Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock

February 7

Let the layoffs begin! Cork Ireland has got rollbacks written all over it after Apple moves operations to mainland GB as well as Korea. Nothing funny about that particularly unless you've seen the new movie "Office Space" and noted that most downsizing these days in the post-NAFTA era are centered on the Asian slave trade rather than the Mexican market and it's rate of kidnappings per employee. The New York Times cites Apple's PR schmoe, R. Hamilton - that 50 fulltimes are being nuked glossing over the 400 temps also being "rightsized". Not to be left out are people who aren't having - fun - fun - fun - until Apple took their paycheck away in California's facility as well as Singapore who in spite of being hailed as the great iMac outsource became even futher outed in their now nuked role of being a manufacturer. Sort of a manufacturer of the weak when you have to switch smokestacks with quarterly abandon. Well, Cork, California, and Singapore's loss is LG Electronic's gain. For how long is anyone's guess. Perhaps they can move ops to Brazilian manufacturers after Korea blows the cost-per-unit curve against US domestic sales. You think?

February 8
The last paper remnant of MacWeek goes into the shredder as eMedia Weekly sails off into the sunset of obscurity following news from MacWeek.com's report on the latest headquarter hatchet-job on that particularly downsized publication. I dunno about you, but when the largest Mac related user-base can't keep one weekly afloat how long is it until the monthlys start packing their candy iMacs up and turn off the lights? I can't answer this one, but when the ADC notices that someone's page count is less than a brochure something has got to give. It harkens back to the bad old days when IDG publications couldn't fill any ad-slots for NeXTworld magazine which ironically enough went from a quarterly to a monthly just 4 months before the shit hit the fan for NeXT. After that it was the Etheopian diet for that publication which followed Steve Jobs' last venture into the circular file of history. Basically it all amouts to another brick in the wall of the propaganda ministry slowly crumbling away. Don't worry though - oddball updates aside, the ADC will continue to cover the fun.

February 9

A New York state teacher get's a bite from Apple in a little menage' et trois from Cuppertino and former Apple sales reps Texas style. Apple Computer - never the one's to screw up little - had no comment when the New York Journal News reported that a conflict of interrest emerged when a Yonkers school super tossed out computers that not only had been used for 10 years in favor of a flakey and money-burning product from Apple, but has otherwise ignored the platform of choice that most parents feel would actually give their kids a future of some kind. Let's check out the fun on this one shall we? How about that ease - of - use stuff? After all, who cares if it costs more to get an iMac to read a floppy, talk to a printer, or other basic stuff that ads up on the inital cost? They're fast and easy right? Well - Think Again! The new Apples were not easily compatible with personal computers already in classrooms, and many sat idle for months while teachers, students and administrators scrambled to learn how to use them. Oh darn! Training for a Mac? Unthinkable right? Perhaps the candy-stripe helpers at Comp-USA and Best Buy can pitch in. Then there's the problem of ditching 10 years worth of software and development for the current computers. After all - who said migrating was cheap - or easy? Not Robert A Fowkes who according to the NYJournal, the district's longtime computer systems coordinator, wrote Joffrion a memo in October outlining why the iMacs were "grossly inadequate for the classroom." He said that despite their lower cost, iMacs were just as, if not more, expensive than an IBM-compatible machine because they needed warranties and programs to run Windows applications. He also said there was less software for iMacs than for PCs; the iMacs were highly susceptible to breaking down; and some parochial schools in the grant would have trouble wiring all of their computers for Internet access. What? Crash-prone, non memory protected computers causing more headaches? Less software - ha! Who needs custom gradeware when everyone can just ditch their custom apps for ClarisWorks! It also appears someone also noticed that it costs more to run Wintel software on a Mac since Soft PC isn't bundled - if you can call anything Soft PC does akin to "running". But aside from the cat-calls and concerns from the tax-base, it seems that someone was happy from all this - like the salesmen who took a page from The Music Man - and ran like hell. Cynthia Joffrion, Hornsby's $90,000-a-year computer guru whom he brought up from his former school district in Houston, is married to an Apple computer sales representative. While Clifford Joffrion has no official connection with the Yonkers computer purchase, he recently interviewed with the Long Island company that sold the computers to the district. Naturally anyone associated with this mess is running for cover like some jackass who is next in line to be tarred and feathered by the locals who are being caught in the squeeze of dollars and Apple marketing schemes. Good to know Cupertino is still "dynamic" in it's approaches to moving the goods. At least the parents can sleep well tonight. Sure they've been swindled - but at least with the iMac's industrial design, they've been fashionably swindled. 10 Trombones anyone?

