Development release galore, openSUSE updates, Daniel Robbins on Gentoo's Portage, DragonFly BSD interview

For those of you who enjoy testing development releases and filing bug reports, last week provided one of the biggest feasts on record. The first betas of openSUSE 10.3 and Mandriva Linux 2008, the first test build of Fedora 8 and the fourth alpha of Ubuntu 7.10, all these in a matter of just a couple of days - it rarely gets any better than this! On top of it, the developers of MEPIS Linux announced a new test release of their live DVD, complete with the first beta of KDE 4, while the upcoming initial beta of GNOME 2.20, scheduled for release this Wednesday and likely to be incorporated into this week's development release of Foresight Linux, will ensure that a steady string of test releases continues in the foreseeable future. Although it's still August, a month traditionally reserved for holidays in many parts of the world, it looks like the development of Linux and open source software continues at a neck-breaking speed.

Despite all this excitement, there is one worrying trend that I've been observing in recent years. With each passing year, it seems that fewer and fewer Linux users are interested in downloading and testing any development releases of distributions. Looking back at the late nineties and the early years of this century, each beta release of a major distro was accompanied by tremendous anticipation and followed by endless discussions on user forums and mailing lists. Nowadays, however, that sort of healthy exchange of ideas and suggestions is largely limited to just a few loyal users. The rest of us seem to be quite content to wait for the final release before downloading and installing the new product.

So here is a topic for this week's discussion: did you download and install any of the above-mentioned development releases during the past week? If so, did you do it merely out of curiosity or did you put it through rigorous testing in order to file bug reports? Have you ever opened a Bugzilla account at your favourite project? If not, why not? Is this a case of "too many releases, too little time"? Please discuss below.

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Of all the main distributions, openSUSE seems to be the busiest at the moment. Following the first beta release of openSUSE 10.3, the project's developers have announced the availability of an improved software search and installation interface, as well as a one-click installation YaST module: "The interface provides a very easy installation featuring the 1-Click Installation YaST module of Benjamin Weber. This means the installation of any package can be started by a single click. YaST will show which repositories are used and which packages will be installed; the dependency solving is also all done automatically by YaST. There is no need to do these steps manually anymore." Also announced late last week: a set of openSUSE 10.3 live CDs, with either GNOME or KDE. Although still in early testing and lacking the ability to be installed on a hard disk (correction: a new "LiveInstaller" module is available in the "Miscellaneous" section of YaST; type "linux" for root password), the new live media are a welcome addition to the growing list of openSUSE products for a variety of purposes.

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Another week and another link to an article at Funtoo, a blog maintained by the founder and former chief architect of Gentoo Linux, Daniel Robbins. This time it's all about Portage (the venerable Gentoo package manager) and its increasingly sluggish performance: "One challenge that Portage is facing is that it is essentially trying to achieve several divergent goals - be a ports system for a meta-distribution and also provide a good and safe user experience for Gentoo users. In some cases, Portage can't really do a good job in both areas at the same time. Here's why. As a meta-distribution, Gentoo can have very complex dependency chains. However, as a user-focused distribution, you kind of want the dependency chains in Gentoo to be as straightforward and elegant as possible, without any weird conflicts - in other words, have developers do a lot of the heavy lifting to make dependencies less-fine grained and eliminate strange corner cases and blockers. Yet this hard work impacts the ability of Gentoo developers to keep the Portage tree up-to-date." The story was prompted by the author's tests revealing that an older version of Portage performed better than a more recent one and that the Beagle search engine was partly responsible for the application's sluggishness on the latest release of Sabayon Linux. Read more in this report.

