America’s material standard of living continues to improve, yet the dynamism of that same economy puts hundreds of thousands of people per week involuntarily out of work. It’s no surprise that demands for protection against the forces of market competition are on the rise–as well as nostalgia for a slower and simpler time. Nothing is more stressful for people than the perennial gale of creative destruction. Silicon Valley is without question an exciting place to work, but its allure as a honeymoon destination has, I would guess, thus far gone largely unrecognized.
I just upgraded my iPod touch using the newly-released soft-update to 1.1.3 method for Mac OS X. It came in jb113.dmg, and used a terminal-based application to download the new firmware archive, unencrypt it, patch it, and upload it to my iPod. Then, I just ran the soft-update package from Installer.app, waited a few minutes, and behold, my iPod rebooted into 1.1.3. The third-party apps that I installed under 1.1.2 were not visible at the springboard, but they were accessible by uninstalling and reinstalling using Installer.app. I hadn’t installed the January 2008 paid software update prior to upgrading, so I went ahead and purchased that after doing the soft upgrade with great success – the new Apple apps were available, icon-excitement worked wonderfully, and my 1.1.3-reinstalled third-party apps were still available.