I have been to various tours from the band called The Police. Ring a bell? They are really a great band where they have made a mark in the music industry. Their music is totally unique and breath taking.

If you have been to any of their concert, you would sure feel differently from any other concerts that you have attended so far. You will feel the emotion that their songs project. The element of love from their music is totally ecstatic and with a touch of emotion from their voice. I would not be able to tell you the great experience if you do not attend it yourself. Believe me, it would be an enhancing experience.

Currently, there The Police is currently going on a world tour in conjunction of their new album release. I personally do not have a chance to attend their concert though. Work has been hectic as I am rushing for a project that is due in time. However, I am totally sure that this tour would be more exciting than all the other tours that they have had so far as I can feel the energy from it.

Their new police cd consists of 2 discs. Although I did not have the chance to catch them in the concert, I have decided to organize one myself in the comfort of my room. I would say that my favourite song in the album would be “Tea In The Sahara” as their lyrics is amazingly meaningful and sang with great emotion and feelings. You should get yourself your own police cd as it would prove as a great purchase for your collection of CDs.

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Contestants

Steve Jobs & John Sculley

What’s it all about?

Chairman Jobs battles CEO Sculley for control of Apple

Who started it?

Fed up with Jobs meddling in various projects, Sculley strips Jobs of all executive power

How did it end?

Jobs attempts a boardroom coup, but it backfires and he ends up resigning instead

Who won in the end?

Apple hits trouble after Sculley leaves, and four years later Jobs makes his return in a blaze of glory

Contestants

Apple & Microsoft

What’s it all about?

Control of the entire personal computer industry

Who started it?

Microsoft rips off the Mac OS

How did it end?

Apple’s failure to license the Mac OS leaves the industry wide open for Microsoft

Who won in the end?

Despite the success of the iMac and iPod, Apple still has only 5 per cent market share, compared to Microsoft’s 90 per cent.

That was disastrous for Apple, yet the Mac Operating System was still superior to Windows and Apple could have triumphed if it had followed Microsoft’s path in licensing the Mac OS to other computer manufacturers.

Bizarrely enough, it was actually Microsoft supremo Bill Gates who tried to convince Apple that it should license the Mac OS. In early 1985, months before Windows was released, Gates wrote a now-famous letter to John Sculley. It was a long letter, containing several carefully argued points, but Gates’s ultimate conclusion was that – “Apple should license Macintosh technology to three-five significant manufacturers for the development of Mac-compatibles”.

According to Owen Linzmayer in his book, Apple Confidential 2.0, Sculley didn’t even bother to reply to Gates’ letter. That was it – Apple’s stubborn determination to go its own way left the market wide open for Microsoft to license Windows to every computer manufacturer on the planet, and left Apple boxed into a tiny market niche that it still struggles to break out of even today.

Frankly, after a cockup like that, Apple’s lucky to still be around at all.

So near, and yet so far. That could be Apple’s corporate motto. It missed out on the handheld computing market with the Newton, and the early success of the PowerBook was tarnished by fiascos such as the PowerBook 5300.

Yet none of those disasters hold a candle to Apple’s biggest mistake – handing over the entire personal computer industry to Microsoft in the mid-80s. This was the result of two spectacularly bad decisions.

Before the Macintosh came along, Apple had something like 25 per cent of the personal computer market all to itself, thanks to the success of the Apple II computer. That compares with its current market share of just 5 per cent (and that’s on a good day).

Apple had high hopes for the Macintosh in 1984, because its slick graphical interface was far more advanced and easy to use than anything in the PC market. But when Microsoft announced its plans for its own graphical Operating System, to be called Windows, Apple knew that it might have a fight on its hands. Windows seemed to copy many features from the Mac Operating System so Apple was ready to send in the lawyers (conveniently overlooking the fact that Apple executives had actually swiped the idea for the Mac itself from a research project they had seen at Xerox).

There was a problem, though. Microsoft’s
Word and Excel programs were crucial pieces of software that the Mac would need if it were to succeed in the business market. If Apple sued Microsoft then Microsoft might retaliate by killing off the Mac versions of Word and Excel. That would leave the Mac dead in the water.

So, in November 1985, just a few days
after Microsoft had released Windows 1.0,
Apple CEO John Sculley signed a deal with Microsoft. The deal was that Microsoft would continue to develop Excel exclusively for the Mac, with no Windows version for at least a year. In return, Apple gave Microsoft the right to use ‘derivative’ elements of the Mac Operating System and its interface, such as its windows, icons, and menu designs.

Sculley now says he intended that agreement to only apply to Windows version 1.0, and that Apple’s lawyers screwed up by actually drafting a more open-ended agreement which also allowed Microsoft to copy the Mac interface in future versions of Windows as well. In effect, Apple handed its technological crown jewels to Microsoft on a plate.

The first version of Windows, released in 1985 wasn’t much of a success, but as versions 2.0 and 3.0 were released Microsoft managed to smarten it up so that it became a genuine rival for the Mac Operating System. Apple then tried to sue Microsoft, starting a court case that dragged on until 1995, but the open-ended nature of that original agreement meant that appeal after appeal went in Microsoft’s favour.

