A Dead Body Is Found In the Conference Room of Apple's Cupertino, Califorinia Headquarters

A body, suspected to be a suicide by at least TMZ, was found in the conference room of Apple's Cupertino, California headquarters at about 8:30 a.m.  pacific time on Wednesday.   Even though TMZ conformed the death of the person a suicide, at the time of the incident Apple had not disclosed what the cause of this person's death was or who it was. The victim was later identified as 25 year old software engineer Edward Mackowiak. What we know about the body is it is a deceased male. TMZ might be right the cause of this person's death was probably a suicide because rumors about the autopsy suggest the victim died of a self- administered gunshot wound.  Supposedly, the victim was found with wounds in the kidney area and was bleeding from the head. Next, Apple has to conform whether or not this victim was an Apple employee and I'm sure many people who work at this headquarters are heartbroken because it seems this person was most likely an Apple employee. The death seemed to be isolated. If this person did commit suicide, what made them do so? Well, Sheriff Investigators from Saint Clara County are looking at multiple possible factors, one of them being Apple's stock loss which happened on Tuesday. Apple stock dropped for the first time in a decade. I don't know if this person's suicide really had anything do with Apple's stock loss.  Since this employee was only 25 years old it seems pretty obvious they have probably not been working for Apple for very long. For all we know, the reason for this person's death might have been personal, maybe something not even his employees knew about. Who knows, though? I hope this fellow was well respected by his colleagues, I hope he will be remembered for whatever he did, and I hope he will get the best farewell wishes he can from his family, his friends, and his colleagues. Rest in peace Edward Mackowiak.

The Wage and Gender Gaps Among Microsoft and Apple Employees

An investment firm, Arjuna Capital, asked Microsoft to release information on its employees' wages, including information about the difference between the salaries of their female and male employees. Although Microsoft claims their female and male employees are paid equivalent wages according to their positions, female employees for Microsoft actually make 99.8 cents to every dollar a male employee makes while minorities make exactly the same amount Caucasian workers make. So female workers are paid almost the same salary as the male workers working for Microsoft, but not quite.  However, Microsoft hires more males than females. 73.1% of Microsoft's jobs are held by males while only 26.8% of them are held by females. This is a huge gap between the number of females and males who are hired to work for Microsoft.  In terms of ethnicity, most of Microsoft's workers are Caucasian who make up 60.5% of Microsoft's employees while Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders hold the least amount of job positions among Microsoft making up 0.3% of their employees. Only 3.4% of Microsoft's employees are African Americans, only 5.1% of their employees are Hispanic or Latino, and 28.8% of their employees are Asian. Running up second and third to last to Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders on Microsoft's ethnicity scale in terms of employees there are the Native Americans who make up only 0.5% of Microsoft's employees and multi-racial people who make up 1.2% of their employees.  Going back to Microsoft's gender gap among its employees, only 17.9% of female workers hold leadership positions at Microsoft such as managers and clerks. If you are interested to know about the difference in the amount of pay a female and a male and the difference between what Caucasians and minorities make working for Apple, it is not much different. Females who work for Apple earn 99.6% of what males make working for them which is a larger pay-roll gap than Microsoft's. Minorities who work for Apple make 99.7% of what Caucasian people make working for Apple. Both Apple and Microsoft pay their female employees a slightly smaller salary than what they pay their male employees and Apple pays its minority employees a little lower salary than its Caucasian employees. These statistics, definitely, show the tech industry is dominated mostly by male Caucasians. I have a little bit of a problem with the fact female employees at tech industries are getting paid slightly less than male employees at tech industries and minorities who work for tech industries are getting paid slightly less than Caucasian employees working for tech industries. I have an even bigger problem these tech companies are hiring way more Caucasian males. It's ridiculous the difference in pay for Caucasians and minorities and males and females varies only by slight percentages. Every employee should receive exactly the same pay for the same position, not slightly less for some than others. However, while I say this I must also consider Apple and Microsoft are not alone when it charges slightly less for some groups of people than others. This should stop, even though it might not be completely urgent, but it is just something I thought was interesting and something I thought you viewers of my blog might want to take into consideration. 