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KernelTrap has published an interview with Matthew Dillon, the founder of DragonFly BSD: "Matthew Dillon created DragonFly BSD in June of 2003 as a fork of the FreeBSD 4.8 code base. In this interview, Matthew discusses his incentive for starting a new BSD project and briefly compares DragonFly to FreeBSD and the other BSD projects. He goes on to discuss the new features in today's DragonFly 1.10 release. He also offers an in-depth explanation of the project's cluster goals, including a thorough description of his ambitious new clustering file system. Finally, he reflects back on some of his earlier experiences with FreeBSD and Linux, and explains the importance of the BSD license." A recommended read to anybody interested in the BSD family of operating systems or to those who wonder about the differences between the BSD license and the General Public Licence (GPL).

Via (Distrowatch.)

It's Official: Appleworks Is Dead

AppleWorks' last breath was masked by last week's iMac, iLife and iWork announcements - Apple has discontinued the product.

Apple told resellers of the demise of AppleWorks last week, announcing that the software had reached "End of Life" status. It will no longer be sold. The AppleWorks website now directs users to the iWork section of Apple's website.

The original AppleWorks was written by Robert Lissner and released in 1984 by Apple for the Apple II family of computers, and at one point was the biggest-selling software package in the industry.

The modern incarnation of AppleWorks started life as ClarisWorks, written by Bob Hearn and Scott Holdaway.

At one time, AppleWorks was bundled with all consumer level Macs sold by Apple. It reached version 6.0, where it languished since the late nineties.

Joybubbles, Phone Phreaker Who Inspired Woz, Passes Away

Image from Telephone Tribute

With Apple on top of the market, it can be easy to forget that Steves Jobs and Wozniak first collaborated on an illegal project, making blue boxes to place illegal long-distance phone calls — phone phreaking. One of their biggest inspirations, according to Woz’s autobiography, “iWoz,” was Joe Engressia, who legally changed his name to Joybubbles.

A student at the University of South Florida in the late 1960s, he was given the nickname “Whistler” due to his ability to place free long-distance phone calls with his whistle. He was disciplined by the University early on, but after graduating his studies in philosophy and moving to Tennessee, law enforcement raided his house; he was charged with malicious mischief and given a suspended sentence and quickly abandoned phreaking, although was able to whistle 2600 hertz throughout his life.

Joybubbles lived a tragic life, as you can read in his Wikipedia entry. Still he had a profound impact on the early days of Apple. This Esquire story, featuring Captain Crunch and Joybubbles, changed consumer electronics history by inspiring the Steves. Rest in peace.

Via (Boingboing)

Linux Command-Line Cheat Sheet

Moving Around the Filesystem

Commands for moving around the filesystem include the following.

• pwd: The pwd command allows you to know the directory in which you're located (pwd stands for "print working directory"). For example, pwd in the desktop directory will show ~/Desktop. Note that the GNOME terminal also displays this information in the title bar of its window.
• cd: The cd command allows you to change directories. When you open a terminal, you will be in your home directory. To move around the filesystem, use cd.
  • To navigate to your desktop directory, use cd ~/Desktop
  • To navigate into the root directory, use cd /
  • To navigate to your home directory, use cd
  • To navigate up one directory level, use cd ..
  • To navigate to the previous directory (or back), use cd -
  • To navigate through multiple levels of directories at once, use cd /var/www, for example, which will take you directly to the /www subdirectory of /var.

Manipulating Files and Folders

You can manipulate files and folders by using the following commands.

• cp: The cp command makes a copy of a file for you. For example, cp file foo makes an exact copy of the file whose name you entered and names the copy foo, but the first file will still exist with its original name. After you use mv, the original file no longer exists, but after you use cp, that file stays and a new copy is made.


• mv: The mv command moves a file to a different location or renames a file. Examples are as follows: mv file foo renames the original file to foo. mv foo ~/Desktop moves the file foo to your desktop directory but does not rename it. You must specify a new filename to rename a file.


• To save on typing, you can substitute ~ in place of the home directory.
  Note: If you are using mv with sudo, you will not be able to use the ~ shortcut. Instead, you will have to use the full pathnames to your files.


• rm: Use this command to remove or delete a file in your directory. It does not work on directories that contain files.


