I didn't have any "heroes" growing up in the 1970s and early 80s. I didn't idolize celebrities, or sports professionals like a lot of boys did.

It wasn't until my early 20s in 1985, when I got my hands on a Mac for the first time, that I found a hero, Steve Jobs. Steve didn't really invent a lot of things. But when presented examples of cutting edge technology, he figured out what was good, and what sucked, and put the good things together in a logical and intuitive way that appealed to us non-propeller heads. He didn't accept "good", or even "great". It had to be "insanely great". I'd go so far as to say that the person and company that benefited the most from his vision was Bill Gates and Microsoft. Had Steve not raised the bar on the personal computing experience, we'd all still be looking at a command prompt.

>_

Blech.

I don't follow people's lives like a real fan would, and in spite of his left-leaning politics (even though he epitomized entrepreneurship and capitalism), and his misguided diet choices, I always made a point to watch Jobs give his keynote speeches, I read his letters and memos, and read books written about him and Apple. His way of thinking, and of articulating his thoughts, whether through words or GUIs, always resonated with me. He was brilliant.

I've spent a good part of my life using his products, learning about them, evangelizing them, and defending him and his company from assaults by naysayers, even during Apple's "dark years". I lost count of how many friends and family members I've upgraded to the Mac. Apple is a part of my life and its products have allowed me to do things I would have never thought possible.

One of the reasons I able to start my first business (an automotive-related mail-order company in the early 1990s) and keep it going for over 10 years was because we used Apple computers exclusively. They just worked. I didn't need an IT department. I was able to make our catalogs and e-commerce web site myself. We had our whole order-entry, customer database, and accounting system in-house using off-the-shelf solutions on a networked system of Macs. I was an early adopter of desktop publishing and digital photography because with an Apple computer, I never thought that I couldn't do it. Everything seemed doable and attainable with this tool called a Macintosh.

Just this year, I retired the last computer I had left after we closed that business in 2003, a 1999 "Sawtooth" G4. It served me for an astonishing 11 years! I still have three Macs though, the newest one a first-gen MacBook Pro. Apple computers were always more expensive to buy up front, but their value and total cost of ownership couldn't be beat and they just keep running and running long after their PC contemporaries have given out.

Today I publish niche-market books and magazines, something I would have never attempted without a Mac. My creative abilities have been allowed to realize their potential thanks to Apple computers. The easy and intuitive access to the Internet provided by my Mac has also helped compensate for some of my health-related problems, namely by allowing me to instantly access information that I would normally not be able to recall with the poor memory I have as a result of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. That's not to mention finding answers to some of my medical problems when the medical industry failed to do the same.

If it wasn't for Steve Jobs' vision, none of this would have happened, because I wouldn't have given the personal computer the time of day if it wasn't presented to me in the form of a Mac.

I will miss him. He was one-of-a-kind. I hope Apple survives and thrives in his absence. Steve's vision literally changed our world.

... of vegetarianism.

Okay, slight exaggeration, but only fair given the stuff the vegetarians spread about Atkins.  Apparently Jobs was vegetarian at some times in his life, and pescetarian at other times.

He died of islet cell carcinoma; the islet cells are the cells in the pancreas that produce insulin, ghrelin, and other diet related hormones, and are overworked in low fat diets.  This particular form of cancer is more survivable than most pancreatic cancer, and Jobs' survival time after diagnosis was about the average.

Before getting surgery, he tried an "alternative diet" for treatment:

http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/02/news/companies/elkind_jobs.fortune/index.htm

Apparently the alternative diet was supervised by vegetarian guru Dean Ornish:

http://www.cultofmac.com/2709/steve-jobs-treated-his-cancer-at-veggie-restaurant/

Just figured I'd provide this as I'm sure the vegetarians will be talking about how Jobs survived "pancreatic cancer" for six years rather than the average - for non-islet cell pancreatic cancer - of six months.  That average isn't for the kind of cancer he had.

If he had gone to me in the first place, a RAW Paleo Diet plus a couple of detoxes would have saved him in a month.

Vegetarians are losers... detox only and no rebuilding.

Raw red meat and raw animal fat and raw clams and raw liver would have rebuilt his liver and his body.

http://www.myhealthblog.org/2011/03/20/is-there-a-cure-for-cancer-yes-everyone-can-do-this/

Hey, JayJay, I like the command prompt!

Actually, I'm a big Macintosh fan and have used them for a couple of decades.  However, I was just as big a fan while Sculley and Spindler were in charge and Jobs was not part of the company.  And while "just works" is nice, "works for a long time" is also something I'm a fan of, and that Apple tradition can be attributed more to Wozniak than to Jobs.  In fact, how long Apple computers last has been going steadily downhill since Jobs joined - my wife has had two macs give out after only 3 years each.  Apple is also pretty bad in the backwards compatibility department now - under Spindler, they did a great job making sure Motorola software would still work on the newer PowerPC machines, which continued to be the case for a decade, whereas under Jobs, PowerPC software became obsolete only a few years after their switch to Intel chips.

