apple

As I go through some old applications I wrote for various purposes, but never released, I thought I'd share the source code for a Java program that you can use to get the x/y coordinates or the mouse cursor (pointer) and RGB value of the pixel at that location. I've used this application for various reasons, including determining the location of something on screen, determining the width or height between two points, or getting the RGB value of a pixel on screen.

Dateline May 20, 2010: Cnet and many others are reporting that the Apple "Get a Mac" ads are finished, and Apple is now switching to a "Why You'll Love a Mac" campaign. Indeed, Apple's own "Get a Mac" web page now redirects to the new campaign page. I thought this was a really fun ad campaign, so John Hodgman (PC) and Justin Long (Mac), you will be missed.

While Apple and Adobe go back and forth on the topic of Flash, in particular Flash on the iPhone, I woke up to this email message from Apple this morning, showing the Apple Store promoting the Adobe Creative Suite (CS5):

This feels like one of those awkward moments ...

Today's announcement that Google is buying BumpTop continues the string of Google and Apple buying up technology companies so fast you'd think they were, well, Microsoft, at least "Microsoft back in the day".

I'm reminded that ~10 years ago Bill Gates said about Sun Microsystems (and I'm paraphrasing here):

"Sun is dead, they just don't know it yet. Their business model consists of selling overpriced servers, and sooner or later the market will realize that."

Having watch RISC processors lose their speed advantage -- and then switching to Linux as a result -- I agreed with that assessment, and in 2009 it finally came to fruition as Sun was bought by Oracle.

Which leads to the question: If Bill Gates could look at it objectively, would he say the same thing now about Microsoft?

Too funny ... Apple rejects Mark Fiore's iPhone application "because it included cartoons that ridiculed public figures." Fiore then wins the Pulitzer Prize, and mentions the next day that his iPhone app was rejected.

Immediately Apple "encourages" Mr. Fiore to re-submit his app for consideration in the App Store. (Do you think Apple will "approve" him now?)

Here are some more notes from the New York Times article where I just read about this: