The original Apple Iphone photos way back in 1983

Apple may have just brought their first touchscreen phone to the market, but here is the original rendition of an Apple phone from 1983. Designed by Hartmut Esslinger—the same mind behind the Apple IIc portable computer—we don't think it was actually called an iPhone," but it sure makes a hell of a headline. Hit the jump for a bonus shot.

>

These babies would have done what iPhone is doing today but i think at that time Apple was not that major power and it had not come out with products like iMac and iPod which set the crowds roaring. Had it been launched back then it would have been either a total fiasco or something that would have made Apple another household name

How to survive digg/reddit/delicous effect

There have been multiple occasions where I am trying to read an article and the website is down. I have encountered this multiple times where people say something like: “I got around 13,000 hits and server couldn’t handle it”. There are even websites that become popular by making the content of the popular article available. One of these cases is DuggMirror, a service that mirrors Digg articles and makes them available in case the source is unavailable. If you are running a blog and you have your own server, here are a few tips to easily handle at least half a million hits per day.
Install Linux in your server. Linux runs pretty good and there are a lot of tools to support the server administration.
You will need a web server. A lot of users install Apache but I strongly suggest to use Lighttpd. Your blog will usually have images, CSS files, and Javascript files. Apache usually in general doesn’t handle static files as well as Lighttpd. Lighttpd is an event-driven web server that minimizes the blocking waiting for IO.
Your blog will need PHP and MySQL. Make sure you have those running.
Install eAccelerator- By default, every time a PHP script is accessed, the web server must compile the script then execute the compiled code. This task is not needed if the PHP script doesn’t change. What a eAccelerator does is it optimizes the scripts, compiles them, then caches them in a compiled state.
Install Wordpress - This blogging software a lot or all of the features you need. It also scales well when having a lot of traffic.
Install the WP-Cache plugin - Your requests will live in a database and every time you get a new visitor, WordPress will have to retrieve this content from the database. If you get 30,000 visitors, your blogging software will have to do the same query that many times. WP-Cache prevents by caching to disk whatever is in your database so that it can eliminate the need to query the database that many times.
Create a memory file system - WP-Cache caches its files on disk. We know that memory access is much faster than disk access. Creating a memory file system (tmpfs) and putting WP-Cache files in it, will tremendously increase the speed of retrieving cache files.
If you installed WordPress on something like /var/www/myblog and wanted to have a memory file system of 100MB you can execute the following command to mount a tmpfs file system where the cache directory resides: mount -osize=100m -t tmpfs tmpfs /var/www/myblog/wp-content/cache
You can also do this from /etc/fstab with the following line: tmpfs /var/www/myblog/wp-content/cache tmpfs defaults,size=100m 0 0

Motorola Z9 Unleashed

Motorola has been oh so sneaky with the handsets as of late, and we've hit the jackpot. Motorola's Z9 is apparently a new slider phone which bears resemblance to the RAZR 2 series. Oh, and get this — it's AT&T branded with an AT&T browser key, and even AT&T firmware. Some quick specs include 3G (which was not working on our unit), a 2 megapixel camera with flash, Motorola Synergy OS, Live Video Share, and expandable memory via microSD card. The construction is real good on this, and that's not saying much; it's an early prototype we scored from deep, deep down inside Moto HQ. The buttons are a little stiff, but again — early unit. The Motorola Z9 also takes cues from AT&T's upcoming Motorola V9 handset. If there is anything you want to know specifically about the new Motorola Z9, drop us a comment, and we'll check it out. To see more, head on over to our gallery!

Click here for entire gallery:
http://www.boygeniusreport.com.nyud.net:8080/gallery/handsets/motorola-z9/

SKREEMR:The World's Greatest Audio Search Site

SkreemR is a search engine for locating audio files on the web. We don't actually host any files--we index what exists on the publicly accessible reaches of the internet. Our goal is make this content as searchable and useable to the internet community as possible.


We don't just want you to find and experience music and audio that interests you. SkreemR wants to launch you into the internet music community. When you find something you really like, check out some suggestions of where you can buy the music and support the artists. Visit the sites that host the audio content and read what they and others are saying about the music you love. Find out facts about the artist and their songs, find concert tickets, and share your experience with your friends.


We may be the new kid on the block, but we think we have some good ideas and plan on being around for a while. We hope you enjoy our service and check back in from time to time to see what we're up to.

If an iPod costs $299, who gets that money?

Who makes the Apple iPod? Here’s a hint: It is not Apple. The company outsources the entire manufacture of the device to a number of Asian enterprises, among them Asustek, Inventec Appliances and Foxconn.

