L’avènement inexorable et insidieux de la lecture numérique inquiète. Normal, la nouveauté inquiète toujours. Les chantres du bouquin odorant semblent déstabilisés par ce qu’ils considèrent comme un loup entrant dans la bergerie pour dévorer et anéantir des siècles de culture littéraire.

Une société japonaise a peut-être trouvé le moyen de les réconcilier avec leur peur ancestrale des canidés. Mobile Art Lab a eu l’idée simple mais géniale de mélanger les genres. Dans le règne animal cela aurait consisté à faire copuler un ovidé avec un canidé, tâche ma foi complexe et aux probabilités d’echec importantes. Dans la vie réelle, la tâche s’avère un peu plus aisée puisqu’il s’agit d’insérer un iPhone dans une coque en carton coloré. A priori, peu d’intérêt me direz-vous. Pour l’homminidé qui a perdu toute fantaisie et dont l’imagination est aussi fade qu’une endive blanche en pleine tempête de neige, certes. Par contre, pour le petit d’Homme en devenir, dont l’imagination sans limite lui permet encore de voir toute sorte d’animaux roses voler dans sa chambre, l’exercice a l’air digne d’intérêt*.

Magneto Serge!

Le concept est tout bonnement génial! Limité à une population encore adepte des livres d’images, mais génial! A quand le même concept pour les mémoires de Mme de Sévigné?

* Il est possible que certains adolescents voient encore voler quelques mammifères roses dans leur chambre, mais cela est sans doute dû a d’autres causes…

Le site web de Mobileart Lab

Como ya he comentado en otras entradas tengo un iBook G3 Clamshell SE. La verdad es que es una maravilla de equipo, pero cuando salió Safari 4 me encontré con un gran problema porque me habían desaparecido las barras de desplazamiento, con lo que en su pantalla de 12″ y con una resolución de 800×600 pixeles, pues no se podía navegar. La solución temporal al problema fue reemplazar Safai 4 por la versión anterior, que tuve que copiar de otro equipo, porque por alguna extraña razón que sólo Steve Jobs debe conocer, pues no se puede desinstalar. Y luego se criticaba lo mismo de Internet Explorer  en Windows.

Leyendo distintos foros había encontrado que el problema se debía a que en la versión 4 de Safari se había cambiado la forma en el navegador usaba las barras de desplazamiento, y por alguna causa cuando la resolución era infeior a los 1024×768, pues las dichosas barras no aparecían.

Pues bien, conociendo el sistema paternalista de actualizaciones que tiene Apple, con el que sólo te aparecen aquellas actualizaciones que tu equipo soporta, me parecía muy extraño que si mi Clamshell no era compatible con Safari 4. Así que si Safari seguía apareciendo como actualización, tendría que funcionar. Aunque he de reconocer que tenía mis dudas.

Así que ayer me armé de valor y decidí instalar Safari 4.0.4 en el Clamshell, todo salió bien, y tras abrir Safari pude comprobar que las barras de desplazamiento estaban en su sitio.

Incluso en una máquina tan antigua como la mía, Safari 4 va muy fluido, mucho mejor que Safari 3, aunque por desgracia los vídeos de youtube se ven a saltos.



Nice pictures and explanation.  I’m not really sure how financially viable this is.  Click here.

Apple ha mandato alcuni modelli ufficialmente in pensione e non fornirà più assistenza HW o parti di ricambio per:

• iBook G4 (early 2004)
• iBook G4 (14″ early 2004)
• eMac (USB 2.0)
• Apple Cinema Display ADC
• Apple Studio Display 15″ ADC
• Apple Studio Display 17″ LCD
• Apple Studio Display 17″ ADC
• Power Mac G4 (QuickSilver 2002)
• Macintosh Server G4 (QuickSilver 2002)
• PowerBook G4 (DVI)
• iBook (14.1 LCD 16 VRAM
• iBook (16 VRAM)
• Base Station Airport (Dual Ethernet)

Una lista completa dei prodotti vintage e obsoleti si può trovare qui.

