Day: May 10, 2022

IBM Cloud tip: take advantage of free IBM cloud products, including the IBM Kubernetes Service

IBM has numerous free products in its Cloud Service, and you can find them, here.

One I recommend especially is the Kubernetes Service. You can create a free cluster and learn a lot about both IBM Cloud and Kubernetes by using this.

If you aren’t sure where to start, I put together a github repo to help you get started. It gives you all the information you need, so you can go from a simple web page or node.js app on your own machine to having it up and running on the IBM Kubernetes service. You can find it here: blm849/networkcontainertesting: a simple way to test connectivity in and out of a container.

It’s up to date as of May, 2022. While there are plenty of tutorials out there, you may want to see if they are up to date. For example, some features may be deprecated.

Drop me a comment if you have any feedback. Good luck!

The end of an era: the iPod Touch is being discontinued. Here’s why you still might want one.

I’ve been a fan of the iPod Touch since I wrote this in 2008: Why I love my iPod touch. It was a great device then, and 14 years later it is still great. Which is why I am sad to hear it is being discontinued, according to AppleInsider and others.

However, there are several reasons y0u still might want to buy one. At the time I first bought mine, I was locked into using my Blackberry device, but I wanted to experience what Apple devices could provide. If you have an Android phone, you can still get that experience today.  You can have the best of both worlds: an Android device for some things and an Apple device for others.

If you are a parent, you likely have experienced your kids wanting to use your phone to play games, etc. With the Touch, you can give them that to use instead. Much cheaper than an iPad.

If you want to cut the cord — somewhat — on your technology use, a Touch can help you. You can take it with you on outings and from time to time connect to a wireless signal to check on things, but the lack of a cell phone signal means you are much less tethered than normal.

The iPod Touch is still a great device. Get one new, while you still can.

On why Jony Ive left Apple

Jony Ive did not leave Apple because of the ‘Accountants’, or at least that’s not the only reason, despite what this The New York Times piece says. I think that’s one of the reasons, sure. After Steve Jobs died, I am sure Ive felt less important. Plus he already had made a significant difference and he made a lot of money.

I believe one of the other reasons was simply because he and Apple have designed themselves into a minimalist corner. Jony Ive’s career rose on the design of the machine that saved Apple…this:

Since then the Apple computers have gone from that to this:

It’s a great computer,  but very little in the way of physical changes year over year. The engineers still get to do a lot, but there’s very little for Ive and the design team to do there.

Sure he got to design some of the higher end devices, like this:

But the Macbooks and the iMacs are very simple now. (Never mind the iPhone.) They are all wonderful engineered and fantastic minimal designs. But that’s the point: they are minimal to an extreme. And that, I believe, is one of the main reasons that Ive left.

The book that inspired that article is supposed to be really good. Apple fans, get a copy if you can.