The iPhone SE Sells Out on Opening Weekend

Are you eager to get your hands on the new iPhone SE? Well, you will not be able to get your hands on the iPhone SE until April 12th at the earliest time because it is already sold out from every cell phone carrier. Certain models you may not be able to get until as early as April 20th. Market research experts thought the iPhone SE would be a dud and did not expect it would sell out immediately after they were released. Although the iPhone SE has been a successful seller so far in the U.S., it will probably not be very popular in India. The iPhone SE which costs between $400 and $430 in the U.S. will cost $586 in India. Not only will the cost of the new iPhone turn away customers in India, but the Indian consumers will also dislike the phone because of its size. The people that make up the potential consumer base in India are interested in phones with large screens because for most of them their phone is their only computer. Most of the Indian clientele would most likely pick a phone with a bigger screen instead of a phone with a faster processor and better camera. However, the iPhone SE will not be as expensive in India as the iPhone 6S is which costs $960. The reason Apple devices are so much more expensive in India than in the U.S. is because of shipping costs. When Apple ships their products to India they rely on third party shipping companies. Apple says there is not much they can do to lower the price of their products in India, but they should consider the average price of a smartphone in India is $200. I do not understand how shipping iPhones from to China to India costs more money than shipping iPhones from China to the U.S. The U.S. is much farther from China than India is. However, maybe Apple does not ship their products to India straight through China but from the U.S. where their headquarters are located. The main reason, perhaps, the iPhone costs such much in India is because Apple products are not sold directly through them in India but through other businesses. My guess is since Apple does not directly sell their products in India, other companies sell them at higher rates. What an iPhone will cost in other countries depends on those countries economies. I think it would be smart if Apple opened some factories and headquarters overseas. That way, Apple could become less dependent on third party companies to transport and sell their products. If the iPhone SE has already sold out in the U.S., how popular will it be in other countries?  I wonder how long it will be until Apple comes out with a product that is actually innovative, not just another version of one of their previous products like the iPhone SE was. Anyway, I'm surprised the iPhone SE has been such a hit in the U.S. because I actually thought it would be a dud as well. If the iPhone SE sold out the first week it was released, there must be some explanation for its success.   

The FBI Finally Hacks the iPhone of the San Benardino Shooter

Remember the FBI was trying to make Apple hack the phone of the gunman responsible for the San Benardino shooting? Well, the FBI was somehow able to hack the phone without any help from Apple. The legal action against Apple to write software to hack its own products was, therefore, dismissed.  The U.S. supreme court argued computer code is a type of speech and forcing Apple to stop encrypting their codes would be a violation to their freedom of speech or the first amendment. The Department of Justice lost in the case against Apple that would require the company to stop encrypting computer codes. Anyway, how was the FBI able to hack the iPhone of the gunman responsible for the San Benardino shooting? Well, other people, obviously computer experts who do not work for Apple, contacted the FBI with some suggestions on how to hack the San Benardino terrorist's iPhone. Apparently, if you get the password on an iPhone wrong 10 times it automatically wipes it, so the FBI, definitely, had to make sure the people who were giving them suggestions knew what they were talking about. After the FBI hacked the iPhone of the terrorist from the San Benardino shooting they started offering to help other agencies hack iPhones because they now know a method or a number of methods for how to bypass an iPhone's security mechanism or hack it. The FBI does not want to disclose information on how they were able to hack the iPhone of the San Benardino shooter, but it is believed they used a hacking method called NAND mirror which is when you make a copy of the original NAND chip or memory card as it is also called. You start this process by copying the content of the original NAND chip onto a new NAND chip. Then, you try 9 or less password attempts (hackers usually use 5 attempts). After that you copy the contents of the second memory card onto the original memory card.  Hackers who are trying to hack an iPhone need to repeat this process until they successfully guess the correct password of the device. It is not clear the FBI even used this NAND chip method, but it is possible. It is also believed the agency that helped the FBI to hack the iPhone of the San Benardino shooter's iPhone was Cellebrite; an Israeli cyber-security company.  If you are reading this do not attempt to follow the steps I listed above on how to hack an iPhone using the NAND chip mirror method. You could get into serious trouble for hacking a person's device. The steps I listed above might not be 100% because I am not a hacker and do not intend to be a hacker, but still do not attempt to follow these steps. In conclusion, I do not disagree with Apple when they are opposed to putting a back door on their devices or writing a code that hacks an iPhone from the back. The FBI figured out how to hack an iPhone and if they continue to be knowledgeable about how to hack an iPhone or any other Apple device, Apple might not have to worry about finding ways for hacking their devices and can continue to keep them secure for their users. 