February 10

Don Crab, what would a slow news week be without ye? The Don takes notice that CompUSA's sales and store support is all over the map - and wonders openly if it's such a good thing? The upshot being, is half an ass better than none? Well aside from coming close to knocking off material and open questions from the likes of this place, you have to realize that what Crab wants, Crab ain't gonna get. What Crab wants is the charge of the BusinessLand brigade, where business market-savvy consultants and vendors sold massive parcels to companies holding their hands all the way to the bank. It worked so well too - until Compaq told Busnessland to fuck off. They attempted a rebound with NeXT, blundered, and fell into oblivion. Along the way they probably had the largest hand holding and group hug session with the manufacturer trying to convince people that investing all of the enterprise market behind a niche was a good idea. Flash forward to today and no retailer worth his salt is going to show favoritism to a specific product line beyond negotiating shelf space and some pretty banners and balloons. Seems that the open market actually has the gaul to insist that everyone carry their own weight with the general public - particularly when the goods have been targeted at the mass market rather than the enterprise market. What Don and many other of the MacJihad can't seem to realize is that 16 year olds making minum wage aren't going to give a rats arse about "training" and "incentive programs" when there's more money and bonuses to be had pushing the stuff that sells. If it doesn't have an Apple logo on it, it's sub-zero-nipple time baby.

February 11

Ok for this one, I need another smoke, another glass of Jamenson Irish Whiskey, and the sundry round of ice cubes. Don't go-way. Ok I'm back, some of you might have contemplated - if he's drinking and smoking while doing this - what kind of work is he accustomed to doing anyway? Well folks - this ain't work! I've been grilled via e-mail many-a-time what the hell I'm doing slaving away hours at a time for this site when there's a big-wide-world out there - mostly by people who are unable to find their way to the goddamn WHY section. Well the elapsed time for even a two week update is just a mere 2 to 3 hours of writing before I go to bed over a night-cap and a few puffs of chain-smoking. With people in the BBBS chiming in reports and articles, and other tips coming in via e-mail, this sucker pretty much writes itself. It's certainly not for a lack of material. I'm personally surprised that Apple has so much as a stump to put weight on, as far as foot-shooting becomes it's religion. Speaking of religion, I can't help but still muse about how many people associate themselves with a divine cause because of a fucking box. Machines are not as important as people - PEOPLE! Those that loose sight on a cruisade for a pile of microchips are the next candidate for the Betty Ford clinic of obsessive compulsive disorders. On a more poingniont side of the spectrum, some have wondered why I devote even a couple of pithy hours a week to something akin to Betamax. Well, aside from a brief respite of high-end tape-heads in the early 90's, no one in the general public ever went on a Jihad for Sony. Suffice it to say that with Apple and California's silicon trade as a whole being mornic to the point of absolute devolution in it's micro-focus on "evangelism" and "changing the world" it's spawned the worst zelotry for a commerically sold product in the late 20th Century. Folks - people giving up their weekends to be a free source of labor for Apple is amusing, pathetic, tragic, and facinating. Hence - it's a damn fine write. So one with the show - now that "Mr. Change the World" is back in the hot seat - things can only get wierd. I'm just watching the funny papers.

February 12

Don Crab get's another entry in his fanatical quest to put humans aside - and his favorite toy first. Looking at an article from the Yahoo Daily News, we find Donny Boy going from bad to worse in the whole Jihad thing. Going back to the Fatherland with this one, Don just sprouted an odd mustache and began goosestepping at that article with the line: And maybe Apple also ought to help its resellers weed-out the kind of salespeople who would say things as silly as that suburban CompUSA manager told me. Oh man. Apple needs to "re-educate" salespeople to the Apple doctrine eh? What's next? Party rallies? Accidental fires at stores that sell only Wintel? Public humiliation of Wintel users with mandates tword wearing Intel-inside logos to keep the Cuppertino-ReichLand pure? Don Crab just went full-goose-Nazi. No point in letting salesmen try to speak their mind and SELL something. Nope - they have to - and MUST favor Apple FIRST!..... (suddenly switching into a German accent)....That way the market forces will bring Apple-Deutchland into victory to take it's place of destiny beyond the bolsheviks in Redmond Washington! For the greater glory befalls those that shun Wintel and choose the computing platform of the divine race! The computing platform that supports only a single pure operating system to unify the masses into the promised land! Jackboots for everyone!

February 13

AppleInsider.com makes note that the Best Buy trip might just well be over - or has certainly run it's course. In a piece titled iMac Woes at Best Buy, Future Uncertain, they take note that the scene has gone into limbo with Apple making a bad situation of overstock worse with a divided line of colors to add to the reseller ordering misery. The staff writers made careful note that In the middle of January, MacNN reported that Apple was taking some aggressive steps to improve the experience, implementing mandatory training, knowledge incentives, and an attempt to consolidate the Mac software selection into a single area. Sources close to Best Buy report that some of these "demands," namely the training, didn't sit well with Best Buy management. Seems that the pity play on display from Apple to give it a favored position over the rest of the retail merchandise wasn't exactly flying with the retailer circut which isn't in the busniess of cutting off it's nose in spite of it's face of revenue. While Apple pines for the "group hug" that most Apple fans have been providing for the last few weeks, the retailers are kind of concerned that it could affect the bottem line of products that are currently exempt from such bloody favoritism. There's an old adage - if you can't take the heat get out of the kitchen. Seems that someone want's to change the ingredients of the nation's best electronics and consumer retail operation to suit their own whims. Regardless of how terrible those whims actually worked in the past. Seems that no matter how badly Best Buy got burned in it's attempt to unload inventory at 999.00, Apple still wants to turn up the heat.