The Ben MACnigo Clan: Biting the APPLE

My barber jokingly calls my immediate family the Ben MACnigo clan. This is because every member possesses and owns an APPLE device with all the most popular and useful apps.

My daughters Dr. Traci and Craft Kombucha CEO Tanya always manage to get the latest gadgets. Not only do they have either the iPhone 6 or the iPhone 6 Plus, but they and their respective spouses are also owners and users of the APPLE Watch. In fact, Dr. Traci woke up in the middle of the night just to register as one of the first to order the watch for her and her hubby Jason.

My only son Raul who is an Information and Systems Engineer working for the Department of Justice, is not far behind but a little more practical. He is currently contented with his iPhone 5s and waiting for the next and more useful iPhone. He probably knows something we don’t.

All have iPAD and the MacBook Pro.

Tina (my loving wife) has an iPAD Mini, a MacBook Air, and the iPhone 5s. She still has an unused APPLE gift certificate from our kids for Mother’s Day. The truth is, she has never spent a single cent for her APPLE gadgets. They are either gifted or hand me down.

I currently have an iPhone 6 Plus, an iPAD, and a MacBook Pro which has both Mac OS and Windows OS. I was one of the first users of Quadra, which had DOS, Microsoft OS, and Mac OS at the same time.

Most importantly, Tina and I are owners of APPLE stocks. We are happy that the members of our family support the APPLE products and reflect the sentiments of the buying public.

We monitor the stocks daily and its performance quarterly and yearly. I also check out the latest and most popular apps registered at the APPLE Store.

“Apple posted quarterly revenue of $49.6 billion and quarterly profit of $10.7 billion at $1.85 per diluted share. Gross margin was 39.7% compared to 39.4% in the year ago quarter. Apple reported that its operating expenses were between $5.85 billion and $5.95 billion. A $0.52 per share cash dividend of Apple’s common stock has been declared, which is payable on August 13th.

The “Other” category — which includes the Apple Watch, Apple TV and Beats headphones — hit $2.6 billion in revenue. That figure is up from $1.7 billion last quarter. Apple sold 10.9 million iPads, 4.7 million Macs and 47 million iPhones in the third quarter compared to 12.6 million iPads, 4.5 million Macs and 61.1 million iPhones in the last quarter.”

According to Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, “We had an amazing quarter, with iPhone revenue up 59 percent over last year, strong sales of Mac, all-time record revenue from services, driven by the App Store, and a great start for Apple Watch,”

I am particularly impressed by the Cash Reserve of APPLE as I write this column - $203 Billion. As commented by a financial news anchor, “APPLE could single-handedly bailout a whole nation like Greece.”

Worth mentioning are the Top Apps. Let me list them as registered by the App Store Official Charts for the week ending July 20, 2015:

Top Paid iPhone Apps:

1. Minecraft: Pocket Edition, Mojang

2. Goat Simulator, Coffee Stain Studios

3. Heads Up!, Warner Bros.

4. Facetune, Lightricks Ltd.

5. The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Gameloft

6. Pixelmator, Pixelmator Team

7. Akinator the Genie, Elokence

8. THE GAME OF LIFE Classic Edition, Electronic Arts

9. Trivia Crack (Ad Free), Etermax

10. Geometry Dash, RobTop Games AB

Top Free iPhone Apps:

1. Agar.io, Miniclip.com

2. Messenger, Facebook, Inc.

3. Facebook, Facebook, Inc.

4. YouTube, Google, Inc.

5. Instagram, Instagram, Inc.

6. Snapchat, Snapchat, Inc.

7. musical.ly - make music videos for instagram and for facebook messenger, Jun Zhu

8. Layout from Instagram, Instagram, Inc.

9. Pandora Radio, Pandora Media, Inc.

10. Google Maps, Google, Inc.

Top Paid iPad Apps:

1. Minecraft: Pocket Edition. Mojang

2. Goat Simulator, Coffee Stain Studios

3. Don't Starve: Pocket Edition, Klei Entertainment

4. This War of Mine, 11 bit studios s.a

5. Mods for Minecraft, JK2Designs LL

6. Plague Inc., Ndemic Creations

7. Red Ball 4, FDG Entertainment

8. Terraria, 505 Games (US), Inc.

9. Mods for Minecraft Pocket Edition, JK2Designs LLC

10. Heads Up!, Warner Bros.

Top Free iPad Apps:

