Cookster

It is not often I write about a website but this one deserves the attention and maybe more than it gets.

Cookster, is a site that has great and loft goals of making itself the place to go for both recipes and cookbooks on the net. Once you set up an account, your page on the site is easy to customize and ad recipes, make favorites and even access books in ways that maybe you never had before.

Cookster also has a real team of foodies, both nutritional experts, dietitians and Chefs that analyze the recipes for maximum content and information being displayed to you. This is not just a recipe site. It is a true meal planning guide. And if you are  Mac or Apple gadget user, the books available from Cookster are in the Ibook store for easy access. 

I have arguably not spent enough time on this site, and need to delve even depper than what I have done thus far. Cookster is worth the visit.

The day Apple changed

August 24th 2011, Steve Jobs resigns as CEO

I had followed Apple from a distance roughly since the mid to late 90's and of course Apple had already seen great success in the 80's. When I started following Apple, they were on the downside of their glory years. Down and sliding further into obscurity every day.

Steve Jobs had returned to Apple between 96 and 97 I believe, and while I am no expert in all the details here, I thought, why after such a bitter ending would he do such a thing after being seemingly treated so poorly in the 80's during his dismissal? He had a growing successful company now in Pixar entertainment, and a new company called NEXT, that had potential however was not going anywhere fast. He had successfully moved on.

Steve Jobs love for Apple and all things Apple became clear to me in about 2000, and 2001 around the time of the first Ipods. I bought one. It was my first Apple product. It was a little clunky, and until version 2, I think did not work well or much at all with Windows, which was still my OS that I had been using for more than 11 years at that point.  Ahh the days of firewire.

There was something about that player though. Tami and I both wanted to like it, and it was great in concept and it's sound was better than anything in it's class at the time in my opinion. However it was just missing something. It also looked cool and you felt as if you had something valuable in your hands. "Value" That was the key that would eventually draw me all in.

Along came Itunes within a year or so. Within 4 more years I finally bought all in and bought my first Mac. A Mini. It was early 2005, and now a couple of ipods, in the halo effect for me had happened. Believe me when I say that Halo effect thing is real.

Today I am enjoying a really zippy super mobile 11' Macbook Air, and Lion and our household is all things Apple.

What does any of this mean? It means that in all liklihood I'd never had bought into Apple had it not been for Steve Job's vision, and tenacity for what is today the worlds most successful technology company that has come from almost certain bankruptsy in 97. In fact one of the top 5 companies in the wolrd as far as Market value only second to Exxon as of this writing.

It is nothing short of unbelieveable and not likely to be repeated in my lifetime. My hope for the man who turned that Dinosaur into a Dynasty, somehow made it through his incredibly rough health problems he has endured for many years now.  It has been painful to watch, but also another lesson. If you love what you do, nothing but death can stand in your way of getting you there.  Steve Jobs is not only there, he has far surpassed it. Unlike his leaving in the 80's, he has firmly positioned this company that clearly has his face stamped firmly on it for years to come, to have both a positive growth roadmap for the coming years without him.

That is the mark of success x10. Unlike my PC past, I feel like as a customer, there is a sustainable clean, secure and well run ecosystem here, that will continue to improve. I'm sold. But on this day and the day prior, I am a little sad but knew it would come. As Jobs steps down I look forward to the September announcements with a little angst but great hopes for this company in Cupertino. 

The Ipad just keeps getting better

Barely a year later, the Ipad is now a global sales phenomenon. While I'm still enjoying my first gen model, the 2nd gen just keeps looking better all the time, but I'm holding out to skip a Gen. That said, this version of the Ipad thats been out now since about April has been impossible to get hold of due to stocking issues, so the wait is likely to be much longer.

The use of my Ipad is also growing into some real productivity too. Oh sure I usually use it for media consumption,, book reading, news and photography, it is also becoming more of my quick communications tool too.  I can't wait for IOS 5.  That will re invigorate my ver 1.0.

May Flowers

We certainly benefit from the many rains earlier in the month. My Lillies and Snapdragons really soaked it up and look beautiful. Much like the herbs that have been benefitting. The Oregano like usual is like weeds everywhere, but the curry and Thyme is coming around too. So I have hope. I want more basil this year as do I want to see the Arugula come around.  Today was the first day in awhile I got to spend some real time in the Wilson gardens.. More of these flowers on my Smugmug homepage.

Driving into Summer

The hot days of summer are around the corner. I'm already feeling it in the humid state that is MD. In my travels that take me to DC, VA, and FLA of course it's even hotter the further south we go. We have fortunately had some great rains, that have really helped my second garden recently planted in the past couple of weeks. This years, garden more simple. In other words, if I get this one right, or most everything grows properly, I'll try and expand on it maybe next year.

Roma Tomatoes, Beefsteak tomatoes, Scallions, Chives, Lavender, Sunflowers, Basil, Fennell, Spinach, Arugula, Carrots.

I am not sure why I put the root vegetable in there, but last year, nothing came from the carrot portion of the Garden, so I have better hope this being much closer to the planting time table according to the Farmers Almanac. A great resource by the way. 

Proud of Sis

My sister recently spent more than a year ridding herself of a person I am ashamed to admit was once a close friend of mine. Unfortunately I will always carry that. She is now free to start growing and moving her life forward and I could not be more happy and proud for her. She recently has started to take on a concept that will put her into a form of nutritional consultation, that I believe may be the perfect fit for her.

She is going after it with an excitement and voracity like I have never seen before. She is finally seeming to grow again, and get out, see and spend time with old friends, and creating new opportunities. It is a breath of sunshine that I am so happy to see for her.

Mama Cocoa's Delights

A new place that I can't say enough about, read my post in Food and Restaurant reviews.

Ipad 2 and the hooks in me

So, here it is barely a year later actually 9-10 months to be more exact, and we have a second rev of the Ipad.

I use the above image, to show what many thought this device would look like about the same time in January, February of 2010. But what has happened is that this thing is quickly becoming universal, and other tech companies are struggling to really get into the fight with it. While Samsungs galaxy tab is certainly a good contender, and the new Xoom model from Motorola and of course HP, and RIM are still scratching their heads as to where to start, the Ipad keeps surging forward and with plenty of momentum.

It ships this coming Friday and I am heavily considering replacing my first IPad. It is simply a much improved communications device, with greater power for future apps and services.

It will keep Apple on the forfront of Tablet sales for certain into 2012. While there are many under the hood improvements, the device on it's front looks much the same as the original, but thats where it stops, speed, video, weight/heft ease of use features are certainly all things that make this a great buy, and still one of the "less" expensive options on the market. Which for Apple is nothing short of amazing.

As Apple becomes more a part of the home consumer market in media (it pretty much owns it these days) I am closely watching how they do business. The updates to the IP2 are not huge, however just enough to keep em ahead of all others. Androids honeycomb OS really looks great, and if Samsung gets a hold of this soon, I can see them becoming a viable competitor before years end, however at this time, that is all they will become for 2011. 

The year of the IP2, as Steve Jobs has stated, has just begun.

Update on Wednesday, March 30, 2011 at 9:47AM by Cookenstein

I have shown some dicipline over the past month, and while I have both tried and like very much the Ipad 2, for now, my current Ipad is fine for me. There may come a point when I buy ver 2.0, but frankly right now, the first ver does all that I need it to, given what I use it for.

A great platform, just keeps getting better.