Archive for the ‘Apple’ Category

This time, its been six months since I last blogged.  I keep thinking that I’m going to write my own blog using Django, but with 5 year old twins, there isn’t a lot of time to do this.  So I’ll stick with WordPress for now.

What have I been doing this year?  Well, I went to PyCon in March.  It was awesome.  I went to CFUnited in June.  I thought it was second rate.  And I got some training in Flex in July with FigLeaf.  Waiting on my copy of Flex Builder to come in so I can start coding with it.  Its some pretty cool software.

I’ve been looking at using Groovy and Grails for some future development at work.  I’d like to integrate it with Flex for some applications I have in mind.  I’m really getting interested in doing some serious mapping stuff especially since ESRI has opened ArcGIS up with the release of 9.3.  They have API’s available for Javascript and Flex.

I bought a new MacBook Pro in June.  I downsized from a 17″ to a 15.4″.  I really could have used a new Mac Pro, but I can’t afford one of those right now.  So I’ll get another year out of my PowerMac Dual 2.0ghz G5.

The University of Virginia has been conducting a survey of incoming freshmen since 1997 regarding their use of computers. In 1997, 2437 students were surveyed and 1803 of them owned their own computers. In 2006, 3092 students were surveyed and all but 4 owned their own computers. Also, in 2006 laptops ruled. Out of 3088 computers, 2993 were laptops. And for the big trend:

The growth of Apple computers has gone through the roof. Here’s the breakdown in percentage since 2000:

• 2000 -> 2.8%
• 2001 -> 2.8%
• 2002 -> 3.5%
• 2003 -> 4.0%
• 2004 -> 8.3%
• 2005 -> 13.0%
• 2006 -> 19.6%

This is staggering to me. I had no idea Apple was growing this fast. Maybe this is the exception, but I don’t think so. Princeton’s newspaper reported that 45% of the students were buying Macs this year.

And Apple themselves have said that 50% of all purchases in their stores are first time buyers.

So maybe Apple’s stock price isn’t overvalued. Maybe its just expecting big returns in the next 5 years.