Friday, June 24, 2011

Sausalito Art Festival

On Labor Day Weekend come to the Sausalito Art Festival and a volunteer for a few hours to enjoy the rest of the day FREE - regularly $20.00 per person admission. It's the best way to make your weekend special. Call me 415-407-6205 for the secret free parking location and save another $20 per day ;)

My hours and work details for Sat/SunMon weekend are located below my signature line. I hope you would like to come and feel free to invite your friends. There are many, many other volunteer opportunities besides Beer Booth duty from which you can choose. See the complete listing at: volunteer@sausalitoartfestival.org


Let's make this years event the most fun ever!

Ciao,
Big Rick



(4 slots left)
Saturday, September 3, 9:30am - 12:30pm (3 hours)
You are registered for this event.

(4 slots left)
Saturday, September 3, 12:00pm - 4:00pm (4 hours)
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(2 slots left)
Sunday, September 4, 8:30am - 12:30pm (4 hours)
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(4 slots left)
Sunday, September 4, 12:00pm - 4:00pm (4 hours)
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(4 slots left)
Monday, September 5, 10:00am - 12:30pm (2.5 hours)
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(4 slots left)
Monday, September 5, 12:30pm - 3:00pm (2.5 hours)
You are registered for this event.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

"Apple cloud vs. Google cloud..." - where is the center of the universe?

from Jason Hiner (TechRepublic) blog post: 

FINAL ANALYSIS - "For Google, the Web is the center of the universe. For Apple, your device is the center of the universe". To read Jason's blog - click here


Big Rick thinks that it’s going to take more than only taking a salary of $1 per year for Steve Jobs to perpetuate a proprietary widget crusade. Apple should try to get along better with the Oracle, Adobe, and open source folks if they want to avoid acquisition. Apple must also avoid marketing alliances (like the AT&T fiasco) that make the world "jailbreak" their all-sacred devices to work on other platforms.  

At the other end of the spectrum, Google offers free stuff (Storage, Apps, Voice, etc.) in their bid to "own the web". Their benevolent market-share strategy has allowed them to kick Microsoft's Bing-butt in the US. However, Google's developers need to learn to better respect device/industry standards. Case in point, when Google steals your Mac iSight camera device name from their Video/Voice Apps, other apps cannot find the camera.
 

Google is betting that marketers will continue to fund their growth via advertising despite global market struggles. Apple is betting that brand loyalty and innovation will create demand for premium-priced devices. Both are strategies depend on the global (web) economy continuing its boon.
 

Interesting Numbers to remember:
Google employees 24,400 - hiring 6,200 more in 2011
Apple employees 46,600 - Apple staff raking in the cash - $419,528 profit per head

From Royal Pingdom link re: Apple employees data above
A couple of other observations:
  • Yahoo has exactly the same number of employees now as in 2008.
  • Microsoft has actually shrunk its operation by 2,000 employees.
  • It’s not so strange that HP’s and IBM’s profit per employee isn’t that high. There must be significant overhead running such large operations.
Big Rick's concludes that all this "center of the universe tech talk" is best summed up by Harry Truman: 
 "It’s a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it’s a depression when you lose your own."