Eventually gave up my Palm at the weekend and invested in the iphone http://www.apple.com/iphone/.  It has been the most simple change over experience I’ve ever encountered both technologically speaking and from a usability perspective.  Contrary to my cinical thinking it was sooo easy to connect up to all my MS based applications and it’s been a dream to get familiar with.  Working remotely as I often do is even more convenient and an unexpected bonus, I can even use it mostly without my glasses!  So watch this space, the rest of the 3webfeet team will be next I’m sure and then who knows it may be macbooks http://www.apple.com/mac/?

Simply said, I and PC is not a good combination. Yesterday, my 10 months old Sony Vaio laptop crashed. Just like that. Lifeless. Dead. Gone. My guess: something wrong with Vista or the hard disk. Something I hate more than PC laptops are the Windows Vista software.

Fortunately, I managed to save all my files, most importantly the university exam essay which I’ve begun writing, whose deadline is soon, and all my pictures. I remember about 3 years ago, or something like that, when my external hard disk crashed and all my pictures got lost. You can imagine how happy I am when, this time, I could save all of them.

Now, am I laptopless? No, I still have my old IBook G4 (Mac) from 2006. That laptop is a previous little thing and still works perfectly well. That’s why I prefer Macs. They are much easier and reliable.

I’ll never buy a PC laptop again. I’ll return to Mac- so if I’ll buy a new laptop soon, it’ll be a MacBook. First, let’s see if the Sony support can save my laptop first. It’s on service now.

See ya.

I miss you on my TV, Jeffrey.

Bring him back, Apple!

Apple isn’t perfect, no matter how hard we self-proclaimed fanboys would love to say it is, and history is proof.

While searching the interwebs for some cool things to post today. I found this list that Newlaunches.com put out in 2007 of what they consider the most failed products of all time. Of course, I might attempt to shed some light on what the products may have led to – portability being a common theme.

Macintosh TV – 1993

Macworld was excited at least!

Today, all the talk is digital conglomeration, or the coming together of different media forms (i.e., television, audio, print, computers, internet, etc.). Now imagine this idea put back in time to the early 90s -No HDTVs, home computers hitting their stride, internet beginning to take off. Apple decided the time was ripe to take the TV and the computer and marry them… sorta. Sure the 14″ monitor provide a good television space and working space, but the two didn’t seem to work together. The Mac wasn’t allowed to access the TV port while the computer was on nor do picture in picture. The product failed, but set the stage for products today such as EyeTV or even YouTube and Hulu to bring a closer marriage of TVs and computers.

Macintosh Portable – 1989

Might as well call it a tabletop.

Apple’s first laptop might as well been a desktop. The ultra-heavy, black and white screened, trackpad-missing, trackball-using behemoth was weighing in at almost 16 lbs! Today’s laptop (in Apple’s world) weighs a nice 5.5 lbs, making this thing seem more like a desktop than any kind of portable we know. A $6,500 price tag also led buyers then away from the computer. However, the lessons the industry learned from the product have led us to our laptops today and the netbooks bound to get smaller.

The days before Mapquest & iPhone...

MessagePad aka “Newton” – 1993

Listed as a failure, I would not consider the product so. Consider the product the predecessor to personal digital assistants, the features in our cell phones, and Apple’s first iPhone/iPod touch. Complete with handwriting recognition (which iPhone apparently has), the device could take notes with the best of them using a touch interface. While it was produced for many years, the product never impacted the market as was expected. It’s biggest failure may have been the fact it was one of many products that led Apple to nearly going bankrupt.

大家一齐来发邮件吧!

相信大家都对邮件非常熟悉了.不用我多说了.现在的手机也推向多功能发展,相当多的手机都支持手机收发邮件,就算本机不支持都会有各种软件支持!微软的Windows mobile,诺基亚的symbian系统,苹果的iPhone OS等等的手机都支持邮件首收发.当中数黑莓的 Blackberry OS 对邮件支持最好了,可惜的是国内完全没有发挥的优势,只有移动的商业套餐才可以享受,而且费用相当昂贵.

不说那么多了,进入主题.只要你使用一些主流品牌手机,那么你的手机一定可以收发邮件的!毕竟邮件是很特殊的,它不像短信,彩信那些存在手机上,邮件是主存在服务器上的,这与短信,彩信的最大区别就是不容害怕误删后找不回来,你即使删除了你手机上的邮件,你一样可以通过电脑在服务器上找到那些邮件.而且邮件是可以根据你服务器的不同来决定邮件打小的.也就是说只要你的服务器支持,你就可以发生一个无限大的邮件.当然,没有人会那样做,除非你是疯子.就是那样,我们手机上收发邮件要的只是收发邮件时候的数据流量,不用像短信彩信那样每次收费,而且彩信的费用是相当大的,一条彩信就要￥0.1-1不等的费用.而邮件是按照数据流量来收费的!一封纯文字的邮件最多也就1-5kb按每个字母1字节计算,一幅手机照的照片在10-300kb,像素搞的就会去到500kb以上.现在移动卡的手机包月GPRS大概是10元100M(各个地区不同),我的是以前开的就5元100M,部分还保留有以前30元无限流量的手机卡.那样来算.一封邮件2kb,一天发100封邮件就200kb,平均每发出1封邮件收到1封邮件,那就是400kb了.一个月30天就是1200kb,而1M=1024kb,那么一个月才用1.2M的流量.再加上收发邮件时候通信使用的小量流量,也就算1.3-1.5M.当然你发送带图片的邮件就按你图片加文字的大小来算了.一般图片大概在150kb左右.你不可能每封邮件都发吧.那样就太恐怖了!每天100条短信的费用是恐怖的啊!就算动感地带每月赠送130条短信.那你最多1天半就用完了.联通的200条也就最多用2天.不过大部分人都不会那样发短信的.一般就是一天50条内.泡妞的就另算了,通常一小时都过100条的.那样算一下还是邮件实际啊.

邮件还有个特点就是,邮件原生是用于电脑之间传输信息的,那就是在电脑收是邮件的主体,所以你的手机也支持邮件收发,你就可以在手机和电脑间互传信息了,第一反应就是飞信了,可以手机和电脑通信.有个问题是,飞信还是要收费啊,虽然说电脑发到手机不收费,但是手机发出是一样按条收费的.还有字数限制呢.

对于邮件,也有他很多不足的,例如:如果你设备不支持实时收发的,那么邮件就会延时了.

对于你使用的手机,你清楚怎样收发邮件吗?很多手机邮件收发都是和短信,彩信是同一个菜单目录的,一般都在短信和彩信后面会有电子邮件選项.进入设置你的邮箱参数就可以了.一般手机都是支持IMAP收发邮件的,因为那是比较适合移动设备收发邮件用的协议.进入后都会提示你填写服务器地址和邮箱账户密码.每个邮箱的设置都不同的!国内一般都使用163,Sina,tom,QQ,yahoo.com.cn等的邮箱.而Gmail,Hotmail,yahoo.com等的比较少.本人国外国内都用的,哈哈,分开每个邮箱用途.感觉上还是Gmail和QQmail比较好,不过我还是用Hotmail做常用邮箱,因为空间打,附带的其他功能多.Gmail不用说,安全,方便,简单,空间存储大等,是一直受大家好评的.QQmail就是因为是QQ的一个附属品,方便国内使用QQ的用户练习和交流,不过这个附属品已经相当强大.无限次的存储扩容,每次都是翻倍的.各种整合QQ其他业务的功能,无聊你开通QQ什么业务都会向你邮箱发送一封邮件提示,通过捆绑QQ和相关业务,QQmail已经成了国内最多用户的邮件服务之一.说到最多用户,还要说就是163了,163的邮箱不仅只有163.com,还有128.com,188.com等的邮箱.163是最早期的免费邮箱服务之一.和yahoo.com.cn,sina,等的早期邮箱服务是国内第一批使用邮箱服务的用户所熟悉的!这些邮箱服务都统一支持pop收件smtp发件的邮箱,通常只有智能终端才支持这类协议收发邮件.不过现在很多邮件服务都推出了相应自己邮箱服务各个平台的软件,Gmail,QQmail,移动的139邮箱等都有各种手机平台的收发软件,部分邮箱如:gmail,QQmail等都有移动设备专用的IMAP协议的收发邮件.假如像Hotmail那样不支持IMAP的邮箱你可以通过使用”UCmail”,”尚邮”等的手机软件实现手机收发邮件,但是你就要时刻开着这个软件,这样电池是会比一般待机情况消耗的快很多!

