I just finished putting my daughter to bed tonight and I come down to my office and I see the news.  ”Steve Jobs has passed away at 56.”  I have never felt so sad about someone passing away that I only met a couple of times.  His impact on my life goes well beyond the 30 minutes or so we spent in a conference room.

Everyday I put an iPhone in my pocket, and use my Mac to organize family photos, and my MacBookPro for work.  The first Apple hardware I ever used was in 1st Grade, in 1985.  I don’t remember much about it, but I know I enjoyed my time on the computer.  It probably even captured my attention enough to want to write software 14 years at AOL.

From an early visit on the Apple Campus with the iChat Team

It was at AOL, that I would get a change to work closely with Apple and get the chance to initially see him, and then eventually meet him.  I was always impressed that you could find Steve walking around campus, in the Mac Cafe eating lunch with the troops, etc.  My first encounter with Steve was during a visit in 2006.  I was riding in a car with a colleague who will remain unnamed, and as we were pulling out of the visitor lot in front of 1 Infinite Loop, we nearly ran over Steve Jobs.  We were all so stunned we just looked at each other.

Later in my career at AOL, I got to meet Steve and I after I got over my nervous excitement, he was one of the most genuinely passionate persons about Apple products and technology.

Steve’s legacy goes beyond the physical technologies we all use.  His commencement speech at Stanford University, the movies from Pixar, and the huge influence he has had over leaders in the tech community today.  The world today is a lesser place with his departure, my condolences go out to Steve’s family, friends and my friends at Apple.  Thanks for everything Steve.

A few people have pinged me this week asking me about two AIM plugins on the AIM Gallery, one called AOL iTunes, and the other called RSS.  They asked me if these plugins were copied from Goowy.  The answer is that these are actual Goowy widgets that we have made into AIM Modules.  Goowy is a widget company AOL acquired earlier this year, and Alex and his team have been churning out awesome widgets that can be distributed across dozens of different platforms, including AIM.

The AOL iTunes plugin shows you the top 10 songs being downloaded across specific music genres.  The RSS widget is a way you can host your RSS feeds directly in the AIM client.  These two widgets feature all the same customization you get today with Goowy’s YourMinis platform.

These two plugins are the first widgets we have from Goowy, and hopefully there will be more to come.