• ls: The ls command shows you the files in your current directory. Used with certain options, it lets you see file sizes, when files where created, and file permissions. For example, ls ~ shows you the files that are in your home directory.


• mkdir: The mkdir command allows you to create directories. For example, mkdir music creates a music directory.


• chmod: The chmod command changes the permissions on the files listed.
  Permissions are based on a fairly simple model. You can set permissions for user, group, and world, and you can set whether each can read, write, and/or execute the file. For example, if a file had permission to allow everybody to read but only the user could write, the permissions would read rwxr--r--. To add or remove a permission, you append a + or a - in front of the specific permission. For example, to add the capability for the group to edit in the previous example, you could type chmod g+x file.


• chown: The chown command allows the user to change the user and group ownerships of a file. For example, chown jim file changes the ownership of the file to Jim.

System Information Commands

System information commands include the following.

• df: The df command displays filesystem disk space usage for all partitions. The command df-h is probably the most useful. It uses megabytes (M) and gigabytes (G) instead of blocks to report. (-h means "human-readable.")


• free: The free command displays the amount of free and used memory in the system. For example, free -m gives the information using megabytes, which is probably most useful for current computers.


• top: The top command displays information on your Linux system, running processes, and system resources, including the CPU, RAM, swap usage, and total number of tasks being run. To exit top, press Q.


• uname -a: The uname command with the -a option prints all system information, including machine name, kernel name, version, and a few other details. This command is most useful for checking which kernel you're using.


• lsb_release -a: The lsb_release command with the -a option prints version information for the Linux release you're running. For example:
  user@computer:~$ lsb_release -a
  LSB Version: n/a
  Distributor ID: Ubuntu
  Description: Ubuntu (The Breezy Badger Release)
  Release:
  Codename: breezy


• ifconfig: This reports on your system's network interfaces.


• iwconfig: The iwconfig command shows you any wireless network adapters and the wireless-specific information from them, such as speed and network connected.


• ps: The ps command allows you to view all the processes running on the machine.

The following commands list the hardware on your computer, either of a specific type or with a specific method. They are most useful for debugging when a piece of hardware does not function correctly.

• lspci: The lspci command lists all PCI buses and devices connected to them. This commonly includes network cards and sound cards.


• lsusb: The lsusb command lists all USB buses and any connected USB devices, such as printers and thumb drives.


• lshal: The lshal command lists all devices the hardware abstraction layer (HAL) knows about, which should be most hardware on your system.


• lshw: The lshw command lists hardware on your system, including maker, type, and where it is connected.

Searching and Editing Text Files

Search and edit text files by using the following commands.

• grep: The grep command allows you to search inside a number of files for a particular search pattern and then print matching lines. For example, grep blah file will search for the text "blah" in the file and then print any matching lines.


• sed: The sed (or Stream EDitor) command allows search and replace of a particular string in a file. For example, if you want to find the string "cat" and replace it with "dog" in a file named pets, type
  sed s/cat/dog/g pets.

Both grep and sed are extremely powerful programs. There are many excellent tutorials available on using them, but here are a few good Web sites to get you started:

• www.panix.com/~elflord/unix/grep.html


• www.itworld.com/Comp/2378/swol-1199-unix101/

Three other commands are useful for dealing with text.

• cat: The cat command, short for concatenate, is useful for viewing and adding to text files. The simple command cat FILENAME displays the contents of the file. Using cat FILENAME file adds the contents of the first file to the second.


• nano: Nano is a simple text editor for the command line. To open a file, use nano filename. Commands listed at the bottom of the screen are accessed via pressing Ctrl followed by the letter.


• less: The less command is used for viewing text files as well as standard output. A common usage is to pipe another command through less to be able to see all the output, such as ls | less.

Dealing with Users and Groups

You can use the following commands to administer users and groups.

• adduser: The adduser command creates a new user. To create a new user, simply type sudo adduser $loginname. This creates the user's home directory and default group. It prompts for a user password and then further details about the user.


