This week on Relay FM’s only space-themed podcast, Jason and I talk about the not-so-impending doom facing Phobos and a bunch of other news before being joined by Emily Lakdawalla from The Planetary Society to discuss the future of solar system exploration.
My thanks to these sponsors:
Are you a full-time freelancer or independent worker? Do you make a pretty good living and like the work you do? Every year, do you think “man, why is my tax bill so high?" then think, “well, I guess this is just how it is for folks like me."
Then, you write that big check to Uncle Sam. You may find yourself wondering if you could have done something different. Or, if the check is really huge, you might even wonder if it wouldn’t be cheaper to just get a regular job again…
Chances are, if you’ve read this far, Andrew Carroll can help you.
He’s a CPA/PFS, CITP, and CGMA and the General Manager of NCH Tax & Wealth Advisors in Fullerton, California. What all that means is that, to be honest, he probably know more about taxes than you or anybody you know.
Andrew has worked with dozens of people just like you in situations just like the one described above.
The Freelancer’s Guide to Escaping Taxes is a distilled version of the same advice he’s been giving to folks just like you for years. If you want to know the truth, Andrew figured out it’d more efficient to spend the time writing it down than repeatedly saying it. Go check it out.
I woke up to a fun tweet in my timeline this morning:
@ismh Maybe one of your Macs are eligible? https://t.co/ynjmkC601k
— Nikhil Ravishankar (@knekill) November 19, 2015
I had no idea this existed. In short, some Macs sold between 1992 and 1996 came with free telephone support as long as you owned the machine. In 1997, Apple tried shutting it down, but got hit with a lawsuit.
The best part? The phone number still works.
Mike Bates, writing for Tools and Toys about Field Notes Brand memo books:
I have both a digital to-do manager and a more in-depth digital journal, but the act of physically writing things out helps me to be more intentional in planning out my day. It’s nice to jot something down on paper and still manages to be the most convenient way for me to take a quick note even in this very digital age.
I’ve been using Field Notes for several years now. Right now, there’s a XOXO special edition notebook sitting just to the right of my MacBook Pro. I can’t work or think without one handy, it seems.
Maybe its just me, but I don’t think this thing looks very good at all.
I spent some time yesterday organizing my Apple collection with some new shelves and bins and in the process, fired up my first-generation iPad. It’s running iOS 5.1.1, the last build to support the device. In our post-iOS 7 world, older versions of iOS really do look dated.
Lights! Camera! Action!
This week on Connected, we talk about our iPad Pros and what the device means for the future.
My thanks to these sponsors:
Apple’s CEO, in an interview with Independent.ie:
“We feel strongly that customers are not really looking for a converged Mac and iPad,” said Cook. “Because what that would wind up doing, or what we’re worried would happen, is that neither experience would be as good as the customer wants. So we want to make the best tablet in the world and the best Mac in the world. And putting those two together would not achieve either. You’d begin to compromise in different ways.”
[…]
“It’s true that the difference between the X86 [personal computer] and the A-series [Apple iPad architecture] is much less than it’s ever been,” says Cook. “That said, what we’ve tried to do is to recognize that people use both iOS and Mac devices. So we’ve taken certain features and made them more seamless across the devices. So with things like Handoff we just made it really simple to work on one of our products and pick it up and work on the next product.”
I view this a shot across the bow at Microsoft’s two-in-one devices like the Surface Book and Surface Pro than a statement purely about the future of the Mac and iPad.
There’s this whole big debate right now about what the iPad Pro means for the Mac, and I think this statement is also a little about that. The Mac may indeed lose ground to the iPad at some point, but it will be to people who can use a tablet to get their work done, not by people using a hybrid device.
As Mac notebooks get thinner and lighter, and as iPads get bigger and more powerful, Apple still wins. Having consumers choose between two of their products is better for Cupertino than having them choose between something with an Apple logo on it and something with Microsoft’s. The iPad Pro may indeed replace the Mac for some people, but it’s not going to replace it for everyone, and that’s just fine.
Stop me when this sounds familiar…
You’re a full-time freelancer or other independent worker You make a pretty good living and like the work you do Every year, you think “man, why is my tax bill so high?" A few seconds later, you think, “well, I guess this is just how it is for folks like me."
Then, you write that big check to Uncle Sam. You may find yourself wondering if you could have done something different. Or, if the check is really huge, you might even wonder if it wouldn’t be cheaper to just get a regular job again…
Chances are, if you’ve read this far, I can help you.
My name is Andrew Carroll. I’m a CPA/PFS, CITP, and CGMA. I’m the General Manager of NCH Tax & Wealth Advisors in Fullerton, California. What all that means is that, to be honest, I probably know more about taxes than you or anybody you know.
I’ve worked with dozens of people just like you in situations just like the one described above.
The Freelancer’s Guide to Escaping Taxes is a distilled version of the same advice I’ve been giving to folks just like you for years. If you want to know the truth, I figured out it’d more efficient to spend the time writing it down than repeatedly saying it.
If you want to know the one thing you can do to dramatically reduce the amount of tax you pay each year, then you’re in the right place. Fill in the form below and it’ll be in your inbox, free of charge, in a couple of minutes.
Simple Beep is a podcast looking back at the history of Apple and the Mac community. Each episode, Ed and Brian tackle the hardware, software and services that got us to where we are today.
Needless to say, I’m a huge fan, and jumped at the chance to join the guys for their anniversary episode.
We spoke about our first encounters with the Mac, our Apple hardware collections and the importance of archiving technology for the future. Go check it out.
I’m typing this on an iPad Pro. Without a doubt, this is the most powerful iPad yet. From a hardware perspective, it’s killer. In my time playing with a Pencil at the Apple Store, (where — annoyingly — you can’t actually buy the thing) I was impressed with the precision and feel of the input device.
24 hours into having one, however, I’m still unsure what I think about the iPad Pro as a product, but I had a thought today that has left me a little unsettled when I think about the future of the device.
But there’s no flagship app for it.
Apple prides itself on being a company that can join hardware and software to make products more special and more powerful than what other companies ship.
However, with the iPad Pro — and to a lesser extent, the new Apple TV — Apple’s launched a new hardware product without a great first-party example of what people should do with it.
The original iPad had iWork. The iPads 2 and 3 had iLife. iTunes gained CD-burning power the same time the iMac G3 did. FireWire made importing media into iMovie possible.
It’s impressive that the iPad Pro can sling around a bunch of 4K video in iMovie and Notes.app makes for a nice demo, the apps featured by Apple for use with the Pro-only Pencil are all by third-party developers.
While Adobe and Microsoft were demoed on stage, developers all over the world are looking at the realities of the App Store, weighing their options.
Will the iPad Pro — and its $99 Pencil — be a big enough hit to justify the investment of new development? Has Apple said enough about what the iPad Pro is for to sway consumers?
I’m not saying that a first-party sketching app or vector drawing tools would fix any of this, but they could help set the tone for what seems like to many just a bigger iPad. Apple leaving the fate of its newest product in the hands of third-party developers seems, perhaps, less than ideal.