But this list of companies isn’t a satisfactory answer either: They only do final assembly. What about the 451 parts that go into the iPod? Where are they made and by whom?

Three researchers at the University of California, Irvine — Greg Linden, Kenneth L. Kraemer and Jason Dedrick — applied some investigative cost accounting to this question, using a report from Portelligent Inc. that examined all the parts that went into the iPod.

Their study, sponsored by the Sloan Foundation, offers a fascinating illustration of the complexity of the global economy, and how difficult it is to understand that complexity by using only conventional trade statistics.

The retail value of the 30-gigabyte video iPod that the authors examined was $299. The most expensive component in it was the hard drive, which was manufactured by Toshiba and costs about $73. The next most costly components were the display module (about $20), the video/multimedia processor chip ($8) and the controller chip ($5). They estimated that the final assembly, done in China, cost only about $4 a unit.

One approach to tracing supply chain geography might be to attribute the cost of each component to the country of origin of its maker. So $73 of the cost of the iPod would be attributed to Japan since Toshiba is a Japanese company, and the $13 cost of the two chips would be attributed to the United States, since the suppliers, Broadcom and PortalPlayer, are American companies, and so on.

But this method hides some of the most important details. Toshiba may be a Japanese company, but it makes most of its hard drives in the Philippines and China. So perhaps we should also allocate part of the cost of that hard drive to one of those countries. The same problem arises regarding the Broadcom chips, with most of them manufactured in Taiwan. So how can one distribute the costs of the iPod components across the countries where they are manufactured in a meaningful way?

To answer this question, let us look at the production process as a sequence of steps, each possibly performed by a different company operating in a different country. At each step, inputs like computer chips and a bare circuit board are converted into outputs like an assembled circuit board. The difference between the cost of the inputs and the value of the outputs is the “value added” at that step, which can then be attributed to the country where that value was added.

The profit margin on generic parts like nuts and bolts is very low, since these items are produced in intensely competitive industries and can be manufactured anywhere. Hence, they add little to the final value of the iPod. More specialized parts, like the hard drives and controller chips, have much higher value added.

According to the authors’ estimates, the $73 Toshiba hard drive in the iPod contains about $54 in parts and labor. So the value that Toshiba added to the hard drive was $19 plus its own direct labor costs. This $19 is attributed to Japan since Toshiba is a Japanese company.

Continuing in this way, the researchers examined the major components of the iPod and tried to calculate the value added at different stages of the production process and then assigned that value added to the country where the value was created. This isn’t an easy task, but even based on their initial examination, it is quite clear that the largest share of the value added in the iPod goes to enterprises in the United States, particularly for units sold here.

The researchers estimated that $163 of the iPod’s $299 retail value in the United States was captured by American companies and workers, breaking it down to $75 for distribution and retail costs, $80 to Apple, and $8 to various domestic component makers. Japan contributed about $26 to the value added (mostly via the Toshiba disk drive), while Korea contributed less than $1.

The unaccounted-for parts and labor costs involved in making the iPod came to about $110. The authors hope to assign those labor costs to the appropriate countries, but as the hard drive example illustrates, that’s not so easy to do.

This value added calculation illustrates the futility of summarizing such a complex manufacturing process by using conventional trade statistics. Even though Chinese workers contribute only about 1 percent of the value of the iPod, the export of a finished iPod to the United States directly contributes about $150 to our bilateral trade deficit with the Chinese.

Ultimately, there is no simple answer to who makes the iPod or where it is made. The iPod, like many other products, is made in several countries by dozens of companies, with each stage of production contributing a different amount to the final value.

The real value of the iPod doesn’t lie in its parts or even in putting those parts together. The bulk of the iPod’s value is in the conception and design of the iPod. That is why Apple gets $80 for each of these video iPods it sells, which is by far the largest piece of value added in the entire supply chain.

Those clever folks at Apple figured out how to combine 451 mostly generic parts into a valuable product. They may not make the iPod, but they created it. In the end, that’s what really matters.

Life at Google:The Microftie Perspective

The following has been making the rounds on just about every internal email list I belong to in Microsoft. Here it is to share a little insight with the rest of the world. Microsoft is an amazingly transparent company. Google is not. Any peek is a good peek.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Many of you were asking for the feedback I received from my interview with the former Google employee I hired into ABC Development as a Sr.SDE. Here it is. This candidate is also a former MS employee who left the company and founded a “Start-up” called XYZ. XYZ was purchased by Google and he was hired on as a Senior Software Engineer II / Technical Lead. Here is his take on Google’s environment as well as areas Microsoft should consider improving in order to be more competitive.



