By Graham K. Rogers

Opening Gambit:

Apple Stuff

Lots of sources had the news -- we thought we saw this weeks ago -- that Tim Cook is the highest paid executive with share options of $378 million last year. That is more or less where the Bangkok Post clone article left off [and will someone there please stop using that pathetic "compo" for compensation -- not everyone understands Oz code], but they omitted to mention -- as was the case when this first appeared weeks ago -- that the shares are actually options and they do not appear in Tim Cook's hands for about 10 years (so you want to divide 358 million by 10?) and are there to make sure he stays put. If he leaves in 9 years, he gets none of them, so instead of having the highest salary, it would actually be under $1. My source for this was MacDaily News who have a suitable comment and a link to the original article.

Why is Cook such a good investment? Because he delivers. He is now CEO of a company that secured 22.5% of the mobile PC market last year. Consider that: there was a major recession and Macs -- this is what we are talking about -- are always thought of as being at the expensive end. For example, I saw a MacBook Air 11" this week for 32,900 baht, while a mini Acer I looked at briefly (as I went past) was under 10,000 baht (and you don't get much for that).

So if the cheap ones are not selling, why are the expensive Macs going out of the door faster than ever before? Those sales figures appeared in an item by Don Reisinger who also pointed out that when it came to tablets, Apple still has 62.8%. Not bad for a company that Michael Dell thought should be sold off.

As a note, Timothy Prickett Morgan on the Register tells us (in stark contrast to the above) that "Slowing sales of notebook PCs, sluggish markets in Europe and Asia, and tepid buyers in the public sector all combined to shave Dell's revenues and give its net income a serious haircut in its first quarter of fiscal 2013." Odd that sales are not slowing in the Apple arena.

There have been more rumours concerning the next iPhone and its alleged 4" screen. One of the better analyses on this is on 9to5 Mac who claim that Apple is testing a larger display and that the screen is slightly longer at 640 x 1136 giving 3.9999" diagonally.

I rather like the teardowns that iFixit does to Apple hardware, but this week Steven Sande reports on a tear-down of the Apple iPhone charger by a user. That charger is so expensive and you can get a cheap 3rd party one for much less. Well there may be a reason or two for the Apple price as the tear-down shows: "Apple goes beyond these designs in several ways..."

An odd video appeared linked in a story on Huffington Post when a German magician, Piero, demonstrates pouring beer from an iPad. As the beer is poured, so the level on the screen goes down. A lot of fascinated people -- I was highly amused by this -- including a lot of Asians on holiday in Germany.

On a similar note, we have all seen the "will it blend" videos which are excruciating to watch, but sure prove how good that blender is, but now we are told by MacDaily News that there is a video on will it freeze: a company is hoping to promote its cases. Well, they just got me to have a closer look. They put it in plastic then covered it in water, freezing it. [Do not try this at home.] Did it still work? You will have to look for yourself.

Other uses for iPads: save Greece. Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports on how Bob Apfel completed the debt restructuring of the country using 100 iPads with a special app -- debt restructuring: there is an App for it. The whole article makes for interesting (and sobering) reading. Maybe I should get some of that software.

And just as I finished writing that (this is weird -- seconds only) I spotted an article by Sarah Perez on TechCrunch about ReadyForZero which is actually a service and not related to the Greek dept app, but was significantly put in front of me at the same time.

A note on MacNN concerning the developer versions of OS X 10.8, Mountain Lion tells us that there is likely to be a feature that allows automatic downloads of updates -- for apps bought in the App Store -- and that these will appear on all authorised Macs.

