I found this very good video on the LapDawg x4. As regular readers know, I burn myself a lot with my laptops and I also volunteer at nursing homes and for people with nerve disorders who can’t feel if they are being injured. LapDawg X4 an overview on a popular laptop stand
I can’t believe that the Apple Stock hasn’t taken a bigger hit since Mr. Jobs passed away a few days ago. If there was a company on the planet that was more reliant on the leadership and innovation for the future health and wealth than Apple.
One of the biggest problems any company has is to find somebody at the top who understands the business from top to bottom: he understood technology, what the consumer wants, how to implement it, how to market, how to appease shareholders, how to create buzz, etc. You also need somebody who can plane ahead, what projects should be invested in, and what projects should be shelved. Meanwhile, you need people skills to placate what is going on with the staff, other executives, and even other companies. In short, this is a very rare skill-set, which is why more people aren’t like Steve Jobs.
For success to occur on such a level, you need somebody with a diverse and seemingly unrelated set of skills. Not many people have these skills and it is important, when you find somebody who does, to realize just how special they are. Steve Jobs has been an icon for so long that people take him for granted and they think–much to my chagrin–that there will not be any sort of disruption when that person leaves the organization.
Not true.
There is always a disruption.
And, I think the higher-ups at Apple have been thinking about this disruption for awhile. It was why there was a cleverly leaked story about how Jobs’ had four years worth of development ideas he was pursuing. First off, that sounds good, but let’s dig deeper into what was really being said. They are saying that the ghost of Jobs will continue to guide and elevate the company from beyond the grave. Not only that, but they put the label of “four years” on there as of some sort of reassurance that this will continue for sometime. I’m not privy to any of the secret going-ons at apple, but I can safely assume that the four year quote is somewhat arbitrary. This is for a simple reason: how can you predict innovation and customer tastes?
This seems to me to be completely made up and probably a bogus statement meant to reassure people who want to be reassured. That is why so many people are buying it.
I hope I’m wrong about this. But, I’m a skeptic when it comes to these sorts of things.
And, another question I have is how is the passing of Steve Jobs going to impact customer loyalty? Apple was always somewhat of a cult and without the charisma and leadership of Jobs, I’m not sure how you can sustain that sort of devotion.
In short, I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think I am. Apple will become like GE, Ford, IBM, and dozens of other large technology corporations: important, big, steady sales, but there is now a vacuum that no one can replace.
When laptops first came out years ago, as a techie and somebody who will buy the latest in technology because, well, it’s new, fun, and it can help with my productivty. And, it will make me make sure that I will never get a good night sleep again as I play every single World of Warcraft game out there. My wife likes playing this with me: god, I really love that women.
This has lead me, as an early adapter and even sometimes as a beta-tester, to discover problems that I didn’t know existed. Back in my drinking days, I would sit down with my laptop on my knees in front of the TV, and play video games for hours. One night I drank a lot, but kept playing because, for all instance purposes, I was on a rol: the game was Diablo and for some reason I had just the right amount of caffeine to keep me alert and focused and enough experiance to basically keep going through the game. For some reason, I was just getting lucky: the programming algorithms were giving me all the breaks. I kept drinking and playing, drinking and playing, drinking and playing. I didn’t want to stop or even pause the game for fear tht whatever I had going was to stop. I was still in my underwear from the morning…with the laptop resting on my naked thighs.
Please remember that I was very numb from the effects of alcohol, nicotine, and lack of food during the day, and before I knew it, the laptop had over-heated on my lap and it was giving me a burn that was equal to a coffee burn on my lap. I have sensitive skin, so this killed my thighs for weeks. I had to stay at home for a few days because I couldn’t stand having any clothing touch my skin. Oh, the computer crashed and I lost all the progress I made in my game.
This began my obsession with, not only technology, but technology in comfort. Hence, I started looking for any accessory that could possible make working, computing, and gaming as easy as possible. I looked into laptop stands, cases, the correct furniture I have so that my back wasn’t injured and to prevent me from sticking my neck out even more than it is right now. And, I wanted to have those special creature comforts that everybody should appreciate: a place to put a drink, a little food, and to make it is stable and doesn’t hurt my skin or me.
This interest led me to start this blog. I’m here to provide a steely eyed look at products, gimmicks, news, advice, and videos that only a sucker for new technology could have after going through years of being burned–literally–on over-hyped under-performing products, yet I still find those hidden gems that can make all the difference.