这里提醒一下,一般手机自带邮件收发是使用cmnet传输数据的,因为只有cmnet才可以顺利访问到Internet.而我们使用的GPRS则是使用cmwap传输数据的,而cmnet传输数据服务是需要你去营业厅办理的,否则就按每天2元收费.那费用可是相当恐怖的啊!至于使用cmwap传输数据收发邮件的可以使用Gmail的Google Sync同步服务,他可以推送邮件到你的手机,建议symbian 60,Windows mobile,iPhone的朋友使用,不但可以收发邮件,还可以同步你的联系人和日程等到Google的服务器!相当方便.即系你换了手机一样可以同步找到你的联系人.或者你可以使用”UCmail”,”尚邮”等的软件,这些软件是使用cnwap方式收发邮件的,他们是把你邮箱邮件通过他们的服务器转发到你手机.

下面介绍一下一些邮箱的收发设置和相关连接.

Gmail手机设置:link1(pop),link2(IMAP),link3(Google Sync)

在 Gmail 帐户中启用 POP。操作完成后不要忘记点击保存更改。

配置您的客户端以匹配以下设置：

l   个人建议使用Gmail的朋友使用Google Sync ,支持cmwap 可以同步你的联系人,日历,邮件等.(登陆相应网站可以下载你手机平台的Sync同步软件.或者使用手机自带同步功能设置服务器地址为:m.google.com,之后填写你邮箱地址和密码,钩選SSL连接即可.)

QQMail手机设置:link

POP3服务器:pop.qq.com

IMAP服务器:imap.qq.com

SMTP服务器:smtp.qq.com

Hotmail设置:

POP3服务器：pop3.live.com（端口号：995）

SMTP服务器：smtp.live.com（端口号：25）

注意：Hotmail的POP3和SMTP必须要以SSL模式连接，电子邮件用户名要填整个邮箱地址。

• 需要特别注意的是:cmnet和我们常用来上网的cmwap是两个不同的网络数据传输.我们开通使用的gprs一般都是cmwap(部分省份已经吧cmwap和cmnet合并了),是不支持pop和IMAP连接的.所以你可能会产生大量数据流量费用.个人建议使用Gmail的朋友使用Google Sync服务,它是可以支持cmwap的!  如果你想使用cmwap方式收发邮件你可以使用入”UCmail”,”尚邮”等使用cnwap方式通过其服务器收发后转发客户端的软件.

As the weather warms and the sun comes out here in SF, it finally Snows for Mac users everywhere. That is to say that Apple has released their latest big cat named operating system, Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6). With it Apple has picked up Leopard (OS X 10.5), cleaned it out, dusted it off, and sped it up greatly for all Intel Mac users. Plus, they have dramatically reduced the price for us too! ($29 for a single user and $49 for a family pack (5 users).) Sorry to say that anyone with a non-intel Mac (iBooks, PowerBooks, PowerMacs and G4 Mac Minis) will not be able to upgrade to Snow Leopard. However, now is a great time to upgrade your old hardware and go Intel.