On eXtensions (and particularly the Cassandra column) we have carried a lot of information in the last months concerning malware on Macs, which is unlikely to affect most users if they do not click on links they cannot trust and have updated. Woody has an article about this on Phuket Gazette. The link was forwarded to me this week. As more people are likely to take notice of him than me, it is worth pointing out. As many Mac users do not think they need to bother with security, these days they are asking for trouble. Some of the things that I suggest and are often ignored are:

• Separate Admin and User accounts, even if there is only one person using the computer;
• Passwords (yeah I know, you have to have a password, but Enter is accepted -- after a warning -- and that is lethal. One lady, when warned, said she did not want to bother with keep entering the password);
• Uncheck, "Open Safe files" in Safari > General preferences;
• Update software and OS regularly -- some decline as they "will wait to see what problems others have".

I do not agree with everything Woody writes in the article, but it does not pay to be complacent. If you were to follow his suggestions your computer would indeed be much more secure. Not that this has not been suggested before of course, it is just that no one takes any notice.

As a note, that page on Phuket Gazette will not load on an iPhone: 404 not found; and I know some people down there have iPhones.

Another article by Ellyne Phneah complements some of the points that Woody makes and we all note that there is a level of complacency that may well end in tears.

And another prediction? That is the point about the real Cassandra (if she actually existed of course). She had two gifts: accurate prophecy; and the gift that no one would believer her - e.g. I fear the Greeks even when they bear gifts.

I have been questioning the way Apple stock has been forced downwards a great deal of late. First, when the Q2 figures were imminent and were expected to be record-breaking (as they were) and then again since -- despite indications that while a lot of the rest of the IT industry is creaking and certain handset makers are having problems -- growth is still expected from Cupertino. And yet, down go those shares, even though some analysts are making predictions of 4-figure prices for them sooner or later.

My suggestion has been that a number of pundits -- as well as some traders -- have been talking the shares down. With continued negative sounds, people shy away and that makes the possibility of a killing for those investing at the lower prices much more likely (and far more juicy). I thought I was a bit of a voice in the wilderness, but Kim Klaiman on Seeking Alpha also looks at the way the stocks have been rising and falling and shows how this can happen. There is a fair bit of business vocabulary in there, but it makes a lot of sense.

With one store already making a splash in Hong Kong (and none here), Kelly Hodgkins tells us on TUAW that another is to be built there, but across the bay. The location means that several retailers, including HSBC, are to relocate.

We have heard enough about Foxconn and Hon Hai Precision (the parent company) to understand that it is closely linked to Apple and its hardware manufacturing. The company is not small fry by any means and Sam Oliver on AppleInsider tells us this week that Foxconn is to build a $210 million plant in Jiangsu province, China: "The 40,000-square-meter plant will be located in Huai,an city, and will employ 35,800 people." There was also a similar report from Roger Cheng.

I don't know what happened to the beta of Messages I have installed. It was fine on Monday, but Tuesday morning -- just after a power cut here -- it declined to connect to the system and I was unable to use it for Facebook messaging. I can still do this via Facebook, but Messages was a lot more convenient. I restarted the internet and the app itself a couple of times, but nothing brought it back, not even a restart. Where to begin: computer, router, True, CAT, Facebook, something in between? Inconvenient, but not a disaster: redundant systems. I did play about a bit later, and instead of a specific port, changed the setting to Automatically Find Server and Port: magic. I hate computers sometimes.

As I always do before uploading the column, I check Software Update. I see this morning (Wednesday) that there is Digital Camera RAW Compatibility Update 3.13. Apple tells us that:

This update adds RAW image compatibility for the following cameras to Aperture 3 and iPhoto '11:

• Canon EOS-1D X
• Nikon D800E
• Nikon D3200
• Olympus OM-D E-M5
• Panasonic LUMIX DMC-GF5
• Sony Alpha SLT-A57

Half and Half

One of the significant publishers on the iBooks site and one which is widely known for its textbooks and other technical publications, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this week Bryan Chaffin reports on the MacObserver. There is a lot of debt involved and it needs some restructuring. Bryan notes that "Local and state governments have slashed education funding in the wake of the economic crisis that began in 2008, and smaller budgets mean fewer textbooks being purchased."

