From the iPods, starting from the iPod classic, redesigning, re-innovating and re-generating itself, the growth is phenomenal and huge. Although I didn’t own an iPod and thought of owning one, the arrival of the iPhone 3G revolutionise and expedite my entry into the other side, some calling it a cult, it’s the Apple revolution, culture and belonging.

When Steve Jobs announced his decision to step down and hand over the reins to Tim Cook, it was like the end of an era, yet it also signify the start of another era in Apple technology and innovation. Looking back at Steve’s timeline, from the pioneer days to the remarkable growth days, he’s a great man beyond his peers, ranked among the great entrepreneurs and a master of leadership, innovation, vision and change. While I am taking the step to learn more about his entrepreneurship and vision, how he dealt with competition and leveraging. Steve Jobs will always stand high and above the rest, with the few elites of great innovative visionary leaders.

Here are some personal thoughts

- the iPhone revolutionsing the growth and expansion of social media networking on the move

- the iPad bringing the world of work & leisure into a portable handy powerful tablet with the best of both worlds along with social media connectivity

- iPods ~ brining songs to your daily life in different shapes, sizes and storage spaces, something for everybody from young to old, in different striking attractive colours too!

- MacBook Air ~ a beautiful marriage of a powerful laptop with portability, for work and leisure, all day round.

- Innovating, improving and getting ahead of their competitors

How did the world pay tribute to this great man Steve Jobs ?

Take a look at London Creative Digital Steve Jobs Infographic !

Source : London Creative Digital 

Newsweek’s The Daily Beast shared Steve Jobs 10 Commandments – The Genius and his creative process

Source : Newsweek The Daily Beast

Paying tribute to a genius and his creativity, a role model to learn from, not so much of designing a technology gadget, it’s about bringing it up and high above, a brand that goes beyond the stars, a following that just gets bigger, a vision that not many can dare or for-see into the future, this is Steve Jobs.

What do you use the tablet for ? Is it for work ? Is it for leisure ? What are some of the tablet sizes choices available in the market ? Looking at some of the key tablets in the market today, it can be classified into the following categories

4.5 – 5 inch

Selections : Dell Streak & Apple iPhone 4

• It’s more of a smartphone + leisure tablet features
• A good alternative for consumers who are considering a smartphone with tablet features
• *Note : Apple iPhone 4 isn’t really classified as a tablet technically*

7 inch

Selections : Dell Streak 7 & Samsung Galaxy Tab

• An ideal mix especially for consumers who would like a balance between leisure and business/work usage
• Not too big and heavy
• Ideal for bringing overseas for travel
• The 7inch size still quite alright for tablet + smartphone functioning together (Galaxy Tab)

9 to 10 inch

Selections : Apple iPad & Samsung Galaxy Tab 10

• With the size, it’s more suitable for “heavier” business/work usage
• More comfortable for reading and viewing photographs
• Ideal for bringing overseas for travel
• Size is not ideal for phone calling function

Based on current technologies and hardware, that’s some limitations here with using just tablets in your work/business situation and even leisure lifestyle.

• Not powerful enough for certain work programs
• It’t not meant to replace and it can’t really replace a laptop/netbook if your work and/or leisure lifestyle demands it
• Based on your work requirements, weight and portability considerations, a netbook or even a smaller size laptop might be a better choice for your work and/or leisure lifestyle usage

To get the best of both worlds, how would you like to go about doing/planning it ?

Apple iOS + Android ? Smartphone + Tablet ?

What could be some of the potential combinations ?

- Apple iPhone 4 + Apple iPad

- Apple iPhone 4 + Dell Streak 7

- Dell Streak 5 + Apple iPad

- Dell Streak 5 + Dell Streak 7

- Apple iPhone 4 + Samsung Galaxy Tab 10

- Samsung Galaxy Tab + Apple iPad

A smartphone (4.5 to 5 inch) + Tablet (5 or 7 or 10 inch), what’s your ideal combination ?

Personally , Apple iPhone 4 + Apple iPad (Gen 2) coming soon or Apple iPhone 4 + Dell Streak 7, well, we shall see and keep a lookout for my updates !

p/s : All the above points are of personal opinion and experiences.

How has technology changed your life, your work, friendship, relationship and networking ? With information technology becoming more inter-connected and the “distance” between people getting “shorter”, does that impact the relationship  between you and others ? How does it affect our communication with people with the usage and impact of information technology ?

Currently, I feel that these are the current ongoing trends and developments that might have a impact in the future and innovation of technological advancements.