One problem that may affect users though is software compatibility. Some of your third party (non-Apple) software may not work with the latest release of OS X. Generally speaking, a good majority of your higher end software (ie, Adobe, Microsoft…etc) will work without a hitch. It’s more along the lines of the little pieces of software that will fail to work. I, for example, loved a little piece of software called Letterbox (As it stands the developer of Letterbox has a 4th beta version posted, which seems to be working rather well for me.) which allows you to have your emails preview pain show to the right of your email list. Unfortunately it was rejected by Snow Leopard. To be fair to developers, Apple did really jump the gun on the release date of Snow Leopard. That move undoubtedly left developers dangling in the wind by cutting off roughly a month of further testing on their software.

Overall though, Snow Leopard is a gorgeous piece of work. It truly is what Leopard should have been from the get go. The developers at Apple redesigned 90% of Leopard’s internals. Which means Snow Leopard is heavily streamlined and even more visually gorgeous then its predecessor. Snow Leopard is not at all an entirely behind the scenes redesign, there are quite a few little tweaks to what you and I see and use everyday. I have been using Snow Leopard on my MacBook since the early Beta release back in June and I am still finding nice enhancements constantly. Some of my favorites are:

-Dock Expose allowing users to click and hold on an applications icon in the dock to get a view of all windows open for that app, and thereby get to the window you are after with ease.

-I am also a huge fan of the ability to resize items in the finder with a handy slider at the bottom right of the finder window.

-Another nice enhancement comes to Stacks (Stacks is a Leopard-introduced feature of the dock which allows quick access to folders placed next to the trash can icon). You finally have the ability to scroll through a folder’s contents and click into folders within a folder to get to its contents. Also a nice touch is a back button so you can go back to the previous folder you were in.

- Quicktime X has a fantastic, albeit simple, feature that allows you to record a video of actions you make on the Mac real time. Which is a great way to help out family and friends with their most vexing Mac problems.

There are many more little tweaks and improvements that make Snow Leopard wonderful experience, but I won’t be going through them all.

By far I believe that the number one thing you will notice from the get go is speed. I have, of course, installed it on all the machines that are active in my house: a Mac Mini 1.66 core duo, a MacBook 2 gHz core 2 duo and my girlfriend’s MacBook Pro 2.4 gHz core 2 duo. The MacBook Pro was the last machine to receive the upgrade. That being said, my MacBook, after the upgrade was equal in speed if not faster than the MacBook Pro, prior to upgrading the MacBook Pro. Needless to say I was rather pleased with this factor. Next to get the upgrade was the Mini, that bumped it up to equal or slightly greater than my MacBook, prior to upgrading the MacBook. The last computer to get the upgrade was the MacBook Pro, that computer is now SCREAMING fast, incomparably so. The speed bump is worth the price of admission alone.

How did Apple developers achieve such performance, you might ask? Well I will tell you. WARNING: this part is gonna get techie. The main speed boost comes from switching from 32 bit processing to 64 bit processing. To be fair not all Intel Macs can benefit from this as they cannot all handle 64 bit processing. What does 64 bit processing mean? That means that the processors can do the math of processing at almost double the speed of 32 bit processing. Also 64 bit processing means that your computer can handle a nearly infinite amount of RAM. RAM is responsible for allowing you to run more applications at once, aka multitasking, plus it does give a bit of a speed boost as well.

The next reason I am about to give for the speed boost in Snow Leopard is a debatable, yet I believe it to be true. What I am referring to is the slimming down of the system software installed to roughly 7 GB, as opposed to an 11 GB Leopard install. They pulled this feat off by removing any code for Apple’s pre-Intel computers (Power PC Macs, aka PPC), hence the reason older Macs are not supported by Snow Leopard. It is in my belief that without all of the code for the PPC computers, Snow Leopard has to shuffle through less code and thereby improving speed as well. As I said though, this is debatable. One thing I do know for a fact is that when you install Snow Leopard over a Leopard install you gain up to 15 GB of storage on your internal hard drive, which is always a lovely thing in itself!

