(FORTUNE Magazine) – This is almost embarrassing, but I actually want to say really nice things about someone: Steve Jobs, CEO simultaneously of Apple Computer and Pixar Animation Studios.

I read John Battelle's column in Business 2.0, FORTUNE's sister magazine, in which he recommends that Jobs buy TiVo--my favorite company because it provides a great service and because my firm made more on it than on any of my other portfolio companies. (The partnership still owns shares.) I absolutely believe that TiVo should remain independent, so I was all set to write a pissy e-mail to Battelle. Instead, I began thinking about all the things that Steve Jobs has brought to computing. It's remarkable, and more apparent now than ever.

In the past month Jobs has unveiled the iTunes Music Store with Apple and Finding Nemo with Pixar. The music initiative required Jobs' visionary personality to get the record labels over their deep fears of distributing music online. At the same time Jobs' vision of making popular movies has been so successful that Pixar is now in a position to negotiate mano a mano with Walt Disney Co., which is worth more than ten times as much and generates 100 times as much revenue.

It's just the latest step in creating things that people can't help but like. So in the spirit of iTunes Music, here is my list of what I consider to be Jobs' greatest hits.

Apple II: People love to argue that Jobs is no engineer and that he couldn't design his way out of a computer. That's true. But he has ideas about what people want. The Apple II was my first computer. I needed only four or five hours to plug the thing together on my dining room table and get a program working--miraculous user-friendliness at the time.

Macintosh: Seeing my first Macintosh was almost a religious experience. Remember that the current standard operating system was then CP/M, shortly to be succeeded by MS-DOS. Well, maybe you don't remember. Suffice it to say, the Mac OS was a remarkable piece of software, and the machine a remarkable example of industrial engineering.

Laser printers: Apple used mechanisms and software from other companies to make the printers that hooked up to the early Macintosh. They were expensive and bulky. Today laser printers are actually no longer a key part of the market, since Hewlett-Packard has made inkjet technology dominant. But it was Jobs' sensitivity to typography and design that made the Macintosh come together as the platform for publishers and graphic artists and started a revolution in their industries.

Pixar: I've loved every single movie that has come out of Pixar, and I'll line up with everyone else for a ticket to Finding Nemo. That's an amazing accomplishment for any studio. Jobs isn't the guy responsible, since a fellow named John Lassiter figured out how to tell the stories and has an entire company supporting him in creativity and production. But Jobs was the one who realized a nerdy technology company could produce great movies and then had the cojones to do a deal with Disney that let Pixar remain a stand-alone company.

Industrial design: A lot of people pooh-pooh colored plastic (the iMac) and titanium casing (the PowerBook) as mere marketing or fanciful design, but it means more than that. Jobs has a powerful sense for design details that make a real difference to real people, and insists on getting them into Apple's products.

OS X: Apple's newest operating system borrows heavily from a version of Unix that isn't that popular and isn't Linux, which seems to have caught the public's fancy. Much of the software design comes from NeXT, the company that Jobs founded when he left Apple and that Apple bought to bring Jobs back into the fold. Switching operating systems is very, very hard for any company to do, but comparing Apple's transition from Mac OS to OS X with the one that Microsoft has been making from earlier versions of Windows to Windows XP gives a reasonable observer the idea that Apple is still a step ahead of Microsoft.

iLife: That's the word Apple uses to describe the media-oriented programs that come bundled with today's Macintosh: iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, and others. Those programs aren't widely acknowledged, but it's remarkable to me how the company has for years successfully pursued a strategy of building a competitive set of software that differentiates the Macintosh well beyond its hardware, industrial design, or marketing. The introductions of the iPod and the iTunes Music Store give a hint as to how Apple can use such software to extend its reach.

iPod: Have you met anyone who has one of these little gems of music portability? If you have, you know that owners quickly become obsessed. I've already bought two for myself and one for my wife.

The new Apple camera: Okay, it doesn't really exist, but I hope it will soon. Most people don't know that Apple introduced the first digital camera--though during the time Jobs was gone, so we can't credit him. Still, what kind of digital camera would Jobs create? Imagine an iPod for taking pictures. I can.

I'm not sure what all that means about Apple as a company. Its financial results have been mediocre, and some people wonder whether it can keep moving ahead. Based on what I've seen Jobs do over the past 20 years, I'd have to say that the company will not only keep moving forward itself but also keep pushing the entire industry along. That said, I do have one warning for Jobs: Keep your hands off my TiVo!