Kodak is really not doing very well. It is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy and trying to restructure, while also waving its patents about as these are likely to keep the company's value. At least that was the idea but Electronista reports that the ITC has ruled against Kodak in a case it had against Apple and RIM. There will be an appeal, but things are not looking so good. Potential investors will immediately begin to back away.

Other Matters

It may have been that US politicians and angry bloggers took their eyes off the ball last week when going for Eduardo Savarin and his dropping of US citizenship last September -- they only just found out and immediately put 2 and 2 together to make 5. However, the other Facebook-related event was Zuckerberg's marriage just one day after the IPO making Priscilla Zuckerberg (née Chan) one of the richest brides in history. It does not need an expert to know that tax liabilities change for a person who is married as does inheritance. On marriage in the UK, all earlier Wills are void when a person is married. If it was such a surprise, does that mean there is no pre-nuptial agreement? Huffington Post also expressed some wonder about all this. Did the US tax office get shafted twice last week?

Of course, since the IPO everyone has been watching the stock price like hawks and every micro-movement is commented on. Unfortunately, most movement is downwards, but this is not unknown for new stock and demonstrates the way that many investors ignore the advice of Warren Buffett on investments: long term. If it is down in a year or so, I will be convinced, but talking the stock price down before the public company has been able to get into its stride is cutting your own throat. Sit back and wait. There was also an analysis that I found on Huffington Post after I wrote that, by Pallavu Gogoi and Barbara Ortutay, that has a far better analysis of the short term reasons for the drop, but makes no predictions as to the future.

After a delay at the weekend, SpaceX Dragon lifted off on the first private trip to the space station and had on board the ashes of Scotty, the Chief Engineer of the fictional (and much loved) starship Enterprise (Brid-Aine Parnell).

Also on the Register, and late as they often are with news, was a comment on the Samsung claim we carried a couple of days ago about Apple's trial experts. Needless to say, Anna Leach makes much of the "slavish" comments. However she does add a point that Susan Kare who designed the original icons is one of the experts Samsung wants excluded. That is silly. She is a professional artist and put a lot of thought into the design. I bought her book -- slavish follower that I am -- on the icons and it is signed by her too. So there. And if the way Samsung has copied almost all of the iOS device features is not slavish adoration, I don't know what is.

Local Items

But another point concerned me more over the volume as I wear earbuds a lot and while certain sounds (or more specifically frequencies) are reduced, I can still hear traffic. And trains. I was going to test this out as I live only a few hundred metres from a line that has several trains a day. I can hear the horns normally as the trains leave or approach the station here and was sure that I had heard them when listening to the iPhone while walking down in that section. I have now decided I do not need to go down to the tracks.

On Tuesday evening, in my 9th floor apartment, just after I had come back from business and shopping, I kept the iPhone on as I wanted to listen to a couple more tracks of my selections. This was electronic music, and I had it fairly high, but not at maximum volume. With the window open, I heard a train approaching long before it was in sight: and that would be some 500 metres or thereabouts away from the soi. I am not drawing any conclusions -- all very unscientific -- but I would reserve judgement on any suggestion that the unfortunate girl did not hear the train.

I mentioned my less than wonderful typing in a review I wrote at the weekend of a Bluetooth Keyboard and cover for the iPad. When I went to the office on Monday, I spoke to her of the fleet fingers and she had a go too. With her far better typing skills, she reported that it was indeed a useful way to input text even if the keys were a little small, but also reported a problem with the space bar, which did not accept every input as she wanted. As I wrote, a solution, but maybe not the solution.

When I had my service for Dtac updated this week -- the old plan ended, an identical new plan began -- I was sent SMS telling me that I could now access the free wifi. I tried at Paragon but after making a mistake, every time I tried after gave me a "failed" page, even after clearing network settings and restarting the iPhone. Oh. well, not that important. Later at the Mall, Tha Phra, I tried again and was on right away, although if the iPhone sleeps, I have to remind it to reconnect.

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.