I upgraded my iPhone 4 today and the experience was the antithesis of the two days before on my iPad.  Everything went very smoothly and when finished everything that was supposed to be on the iPhone was there. I suspect that a few things played into the difference.  One, I had the experience of doing the iPad and was able to avoid some of the mis-steps.  Two, for some reason the issue of syncing with a different library did not come up – do not know why as the iPhone was also synced with my earlier Mac.  Third, and probably quite important, I suspect the volume of those hitting the Apple servers for the upgrade to iOS5 had decreased substantially.

First impressions of the new operating system are good.  Especially like the new tab layout in Safari on the iPad.  No more little icon with a number in it at the top left of the screen. There are actual labeled taba across the top!  Haven’t had a lot of time to test the other upgrades but will get to that in time.

Things do not get easier as I now have the challenge of upgrading my wife’s iPad and iPhone.  The big obstacle is that her iTunes library is on a PC – not a Mac – and also is not the one the devices were originally synced with.  I had fiddled with this a couple of months ago with little progress but will have to begin anew.  It seems there might be non-Apple programs that make this work so I will continue to investigate and let you know what I find. If anybody has ideas on how best to make this work, please let me know.

In an earlier post I detailed my “adventure” of dumping a cup of coffee on my MacBook and it’s resulting demise.  The new MacBook Air that replaced the damaged item is a true joy but the gymnastics of changing the computer that iTunes for my iPad and iPhone are synced to has been something else.  As you Apple folks are aware, all updates, such as the move to the new iOS5, are accomplished through iTunes and devices can only be synced to one library (MAC) so the problem.  Well it took me four calls to Apple Care to get through the process.  It turned out that the last call was really not necessary as the problem was the result of too many people updating to iOS5 yesterday and the problem resolved itself this morning.  Having said that, the restore is running slower and slower as evidently more and more are hitting the Apple servers for the update.

As I write this post, my iPad is being restored from the backup – when you switch libraries it becomes necessary to fully backup the iPad as what is on the iPad will be replaced with what is on iTunes.  Well, it looked like it was being restored but none of the apps that are in my iTunes library made the trip.  Waiting for call number five with Apple Care. Finally got everything resolved.  Turns out you have to tell iTunes to sync the apps separately.

Given the volume of people attempting to upgrade to iOS5 I am going to wait a couple of days before I update my iPhone.  Although I now know the little tricks I do not want to have things get fouled up with the volume.

“Many people have explained what one can learn from Steve Jobs. But few, if any, of these people have been inside the tent and experienced first hand what it was like to work with him. I don’t want any lessons to be lost or forgotten, so here is my list of the top 12 lessons that I learned from Steve Jobs.” Guy Kawasaki.

Go to http://www.openforum.com/articles/what-i-learned-from-steve-jobs?extlink=sm-openforum-tw.  It’s worth the read.

In addition to his time at Apple, Guy Kawasaki is a serial entrepreneur and author.

This morning something popped up on one of my Twitter feeds that struck a chord.  At first I said that being retired this had no application to what I do today, which is to volunteer and work on a couple of boards. After a little more thought I think there is something in this for anybody, regardless of their current circumstances.  So here they are and how I see them applying.

1. Wake up early. Early in the morning is a great time to get work done because most of your associates have not started emailing, tweeting, IMing, or posting yet.

I have always been an early riser and this fits for me.  It is truly amazing how much more productive you can be without interruptions.

2. Read the headlines and watch the news. Not only should you know what is going on in the world, you will also be the first to recognize opportunities (if you followed #1) for you and your business–long before the competition has even had their first cup of coffee.

This morning I came across three different items that had impact for things that I am involved with and sent emails with attachments and explanations to about twenty people, who are also involved, all before 6:30 a.m. They may also have come across these items but they may not have and at the very least I saved them some time.

3. Send something to one person who can hire you or buy your product–something you promised to follow-up with, a quick email with a link to something relevant or a “Hey, just checking in to see how thing are going” email.

See what I said about #2. Also, while I am not looking for a job or selling a product, I think that we can add value by doing things like this.  In our daily life we often promise to get something to someone and the followup is truly important.

4. Touch base with an old friend or associate you haven’t talked to in ages. Ask how they are, what are they working on and ask or suggest how you might help. You’ll make their day. 

This may well be one of the oldest suggestions in this group.  How many times have you called someone only to find out that they really needed a call?  I bet it is often.  Doing this once a day or so takes little time and produces great dividends.

5. Write a handwritten note to someone. Seriously. It is a lost art and makes quite an impression. There is always someone you can send a thank you note to–or you aren’t doing things correctly.

While this is not one for me, my handwriting is borderline unintelligible even to me, but find other ways, usually a phone call, to work around my handicap.

Let me know your thoughts on this topic and maybe we can get a conversation going on how to leverage these ideas.

Anybody but me tired of the “Stupid White Guy” commercials?  If any advertiser tried to put a minority or woman in that light they would be metaphorically tarred and feathered! Here are a few examples:

• The Verizon Wireless commercial where three “office workers” are rocking on their cell phones.
• The Toyota commercial with the white guy bouncing around the show floor and poking his head through the open sun roofs.
• A whole raft of Progressive Insurance commercials that portray white men as either buffoons or clueless.
• The Nationwide Insurance commercials with the guy walking around with a traditional telephone strapped to his chest.