I hate the command prompt but I agree with you that the computers that Apple produced during the Sculley and Spindler eras were bullet proof. They were ugly as sin but they were tough as nails. My entire business ran on a network of beige PowerPCs (mostly 7200s). One computer I had in my business was one of those Power Computing Mac clones. It was basically a 7200 inside but man, what a piece of junk. It was built just like all the PCs of the time and was so un-Mac like underneath that I was shocked the first time I cracked open the case. What a difference in elegance of internal design between the sleek 7200 and the bulky Power Computing clone. But, the clone was much easier to work on and find parts for. A harbinger of things to come, no doubt.

I think a lot of the change when Jobs came back was a necessity and I'm not sure it was all bad even though I agree that the computers themselves became less reliable. But we did gain some things, such as beautiful machines that epitomized the finest in industrial design and ergonomics. Apple computers went from being bland, to being beautiful, which was key in making them appeal to a broader consumer base, which in turn, brought the company back from near death. For all Apple users, that was a good thing.

Plus, the newer machines (from about the G4 on) started using a lot more "industry standard" components. These were cheaper than all the proprietary parts Apple had historically used, which kept prices down, but they were also junk compared to the way Apple used to do it. Still, many of the parts are easier to buy and replace today than they were 20 years ago. It's a trade-off. Frankly, I think the push in the industry to produce components using "green" manufacturing also diminished a lot of the component quality. That would have happened regardless.

At the end of the day though, the Macs I have today are still WAY more reliable than any PCs of the same generation. My wife and many of my friends use Windoze PCs and I just sit back and chuckle at all the hardware and software issues they are constantly battling with. All the while, I merrily pluck away at my sleek, thin, aluminum keyboard, while the graphics on my beautiful Apple Cinema Displays look as thought they want to pop right off the screen. And the computers just keep working and working and rarely pause for maintenance. And even when they do, I get ample warning, and always figure out what is wrong easily enough to fix it myself. Since I started using a Mac in 1985, I have never, not even once, had to call Apple for technical support of any kind.

So yeah, the machines from Apple today aren't as robust as they were in the beige days, but the advantages of these modern machines outweigh the disadvantages IMHO. And at the end of the day they are still WAY better than most PCs.

So yeah.  Apple is great.  Jobs deserves some of the credit, but he also gets some credit that should really belong to others.

No doubt that a lot of people get credit for putting Apple where it is today, not the least of which were the brilliant minds at Xerox PARC. Jobs didn't create much of anything. He just had that brilliant vision that allowed him to figure out how to refine and package certain technologies to make them appeal to regular people. Woz was the "hardware guy" and built things to fit Jobs' vision. He was brilliant at that too. But at the end of the day it was Jobs that figured out how to bridge the gap between hobby computing and evolving computers into the consumer appliances that they are today.

And as for the command line, that's one of the things Jobs added that I do like!

I'm just glad I don't have to look at it. There is nothing I have ever needed to do that required me to launch Terminal and use the command prompt. For that I am grateful. I don't ever want to see it. 

Dedicated to Steve Jobs:

Steve Jobs Died: Former Apple CEO Died From Both Vegetarian and Medical Cancer Treatments?

...

http://www.curemanual.com/2011/10/steve-jobs-died-former-apple-ceo-died-from-both-vegetarian-and-medical-cancer-treatments/

Even though I could agree with the science, the way you wrote that trips my BS (bad science) meter. Could you try writing more about the nature of the disease he got and how Raw Paleo would work? What about writing about your penniless cancer patient? I'd really like to see more testimonials of how this diet reverses disease.

Not picking on you, just offering constructive criticism to help you with your writing.

At the end of the day though, the Macs I have today are still WAY more reliable than any PCs of the same generation.

I'm a Linux user myself, and in my case, Windows users are blown away over and over when I walk up to a "dead" PC, plug in my USB drive, recover files, and then convert the PC into a Xubuntu workstation that will reliably run until the hardware dies. Right now about half of my lab's computers are old Dells and HP machines that died under Windows bloatware (the HP box was slow as anything right out of the box!). I just walk up, throw Xubuntu on them, and they're good to go for another 5 years!

The only unfortunate thing is that very few manufacturers write drivers for Linux systems, but Linux forums are a very effective form of tech support and the tools I need are sudo apt-gettable. It's a nice learning experience, and hey, all cool kids use the command line!

My understanding is that Apple and Linux are both *nix based, so I can understand why it's also as stable as Linux. Apple just beats us out with trendy hardware

Biographer: Jobs regretted refusing early and potentially life-saving surgery.

(CBS News)  Apple CEO Steve Jobs refused to allow surgeons to perform what could have been life-saving surgery on his pancreatic cancer, says his biographer Walter Isaacson. In one of his deepest discussions with him, Isaacson says Jobs told him he regretted his decision to try alternative therapies and said he put off the operation because it was too invasive.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/10/20/60minutes/main20123269.shtml

There are altruistic people still left in this world.

I teach the principles of cancer cure at http://curemanual.com

TRUTH will always trip the BS meter of those still in the medical paradigm.  But my tip to you is to save this page or print it.  The medical system is all BS when it comes to cancer.  Hey, it's profitable.  Invest in the cancer drug manufacturers' stocks.

Then you study my website, then you study the raw paleo diet forum see who is BSing who.

Altruism? You claim to be able to cure cancer yet work in IT? Immediately any claims you make of altruism are thrown to the floor.