the videos and get ready for the release of Visual Studio 2010!  If you have a personal story you’d like to share, leave it in the comments below!

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BarCamp Kerala 8

March 9, 2010 by · Leave a Comment

The next BarCamp Kerala(8) is at MACFAST, Thiruvala on March 28th, 2010. Finally its here to refresh the minds with technical beverages – its Barcamp time.
For those of you who don’t know what a BarCamp is…

BarCamp is an international network of user generated conferences – open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants – often focusing on early-stage web applications, and related open source technologies, social protocols, and open data formats.

Wikipedia

Venue

BarCamp Kerala 8 will be held at MACFAST, Thiruvala. More details are available at the venue page

Registeration

You can register for the event in the BarCamp Kerala Site. When this post was written we have 65 attendees.

Sessions

Till now we have 6 sessions. If you want to handle a sessions at BarCamp, you can add yourself in the sessions page.

BarCamp Kerala So Far…

If you are still hesitant about coming to BarCamp Kerala, checkout these reports about the previous ones…

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