By Graham K. Rogers

Opening Gambit:

This edition of Cassandra is again brief. I returned home from the North of Thailand late Sunday and had not had much time to collect data.

Apple Stuff

Like me, Bryan Chaffin looks at the question of Cook's "mistakes", Apple's failures and the disaster of Steve Jobs' death. Many hated him when he was alive, and think that his loss will lead naturally to disaster. This is a longish article and he deconstructs the crap that is out there - the stuff that most people believe.

What he said. . . .

This theme was also taken up by Federico Viticci on MacStories who has a number of useful links to other commentators.

We also read on MacNN that Al Gore purchased 59,000 shares of Apple stock, currently worth over $29.6 million dollars. Because he is a member of the board he is able to buy at lower prices and paid $4.75 for each share, coming to $441,000.

While we are on Steve Jobs, there was an interesting item by Kevin Bostic on AppleInsider this weekend, that had some insight into the ways that Apple, or more specifically the CEO did takeovers.

Oh and remember that the quarterly Financial figures are due this week; and they are expected to be rather good. I expect that the analysts will find some doom in the expected good news.

Over the weekend I saw a fair amount of Thai TV out of the corner of my eye, and was disturbed by the number of good Samsung ads being shown: disturbed mainly by the lack of advertising by Apple, not that there should be a TV war, but no exposure does not do the brand that much good.

Many analysts are convinced that Apple is on its downward spiral (see above) and that Android is going to "win", but with 75% of the profits in that market, there is a lot of losing to do first. Kate MacKenzie on Mac360 looks at the way Apple is destroying Android from the inside and like the Bryan Chaffin article above, deconstructs some of the arguments that some online sources keep trotting out.

[On a personal note, I was taken to task recently because I asked for donations to help support the site. It is not uncommon for some sources as advertising is not enough to pay the bills. I did this as many sites take the same path. I note that Mac360 also asks for donations near the bottom of that page. Perhaps the sender of the email would like to take on Kate MacKenzie.]

A number of sources picked up the news that Apple was halting production of the iPad retina displays at Sharp. However, Allyson Kazmucha, looks at this new rumour and tells us that "Samsung and LG still sound like they're full steam ahead." She also comments on the way negative rumours are flying about at the moment reminding us also about the Q1 results this week. Coincidence?

OK, here is a nice rumour. Patently Apple tell us about a nano coating for phones and other devices that waterproofs the device (that would have been useful for me in the Bangkok flooding at the end of 2011). Nothing on Apple here, but there is some hope (rather than speculation) as Cupertino is one of the "the top ten mobile phone manufacturers".

I always like to include some hints for Mac users when I can, and this time Topher Kessler explains how we might make the text in the Calculator and Contacts, display large type.

Also offering suggestions - on Time Machine, Airport Extreme drives and their use with multiple drives, is Ted Landau on MacWorld.

As Microsoft's Messenger is to shut down and we are all to move to Skype, where I already have an account that I use for other reasons, it is nice to hear that there is a banking Trojan that has been adapted for use in that application. Shylock. The Department of Homeland Security tells us, "The module tries to send Shylock as a file, bypassing warnings from the Skype software by confirming them itself and cleaning any generated messages from the Skype history."

A link in that article took me to CSIS which has some more information and the map suggests that computers in this region may already be affected. There is no diret information on whether this affects Macs, but a screen shot does show a file with the .EXE suffix, which will not operate on a Mac.

Other Matters

We have made comments on a number of occasions concerning the warped attitudes to security that governments have, with none so weird or offensive as security guys at airports in the USA, although UK airports also have their share. Along with invasive body searches, questionable actions when dealing with children, old people and the disabled, there have also been enough staff arrested for stealing to scrap the whole thing and start again.

One thing that is to be scrapped, we are told by Chris Matyszczyk, is the body scanners. These caused much upset when introduced, not only for the revealing images, but for the alternatives, should anyone decline. And the reason for the scrapping? They reveal too much. One also wonders about the effectiveness of such devices as we heard no reports of arrests from their discoveries.

Local Items

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs.