The passing of Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple, has focused me on my relationship with the Apple Mac computer. It must be, I don’t know – ten years ago? – when my friend David Banks, best known to most of you as the 80s Cyberleader, generously donated to us his Apple Cube computer as he was upgrading. I still use it today. It sits in my studio and I use it primarily for my writing. Then came the iMac some years ago, again from David,  followed by it’s purchased updated successor under a year ago. It sits oozing style in the power room of the house, the large glass covered blue screen a blank canvas for creativity, communication and organisation, a Microsoft free zone. A single unit, the wireless silver and white keyboard and white mouse it’s willing companions. It handles gigabytes as if they were dandelion seeds. It is on this machine that I create the compositions for my artwork and digital images. The iPhone and iPad are a mystery to me and the iMac may only be in a minority of homes but it is the chosen tool of creatives and professionals all over the world.  Thank you, Steve Jobs, for bringing me my iMac. It’s the Apple of my eye.

I reproduce with respect these quotes from the man himself. No infringement of copyright is intended :

“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.”

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” [Stanford commencement speech, June 2005]Steve Jobs