The Release of the iPhone SE and the New, Smaller iPad Pro

On Monday March 21st Apple unveiled its 4 inch iPhone SE and its new, smaller 9.7 inch iPad Pro. The cost of the iPhone SE will start at $399 for the 16 gigabyte version. The iPad Pro will start at $599 for the 32 gigabyte version.   The iPhone SE is a lot cheaper than the iPhone 6s which costs $649 and the 6s Plus which costs $749. The iPhone SE is considered almost identical to the iPhone 5s because it has most of the same features and has a very similar design. The iPhone SE still features the fingerprint scanner and what Apple likes to call "live photos" or "4k" in which a video is taken after you take a photo. I never even thought the feature existed or was possible until I saw commercials for it. Although the iPhone SE still has most of the same features the iPhone 5s and iPhone 6s had, is lacking a couple of features. Two of the features the iPhone 6s had that this new phone is lacking. Those two features made the iPhone 6s, especially the plus, more easy to use since it was very large. Those features are not needed for the iPhone SE because is not very large. Meanwhile, the new iPad Pro is exactly the same as the first iPad Pro except for its size. The new iPad Pro is meant to be more portable and it is. The first iPad Pro was 12.9 inches in length while the new iPad Pro is only 9.7 inches in length.  The 12.9 inch iPad Pro will still be available. Apple claims it went back to making smaller products is because they have a new concept that less is more. However, the most likely reason for why they decided to go back to making smaller products is because there are a lot of people who prefer smaller, more portable devices rather than larger devices. I know some people who still have the iPhone 4. It could be some people are not very eager to invest in a new device, maybe because of the price or maybe because they like the device they currently have. My friend Jackson still uses his iPhone 4 quite a bit and I wonder what his next phone will be because he said he will be getting a new phone, I believe, this April. I honestly don't know why Apple released the iPad Pro and the iPhone SE at this time of year because they're supposed to be coming out with the iPhone 7 this fall. I believe Apple has been eager to release new products as soon as possible because they are trying to recover from the decreasing stocks they had last year which dropped by 15%. Also, they were probably ready to come out with the iPhone SE and the new iPad Pro while they probably need more time to make the iPhone 7. I think it is extremely easy to say that Apple is running out of ideas for products it can make. 

A Windows 10 Update For Your Mobile Device and a Live Apple Event on March 21st

Today Microsoft is starting to make Windows 10 updates available for its older mobile devices. To receive the Windows 10 update for your mobile device you will have to wait for your carrier to make the update available.  There is an App at the Windows store that informs you if you are able to update your device at the moment. The mobile version of Windows 10 is supposed to look similar to the desktop version of Windows 10 and is supposed to feature the sames app as well. Twitter was updated yesterday among all Windows devices. I don't have a Windows 10 phone so this update is irrelevant to me. If you want to know if your device is ready for the Windows 10 update, download the Upgrade Advisor app.

Apple is getting ready to unveil some new products including a new, smaller iPad Pro. Those who have the new Apple TV can download an app that will let you watch the unveiling of the some of Apple's new products which will take place on March 21st at 1 PM ET. There are rumors the new iPhone will be unveiled at this event. Some say the new iPhone will be called either the iPhone SE, the iPhone 5SE, or the iPhone 6c.  I'm guessing the next phone will likely be called the iPhone 6c if it is going to be called any of these names. Apple also might release some software updates for its mobile devices and its Apple TV, too.  It has been said streaming this live event might be difficult for some people. In terms of mobile devices, people will only be able to stream this live event if their device has iOS 7 software or later. For PCs and Macs, people will only be able to watch this event if they stream the event on Safari or Microsoft Edge. So what if I want to use Google Chrome, Firefox, or any other browser to view this event? You won't be able to use any  browser to view this event that isn't Microsoft Edge or Safari. This is dumb. What if you have a Chromebook or just do not prefer using Safari or Microsoft Edge? I use Google Chrome all the time to browse the web, I even set it as my default browser. I would be curious to view this event just to see what the new iPhone will look like because their have been multiple rumors throughout the year about Apple deciding not to put a headphone jack in the next iPhone so they could make it thinner and cut costs. What we do know about the new iPhone is it will be 4 inches tall. That seems to be the same height of the iPhone leading up to the iPhone 4. I would also like to see what the new iPad Pro will like. Apple says they will be unveiling a smaller version of the iPad Pro. I think the current iPad Pro model is way too big and I would, actually, like to see how big the next iPad Pro will be. It sounds like Apple is not planning to make an iPhone 7, yet, and I wonder why. I also wonder why Apple is making a smaller iPad Pro, though I believe it is probably because they thought the iPad Pro was too big themselves. 

Switching from Evernote to Microsoft OneNote

Microsoft invented a software that can transfer files from Evernote to OneNote. The software is available on Windows devices (Windows 7 or later) and will possibly be available on Apple and Android devices later on.  Right now, the software is a little inefficient  and cannot import media files ,yet. There are a lot of tweaks that Microsoft will have to make to this importer tool. Since notes in Evernote and notes in OneNote are organized and laid out differently, Microsoft might want to find a better way to transition files between the two programs. Before this import tool was invented, some people imported files between Evernote and OneNote manually. I am not very familiar with OneNote nor Evernote.  I don't take notes often outside of school. When I do take notes, I usually just type them on memos. I have OneNote on my laptop, but I don't think I have ever used it. This software is probably very useful for people who use Evernote and OneNote quite often to take note, but it is pretty useless for people like me who don't take lot of notes. Just think of people who take a lot of notes. It probably becomes quite a pain for them to search through their notes, especially if they take notes on more than one note taking software. Even though I hardly ever take notes outside of school, I might take a look at OneNote or Evernote just to see if I would want to use either of those programs in the future. If you are currently using Evernote to take notes but would like to start using OneNote instead, it wouldn't hurt to download the importer tool from the Microsoft OneNote website.