If you couldn’t tell from reading this post, I am a HUGE fan of Apple’s latest operating system (OS), Snow Leopard. It is, in my opinion, the best OS Apple has released to date. At $29, it is by far their cheapest offering as well. So, what are you waiting for? Go on out and grab yourself a copy today! If you need help with the install, don’t hesitate to call DandyMac if you are in the SF Bay Area!

Depois da calmaria, volta a tempestade. Foram meses e meses de especulações, rumores, discussões e mockups, como este aí de cima, tudo em cima de uma suposta Tablet que a Apple estava para lançar no tradicional evento de setembro. Não lançou. Aí foram brincar com os novos iPods Nano e esqueceram dela um tempinho. Não por muito tempo. A Tablet da Apple (ou iTablet, iBook, Mac Tablet, iPad, Newton, chame como quiser) está de volta aos holofotes de todos os blogs sensacionalistas de tecnologia xD.

A volta dos que não foram começou hoje de manhã, quando o iLounge publicou, afirmando ser de uma fonte confiável, 10 novos fatos sobre o iPad (eles chamam assim), que você confere agora:

1. A Apple criou pelo menos três protótipos diferentes do iPad;
2. A versão 1 foi criada com um display de 7″, considerado muito pequeno. A última versão, no caso a definitiva, possui 10,7″;
3. Ele roda o iPhone OS;
4. Houve rumores de que ele se pareceria com o iPhone. Estavam certos. Ele se parece com um 3G, inclusive com as bordas arredondadas;
5. Serão lançadas duas versões: com 3G (uma espécie de iPhone gigante) e sem 3G (uma espécie de iPod Touch gigante);
6. A resolução da tela, obviamente, sofrerá uma grande melhora em relação à do iPhone e iPod Touch, que possui 480×320 pixels. Será perfeita para a leitura de eBooks, jornais e revistas online e textos;
7. Ele foi desenhado para expandir o conceito de multimídia do iPhone e iPod Touch a um outro patamar, como uma espécie de substituição para jornais e revistas, videogames portáteis e netbooks, tudo com a funcionalidade de internet dos iPhones;
8. Ele não irá competir com os netbooks, apesar disto. É um media player com iPhone OS e uma leve capacidade de comunicação;
9. A Apple está planejando anunciá-lo antes de 19 de janeiro de 2010, e se utilizar de um hype semelhante ao das vésperas do início das vendas do iPhone, deixando para disponibizá-lo no mercado apenas em maio ou junho;
10. Aparentemente, o último obstáculo antes do seu nascimento é a aprovação de Steve Jobs. Apesar do seu grande envolvimento no projeto, especula-se que haja cerca de 20% de chances de reprovação.

É isto aí, se os fatos forem verdadeiros, devo confessar que me desanimei um pouco com esta iTablet. Eu sinceramente esperava um novo sistema operacional, como um intermediário entre o iPhone OS e o Mac OS X.  iPhone OS?! Só se for para jogar Fifa 10 em tamanho gigante.

Mas, por experiência própria, é melhor eu calar minha boca. Como dizem por aí, “você não sabe o que quer até tio Steve dizer”.

I’ve blogged numerous time about how much I love Mashable. It’s at the top of my things-I-can’t-live-without list, along with my Channel powder compact, an overplayed Born to Run, my ancient iBook laptop and my worn copy of The Chicago Manual of Style. One of my favorite sections on Mashable is the How-To section. Wanna know how to write a novel online? Check it out. Wanna know how to create a wining Facebook Fan Page? Check it out. Wanna know how to plan a wedding online? Check it out. Wanna reverse the national deficit? Hmmm. Can’t help you there.

NO SOUND – Ibook G4

For close to 4 years now, I’ve been an Apple convert.  The time has passed by quickly, and I don’t regret making the switch one bit.  My first Apple product was technically my 40GB iPod photo which now looks like a giant brick! I can’t believe I used to carry that around with me! But then, I can’t believe I used to carry my walkman and 5 or 6 cassette tapes to school each day, nor that I used to have a little bag with my discman and a few CDs in it that I used to wear around me.  Something I forgot until my iPod had to be sent away for repair during my second year of university was that CDs JUMP.  How we’ve come to expect perfection!  Or I have, anyway – I have no patience for songs skipping, I have little patience for my iPod taking a while to get its head round a song I want it to play.

