Shares of Apple Computer rebounded on Friday with news that CEO Steve Jobs knew of options back dating at the company but did not benefit from the practice. According to a New York Times article "Mr. Jobs did not benefit financially from any questionable stock awards."

My reaction to this is mixed. Certainly as a long-time user of Apple hardware and someone who hopes to continue using the best hardware on the market I'm glad to hear it. On a personal note I have some stock I was planning to sell next week and buy Apple shares so I'm disappointed the price rebounded today.

This will be a brief comment on a couple of stories out there today. First off there is the linkbait article suggesting Apple's days are numbered. To anyone who knows the market it's hard to take even as a parody but there would be temptation on some of our parts to pump the article in hopes of getting a few more (as yet unpurchased) Apple shares at reasonable prices. But then that wouldn't be ethical.

Then there is this piece of investigative journalism. The main problem is there doesn't seem to have been much investigation. The errors and omissions as well as morphing of time lines are horrendous in this article. You'll notice nowhere in the article does it mention the other businesses in California that benefit from the mutual aid agreements between the states, not even the other businesses in Sandy Valley. The article ends with the line that "not counting the motocross" there have been 300 calls in California handled by Clark County Fire. Taking even the highest figures for the motocross at the heart of the story there have been fewer than a dozen.

Catching up on reading news from last week I came across a post by Dave Winer in which he theorizes:

Theory on why Podshow needs $25 million. To defend against a trademark infringement suit from Apple. Alternate theory, to re-brand, to avoid a trademark infringement suit from Apple.

I wonder if we've seen evidence to suggest there's not a Apple-Podshow partnership in the works? I don't give the idea much creedence, but Podshow partner Adam Curry did talk with Apple prior to Apple's release of iTunes to support podcasting.

Two days in I'm already breaking with my pledge to get to bed at a better hour. Too many ideas running through my head to do otherwise though. I spent the backend of the week at a briefing at Apple Computer. What a brilliant group of people they had to present to us.

One of the reminders I got was about submitting feature requests and bug reports. All too often it is very easy to see how we as users would like things to work and forget that in addition to posting them on our blogs (which we hope the right people are reading or at least scraping for terms like iPod) we need to make sure Apple's aware of the request. On tomorrow's list will be a feature request to change how iTunes handles the absence of podcasts (i.e. prompt me instead of deleting them all first). Another huge feature request will be answered with IChat 4, the ability to sign in to multiple AIM accounts at once. Yea!