Steve Jobs, the Giant of ALL Geeks

Steve Jobs is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Apple Inc.[11] Jobs also previously served as chief executive of Pixar Animation Studios; he became a member of the board of directors of The Walt Disney Company in 2006, following the acquisition of Pixar by Disney. He was credited in the 1995 movie Toy Story as an executive producer.

Steve is one of the “coolest” Geeks on the planet. He’s changed the world with his product design and marketing genius.

CES Keynote Address by Steve Ballmer

Watching the keynote. So far after five minutes, I’m unimpressed. One, Steve is not a good speaker – he needs some voice coach training. He sounds like he is shouting to the audience. Two, the intro video was a joke or supposed to be a joke – some guy “thanking technology” had some real important stuff like being able to do a video phone with his grand parents, play network games with some kid, made fun of stupid purchase he made on eBay and a stupid photo he posted on facebook and shared with all his friends (couldn’t do that without technology), but also finished his thank you with “now I have to get back to my 25th game of online scrabble”. I did not think it was funny – kind of saying what a time killer all this wonderful technology can be.

 

He should have highlighted how really wonderful technology can be and what it has done for the world and what it can do for the world and how Microsoft is at the forefront . . . but let’s see what Steve has to say . . . maybe that is where he is heading. . .
“what we take for granted today, was science fiction 10 years ago” he’s saying. Ok he’s going in the right direction. “Microsoft is empowering people to enrich their lives”. What is project Natal he’s talking about? He’s saying Xbox has changed the landscape of entertainment in the living room. They sold 500 Million games. Now he’s talking about Bing “their decision engine”. I guess that is supposed to be better than Googles “search engine”. Ford is bring the internet to the car dashboard with Microsoft’s sync technology – just what we need more driver distractions. Does it come with a direct link to do a search for a new insurance company to cover you after your next accident?

Windows 7 the biggest accomplishment of the year. Interesting enough, the only place I have Windows 7 running in on my new MacBook Pro. And I’m impressed. It runs well. I’m running the Beta Office 2010 apps on it, and in the past week only froze once.

I wonder how many times he rehearsed this presentation? I also wonder if they are using PowerPoint 2010 to drive the visuals behind him? He says Windows 7 has a 94% customer satisfaction rate – better than the 9.4% they achieved with the Windows Vista operating system.

There are 4 million windows applications. Wow. But I wonder how many of those Windows applications actually work or are useful?

He just brought out the Sr. Product manger Ryan out to introduce a number of PC’s using Windows 7. He sounds a little Steve Jobs like. He is showing some cool computers. One as thin as three poker chips. Now he is showing us the all important gaming machines. What is more important in this world than some good game computers.

This guy is a better speaker than Ballmer, but no where near as good as Steve Jobs. Now if you a product manger at Microsoft, you need to be a presentation speaker start performer. He is now pretending that h is a student. How cute. He is showing some cool text book software. Maybe technology will transform the sorry state of our educational system.

Yahoo, he’s loading up PowerPoint 2010. He is showing how you can have multiple people at multiple locations work on the same PPT file. The file can merge the changes from both PowerPoint users. This is all too much for me. I have to take a break.

Back. They’re showing Windows PC TV. Some cool stuff, the silverlight technology “the secret souce of TV and Internet integration” says Ballmer. Wonderful, I can record 4 HD shows at the same time. Why would I eve want to do that? Oh, I can now view my DVR content on my ATT phone. Windows TV not for me.

Ahhh, the big announcement: Slate PC’s, the new form factor that will be available this year. They are as portable as a phone, but as powerful as a PC. He says perfect for reading, surfing the web, watching TV. He’s showing the prototype of the HP State PC. It is cool looking. Looks very much like an oversized iPhone. he’s showing the Kindle book windows software.

Here comes Seth again, showing us how important technology has come. It’s supposed to be funny. They need to fire their marketing firm.

Robbie Bach is on stage talking about Entertainment technology. “When technology works the way you want it too, that is the WOW moment”. . . He’s talking about XBOX . . . games that rival real life. . . . sure that is what I need a game that rivals my real life.