However, I never considered getting an iPod as becoming an Apple convert.  Once I saw how easily my iPod worked and how straightforward the menus were, I became interested in getting an Apple laptop, especially as my current laptop was slower than a dinosaur.  During my first year of university, I had lots of problems with anti-virus software and protecting my computer.  It became ridiculously slow, and in addition to that, the laptop I had had a poor attempt at imitating Microsoft Office.  In the end, I had enough, and just before Christmas 2005 I ordered my first Apple laptop, an iBook G4.  It took me a month to get used to the fact that there was no right-click button, that the tabs and x’s and everything were in different places.  Also to get used to the fact that as a Mac, my computer was practically already virus-immune without constant annoying updates from AVG and Spybot and Norton Anti-Virus.  The resolution and picture quality was far superior than what I had been used to, and although there were several software compatibility issues, they were a lot easier to overcome than I had feared.  The aforementioned Microsoft Office was no longer needed, as I didn’t require any spreadsheets, and I could open and create word documents in TextEdit.  So it was all good!

Of course, it’s not all been problem-free.  I’m now on my third iPod (which is just over a year old), a 120GB silver iPod classic.  I’ve had it just over a year, and apart from the fact that the click wheel only clicks in the headphones, it is behaving quite well. For a while it was working extremely slowly, but the iPod software update on Snow Leopard fixed it and it’s back to normal.  I have had a lot of iPod issues in the past, having to send back my iPod time and again and getting replacement ones.  Particularly in the case of my first iPod (the photo one), I got into a rhythm of hitting it and knocking it in order to get it to behave and function, which in retrospect was quite ridiculous.  My second iPod, a 5th-generation iPod classic with video, still works, though it went through a period of deleting itself of all my music which was why I got a new one.  Because I have such a huge amount of music (though 120GB is more than enough space, and I haven’t come close to filling this iPod yet, with 35GB still free!), having to reload it onto my iPod is a MASSIVE pain, and now I use a handy program called iLinkPod to back up my iPod every month or so.  It’s a great security blanket, and ensures that I never lose my songs (something which is a much more real concern with digital music – it’s far easier to lose a file than to lose a CD), nor my formatting – I am a little bit anal about how I categorise my songs and make sure that everything has the correct artwork.  So with my new iPod, I bought AppleCare to keep it under guarantee for a lot longer, and I feel a lot more secure now.  And everything is working fine!

The introduction of an Apple Store to Bristol has also been a great advantage.  Up until the opening of Cabot Circus last September, there was an Apple retailer in Temple Meads which was more or less hopeless when it came to fixing any issues that I had.  Problems with my first laptop and its CD drive went unrepaired because they were so pathetic in their service that I just preferred to persist with the problem than get it fixed by them. (When my CD or DVD would skip upon putting it in the drive, I would just beat the base of the computer and it would work.  Again, I am glad to say those days are long gone!)  When my hard drive finally corrupted (I think to be fair, that was my fault because in Spain, I would leave my computer on my bed and it would overheat lying on the thick blanket that I had bought), it was easier just to buy another laptop than get it fixed by them and face their judgement.  Also, their costs would probably have been close to the cost of another laptop anyways.  I bought my second laptop in Easter 2007, and I still have it today!  The one time that I had a problem with it, last Christmas when it would only work with the power adapter plugged in, I took it to the Apple Store in Cabot Circus, who repaired it and although they had said that providing a new logic board would cost £400 (a price I decided I was prepared to pay), they fixed it for no charge.  It was a lovely Christmas Eve present, and to this day I’m not sure if that was a mistake… I just got out of the store clutching my laptop before they could change their mind!