Enjoy



1. What is the culture really like? How many hours are people actually working? What are the least amount of hours you can work before you are looked down upon?



The culture at Google is very much like the old culture at Microsoft – back when the company felt like most employees were in their mid 20’s. These kids don’t have a life yet so they spend all of their time at work. Google provides nearly everything these people need from clothes (new T-shirts are placed in bins for people to grab *twice* a week!) to food – three, free, all-you-can-eat meals a day. Plus on-site health care, dental care, laundry service, gym, etc. Imagine going from college to this environment and you can see how much everyone works. People are generally in the building between 10am and about 6pm every day, but nearly everyone is on e-mail 24/7 and most people spend most of their evenings working from home.



This culture changes a bit with more experienced folks. They generally work 10a – 6pm like the new hires, and most of them are on email until around midnight. It’s pretty common for them to be working most of the evening, too.





2. 20% of your time on personal project. How many people actually get to use it? If so, how do they use it? Does Google own your personal project?



“20% is your benefit and your responsibility.”



In other words, it’s your job to carve out 20% of your work week for a project. If you don’t carve out the time, you don’t get it. Your project needs to be tacitly approved by your manager. Whatever it is, is owned by Google. If you’re organized, you can “save up” your 20% and use it all at once. It’s not unheard of for people to have months and months of “20% time” saved up.



Most people don’t actually have a 20% project. Most managers won’t remind you to start one.



3. What are the office arrangements like? Do you have an office or cube space?



Google believes that developers are, with few exceptions, interchangeable parts. This philosophy shows through in their office arrangements which in Mountain View are all over the map. There are glass-walled offices, there are open-space areas, there are cubicles, there are people who’s desks are literally in hallways because there’s no room anywhere else. There are even buildings that experiment with no pre-defined workspaces or workstations – cogs (err, people?) just take one of the available machines and desks when they get to work.



In terms of employees per square-foot, every Microsoft Building 9-sized office is a triple at Google.



Google doesn’t seem to think that private offices are valuable for technical staff. They’re wrong.



4. What is the management structure like (hierarchy)?



There are front-line developers, and then their manager. My manager had over 100 direct reports and is the common case for managers at Google. Managers quasi-own products and their employees tend to work on their projects, but not always. It’s possible for a developer on your product to actually work for a manager in research (a completely different division). This makes it really interesting at review time. Oh and conflict resolution between team members is very complex – the product’s manager isn’t involved day-to-day, probably doesn’t actually manage all of the peers who are trying to resolve a conflict, and likely hasn’t spent any time with their employees anyway.



The overall structure is:

tons (a hundred or more) of individual contributors report to

a middle manager who reports to

a division v.p. who reports to

the management team (Larry, Sergie, etc.)



5. Do they actually have plans for career development?



Not really. There is no career development plan from individual contributor to manager. Basically if you get good reviews, you get more money and a fancier title (“Senior Software Engineer II”) but that’s about it.





6. Who would you recommend Google to? Is it for the college kid or family type, worker bee or innovator?



College kids tend to like it because it’s just like college – all of their basic needs are taken care of. In fact, even most of your personal-life can get tied up in Google benefits. Google provides free or subsidized broadband to every employee. Google runs its own, private, bus lines in the Bay Area for employees. Google provides free or subsidized mobile phones. A college kid can literally join Google and, like they did as freshman at university, let Google take care of everything. Of course, if Google handles everything for you, it’s hard to think about leaving because of all the “stuff” you’ll need to transition and then manage for yourself.



Mid-timers, people who’ve worked at other places for a few years tend to be a mixed bag. For some, this is the first stability they’ve seen after a few failed startups. For others, this is the company that represents a “better” way to run a company than the company they worked at before. Either way, for these folks to succeed at Google they have to drink the cool-aid and duke it out with the college kids because Google doesn’t place any value on previous industry experience. (It puts tremendous value on degrees, especially Stanford ones).



“Old-timers” tend to like Google because they’re the ones who know to take the most advantage of the perks. These are the people who religiously take their 20% time, use as many of the services as possible, and focus on having a “peaceful” experience. They’re here to do a job, enjoy the perks, and that’s about it. They still put in a lot of hours, but the passion of the college kids isn’t there.



