As the year winds down, we take the opportunity to look back over the last 12 months or so to see just how far we’ve come and give ourselves hope for the future. Looking back at 2010, we can sum it up as a year of innovations and advancement, both for OWC and for the Mac platform.
Obviously, the innovation from Apple that had the greatest impact on the computer industry as a whole was the introduction of the iPad. End users flocked to it; other companies tried to emulate it. Reviewers alternately praised it as the “next big thing” or derided it as being “a really big iPod Touch.” Hundreds of cases and accessories sprang into existence in to help you make the most of the new device. Whether you liked it, hated it or really didn’t care, you couldn’t deny that Apple made a big splash with the iPad.
The iPhone 4, with its high-resolution Retina Display and video chat capabilities was a huge seller, but its success was tainted somewhat by antenna problems. After receiving a lot of flak for dropping calls via the “grip of death”, Apple rectified the problem somewhat with a free “bumper” program.
That wasn’t Apple’s only stumble during the year. In November, a “mysterious” announcement sent the rumor mills into overdrive by promising a day that we’d “never forget.” The result was a somewhat anticlimactic announcement of The Beatles catalog being available on iTunes. While this was something many music fans had been looking forward to, most agreed that the amount of hype given to it was far too much.
It was a bit of a downer for a year that had started so well. OWC, on the other hand, started strong and got stronger as the year progressed. Article Continues…
Now, I’m going to warn you right now: I’m not going to sell you anything. I just have a lovely story that I think some of you out there will appreciate and I thought I’d share.
Other World Computing announced today its LEED Platinum Certified corporate headquarters was awarded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) prestigious ENERGY STAR rating, the national symbol for protecting the environment through superior energy efficiency. This designation signifies that OWC’s office building operations perform in the top 25 percent of similar facilities nationwide for energy efficiency. On a local level, this achievement places OWC’s building on a list of 634 commercial buildings and industrial plants in Illinois and the first office building in McHenry County to earn the Energy Star rating since 1999.
Other World Computing announced today its corporate campus was awarded LEED® Platinum Certification by the Green Building Certification Institute, the highest achievable level of the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program. Out of more than 14,000 LEED projects engaged worldwide since the program’s 1998 inception, OWC is one of less than three hundred to achieve the Platinum standard. With this recognition, OWC also became the first privately owned light manufacturing/assembly firm in Illinois to obtain LEED Platinum status.
So you’ve just upgraded to a new hard drive in your computer and you now you have the old SATA hard drive sitting on your desk staring at you. Rather than delegating it to dark confines of the desk drawer labeled “miscellaneous stuff”, why not put it to good use and save some cash by using what you already have.