1. Agar.io, Miniclip.com

2. YouTube, Google, Inc

3. Despicable Me: Minion Rush, Gameloft

4. Colorfy: Coloring Book for Adults - Free, Fun Games For Free

5. Cartoon Network App - Watch Videos, Clips and Full Episodes of Your Favorite Shows, Cartoon Network

6. Hungry Shark Evolution, Future Games of London

7. Skype for iPad, Skype Communications S.a.r.l

8. Pinterest, Pinterest, Inc.

9. Messenger, Facebook, Inc.

10. Netflix, Netflix, Inc.

DREAMFORCE 2015: Inspiration, Imagination, Innovation

I am getting ready to attend the Dreamforce 2015 being held in San Francisco, California on September 15-18, 2015. Sponsored by Salesforce, the event is where Inspiration, Imagination, and Innovation meet.

It would be my second as a credentialed member of the Press representing ASIAN JOURNAL USA. I thought that I would recycle excerpts of my report on the event for the benefit and appreciation of our readers especially those who might be interested in attending.

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Hillary Clinton and Bruno Mars in One Day!

Salesforce is homegrown – founded in San Francisco. So is Dreamforce. It is not surprising that many of its charitable projects are in the city involving the community and the government.

Fighting hunger is a focus, for example. A million meals have been distributed and expect a million more after the conference.

Fighting for the future is another focus. Educating the children is a great weapon in this battle. After all, they are our future.

The choice of Hillary Clinton as a Keynote Speaker signifies that Dreamforce 2014 is very serious in fighting for the future. A known strong advocate for the education and healthcare of children either as a lawyer, a former First Lady of Arkansas, a former First Lady of the United States, a former U.S. Senator, and former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton was the right leader and partner of the Salesforce Foundation in a battle affecting the future.

With Clinton, the focus of the war for the future would not only be citywide, countrywide, but also worldwide.

It would be even be better if she becomes the first woman President of the United States.

In her Keynote, Clinton talked about educating the children by reading and singing to them. She says, “The word gap leads to an achievement gap & has lifelong consequences.” Increasing the vocabulary of children by reading to them also leads to creativity and increases achievement motivation among them.

She described how she and her husband, former US President Bill Clinton, used to read to Chelsea. She also sang to her until Chelsea was old enough to complain and stop her from singing.

After her speech, she distributed bags full of children’s books donated by Scholastics and other learning materials for parents to read to their children.

She actually spoke about various topics that also interested me – Net Neutrality, Philanthropy in Technology, Corporate Responsibility or Ethics, among others. She is a firm believer of “open Internet” and Ethics being as important as electronics.

Those topics are obviously relevant in winning the future as well.

The Keynote Speech of Salesforce President Marc Benioff was as interesting. Expectedly, he talked about the new products and technologies of his company. I find the “Wave” and “Lightning” app and operating platform, respectively, very interesting and useful to customers and businesses.

All of us in the audience were amazed by the demo on “Lightning” through the speed of delivery of 3 bottles of Coke from a San Francisco warehouse to Moscone Center, Halls A & B within minutes and in our eyes. How? DRONE!

Of course, his Keynote also highlighted Salesforce Foundation’s partnership with the San Francisco City Government and the SF Unified School District System. His guests included, Mayor Ed Lee of San Francisco, Superintendent Richard Carranza and Principal Lee of the Unified School District. They all talked about how the SF-SF (Salesforce and  San Francisco) partnership proved to be very successful. The $5M donation, the installation of Wi-Fi in all the schools, the computers, and the training of teachers were instruments to a winning battle for the future especially for the 90% socially and economically disadvantaged kids.

The Keynotes of Clinton and Marc Benioff as you can see were not only “talk the talk”, they were also “walk the walk.”

Will.I.Am was also there. His life story is quite interesting as a successful Musician, Entrepreneur, and Philanthropist. He is in fact launching at the conference a new wearable technology product. He merits a separate and longer article later.

In between presentations, we were being entertained by the Beach Boys. After that they continued playing at Moscone Center’s Plaza where Dreamforce 2014 attendees just relaxed, ate free food and drinks, and listened.

 

Dreamforce 2014 registered more than 146,000 attendees. Most of them went to the Bruno Mars Concert at the Civic Center. Part Filipino, he makes me proud. Everybody was rocking and shaking! It was too packed to roll!

The event was dubbed as a UCSF (University of California San Francisco) Children’s Hospital Benefits Concert - also health and education oriented tool for the future.

Bruno Mars played the greatest of KEYS and sang the best of NOTES!

This KEYNOTE of the evening made my day!