We’ve looked at some of Apple’s greatest blunders in this feature, but let’s not forget some of the reasons why you’re reading this mag in the first place.

The Mac OS

Whether it’s the now-retired ‘Classic’ Mac OS, or the shiny new OS X, the software at the heart of the Mac is what makes it great. Panther (OS X version 10.3) proved that Apple can still come up with innovative features, such as Exposé, that leave Windows trailing in its wake.

The iMac

Okay, so Apple went a bit far with the hippy nightmare that was the flowery iMac, but the sheer cuteness of the iMac ensured that it sold like hotcakes and spawned a thousand semi-translucent plastic imitators. Its success saved Apple from nearextinction in the late 1990s.

The backing up of your data is critical as you would not know when would the next hardware failure happen. It could be next week, the next hour or even the next minute. No matter whether you are just running one PC or owning a large conglomerate where thousands of PC’s, Data Backup & Recovery Software Reviews is equally important. There are various backup software available in the stores today. Some data recovery software review would be great for you if you are fickled on which back up software or data recovery software to choose from.

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It’s a very good time to be a Mac user. The iPod has made Apple one of the coolest companies on the planet, and Apple’s British-born design guru, Jonathan Ive, was recently named by the BBC as one of the greatest influences on current British culture.

Apple is one of the few computer companies that’s been making money in recent years and with the new G5 processor and OS X both shaping up nicely, the stage is set for Apple to continue the winning streak that began with the introduction of the iMac in 1998. It’s a nice way for Apple to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the very first Macintosh computer, launched back in January 1984.

But things haven’t always gone quite so smoothly. The Mac’s 20-year lifespan has been a real roller coaster ride. There have been staggering successes and humiliating flops, savage boardroom battles and – in the late 1990s – a collapse in sales that saw Apple staring death in the face.

As with most technologies there is a competition between different digital video formats and it’s important to make the right choice. By far the most popular recording format is MiniDV, which can contain 60 minutes of footage on a small tape. Digital8 is another popular choice, especially for owners of old analogue Hi8 tapes, because these can be played in a Digital8 camcorder and transferred to computer for editing. MicroMV is Sony’s latest tape format, but its lack of compatibility with Mac computers rules it out for iCreate readers – rumours that Sony will stop producing MicroMV camcorders next year are beginning to circulate. A newcomer to the market is DVD recording technology, but camcorders that use this are bigger than MiniDV models and it is a cumbersome format that doesn’t quite live up to its promise. We are also seeing a collection of camcorders that record to the new 512Mb SD cards but these only record 11 minutes of footage and the high cost of the cards makes them prohibitive for the time being. Our advice is to stick with a MiniDV camcorder.

Once you’ve got your camcorder it’s time to think about which Mac you want to edit with. All of the latest range of Macs, from eMac up to the G5 are capable of running editing software – even advanced programs such as Final Cut Pro. However, because digital video rendering can be a slow process, it is wise to consider a dual processor G4 or G5 if you are going to be working professionally. The PowerBook is one of the few laptops capable of handling the demands of digital video and it may be worth the extra expense if you will be working in the field.

We would always advise a SuperDriveenabled model, because soon after you get into video editing you will want to begin making your own DVDs. Also, iDVD doesn’t officially work with an external DVD writer.

Whichever machine you buy, it is vital that you get some extra memory put in. Video editing will require a minimum of 512Mb and you may even want to consider 1Gb of RAM or more if you’re serious. The extra memory is a massive help when rendering finished projects and some of the more recent video editing products feel sluggish on just 512Mb.

It is also important to get a big internal hard drive and consider buying an external hard drive too. Digital video files are massive with just four-and-a-half minutes of recording video taking up a gigabyte of hard drive space and, if using Final Cut, it is wise to have an external drive dedicated to storing captured video footage. Aside from
this there is little else you need to edit digital video – the only other purchase you should consider is an analogue to digital converter such as the ADVC1394 from Canopus (www.canopus-uk.com). This lets you hook up a VCR directly to your Mac via the FireWire socket so you can capture from, and record to VHS tapes directly.

One feature that you should definitely take into consideration, though, is the optical zoom size. The standard size for a digital camcorder is 10x, but some manufacturers are offering optical zooms at up to 24x magnification. As with digital cameras, you should ignore digital zoom, even though some promise 700x. Digital zoom causes massive degradation in picture quality and you can perform digital zoom much better afterwards using software. Also avoid any promise of built-in effects such as wipes, black-and-white or sepia tones – again these can be added later with the advantage that you can adjust the effect to your heart’s content while still keeping a pristine recording of the original.

There is also the prospect of different recording formats to choose from including MiniDV, MicroMV, DVD and memory card. Fortunately the choice is easy: no matter what you do only buy a MiniDV camcorder. MicroMV doesn’t work with Macs, DVDs are cumbersome to edit with and memory cards are ridiculously expensive.