• passwd: The passwd command changes the user's password. If run by a regular user, it will change his or her password. If run using sudo, it can change any user's password. For example, sudo passwd joe changes Joe's password.


• who: The who command tells you who is currently logged into the machine.


• addgroup: The addgroup command adds a new group. To create a new group, type sudo addgroup $groupname.


• deluser: The deluser command removes a user from the system. To remove the user's files and home directory, you need to add the
  -remove-home option.


• delgroup: The delgroup command removes a group from the system. You cannot remove a group that is the primary group of any users.

Getting Help on the Command Line

This section provides you with some tips for getting help on the command line. The commands --help and man are the two most important tools at the command line.
Virtually all commands understand the -h (or --help) option, which produces a short usage description of the command and its options, then exits back to the command prompt. Try man -h or man --help to see this in action.
Every command and nearly every application in Linux has a man (manual) file, so finding such a file is as simple as typing man command to bring up a longer manual entry for the specified command. For example, man mv brings up the mv (move) manual.
Some helpful tips for using the man command include the following.

• Arrow keys: Move up and down the man file by using the arrow keys.


• q: Quit back to the command prompt by typing q.


• man man: man man brings up the manual entry for the man command, which is a good place to start!


• man intro: man intro is especially useful. It displays the Introduction to User Commands, which is a well-written, fairly brief introduction to the Linux command line.

There are also info pages, which are generally more in-depth than man pages. Try info info for the introduction to info pages.

Searching for Man Files

If you aren't sure which command or application you need to use, you can try searching the man files.

• man -k foo: This searches the man files for "foo". Try man -k nautilus to see how this works.
  Note: man -k foo is the same as the apropos command.


• man -f foo: This searches only the titles of your system's man files. Try man -f gnome, for example.
  Note: man -f foo is the same as the whatis command.

Using Wildcards

Sometimes you need to look at or use multiple files at the same time. For instance, you might want to delete all .rar files or move all .odt files to another directory. Thankfully, you can use a series of wildcards to accomplish such tasks.

• * matches any number of characters. For example, *.rar matches any file with the ending .rar.


• ? matches any single character. For example, ?.rar matches a.rar but not ab.rar.


• [characters] matches any of the characters within the brackets. For example, [ab].rar matches a.rar and b.rar but not c.rar.


• [!characters] matches any characters that are not listed. For example, [!ab].rar matches c.rar but not a.rar or b.rar.

Executing Multiple Commands

Often you may want to execute several commands together, either by running one after another or by passing output from one to another.
Running Sequentially
If you need to execute multiple commands in sequence but don't need to pass output between them, there are two options based on whether or not you want the subsequent commands to run only if the previous commands succeed or not. If you want the commands to run one after the other regardless of whether or not preceding commands succeed, place a ; between the commands. For example, if you want to get information about your hardware, you could run lspci ; lsusb, which would output information on your PCI buses and USB devices in sequence.
However, if you need to conditionally run the commands based on whether the previous command has succeeded, insert && between commands. An example of this is building a program from source, which is traditionally done with ./configure, make, and make install. The commands make and make install require that the previous commands have completed successfully, so you would use ./configure && make && make install.

Passing Output
If you need to pass the output of one command so that it goes to the input of the next, after the character used between the commands, you need something called a pipe, which looks like a vertical bar or pipe (|).
To use the pipe, insert the | between each command. For example, using the | in the command ls | less allows you to view the contents of the ls more easily.

Moving to More Advanced Uses of the Command Line

There are a great number of good books out there for working the command line. In addition, because most of the command line has not changed in many years, a large body of information is available on the Internet. If you need help with something, often simply searching for the command will turn up what you need.
To get you started, here are some recommendations.

• A Practical Guide to Linux Commands, Editors and Shell Programming by Mark G. Sobell (Prentice Hall, 2005) is a good book for any user of the shell in Linux to have on his or her bookshelf.


• LinuxCommand.org is an excellent Web site designed to help people new to using the command line.