They are going to introduce a new Genre of game – the Psychological thriller. And finally the game millions of gamers are waiting for the next Halo. Oh, in respect for the IP being demonstrated onstage they are suspending the media feed. Like no one in the room is recording it and going to upload it to YouTube before the demo is over? They’re back now.

XBOX live. Looks interesting. 20 million people are XBOX members. The numbers sound amazing. Maybe I have to buy an XBOX. Zune Video sounds really interesting too. How retro, they are bringing back all the old arcade classic Artari games. You’ll be able to invite your friends to play in your personal arcade. Once again they are suspending the media feed. I’ll have to check it out on YouTube later.

Introducing Project Natal for XBOX 360. From what I can tell is a 3D experience controlled by your body movements? Cool. Movements of your body controls the computer. Very cool. More than 3D. This is amazing. You get to go into your computer. You act the computer understands. “jump in”. I’m in. It will be available “this holiday 2010”. I’m getting on the waiting list now.

Good finish. Robbie was the best speaker of them all, and had the most exciting new product to announce: Project Natal.

Another Steve Jobs Presentation Success?

 

Another Steve Jobs Presentation Success?

When Steve Jobs presents the world listens. Yesterday he presented Apples latest new product, the iPad at a much anticipated industry event. His presentations are often the high bar to be measured against. His style has changed little over the 20 years I’ve seen him present. I remember watching him present the Apple Newton many years ago at the then yearly MacWorld Boston event.He does have a few advantages over your typical presenter such as he wanted better presentation software, so he had Apple develop Keynote. I’d love to know why they never developed a Windows version. A bigger advantage is that he always has a great, exciting, newsworthy product to show and demo. My favorite memorable “Steve the Presenter” moment was pulling the Apple MacBook air out of a inter-office envelope. He’s part marketing magician.

He makes it look so easy and relaxed, but from what I’ve have read and heard from people that have worked at Apple events he rehearses often and until it looks unrehearsed. He did look a little tired this time, but he still looks like he is recovering from his liver transplant. After what he has been through it is amazing that he has the perseverance to continue to put himself through the new product development, media circus and pressure of a worldwide speaking event.

I’m glad he did. I look forward to his speaking engagements as much as a new Pixar movie, not to mention the excitement of the new product he was launching. I’m sold. I’ll buy one when it ships in a few months.

The iPad may not make much of a dent in the PowerPoint world, but I’ll want to try the new version of Keynote developed for it. You have to listen carefully to the presentation, but it does hook up to a projector so you can present from it.

Now, back to working on a client’s PowerPoint presentation that she would like us to make it look as Apple Keynote “Wow” like as possible.

Seems some Australians are stealing my domain name

So it seems some Australians are attempting to steal my domain geekgear.com by sticking an “.au” at the end. They started it sometime in 2007. From what I read about it, the site started out as an experiment for a well known Australian technology publisher APC. They started geekgear.com.au as a story on what it took to start an online merchant. It’s an interesting story. I wrote them when I first saw it to see if they would be interested in adding to their story a segment on domain and brand theft. I don’t have an international trade mark on GeekGear, but I do have GeekGeer trademarked in the US and have been using the GeekGeer and GeekGear in trade globally since 1996 selling caps, t-shirts, and GG pocket protectors.

Their logo and brand is no where near as good as the geekgeer logo. Maybe they want to buy it. Or at the very least they could sell my geekgeer pocket protectors on their site.

Should I sue them for trademark, copyright, infringement or should I just be flattered that they also though my name was cool enough to copy? They had to know GeekGear.com existed. A simple google search and it pops right up.

Or maybe I should approach them to be the US affiliate?

I have had some nice offers to buy the domain – but have turned down them down – I have owned geekgeer/geekgear almost since the begining of the world wide web. The brand is as old as my 14 old daughter. GeekGeer is part of the family.

Time for a GeekGeer.com makeover

Time for a GeekGeer.com makeover. Adobe GoLive is an interesting too, lots more to it than the last time I attempted any HTML for the original GeekGeer.com. I need to move the site from being a Flash site to html. Also, have to decide it I want to move the blog from blogger to WordPress.