Updating my operating system to Leopard and recently Snow Leopard has kept my laptop current, and although it is 2 and a half years old now, I don’t feel that it’s been left behind or is lacking anything. I have got a Microsoft Office replacement now called NeoOffice, so that I can plot my anti-snacking spreadsheet and make a beautiful printable CV.  Using the real Microsoft at work has made me appreciate Apple all the more.  My Dell laptop starts up and shuts down so slowly; it installs updates at a snail’s pace; Microsoft Office is actually not that user friendly, with certain apparently-advanced functions being a rigmarole to discover.  And don’t rely on the help section – it only helps you with incredibly obvious things, and anything more technical is a struggle to even find according to their index system.  I conclude that their help sections must have been written by morons, and this week at work, I have solved my queries by using Google, seeing that the Microsoft help section had failed me so.  In short, I can’t see myself going back to Microsoft.

However, there is one area of my life where I’m not willing to let Apple in.  The iPhone, while I appreciate is a marvellous piece of kit and has so many useful (and useless! ) apps as well as a slim touchscreen, iPod capabilities and Safari web browser, is just far too common.  I see it everywhere. In addition, it’s expensive and I’m not really into buying phones on contract (I get easily confused), so I prefer to buy them SIM-free and then just keep my standard O2 Simplicity contract, which gives me unlimited web browsing, and enough free texts and minutes for £20 to keep me satisfied. I see iPhones everywhere, and while they are pretty and fantastic devices, I prefer to be a little bit different.  I have the LG Prada II, which is a beautiful sleek black touchscreen phone.  However, it also has a pull-out QWERTY keyboard (one of the main selling features for me) so after a little bit of teething, I can text pretty damn quick. I also have the internet and a camera and all the other important things I wanted in a smart phone.  But for me, it is more beautiful than an iPhone, it has the designer name which makes it a little more special to me, and I have never seen another one being used in public.  I am confident that the iPhone is probably a superior piece of kit, but not by much – I am happy without all the extra apps, as long as I have my QWERTY keyboard, free internet browsing, emails, beautiful phone and unique phone.  The LG Prada II has taken me a few months to get my head around (the instruction manual is not very clear, and it does randomly do crazy things such as restart when I receive more than one email), but I have grown to love it and appreciate its quirks as much as its beauty and functions.  As I’ve only had it for 5 months, I’m not really looking into what phone I might get next (iPhone or otherwise), as technology these days (particularly with smart phones) evolves so quickly that I won’t even think about it until my current phone starts getting tired and a new one will be necessary.  However, I know that Dior have got a beautiful phone on their website…

iBook G4 internet connection problems

The screen media, as all readers will know, are useful chiefly for two things: they pass time and rot the brain. Very well. If, let us say, one is in the position of contending with hazardous circumstances, such as, let us say –

• one’s abject poverty
• the late hours one keeps
• one’s iBook being on the fritz, perhaps permanently
• one’s mother’s gratifying yet somehow anticlimactic probable triumph over a rare cancer, on a technicality
• one’s practically only sister living in London and not able to come back quite when planned
• 120 roll film costing the earth and leaving one’s Holga to lie fallow
• one’s substandard ankles, now structurally unsound due to two accidents
• the bus system

– and so on, the screen media occasionally do provide one with a welcome diversion. There are different kinds of media into which one can sink oneself: sometimes, for example, plonking down in front of Firefly on DVD is just the thing, and other times few things are more appealing than an afternoon curled up with cups of tea and a dozen or so YouTube clips of Draco and the Malfoys.

The trouble is, DVDs must either be picked up on sale at JB Hi-Fi, or rented from a frankly useless chain video store in the central city. This is no good. Auckland may be a bustling, forward-thinking metropolis (though this is doubtful), but what it needs is to take a lesson or two from Hamilton, at least in the matter of the Hydro-Majestic, cafes that open after six PM, and Auteur House. Shortly before I moved away, I had nearly finished watching a series of Truman Capote films (I think I still had one version of In Cold Blood to go) and a bunch of Hitchcocks, and Dr Richard was handing over Danny Kaye films as soon as I walked up the stairs.

I miss Auteur House.