• The Linux Documentation Project is an excellent and free resource for many things Linux.

The 10 Commandments for New Linux Users

1. Thou shalt not log in as root.
   Use “sudo” or “su -” for administrative tasks.
2. Thou shalt use the package manager when possible.
   Sometimes installing from source code can’t be avoided, but when you use your distro’s package manager to install software, you can also use it to update and remove it. This is one of the main strengths of Linux.
3. Thou shalt be a part of the community.
   Freely give what you have received for free. Offer help and advice whenever you can.
4. Thou shalt read documentation and man pages.
   Always read the documentation. The people who wrote the software tried to anticipate your questions, and provided answers before you asked.
5. Thou shalt use the available support system.
   Switching to Linux can be tough. It can be frustrating, but there are a lot of people out there who want to help you. Let them.
6. Thou shalt search.
   In most cases, your question or problem has already been addressed. Try to find the answers that are already out there before asking someone to provide a new one.
   
7. Thou shalt explore.
   Linux opens a whole new world of options and possibilities. Try everything you can.
8. Thou shalt use the command line.
   Especially when it comes to configuration, use the GUI tools to get your system working, but get to know the command line versions as well. In many cases, the command line is the only way to use some of the more advanced features.
9. Thou shalt not try to recreate Windows.
   Linux is not meant to be a clone of Windows. It’s different. Embrace and appreciate the differences.
   
10. Thou shalt not give up.
    I tried several distributions before I found one I liked. I still try other distros from time to time. I also tried several different programs to serve one purpose before settling on what I use now (amarok, xmms, beep, exaile for music - azureus, ktorrent, deluge for bittorrents). If you don’t like the defaults, remember that you can change almost everything to suit you.

First Native iPhone Game “Lights Off” Released

And we’re off to the races. Despite Apple’s interest in restricting iPhone development to themselves and trusted third-parties like Google, clever programmers have delivered native software for the device — including an addictive-looking game called “Lights Off,” released today by Delicious Monster.

It’s a standard puzzle-game — tap the buttons to turn out all the lights in the 5×5 grid — but the presentation is very slick, and the iPhone interface alone makes it more compelling than it would be on OS X for Mac.

As with all unsupported iPhone software, it takes some warranty-voiding mojo to make “Lights Off” install, but the app’s creators, Lucas Newman and Adam Betts, helpfully include full instructions:

Installing third-party applications on your iPhone is not for the faint of heart. For more in depth instructions on iPhone modifications, look at the iPhone Dev Wiki.

1. Download iActivator and use it to “perform jailbreak” on your iPhone to allow access to the entire filesystem, which is necessary to upload applications.

2. Use iPHUC to upload Lights Off.app to the Applications folder on your iPhone.

3. Install SSH (or the alternate version) on your iPhone, and run the command: chmod +x “/Applications/Lights Off.app/LightsOff”

Not for the faint of heart, as you can see. But still: Blinking lights! Blinking lights and the satisfaction of walking on forbidden ground!

Via (Daring Fireball)

Intel Sticker Question Story Finally Runs

Following the brief Apple Event last week where Steve Jobs rolled out new iMacs, iLife and iWork, the entire executive committee took a rare press conference. Though the attendant press peppered Steve and co. with good questions, one stood out for its ineptitude. Bob Keefe of Cox Newspapers, asked Apple why Macs don’t carry the “Intel Inside” stickers. No, really.

Steve, of course, replied that Apple likes its own stickers better, which is the best possible answer, given the circumstances. MacWorld has the full audio of the question and the half-laughed response to Keefe. It’s definitely worth it just for the reception of Steve’s answer.

And now we’ve seen where Keefe was going with his line of questioning. He wrote a trend story, published yesterday, that tried to link Apple’s disinterest in Intel Inside to an overall decline in the program. Which, to be frank, is really reaching. Especially since one of his pieces of evidence is that AMD chips are popular now and that Dell and HP have ad campaigns that aren’t solely focused on the use of Intel chips. Not to mention that Dell and HP are both moving in a strategic design direction that emphasizes their brands, not those of their suppliers.