- The rise and expansion of social media

It’s daily verbal communication between humans transferred to another mode of channel distribution using the internet sphere or blogsphere with the various tools of social media. Antagonise or alienate at your own expense, peril or engage social media to your advantage and growth ?

Source : The 10 Best Infographics for Internet Marketing Pros & The CMO’s Guide to The Social Media Landscape

How much and how well are you engaging social media ?

- Begun the Tablet Wars

Initially the small sized Netbook/Notebooks were popular among users, small and light, however, the arrival of the Apple iPad caused quite a bit of storm with its features and user friendliness. This segment would be an interesting sector of growth and expansion, with 13 more potential competitors to the Apple iPad that might be appearing in the market soon, with the latest tablet announced being the Samsung Galaxy Tab, whom I personally feel would be a worthy competitor to the Apple iPad. How would the other Tablets turn out ? We shall wait and see …. Begun the Tablet Wars it has ….

- Future of Blogs ?

In my earlier post, on “Is Interactive E-Magazine the Media of the Future?“, I was researching with great interest on the potential and feasibility of Interactive E-Magazines. How would it change the blogsphere ? Personally, this would be closely linked and might have a positive correlation between the growth of the Tablets in terms of usage and technological designs and improvements that might expedite the growth of Interactive E-Magazines or applications, with more people using them to promote/sell/advertise their services/interests/products/tools to each and one another.

- Smartphones and Mobile Data

The varieties of smartphones availability in the market from the different technology companies and the growth of faster telecommunication networks from 3rd Generation to the 4th Generation/ Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks, mobile broadband is just beginning to expand exponentially and would potentially rise higher and grow bigger than we could possibly imagine. With the growth of the world’s two most populous and world economies drivers namely, China and India, the growth and expansion of their smartphones/mobile and Mobile Data usage would just be the exponential kick-start.

Click to View Full Size
Read more The Power of Local Mobile Search [infographic]

Source : The 10 Best Infographics for Internet Marketing Pros & The Power of Local Mobile Search by OrangeSoda

What do you see in the future of technology and innovation ?

However, one of the intriguing and interesting features that I came across while playing with his iPad were the E-Magazines applications, one of them was the FlipBoard application, check out Philip’s post on iPad App : Flipboard. That application got me hooked with its interactiveness, creativity and user friendly interface, it was very addictive for me and the Flipboard application complements the iPad really well.

Philip brought up a point that got me thinking very hard, it was about the future of blogs and the arrival of the interactive E-Magazine. How would it turn out ? The arrival of the iPad and upcoming competitors such as the Galaxy Tab, touch screen tablets that are light and easy to carry around, would slowly be an integral part of our inter-connected digital social media lifestyle in the future. Nobody would imagine the rise of the cellphone/mobile phone/handphone from 10 years ago, the growth, changes and rapid developments.

Would interactive E-Magazines be the downfall of blogs ? Replaced blogs totally ? How would blogs face up to this interesting challenge ahead ? Do I have an answer ? I don’t have a crystal ball and magical powers to look into the future ….. How am I preparing for it ? Well, I am planning to do an interactive E-Magazine to complement my photography blog, for the future.

This was partially inspired by AIYO! Magazine, monthly iPad interactive magazine and there was also an article writing about the potential of interactive E-Magazines. Recently, I came across this Twitter application known as paper.li and it was similar to an Interactive E-Magazine that I was exploring. With that in mind, I started testing and exploring the potential and capabilities of reading news/posts/tweets into an easy to read newspaper-style format.

Check out publications on my paper.li !

Singapore Bloggers Daily

Singapore Photographers Daily

Photography List 1 Daily

Photography List 2 Daily

Tourism & Travel List 1 Daily

Tourism & Travel List 2 Daily

Therefore, would Interactive E-Magazine be the Media of the Future ?

Watching from the live presentation by Steve Jobs in the early morning wee hours Singapore time and looking through the features and tech specs on the Apple website, analysing it over a bit of time, I decided to pen down my thoughts on the Apple iPad. Many websites and forums would have already given out their views on the Apple iPad and my blog post would probably be the slower ones already. Some people have called the iPad the giant iPhone and it’s true to a certain extent.

Before going further, all the information of the iPad can be found here.

Pros

- Awesome for travel and leisure use

- For a photographer, this would be very useful and wonderful, upload photographs taken and it can be viewed nicely, doubles up as a digital photo frame too!

- Light & slim in design

- iBook ~ a revolutionary change in e-book reading !

- Maps ~ iPad transforms into a giant GPS !

