I’ve been buying and selling Apple stock since the late 80s, and it’s been good to me.

It feels like almost the only company I’ve purchased in the last couple of years — I bought 50 shares in February 2008 at $121, then it went up (but not quite to my sell price) and then back down again, and I bought another 50 shares at $84.  I sold today at $221.

My logic is that the current stock price already has the iPad priced in as a huge success.  Everybody’s saying they’ll sell maybe 5 million iPads this year, and 10 million next.   And it’s possible.  Apple executes well, and has long gotten over the initial market hump with hype alone.

But it’s also possible this won’t be a giant hit.  It might only be a moderate success, like the iPod Touch, or something of a dud, like the AppleTV.  I’ll leave out the possibility of an embarrassing failure.  But it is a possibility.

Also, Jim Cramer was on TV pushing Apple, always a sign that a stock has peaked.

I like stocks that have a good chance of doubling.  Apple’s great, and will grow for years, but my hunch is that there’s a good chance the stock will drop below $200 before it hits $400.

Here’s an article I wrote almost 15 years ago.  Maybe I’ll post later about how the Clan Lord karma system evolved.

http://www.mactech.com/articles/develop/issue_29/vetneo.html

It’s a really big iPhone with no camera.  Or phone. Big whoop.

That said, it looks fun. If I ever carried around a laptop, I’d be more excited about it, but I don’t.  I’m not about to give up my desktop machine, and the iPad doesn’t seem to do anything the iPhone won’t do, and the iPhone fits in my pocket.

If I were a student, it’d be pretty cool to carry around to classes and such.

Here’s a thing I wrote in 1990, and used to put in all our manuals:

Our Stand on Copy-Protection
We at Delta Tao think that copy-protection is an evil thing that could damage the growth of the software industry and the computer industry as a whole. We hope you’ll boycott all copy-protected products. Here’s why.

We believe people have a certain amount of money to spend on software. After they blow their software budget, they still want more software. If copy-protection is preeminent, they are out of luck. The software they buy is the only software they have. They find their Macintosh less useful, and don’t encourage their friends to buy one. The hardware and software industries dwindle and die.

On the other hand, if things aren’t copy-protected, people pirate software once they’ve blown their software budget. They learn what programs are good and useful first hand. The next year they will make informed decisions about what software to purchase. In the meantime, they find their computer more useful and friendly. They recommend it to their friends, who go on to become software purchasers.

There are two problems. Number one, in a world where some programs are copy-protected and others aren’t, people may buy copy-protected software (since that’s the only way they can get it) and pirate the unprotected software. This rewards the businesses who are damaging the industry, and punishes those who help it along.

Number two, publishers without copy-protection can’t sell bad software with massive advertising. Since people tend to try software before they purchase it, companies only sell their products to people who find it useful. This means companies with inferior products, but big budgets, should like copy-protection.

We don’t mind problem number two so much, but the first problem scares us. The solution: boycott copy protection. Make sure it isn’t profitable to copy-protect software.

Before the Software Publisher’s Association has us lynched (they claim that “billions of dollars of revenue are lost every year to piracy”) we’ll invent at least a little bit of evidence for our theory. Remember back when the cassette tape was invented? People could now copy records indiscriminately, and there was nothing the record company could do about it. “We’re doomed!” they shouted. “Now we’ll only sell one of each record!” What really happened? The music industry took off to previously unimaginable levels, generating more profits for more artists than ever before.

When VCRs were first available, people could copy movies indiscriminately, and there was little the movie companies could do about it. “We’re doomed!” they cried. “Now we’ll never sell another movie!” What happened? The movie industry took off to previously unimaginable levels, generating more profits for more people than ever before.

Pay for software based on its quality, not its advertising, packaging, and copy protection.

I finally got Snow Leopard installed (after some problem with my old hard drive not being GUID partitioned, whatever that means).  Not many changes, as expected, though it does feel slightly quicker overall, which is good.  Memory use doesn’t seem improved, alas.

Anyway, there’s a new Quicktime Player, version 10.  The last version was version 7, so I don’t know what the heck happened to 8 and 9.  I imagine they were afraid people would associate it with OS 8 or 9, somehow, and think things were going backwards.

Alas, things are going backwards.  At least, my favorite feature of the old Quicktime Player is gone.  I use it to watch movies, and I often used the A/V Controls window to change the playback speed, usually bumping it 10%-20% — but for a really bad movie, boosting it to double or triple speed, and generally making it more palatable.

That entire handy window, and its extensive functionality, is lost. Poo!  I suspect I’ll be dredging up an old copy of Quicktime Player and replacing the new one, because I used that feature far more than I will the new feature that allows one to trim movies.  (I use iMovie for that.)

So I ordered Snow Leopard last week.  It was (and is) listed as “in-stock,” but they now claim it’ll ship (not arrive) on September 4.  If I order now (and pay for one-day shipping), they claim they’ll have it to me on September 1.  What’s up with that?

I just ordered Snow Leopard, Mac OS X 10.6.  I haven’t been playing with betas. It’s only $25 (with free shipping and no tax) from Amazon.

I’m a little worried that folks tell me one needs to install Rosetta to run our apps.  That would mean I’m about to get tons of calls.  I’ll change the answering machine message.

Mira’s been playing with stop motion animation.

About a year ago, Mary’s iMac got a weird cyan vertical line on her screen.  Then another. One or two I could ignore, but the pace seems to be escalating, and now she’s up to 18.

I bought her that Mac in late 2006, so I knew it was well out of warranty.  I figured I’d solve it by getting an external monitor (or give her my spare), but before I did, I Googled to find out if there were easier solutions, and found the iMacLines Blog.  Turns out this problem  is common and specific to that Mac.

Called 1-800-SOS APPL. The computer operator was efficient and pleasant, and a human picked up almost immediately.

I gave the serial number and briefly described the problem, and pointed out (from this blog) that apparently there’s an extended warranty for this issue. She put me on hold to go check the internal memos. Came back after 10 minutes to have me count the lines, verify that they’re top to bottom, and confirm that power-cycling the Mac doesn’t help.

Another ten minutes on hold, and they came back to let me know that indeed they extended the warranty on this computer for this issue, and to take it in to the local Apple store for free repair.

Sweet!

One thing I like about the Mini is that it has two tiny monitor ports, and each will drive a separate 24 inch monitor.

I always tell people to spend more on their monitor than they think they should, and less on the CPU, since they’ll probably have the monitor longer.

I’ve been using an Apple 24 inch that I bought five years ago for $999 when the price dropped.  When I got the Mini, I took the opportunity to add a second 24 inch monitor — a refurbished HP ($219 including shipping from MacConnection.) I also needed an adapter to go from the mini-displayport to HDMI, and an HDMI cable, but I got those for something like $10 from buy.com.

It’s nice having two big monitors, though I tend to lose my mouse a little more than I used to, and my hotspot corners are often too far away to be as convenient as they were.

I still covet a 30 inch monitor, but it’ll probably be a few years yet.