Having watched and been involved, as a retailer in the 70’s and early 80’s, with Apple and Steve Jobs since the Apple IIe I originally thought that Jobs was a cocky kid. But since his return to Apple he proved that he was a true genius at a level that does not happen even every generation. He had the gift of knowing what we wanted before we knew it and that is magical.

It has been about a week and one-half since I acquired by new 13″ MacBook Air but let me back-up a bit.  My 13″ MacBook met an ignominies end when I dumped a cup of coffee on the keyboard and track-pad.  Given that the MacBook was over 2 years old and the cost of repair was close to the replacement cost the decision was easy – acquire a new computer.

As is generally the case, there were options.  I could opt for the current 13″ MacBook Pro, other MacBook configurations or explore the MacBook Air offerings.  Given the way I use this computer, I quickly settled on either the 13″ MacBook Pro or the 13″ MacBook Air.  I must admit that the 11″ MacBook Air was tempting – lighter – but in the end the larger display won out.  So what were the pluses and minuses between the two 13″ options? The MacBook Air lacks an internal optical drive which I only use for loading new software and even that is becoming less of an issue as more and more of new software is downloaded rather than arriving on a CD. The $79.00 option for an external optical drive,provides all that I need.   Additionally, watching movies on a computer has never been one of my uses. There are fewer ports on the MacBook Air, but with 2 USB ports and the new Thunderbolt port, which offers two channels with speeds at 10 Gbps each, I decided the MacBook Air’s ports were sufficient. The new iteration of the MacBook Air added the back-lit keyboard that was the standard on the MacBook Pro.  At the end of the day two things sealed the deal for the MacBook Air – one the weight at just under 3 pounds, about 2 pounds less than the MacBook Pro, and second the Solid State Drive (SSD) instead of the traditional hard drive.  The SSD is so much faster it is hard to believe.  As is my want; I opted for the fastest processor, an i7 quad core, and a larger SSD, 256 Gig vs. the 128 Gig.

To date, I have no doubt that I made the right decision.  The MacBook Air comes up almost as fast as my iPad and as always the Apple keyboard is a delight.  As I noted in an earlier post with the MacBook Air, an iPad and iPhone my next desk computer will more than likely be a Mac.  This from someone that has been a PC person for almost 30 years.

I sure am glad that glad that President Obama’s health care initiative has reduced health care costs.  Yesterday we received our renewal information from Humana for our Medicare Advantage plan for 2012 and found that the monthly premium for each of us will increase from $139.00 per month to $174.00 per month!  A smooth 25% increase!  This is, of course, in addition to our Medicare Part B premiums.  As we spend part of the year in different states, traditional HMO/PPO offerings will not work for us – they are specific to a geographical area and you cannot have two plans in the same year.  There are offerings from other carriers, but when I investigated those last year I found that our providers did not accept the coverage.  Talk about the classic no-win situation.

After 2 years with no COLA increase in Social Security Benefits, it appears that any small COLA increase in 2012 will be eaten up by an increase in the Part B premium.  I find it amusing and more than a little disingenuous that when calculating the cost of living food and energy are excluded.  Think about it, are those not the two largest components of our variable costs?  There is do doubt that something has to be done with Social Security – I refuse to call Social Security an entitlement given that for many of us rather than an entitlement it is a bad investment – you can see my further amplification on this in a previous post here. However, it needs to be done in the context of an overall revamp of our tax and other programs, not by a continuing elimination of COLA increases.

So once again this year I will make a journey through the mirad of options and more than likely end up where I started – with a 25% increase in our health care insurance costs.

We need to understand that Corporations Do Not Pay Taxes – They collect taxes.  Think about it – for a corporation taxes are like any other cost and are reflected in the cost of their product or service.  In addition there is the substantial cost of understanding and complying with the current totally unintelligible tax code.  Just think of the amount of time we as individuals invest in tax compliance and expand that to a large corporation with all of those moving parts.  So when we hear that our elected representatives are contemplating raising corporate taxes it is in essence an increase in our cost of living as the corporations have to raise the cost of whatever they sell to recoup this additional cost.

In the same vein, when someone does not pay their credit card bill, the bank does not take that loss.  The banks fees and interest charges are set so that the bank can take the loss and maintain profitability.  And where do they get the dollars to absorb those losses – You guessed it from those of us that pay our bills on time.  Think about it – if someone does not pay their balance they also do not pay any fees or interest.

So when you see or hear about corporate taxes or bank credit card losses keep these comments in mind.

Once again our government is attacking a company for being successful.  Google is on the hot seat at a Senate hearing and being questioned by among others Al Franken.  The charge appears to be that Google is unfairly listing it’s offerings ahead of competing products and services.  Google does between 65% and 75% of all searches and 97% of all mobile searches.  I wonder why that is?  By jove, I bet it is because we find Google searches to be more beneficial than those form competing offerings.  Senator Franken suggested that maybe changes to Google’s search algorithms should be reviewed by some government agency.  Eric Schmidt, Googles CEO, said that Google makes something over 500 changes to the search parameters annually and waiting for government approval would be a serious setback to customer service and usefulness.  But in addition to that,  I wonder why Google should be required to reveal it’s trade secrets.

Let’s look at what Google does wrong.  They provide the service at no cost to us users.  As noted above we appear to find Google searches more beneficial.  Is Google a monopoly – not in the classic sense of the word but from a practical standpoint probably, not because they did anything illegal but because they created a new class of tools and do it better than anyone else.  Having said that, where is the consumer harm? In my mind there is no harm.  Further, I do not think that Google should be held responsible for the success of the others in the search arena.