Still, it does say something about how far outside the realm of typical business reporters Apple’s strategies are that people still might not understand the whole notion of a nice, clean design after all this time. And really, the question is barely different from asking, “Why isn’t the battery on the iPhone user-replaceable?” or “Why can’t I get third-party MagSafe power adapters?” Quite simply, Apple thinks it’s better this way. More attractive, maybe easier, and certainly more controlled. Apple loves it’s partners. But let’s face it — this is all about Apple and always has been.

No outside stickers need apply.

Via (MacUser)

Leopard successfully run on non-Apple hardware

Preface: In no way do we condone or recommend trying out this hack, as it breaks the Mac OS X EULA.

Ever since Apple's transition to Intel processors, a small contingent of users has been calling for the ability to run OS X on non-Apple Intel and AMD hardware. Apple hasn't bowed to such a request just yet, and probably never will. Of course, Apple's refusal hasn't stopped some enterprising hackers from getting OS X running on non-Apple hardware, despite the fact that such use is illegal according to the EULA. Recently, hackers have taken things even further, and have been able to get Leopard running on non-Apple hardware alongside Windows Vista. It's a neat trick, but the complicated process and illegality will probably confine this hack to the most die-hard OS X-on-x86 fanatics.

Before I say any more, keep in mind that if running Tiger on non-Apple hardware is illegal, doing the same with Leopard is doubly so since Leopard hasn't been released yet. The authors of the above tutorial go to great lengths to point this out, and don't link to or even really discuss the files needed to get the hack working. And even if you were feeling frisky enough to try this at home, the process is daunting. There are 46 steps in all, comprising some illegal downloads, lots of command line work, burning, patching, and even some finger-crossing. I'm pretty comfortable with all things Terminal, but these instructions look a bit daunting even to me, so I really wouldn't recommend trying this at home.

So what good is it having instructions for running Leopard on non-Apple hardware if it's illegal? For one thing, it's an interesting proof of concept, since you can actually do it if you've got a healthy disregard for license agreements. Hacks like this are also keeping at least a modicum of pressure on Apple to consider opening up OS X, since the tools for this type of hack will get better and better. In my mind, Apple products are about more than just OS X, so it's possible Jobs could have a change of heart in the future. And then flying pigs will bring you a copy of OS X that can run on any x86 hardware you please.

Adium 1.1

The last release of Adium was about a month ago, so you might think that Adium 1.1 has been in development just that long. You might also think that ice cream is better without caramel. You'd be wrong on both counts. Adium 1.1 development started over a year ago, and the ducky fruits of that labor are now yours to enjoy :D

Adium 1.1, now available, includes one of the student projects from the Google Summer of Code 2006. That project — new, tastier tabs, using PSMTabBarControl — provides a number of benefits:

• You can arrange your tabs on any side of the message view, not just the bottom. Tabs are arranged vertically when you put them on the left or right edge of the window and horizontally when you put them on the top or bottom.
• Tabs handle overflow better by presenting a chevron (») menu, just like toolbars do.
• Tabs are now spring-loaded, so that if you drag something to a tab that isn't active, it will activate, so that you can position the thing you're dragging precisely within the inputline.
• You can have each tab display the number of unread messages, if any.
• More! Play around and find out.

Adium 1.1 brings other fresh yum besides the new tabs:

• Prettier
• Faster
• Changes in the contact list, such as people coming online and going offline, animate smoothly.
• The contact list's ability to hide like the Dock at the edge of the screen has been improved.
• A new type of AdiumXtra, the menu bar icon xtra, has been created to let you customize the appearance of Adiumy in your menu bar; you can download AdiumMenuBarIcons packs from AdiumXtras.com.
• Buzz on Yahoo! and nudge on MSN are now fully supported.
• AIM DirectConnect should be more reliable and less memory intensive; it is now automatically initiated as needed.
• You can now import accounts and chat transcripts from iChat.
• Adium now warns you if you run Adium from the disk image. This will especially benefit new Mac users who aren't accustomed to working with disk images.
• Right-to-left text is handled property on MSN.