7. Please provide any additional information that you believe will help in our battle for talent against Google?



Make the food in the café free. If an employee eats an average of $15 of food per day (the actual average at Google which is closer to $10) it would cost Microsoft $3,750 per year per employee to offer 3 meals a day. Instead of increasing starting salaries, switch to free food. Give everyone else half the merit increases we would have gotten AND ANNOUNCE THE FREE FOOD AT THE SAME TIME. For that quoted $10 average Google provides free soda, free organic drinks (odwalla, naked juice), breakfast, lunch, and dinner (most people only eat lunch), free sport drinks (vitamin water, etc.), and free snacks (trail mixes, nuts, chips, candy, gum, cereal, granola bars).



That single benefit gets people to work earlier because hot breakfast is served only until 8:30. And since dinner isn’t served until 6:00 or 6:30 the people with a home-life tend to skip it.



Google actually pays less salary than Microsoft.



Google’s health insurance is actually not nearly as good as Microsoft’s.



Google has no facility for career growth. Microsoft has more, but could do better. Continuing Microsoft-specific education for things like project management, managing people, communication skills, etc. should be promoted. A structured career plan for each discipline would be great – e.g. training, experiences, milestones, etc. Paths like “Developer to Development Manager” “Developer to Technical Architect” which show what courses and experiences (e.g. being a mentor) are encouraged for the different paths.



Private offices for employees is a big benefit. See http://joelonsoftware.com/oldnews/pages/March2007.html. Play this up. Take a cue from Google and loosen up a little about offices. Let people call facilities and have their office painted any color they want. Have the standard office come with a guest chair and a brightly colored Microsoft branded bean-bag chair.



Google has the concept of “Tech Stops.” Each floor of each building has one. They handle all of the IT stuff for employees in the building including troubleshooting networks, machines, etc. If you’re having a problem you just walk into a Tech Stop and someone will fix it. They also have a variety of keyboards, mice, cables, etc. They’re the ones who order equipment, etc. In many ways the Tech Stop does some of what our admins do. If your laptop breaks you bring it to a Tech Stop and they fix it or give you another one (they move your data for you). If one of your test machines is old and crusty you bring it to the Tech Stop and they give you a new one. They track everything by swiping your ID when you “check out” an item. If you need more equipment than your job description allows, your manager just needs to approve the action. The Tech Stop idea is genius because:

1. You establish a relationship with your IT guy so technical problems stop being a big deal - you don’t waste a couple of hours trying to fix something before calling IT to find out it wasn’t your fault. You just drop in and say, “My network is down.”

2. Most IT problems are trivial when you’re in a room together (“oh that Ethernet cable is in the wrong port”)

3. The model of repair or replace within an hour is incredible for productivity.

4. It encourages a more flexible model for employees to define their OWN equipment needs. E.g. a “Developer” gets a workstation, a second workstation or a laptop, and a test machine. You’re free to visit the Tech Stop to swap any of the machines for any of the others in those categories. For example, I could stop by and swap my second workstation for a laptop because I’m working remotely a lot more now. In the Tech Stop system, this takes 5 minutes to walk down and tell the Tech Stop guy. If a machine is available, I get it right away. Otherwise they order it and drop it off when it arrives. In our current set up, I have to go convince my manager that I need a laptop, he needs to budget for it because it’s an additional machine, an admin has to order it, and in the end developers always end up with a growing collection of mostly useless “old” machines instead of a steady state of about 3 mostly up-to-date machines.





.

Summer Jobs to pay for school

The tiny village of Teen Dhara in Tehri district is a popular stopover enroute to the Badrinath-Kedarnath shrines in the Garhwal Himalayas.

And in the summer months, it sees a large influx of students from neighbouring villages who spend their holidays catering to the tourists and pilgrims with their kiosks selling lemonade, jal jeera and cucumber.

This isn't just any other summer job to earn a little extra pocket money. The youngsters work hard and the income earned ensures that they get to go to school another year as well as help their families.

Eighteen-year-old Suresh Rana, a Class XI student at the Government College in Bachri Khal, says: "My vacations are presently on and I am earning around Rs 100 daily. I give the money to my parents. The income indirectly helps me continue with my studies." Like Suresh, there are some 20 students who take advantage of their summer vacations in this way every year.

Sher Singh, a local travel professional, says: "More than the money they earn, the exposure they get by handling tourists is what I consider their biggest earning."

The lemonade and jal jeera sell for Rs 5 a glass and the cucumber for Rs 5 a piece. They do roaring business despite the presence of around 25 dhabas and restaurants. The kiosks have become so famous that the tourists seek them out