Letter from the CEO

Where are your Priorities?

By Robert Pritchett

 

Free Speech is limited to those who own a free press.

 

Do we love Apple? Not so much perhaps, is my lament. The Apple PR folks don’t call back or submit any hardware or software to macCompanion magazine. I honestly feel ignored or worse. Apple Corporation treats pro-Apple publications less than stellar, so we should not feel like the lone stranger, but I still have to wonder…

 

After nearly 6 years of monthly publications for the Macintosh computer and watching the increase of users go from a few million to many millions, I’m ready to move on to other ventures and so you may see other folks taking over as publisher and editor-in-chief of the magazine soon. They can turn it into gold. Me, apparently not so much. So I need to delegate accordingly.

 

If you go to http://www.macsurfer.com, you will see a host of publications both off and online with us intermixed with them. All of them are struggling. Few are really prospering. How do we differentiate ourselves from the Apple Pack™? We provide reviews that may not be exactly what the manufacturers and software developers want to see in print. We have not been bought yet (snarky remark), though we are looking for buyers willing to carry the torch of truth and honesty in publishing. And our reviews need to be more “timely” – as in immediately instead of only once a month. We could follow the lead established by many on our staff who have their own websites and Mac-based businesses.

 

Public Relations

 

A good story can take care of itself and is worth retelling over and over. I don’t think original story-telling is really my forté. I’m good at finding information and disseminating it. I don’t spin tales (dishonest lying about products) and I don’t expect our staff to do so either. Sometimes the truth we find rubs the wrong way to manufacturers and software developers, but we feel compelled to tell it anyway, because we still believe in the golden rule in how we treat each other.

 

Ray Barber has done a great job gathering Pubic Relations material over on his website at http://www.prmac.com. Public Relations for computer systems sometimes has to work extra hard on stories that need to be compelling to be worth listening to or reading. Sometimes products speak for themselves. Anyway, Ray Barber has created a fee-based venue for them that is over a year old now and it is doing nicely. We established a prMac page on our website to keep up with the news –

http://www.maccompanion.com/macc/prmac/prmac.php

 

In A Funk

 

Maybe it is just me, but I’m not seeing as many “good” stories with the latest MacWorld Expo and since the economy is taking a nosedive – along with the political scene, I perhaps need to move on myself. I feel that the MacBook Pro Air is just so much hot air after all. To me, it is designed for a limited audience and is full of compromises and requires expensive add-ons to get it up to speed. I expected better. I should be excited about MacWorld, but I have been feeling an anxiety attack lately! –

http://www.macworld.com/article/131864/2008/01/macbookair.html

http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK1K03AZRFGK9R5

 

I’d rather have one of these – MacBook AirCraft – wouldn’t you?

http://cultofmac.com/?p=1706

 

So Retro – missing a Parallel port, RS232 connection, MIDI Interface and an ADB connector though…and again, perhaps they are over on the left side of the machine ;^)

Feedback Loop

 

Meanwhile, we recently established a long overdue feedback loop so each of you may comment on articles published in macCompanion magazine over on CollectiveX -

http://macComp.collectivex.com/discussion/forum/show/43246.rss

 

It is always good to read how well we do and if we mess up, ways on how we can improve. Perhaps that will get me feeling loved again and get my groove back.

Yes, our website needs to be improved and updated. It is on our To-Do list.

 

Software Definitions

 

Over on the Mac Business Software Forum (macsb) the discussion regarding software categories cropped up again –

 

Martin Pilkerton of http://www.mcubedsw.com wrote;

 

Freeware - Closed source free software

Donationware - Software where you pay if you want

Shareware - Software where a user gets the entire application with a time/feature/data limit but where entering a code removes those

limits (the important thing is they don't have to download anything new)

Demoware - Software where the user gets a limited version of the application, built exclusively to show off the features. When users buy the application they then have to download/install a different version

In other words, if your application is also the demo, it is shareware. If the demo and application are different executables then it's a Demo of commercial software.

 

Andrew Satori of http://www.druware.com wrote;

 

In the chef analogy, it works fairly well in most cases, but the comment raised by Martin is accurate, it also has a reasonable answer though:

 

A chef works for 10-15 minutes per plate served, and has to pay the prep cook, dishwasher and support staff out of the price per plate. Each plate has an associated cost of the raw materials plus the labor of about 10-15 minutes per plate.

 

Software can take years to develop, and rather than have each person that licenses the software absorb the entire cost of the development, that cost is split among the potential buyers, what you are being asked to pay is the equivalent of your share of the appetizer plate that everyone at the table splits.

 

The problem is that most people understand this, but they don't want to hear it because ultimately, very few people are generous with their money and the explanation will fall on deaf ears, hence the reason that 'Shareware' in its traditional form is gone. People don't pay unless they have to, and as such, 'Demoware' has supplanted shareware.

 

In macCompanion, we have recently consolidated references to freeware, shareware, donationware into the Software section, based on monitoring what has been going on in the software development community. “Demoware” has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?

 

New Energy Congress

 

I met with Sterling Allan in Salt Lake City on my way back from a business trip to Florida and he and his team agreed to allow me be a part of the New Energy Congress. So I will be devoting time and energy to this new venture, since it explores new worlds relating to alternative energy systems –

http://peswiki.com/index.php/New_Energy_Congress

 

LinkedIn

 

I felt it necessary to establish a Solar Energy Consultant Group over on the Professional Social network known as LinkedIn. So far, it has worked nicely and has allowed me to make contact with a wide array of very knowledgeable people who are involved in the Solar Energy industry –

 

http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/47674/6B718533E884

 

Will Apple manufacture a Liahona device?

 

I firmly believe that we are given inspiration from above for blessing mankind. In the Book of Mormon, an instrument for guiding folks to come from the Middle East to the Americas was used that had directional pointers and occasional text messages associated with them as instructions from a loving, kind and caring Supreme Being – only if the people who had this device were living righteously back around 600 BC. It was named the “Liahona” –

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liahona_%28Book_of_Mormon%29

 

Today we have inspired Global Positioning System (GPS) devices that work loosely in a similar fashion, albeit from different sources and for different purposes –

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System

 

The GPS field is rather crowded, so I suspect that Apple will not provide such a dedicated device. But imagine if they did! What if they provided such technology in their iPhone units? We may see something this direction in the Spring of 2008 from Apple. I wasn’t the first to think of it – (but really, do you want to be tracked by government interests?) –

http://www.navigadget.com/index.php/2007/05/23/rumor-iphone-to-get-gps-in-2008/

 

Meanwhile, make our day by reading what our staff has to say about Apple-based products and software that have helped improve lives, reduced frustration and in a few instances made certain folks very, very rich.

 

We have to console ourselves with the belief that we at macCompanion magazine are making a positive difference in the lives around us throughout the world. Richness for us comes from personal relations and contacts – and we established quite a few good ones over the years. Thank you!

 

If only Apple loved us as much as we love (some) Apple products…

 

Now stay healthy, go get your bills paid, your tax papers submitted before April and avoid getting sucked into the next Recession/Depression/bad juju and enjoy being with your immediate and extended families. They give you lasting love and will be around much longer than any Apple computer. Isn’t that where priorities should be, after all?