You can read the full, extensive, exhaustive, and complete list of changes on our version history page.

Be sure to see Contributing to Adium for how you can submit patches and code, help hunt down bugs, and otherwise contribute to development. If you don't code and want to support the project, please consider donating!

Thanks as always for the continued support of our excellent site and code host NetworkRedux and our download host CacheFly!

iRed Lite Takes Apple Remote Further

Front Row is a fun, interesting technology. The Apple Remote is elegant and simple. But together, they only manage to cover digital media. There's nothing to say that the remote should be so constrained. That's the fundamental insight that lies behind iRed Lite, a currently free piece of software that briings the Apple Remote to other pieces of Mac software, including PowerPoint, QuickTime, Preview, iTunes and Keynote. Check it out. It's addictive.

iRed Lite - Apple Remote at its best

(Via Digg.)

Test drive .Mac’s new Web Gallery

For those of you who had doubts about Apple’s interest in supporting the .Mac service, it appears that they have surprised us yet again with one of the nicest Web Galleries I’ve ever seen. Heck, it’s nicer than looking at photos on my own computer.

I wonder if other photo sharing services will also upgrade their services in order to match this. In any case, I can’t way for “free” versions of this code to emerge, if they haven’t already.

(Via Apple Gazette)

Steve Jobs Commencement Speech: "Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish"

Transcript of Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Speech:

Thank you. I'm honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college and this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation.

Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories. The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first six months but then stayed around as a drop-in for another eighteen months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife, except that when I popped out, they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking, "We've got an unexpected baby boy. Do you want him?" They said, "Of course." My biological mother found out later that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would go to college.

This was the start in my life. And seventeen years later, I did go to college, but I naïvely chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and no idea of how college was going to help me figure it out, and here I was, spending all the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back, it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out, I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me and begin dropping in on the ones that looked far more interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms. I returned Coke bottles for the five-cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example.

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer was beautifully hand-calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and sans-serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me, and we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts, and since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them.

If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class and personals computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.

Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college, but it was very, very clear looking backwards 10 years later. Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards, so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something--your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever--because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well- worn path, and that will make all the difference.

My second story is about love and loss. I was lucky. I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents' garage when I was twenty. We worked hard and in ten years, Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees. We'd just released our finest creation, the Macintosh, a year earlier, and I'd just turned thirty, and then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew, we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so, things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge, and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our board of directors sided with him, and so at thirty, I was out, and very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating. I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down, that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure and I even thought about running away from the Valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me. I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I'd been rejected but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods in my life. During the next five years I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world's first computer-animated feature film, "Toy Story," and is now the most successful animation studio in the world.

In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT and I returned to Apple and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance, and Lorene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful-tasting medicine but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life's going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love, and that is as true for work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work, and the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking, and don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it, and like any great relationship it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking. Don't settle.

My third story is about death. When I was 17 I read a quote that went something like "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself, "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "no" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important thing I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life, because almost everything--all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure--these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctors' code for "prepare to die." It means to try and tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next ten years to tell them, in just a few months. It means to make sure that everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope, the doctor started crying, because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and, thankfully, I am fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept. No one wants to die, even people who want to go to Heaven don't want to die to get there, and yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new. right now, the new is you. But someday, not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it's quite true. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalogue, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late Sixties, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. it was sort of like Google in paperback form thirty-five years before Google came along. I was idealistic, overflowing with neat tools and great notions. Stewart and his team put out several issues of the The Whole Earth Catalogue, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-Seventies and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath were the words, "Stay hungry, stay foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. "Stay hungry, stay foolish." And I have always wished that for myself, and now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you. Stay hungry, stay foolish.

