No More Things...

It was one of those rare news stories that wakes you up with a jolt and makes off with any chance of a gentle slide into the day. It would seem it had a similar impact too on many others on blipfoto as the first check-in this morning brought up blip after blip paying respect to one of the truly unique and innovative pioneers of our times, and it's been quite touching watching them mount up over the day.

The first group of students in the Mac Lab here this morning even had a wee chat about it;

"See the guy that invented these... he's deid"

"Is he? How old was he"

"56"

"Oh. Quite auld then."

Oh to be sixteen again...

For me, all things Apple have been a major part of my life since 1990, using a pimped up 9MB RAM IIsi loaded with Photoshop 2, QuarkXpress 3 and Aldus Freehand 3 (connected to a 12" 8 bit monitor) through to teaching in this lab kitted out with the latest iMacs and Powermacs. In those intervening years I've probably spent as much time with Steve's family as I have my own.

It's fair to say where I am today has been massively influenced by the products conceived thousands of miles away in Cupertino under the single-minded leadership of Mr. Jobs (OK, I had a Motorola clone for a few years, but that was around the same time Steve had been ousted from the company and was playing around with small-fries such as Pixar. I was young and they were a lot cheaper than the same big beige boxes Apple were trying to push).

Our kids have now taken on the same enthusiasm for Apple with their Macbooks, iPhones and iPods. Apple fanboys (and girls)? Yeah, why not.

So long Steve, and thanks.

Job's done.