- Giant iPod

- Light & portable reader for news on the internet

Cons

- The name iPad doesn’t sound too nice

- No camera

- No USB port

- Not designed for business usage

Possible Future Additions that I dream of

- Camera

- USB ports

- Run on Mac OS X instead of iPhone OS ?

- Bigger flash drive capacity ~ especially if I am traveling overseas and I have lots of photographs to download

Hopefully, one day, I would be able to grab hold of the 1st Generation iPad and give it a try for a few days. As much as I really like the specs and design, I am sure Apple can improve a lot on the iPad design, features and specs and I am very likely to hold back and wait for 2nd Generation iPad, however, if I get the iPad as a gift, I would be more than happy !

Why I would buy the iPad NOW

The iPad would become my leisure, travel and photography tablet. From that 3 perspective, this current iPad is great. Being a slim and light weight tablet, travel on the road with e-books, iTunes, photos, internet surfing with 3G data & WI-FI is not a hassle anymore.

Why I wouldn’t buy the iPad NOW

For a business user, I feel a netbook or notebook might be a stronger proposition than the current iPad. A Windows 7 powered tablet is a strong opponent (in my humble opinion). Besides, would love the additional features to be implemented inside the 2nd Generation iPad too.

Being a 1st Generation gadget, I strongly believe it will only get better, the question is “Do you want to get it now ?” or “Would you and are you able to wait for the next generation iPad ?”

Going a few days of reading, researching and understanding, I made a decision to install the 32 Bit Windows 7 Ultimate on my 2008 Macbook model 4,1. I would be writing down my Boot Camp and Windows 7 installation process and share with my readers here -

BEFORE DOING ANYTHING

- Update your Mac OS X first !

- Back Up ALL YOUR DATA !

- Print out Boot Camp Assistant Manual that comes in your Macbook or open another laptop with the Boot Camp Assistant in your sight.

- Prepare your Mac OS X Leopard or Snow Leopard CDs and Windows 7 CD

Disclaimer  - This step carries risk and proceed at your own risk.

Once all the above preparations are ready,

- Follow ALL Step by Step in the Boot Camp Manual

- Do not skip the Steps

From my own experiences, the Windows 7 CD did hang for a while, what I did was to press and hold down the power button to shut down, wait a while and switch on again and it just ran smoothly from then on ! During the entire process, there would be times whereby your Macbook would reboot, do not worry and let it run smoothly.

When Windows 7 was installed successfully, you would need to do some basic configuration before going inside further Windows 7, always follow the Steps in the Boot Camp manual. Install the drivers by inserting the Leopard / Snow Leopard CD and let the setup.exe file run to start the installation. I didn’t face any issues during this drivers update and my Macbook model 4,1 now operates very well with my Windows 7 Ultimate.

Specifications

Macbook 2008 model 4,1 running on 2.1 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4GB RAM  & 320 GB HDD running Mac OS X 10.6.1 Snow Leopard, running Windows 7 Ultimate with Boot Camp.

The overall installation was very smooth except for the initial hiccup whereby my Macbook doesn’t seem to be starting, once Windows 7 was successfully installed, the ongoing steps would be patch and updates. Do it first before installing other programs that you are planning to do so, same theory applies, once a new program is installed, check for updates and patches accordingly. In my next few posts, I would be writing up on my Windows 7 experiences ! Do keep a lookout for my sharing, stories and tips !

I am now running the best of both worlds , Snow Leopard with Windows 7 Ultimate on my Macbook !!

I am very grateful to my old friend James, same batch from Dragon Scout Group, an Apple expert. He helped me with teaching and putting a new notebook 320 GB HDD by Samsung into my macbook, installing Mac OS X Leopard into my macbook, the tricks to reduce the installation time and disk space.

My Macbook model is 4,1 and the HDD can be replaced by removing the L shaped metal plate from the battery compartment area, there is a flap that you can see clearly and it allows you to pull out the Macbook HDD, it would come out nicely, unscrew the screws holding the HDD and replace it with your new HDD, put it back in place and push it back in, you have a new HDD ! My Samsung 320 GB HDD gives my Macbook a new life, with other parts of the hardware holding out in the upcoming 3 years considering the perils of electronics wear and tear.

Installing the Mac OS X Leopard might take a while, I was guided through the setup by James, it wasn’t that difficult, putting the CD 1 inside, switching on, pressing Option and running installation with the instructions and customisations from the screen. Overall, it was a smooth journey, thankfully with the assistance and guidance of James. Once Mac OS X Leopard was completed, Snow Leopard was installed and it went smoothly too and it was really good. Thereafter, had a great time chatting about Apple products e.g. Apple TV, Mac Pro, iTunes etc etc

Returning home, downloaded my other software for my Macbook e.g. NeoOffice, VLC Player, just some of the Mac OS software that I used before, having a new HDD is like having a “new Macbook” and there were a lot more things to be done. Next up, installing my Windows 7 on my Macbook, Apple hasn’t release its support yet, hopefully soon. Nevertheless, I might be installing the Windows 7 on my Macbook first.