Thank you all, very much.

Transformers (2007) - Review

The Transformers and I go way back. Almost back to birth…but not quite. I am old enough to have been the target audience for the original line in the 80s, and I have always had a special fondness for the Transformers. I would put the 1980s film in my Top 25 films of all time. That’s how much I love the franchise.

So, it will come as no surprise to anyone reading this, that I had reservations about the Michael Bay helmed Transformers film. When he was first announced, I thought he was a perfect choice for directing a movie about giant robots.

Then I saw the flames on Optimus Prime…

You see, putting flames on Optimus Prime, to a large majority of long time Transformers’ fans, is kind of like putting John Wayne in an Elvis jumper and setting him on fire.

At the same time, my 3 year old became very interested in the Transformers (mostly from looking at the ones daddy asked for for Christmas). So, I whipped out the original Transformers cartoon show, and re-watched it from start to finish as an adult for the first time. I think that helped prepare me for the movie immensely, because the original show was much more formulaic than I remember, and not nearly as good as the 1986 animated movie.

So, when I walked into the theater tonight, my expectations were low - I mean, the trailers have never even shown us a talking Transformer…I didn’t really know what to expect, and I didn’t have high hopes of loving this movie.

Then, after roughly 837 trailers and commercials, the movie started, and what is the first thing that I hear?

Optimus Prime.

The original voice actor, Peter Cullen, has returned to the roll for this film, and hearing his voice - older, and rougher, sent a geeky chill down my spin. Michael Bay - you son of a bitch - you had me from the first line of dialogue.

The films opens with an intense action scene featuring the Decepticon Blackout, and our fighting men overseas, then we are quickly taken into the world of Sam Witwicky, played by bonafide movie star Shia LaBeouf. Here we get the ball rolling on the main human element of the film, Sam and Mikaela (played surprisingly well by the ultra-hot Megan Fox).

These two stories (the soldiers and the kids) intersect with a lot of military mumbo jumbo including the Sector Seven business. These different stories all factor into the human element of the film, and I let you watch all of that spoiler free if you’re interested in that part of the flick - but I have to tell you - if that’s what you’re going to this movie for, then you’re missing the point.

This movie is about Giant Robots whipping the hell out of each other…and it delivers.

The effects companies behind the film, have officially thrown the hammer down, and the results are unbelievable. There was not one momen…NOT ONE…in this entire movie where I thought “hey, that’s good CGI”. Everything looks so real, and is done so well, that you just believe it.

I’m telling you…you have never seen ANYTHING like Transformers.

The personalities of the Autobots are surprisingly similar to their animated counterparts, and they live and breath with a personality that makes them all the more real. I have to say, though, the human element of the film really helps sell the giant robot action. Shia never once seems like he’s talking to a blue dot on a wall. It all works.

You can tell by watching this film that you will be watching movies starring Shia LaBeouf for the next 30 years. He’s that good. There is a reason Spielberg is sold on this kid…it’s because the kid has “it”. He has a Tom Hanks level of “it”, and he makes the non robot filled scenes not only tolerable, but pretty damn good.

Are their moments that will make you groan? Yeah.

Does Optimus’ mouth move when he talks? Yeah

Should you get over that and just enjoy the hell out of this movie? YEAH.

I could sit here and pick this movie apart for an hour telling you all the things that could annoy you about it. John Turturros’ character for example (which, for those of you that don’t know was based on Michael Bay) is annoying as all hell. Anthony Anderson also got on my nerves…but none of that matters when the last 20 minutes of this movie kick into gear, and the Autobots and Decepticons go to war.

It is intense. It is epic. Awesome is literally the only word to describe it.

If you’re looking for a thought provoking, gut wrenching, tear jerker of a film - this is not your movie. Avoid it like the plague. However, if you want to see the most amazing effects in the history of cinema (and I mean that), and giant robots beating the hell out of each other…this is your film.