Well wishes for Steve and free Stanford education.

Now, you all (who ever happens to stumble upon this) may know I'm a long time fan of Apple. Wait, did I say fan? I meant hater. But any way, that's beside the point. Read the news yesterday and leu and behold, Steve Jobs has resigned as CEO of Apple. :D

I had some other stuff here, but after watching the video above, i can do nothing but respect this man. I'm touched by it and can't think of much else to say on it.
I am saddened by the news of his stepping down. He is a brilliant inventor and marketing genius. As much as I've bashed Apple in the past they aren't bad... they just aren't much better than the rest... I would rank them about the same, but still Macs sell for 100s even up to $1000 more than comparable PCs. And there's the bottom line, I've never hated Mac because they were bad, they aren't. They're just over priced, and here's the man who mad that happen. I coin the "Prince of Marketing" (<~not being sarcastic there). He'll still be holding a position on the board, but with his still ongoing medical leave since January leave ( i wish him all the best), we'll see how thing will go. Good luck Mr. Cook (new CEO).

I'll put the Stanford stuff in another post.

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Free Stanford education

Something hit my eyes the other day and I couldn't tell whether to believe it or not. A story that Stanford University is going to be running free online classes. Now, according to the information you wouldn't get an actual grade (this is reserved for regular paying students) but you would get a Certification of Completion. Further investigation found this (Stanford Engineering Everywhere) on Stanfords website.....so....it's legit then.
Now, there's already thousands of people signed up... as you would expect.... but i don't expect half of that to actually take part, and even less to finish. The classes are run assuming you don't have too much prior knowledge about the field so don't be alarmed if you haven't taken any advanced courses before. Doubt the Cert of Completion will get you a job on it's own, but it sure a hell couldn't hurt. If you want to check out the classes and sign up the links are below.

Introduction to Databases
Introduction to Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning

Looking at some other free courses offered by big name schools. Will post more later....

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iPhone vs Android vs Windows Phone

If your a sucker for the glitter of commercialism then there's only one choice for you when you go to buy a smartphone, so go buy your iPhone and get out of my sight. I'm not even going to get into that one.

Now, for those who have a bit of common sense the choice is a little harder. Recently i've been wanting to go towards HTC Android phones (or maybe Motorola's Android phones), i think this is mostly just the techie in me trying to get out though because beside the hype Android isn't much better than the iPhone. It's certainly not worse than the iPhone and it has more features, but it's slow to respond touchscreen and poor user interface turned me off the minute i actually touched one.

This brings me to the third choice and, in my opinion, the best one. Now i know there are people out there who hate the Windows Phone, but lets be honest, the one's talking the loudest are the Apple fanboys who've never even touched the Windows phone to have a legitimate opinion of it.

My company recently switched to Windows Phones for company phones (the HTC HD7 is the one i got a hold of) and i absolutely loved it. The touchscreen felt immediate to the touch, unlike any Android phones i've used, the interface is simply, well laid out and easy to use (you don't need to be a windows user to understand it). I felt like i could just pick it up and get straight to work without having to scratch my head or turn to the internet to figure things out, or maybe i've just gotten too use to the minefield that is the Blackberry interface. Either way i love the Windows phone and it wins the bid for the smartphone i'm gonna get next

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