A big question now on my mind is, my Macbook model is 4,1 running Snow Leopard, which version of Windows 7 can I install using Boot Camp ? 32 Bit or 64 Bit ? Hmm …… still researching and asking my Apple expert friends, hoping to install in Windows 7 in the next few days.

In the morning, attempts to revive & resucitate was to no avail, after contacting my old friend James, an expert in Apple technology and products, his diagnosis was high percentage that the macbook HDD had crashed, while there was a chance that the connections to the HDD were loose or spoilt. Without further ado, I went to Epicentre Wheelock and send in for repair.

During a conversation with the staff at the authorised service centre inside, Sapura, her preliminary diagnosis was 99% HDD crashed and my world also crashed !! Not all my data and information were backed up and if my HDD can’t be revived, inevitable, some will never be recovered. Anger and depression creeped inside me for the afternoon, my usage of the Macbook HDD was similar to my previous laptops and they lasted me 3 years, however, my Macbook lasted me about 1 yr 3 mths.

Lessons learned today

- Always back up your data regularly (daily or weekly)

- Buy Apple Care !! – I didn’t buy and I am regretting that it slipped my mind and forgotten the date that I purchased my Macbook !

Would be updating my readers soon on myMacbook, the costs involved and the outcomes.

I was given a view of the Windows 7 during an invitation called “Re-Imagine Life by Microsoft“, my personal views from my short hands on experience was very good and I was impressed !! Especially with the touch screen features on the desktops and big LCD/LED television screens. It was similar to Apple’s Mac OS and Microsoft is moving towards a new revolution, transforming technology and integrating into our daily life, shaping how people (we ourselves) want technology to do, help and improve our daily life, work and play.

With the integration of Microsoft’s other platforms, such as XBox 360, Office 2010 and Windows 7, combining together, the experience was really enjoyable, bringing technology into our daily life. With the pending arrival of Windows 7 into the market, Apple launched the Snow Leopard earlier than Windows 7, creating a new era of technology advancements and a tussle between innovation, improvements and enhancements to their operating systems and how it would impact and change user’s daily life and work.

Apple’s Snow Leopard promises to be Better, Faster, Easier, the world’s most advanced operating system. Being a Apple user, I haven’t upgraded my Snow Leopard yet, contemplating whether to get the 3-in-1 package of Snow Leopard, iLife 09 and iWorks 09 for my macbook.

How would these 2 operating systems fare ? Although I have actually yet to run both systems fully in my daily life and work, it might be a matter of time before I am running both Snow Leopard and Windows 7 on my Macbook, I am able to enjoy the best of both worlds !!

There would be the usual debates and discussions on Windows 7 versus Snow Leopard, this topic would never end and will never end in my opinion. AsiaOne Digital Life did a review on Snow Leopard versus Windows 7, do check out their post too !

Keep a lookout for my future review on Snow Leopard and Windows 7 Combo !

If yes, have you updated your 3G iPhone OS to 3.0 ? If you haven’t, go ahead and update it !

Last night, after crossing into 18th June 2009, I was informed by my iTunes that OS 3.0 was available for download and updating. With great excitement, I plugged in my iPhone and sync with iTunes, giving it a bit of time for downloading, installing and updating.

When all was completed, without any change in hardware, I was impressed with the additional features inside OS 3.0 and some of the key improved features are listed here on their website

Some of the key improvements that caught my attention :

(1) Finally …….. Can Forward SMS !!!!!

(2) Can CUT, COPY & PASTE !!!!!

(3) Enhanced Stocks Application – Nice improvement ! Loved its new features !

(4) iPod – Shake to Shuffle – Pretty cool !

(5) Internet Tethering – Interesting, I would probably find it very useful since I have a bundled data plan along with my 3G iPhone contract and maybe, I do not need to subscribe another mobile or wireless broadband package for my laptop. Would still be testing this function out and keep you Apple 3G iPhone readers posted !

(6) Landscape Keyboard – Quite cool, nice to have this additional feature !

(7) Safari – Seems to be faster, need to test it further.

Hope you all enjoy the new iPhone 3.0 OS update, I am still in the midst of exploring the newer features !