ajb{log}: learn something new each day

In case you missed it, here they are:

Statement by Apple’s Board of Directors

It is widely recognized both inside and outside of Apple that Steve Jobs is one of the most talented and effective CEOs in the world.

As we have said before, if there ever comes a day when Steve wants to retire or for other reasons cannot continue to fulfill his duties as Apple’s CEO, you will know it.

Apple is very lucky to have Steve as its leader and CEO, and he deserves our complete and unwavering support during his recuperation. He most certainly has that from Apple and its Board.

Press Contact:
Steve Dowling Apple
dowling@apple.com
(408) 974-1896

Finally, they one from Steve Jobs himself:

Letter from Apple CEO Steve Jobs

Dear Apple Community,

For the first time in a decade, I’m getting to spend the holiday season with my family, rather than intensely preparing for a Macworld keynote.

Unfortunately, my decision to have Phil deliver the Macworld keynote set off another flurry of rumors about my health, with some even publishing stories of me on my deathbed.

I’ve decided to share something very personal with the Apple community so that we can all relax and enjoy the show tomorrow.

As many of you know, I have been losing weight throughout 2008. The reason has been a mystery to me and my doctors. A few weeks ago, I decided that getting to the root cause of this and reversing it needed to become my #1 priority.

Fortunately, after further testing, my doctors think they have found the cause—a hormone imbalance that has been “robbing” me of the proteins my body needs to be healthy. Sophisticated blood tests have confirmed this diagnosis.

The remedy for this nutritional problem is relatively simple and straightforward, and I’ve already begun treatment. But, just like I didn’t lose this much weight and body mass in a week or a month, my doctors expect it will take me until late this Spring to regain it. I will continue as Apple’s CEO during my recovery.

I have given more than my all to Apple for the past 11 years now. I will be the first one to step up and tell our Board of Directors if I can no longer continue to fulfill my duties as Apple’s CEO. I hope the Apple community will support me in my recovery and know that I will always put what is best for Apple first.

So now I’ve said more than I wanted to say, and all that I am going to say, about this.

Steve

Sources: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/01/05sjletter.html and http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/01/05bod.html

I read this from Wired. Very informative. Re-sharing.

1 // You may need more sleep than you think.
Research by Henry Ford Hospital Sleep Disorders Center found that people who slept eight hours and then claimed they were "well rested" actually performed better and were more alert if they slept another two hours. That figures. Until the invention of the lightbulb (damn you, Edison!), the average person slumbered 10 hours a night.

2 // Night owls are more creative.
Artists, writers, and coders typically fire on all cylinders by crashing near dawn and awakening at the crack of noon. In one study, "evening people" almost universally slam-dunked a standardized creativity test. Their early-bird brethren struggled for passing scores.

3 // Rising early is stressful.
The stress hormone cortisol peaks in your blood around 7 am. So if you get up then, you may experience tension. Grab some extra Zs! You’ll wake up feeling less like Bert, more like Ernie.

I’ve been sleeping less and less over the last few years. The average I get nightly is about 5~6 hours. This needs to be improved over the coming new year.

The latest stable release of WordPress (Version 2.7) is now available for download! It sports a new interface and it just got a lot more intuitive.

Grab it now here.

At last, Google’s Gmail released a new lab feature today - Tasks. This cool feature directly competes with favorite to-do list services such as Remember The Milk (RTM) and Tada-List. Here’s a quick screenshot of the new feature below:

By the way, I love how unobtrusive it is and how it integrates well with your email. I’m definitely going to start using this over Tada-list which have been my list manager for a long time now. The only advantages (that I know) of tada-list right now are 1) It is stand-alone. No need to login/load your email. 2) It is easily shareable and 3) It is lightweight and it has a better/intuitive interface.

Meanwhile, Remember the Milk has been pushing cool features here and there. Thing is, I’ve never been accustomed to using it everyday, unlike Tada-list. But I’m sure a lot of people use it everyday.

To enable Gmail’s “Tasks”, go to Settings, click the Labs tab. Select “Enable” next to “Tasks” and then click “Save Changes” at the bottom. Then, after Gmail refreshes, on the left under the “Contacts” link, you’ll see a “Tasks” link.

A quick shortcut to your “Tasks” list is G+K (assuming you have keyboard shortcuts enabled) when you are logged in to Gmail.

I’m an avid subscriber of NETTUTS. A popular tech blog that covers a wide range of topics about web development such as HTML, CSS, Javascript, CMS’s, PHP and Ruby on Rails. I was curious how many of their pages are actually indexed at Google and I tried to learn more.

Let’s take a look how many pages at NETTUTS are indexed. Note that this will vary from one location to another, as well as ISP used and nearest datacenter used by Google (I’m currently testing this in North America and the count is going to be variable and approximate).

Let’s hit “site:nettuts.com” at Google. They have approximately 588 indexed pages. Now let’s see how many backlinks they have. Let’s hit “link:nettuts.com“. They have approximately 1,400 links going back to them.

The numbers above are not really that much. However, what matters here is when you look at their RSS feed subscriber count, they have 14,400.

So, what’s the point? Sites like NETTUTS still proves that content is king. It doesn’t matter 100% how many pages of your site are indexed at Google, what’s really important is that you deliver quality content to your visitors.

The rest follows.

I’ve been searching for a quick link to Google Profiles on Google.com and there really isn’t one that is obvious to the regular users. It’s actually buried in a help page from Google.

So, here is the link to your Google Profile, making it easy for everyone else who is having a hard time looking for it.

http://www.google.com/s2/profiles/me

Want to search for someone else’s profile on Google? Easy. Let’s say you are looking for Barack Obama’s Google Profile. Just go here…

http://www.google.com/s2/profiles?q= 

…then simply enter “Barack Obama”.

That was easy right? Yeah I know, it’s pretty cool.

Wow. Youtube now supports widescreen real HD at 720p! How you do it? Just append “&fmt=22” to the URL or you can click on this link.

Works smoothly on broadband. Sweet!

Here are the people I find interesting at FriendFeed

Mona N.

Cee Bee

l0ckergn0me

Stupid Blogger (aka Tina)

Paul Buchheit

Duncan Riley

Mark Wilson

Zee.

Louis Gray

MG Siegler

Here are the awesome people who finds me interesting!

Morton Fox

Stupid Blogger (aka Tina)

Yolanda

Lindsey

Carmen

April Buchheit

? Rahsheen™

Michael J. Cohen (mjc)

Cee Bee

(jeff)isageek

Who are yours?

Google just launched 30 new themes to Gmail.

Some people don’t see it yet. So, try to logout and re-login to see the new Themes at the Settings.

Really cool Gmail team!

I just tried some great chocolates from a company called Coppeneur. They are based in Germany but have North American distribution. What I really liked about them, aside from the brilliant and fresh taste, is that the packaging and presentation of the chocolates makes them stand out among others. They are really classy.

And it looks like I’m not the only one who is noticing how good they are. Here is a detailed report on tasting Coppeneur chocolates from another blogger.

Some more pictures below:

I so love the Hot Chili and Black Pepper one!

The above ones are from Madagascar chocolates and Ecuador chocolates!

You have to try these out. Best gift for this Christmas season.