Applying the “Find My iPAD” App

On Saturday, June 13, 2015, I attended the Philippine Embassy-sponsored “Talakayan”. Senator Alan Cayetano was the guest of honor. I was interested in engaging the Senator for a discussion as I have been watching almost all the Senate Subcommittee hearings on the Makati overpricing scandals that involved VP Binay. I brought my iPAD that contains some materials relevant to whatever discussions that may take place.

I did not need the iPAD. There was no exchange of views. I got to ask only one question which I had to give in advance, and which the good Senator even almost forgot to answer.

After the event, Filipino food, the second best food in the world according to a CNN poll, was served. https://sg.news.yahoo.com/cnn-poll-phl-world-2nd-000000105.html 

When it was time to go, I called for my ride. While waiting I sat down and I started using my iPhone 6 plus and put down my IPAD. While busy surfing and browsing the Internet, a disabled Filipina in crutches who attended the same event needed my help to open the door. I got up while holding my iPhone to open the first door, went farther to open the second door, and even farther outside to open the gate.

When my ride arrived, I proceeded home only to find out that my iPAD was missing. I went back from Virginia to DC hoping to recover the device at the Philippine Embassy. The gates and the doors were already closed when I got there. My calls to the embassy were understandably unanswered.

At home, I thought of the “Find My iPAD, iPhone, iPod, and Mac” App that I set-up with iCloud using the same Apple ID for all my devices, earlier. Going to the iCloud website, and accessing by entering my ID and password, I clicked on Find My iPhone, reentered my password, clicked lost mode, and left a message to call me when my iPAD is found. Of course, I gave my cell number.

Unlike my iPhone, the missing iPAD was completely off and offline. The App could pinpoint the exact location of my iPhone but not the iPAD. To be sure, I went to the Apple store to explore other ways. The “genius” showed me the same thing that I already did.  Since the iPAD was off, the built-in GPS could not locate it. I tried another remedy – I called Verizon’s customer care to locate the missing iPAD using the cellular network. Because the device was off, Verizon could not pinpoint the exact location either. But it was estimated that the device was within DC covered by their cellular tower.

Now convinced that it must still be at the Philippine Embassy, I decided to send an email to some embassy officials on Monday. The fast response came from Ms. Jali Fernando (Public Diplomacy Assistant). Cultural Attache Maricor Jesalva displaying good and honest service found it.

I went to pick it up and showed much appreciation and thanks.

As soon as I got home, I recharged it and turned it on. Almost immediately, the iPAD was ringing with the message on the screen, “Lost iPAD found!” Where? At my HOME!

This was followed by an email from Apple’s Find My iPhone Support saying the device has been found.

Kickstarter: My Kind of Crowdfunding Source

In two weeks, I intend to visit the international headquarters of Kickstarter in Brooklyn, New York City. 

Having participated in the successful launching and funding of two Kickstarter projects, I now see quite a number of possible creative endeavors that could be coursed through Kickstarter. I hope to explore these with Kickstarter people during my visit.

The Kickstarter website claims that they ‘welcome and support projects in the diverse categories of Art, Comics, Crafts, Dance, Design, Fashion, Film & Video, Food, Games, Journalism, Music, Photography, Publishing, Technology, and Theater.”

My list of projects belongs to some of the above categories. So, I expect plenty to discuss.

I notice that Kickstarter expect that for anyone who is proposing a project, he or she must follow certain rules. For the benefit of our readers, their website enumerate three rules that every Kickstarter project must follow.

1.    Projects must create something to share with others.

Kickstarter can be used to create all sorts of things: art and gadgets, events and spaces, ideas and experiences. But every project needs a plan for creating something and sharing it with the world.

2.    Projects must be honest and clearly presented.

Our community is built on trust and communication. Projects can’t mislead people or misrepresent facts, and creators should be candid about what they plan to accomplish. When a project involves manufacturing and distributing something complex, like a gadget, we require projects to show a prototype of what they’re making, and we prohibit photorealistic renderings.

3.    Projects can’t fundraise for charity, offer financial incentives, or involve prohibited items.

We’re all in favor of charity and investment, but they’re not permitted on Kickstarter. Projects can’t promise to donate funds raised to a charity or cause, and they can’t offer financial incentives like equity or repayment.

Projects that are prohibited are those that are illegal, heavily regulated, or potentially dangerous for backers. Specifically included as prohibited but not limited to them are: Political fundraising; Pornographic material; Resale; Drugs, nicotine, tobacco, vaporizers and related paraphernalia; and Weapons, replicas of weapons, and weapon accessories.

I am looking forward to greater participation by Filipinos in creating Kickstarter projects.