24" iMac - its upgrade time

24" iMac in blue
(but I got the silver one)

I've been an Apple diehard for well over a decade - almost 15 years in fact. My first foray was a MacBook Pro laptop for my 50th birthday in *cough* 2009. It's still going strong and has been upgraded a few times although sadly no longer capable of running Apple's latest Mac operating system. Since then I've added numerous iPhones, iPads and in 2013 a 21" iMac desktop. That's served me well and again is still going strong. However, it also won't run the latest OS (in fact it's about 3 versions behind now), and I've also recently had cause to bemoan that it won't run a couple of bits of the latest versions of software I own/use.

Having summed and ached for almost a year I suppose, I've finally bitten the bullet and bought the newest version of the iMac. The smart (and even sleeker)  24" version running Apple's own silicon, the M1 chip.

First things first - the elephant in the room. Apple kit is ridiculously expensive. I could have bought three of four windows desktops for what I paid for his specific version of the iMac. But, and I appreciate this is a wholly subjective viewpoint, the Apple ecosystem is fabulous. It works for me and their kit is beautiful to look at, and I find very functional and easy to use. To paraphrase Steve Jobs, one of Apple's founders and now sadly deceased, "It just works".

I went for a model that had extra ports (the base model has only two Thunderbolt/USB ports - this ones 2 Thunderbolt and Two USB 4 ports. I also went for a version with an upgraded memory (16GB instead of the base 8GB), and an upgraded SSD (storage) up to 1TB from 256GB at the base end.

That all meant a substantial hike in price, but the one (potentially negative) thing about the iMacs is that they're not upgradeable after purchase. If you need  extra memory/storage, you need to spec it up front. This should future proof my purchase, and I wanted the extra memory and storage primarily for my photos/processing. Yes I could get an external storage unit (in fact I have three external drives attached to my iMac), but I like plenty of onboard storage too.

The other key decision was colour. Once upon a time, all Macs came in beige. Then silver. Now there are 7 colours to choose from for the iMac (less for the base models). Many people get/got quite excited by this, and whilst I quite liked the blue model, 1) I'm not that fussed by colour on my computers, 2) I'm an Apple traditionalist so silver works fine for me, and 3) they only had the blue or silver in the configuration I wanted on the day. So silver it was.

It's a one box solution, and in keeping with Apple's beautiful design, even the box and packaging is cool.

The iMac in it's protective box

Once out of the box, you get the computer until, a bluetooth keyboard and mouse and a USB4 to lightning cable to charge the two accessories and that's it.

Out of the box and ready to go

Connecting everything up was a breeze and boom - we're away.

Back in the day, a new computer meant copying over all your files and reinstalling all the software. Today things are much easier, and a "migration assistant" basically lets you copy everything from the old Mac to the new one. You can do this wirelessly, via Ethernet cable or Thunderbolt/USB if you have the right cables. I opted for an ethernet cable. The whole process took around an hour, and as if by magic, my new iMac was a replica of my old iMac.

The migration assistant doing its thing

It's worth checking your software for the latest updates. I found a few programs that needed updating, and a couple that needed some reconnecting (my backup programs for example knew that although I'd migrated everything, it was on a new computer and I needed to tell it that it was OK for the new box to "claim" the settings for use on this iMac.

Ready to rock and roll

Generally, it was a painless exercise, completed pretty quickly until I got a message saying there was an update for the operating system. That took another hour or so, but installed without problem.

I'm very happy. The new screen is gorgeous (it's 10 years of technology advancements newer) and the unit runs fast, quiet and is a joy to look at.

NowI need to work out what to do with my old iMac. It's still perfectly functional.

Twitter: @Statto1927 

Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/people/simon_hiscocks/ 

Instagram: simon_hiscocks

April15th: Sparkly Sirius

I've mentioned before that I'm fascinated by space and the night sky. Inspired by a post on Twitter a few days ago, last night I made an attempt to photograph the star Sirius (also called Alpha Canis Majoris or the Dog Star). Its name is derived from Greek meaning glowing, sparkling or scorching". Easily visible in the night sky currently lowish to the south in early evening, it's very bright (though not as bright as Venus at the moment). Of particular note is that it's probably one of the "twinkliest" stars in the sky, and even with the naked eye you can see both the twinkling and as well as some apparent changes of colour as it twinkles.

The collage photo below is the result of my efforts last night. The change in colours from this star are literally over a period of a couple of seconds whilst I took a burst set of photos and are both amazing and stunning in equal measure and are largely due to the light from the star combined with the atmospheric conditions as the light hits the earth's atmosphere. I'm dead chuffed with the result of this as my first effort at this.

Sirius - changing colours captured 9pm 14 April 2020

I achieved result this by tripod mounting my binoculars (Olympus 10x50 DPS1 - excellent for star gazing), focussing on Sirius and then defocusing slightly (to get a more blurry and therefore deliberately fuzzy shot of the star) and then hand holding my iPhone XR camera lens to one of the binocular eye pieces and holding the shutter down for a couple of seconds to get multiple burst images. It's a bit hit and mis-using the phone hand held to actually get the shot, but after a couple of goes shooting nothing I managed it!

Once I got the shots, I needed to post-process them as the star was just a tiny coloured dot in each frame. I exported all the images from the iPhone, and then used software called "BatchPhoto"to import and crop all the images in one go so the crop ratio was 100% (doing them individually/manually would be a disaster). Then after exporting the cropped images, I used a Mac application (sorry - no Windows here), called CollageFactory Free from the Mac App Store to pull together the image above in a grid.

The night sky is truly a wondrous thing, and with the current clear skies and relatively mild evenings, it's a perfect time for getting out in the garden and having a look around. There are numerous people to follow on Twitter who provide all sorts of great info about the night sky, but if you only follow one I recommend @VirtualAstro (website at meteorwatch.org). One imminent thing to watch out for is the Lyrid meteor shower which occurs this year from tomorrow (16th) to 25th April peaking late 21st/early 22nd.

Back in the world of #isolation life and Covid-19, my son has somewhat expectedly been put on furlough. Daughter is still working from home, most of her IT issues seem to have been sorted, and my wife has a week off from work this week (well her normal 2 days anyway). She's been to see her Mum today and do some shopping for her - all ok there. After yesterday's nice walk over on the local golf course, the next highlight of my week will be a trip to the doctors surgery on Friday for my routine blood test.

I can assure everyone that the cat is fine, but living a pretty dull life currently. Sleeping most of the time, as evidenced by this shot of her underneath the rosemary bush next to the compost bin!

Spot the cat

Until tomorrow....

#isolationlife
#stayhomesavelives

March 30th: Silicone and Windows - but not that kind

So, starting with coronavirus/covid-19 because that's what prompted this renewed effort at blogging. Yesterday the Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England said that it might be six months before life in the UK returns to normal. That's quite scary as that takes us to the end of September, although she did say that doesn't (necessarily) mean we'll be in complete lockdown for 6 months. And I was thinking today, that on the day that Boris (or whomever says it) says, "Ok folks, you can get out and about", where is everyone going to go first? I bet for a good many it'll be straight to the local pub (if it's still open). Those first few days post lockdown are going to be really weird I think, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.
It's evident that some people still don't appreciate the seriousness of this pandemic. However, when it starts affecting those they know and love, perhaps that'll hit home. A couple of those nudged me today. First, a post on Facebook from someone I don't know, but who lives relatively locally said they had someone in there family that had "had" the virus. True or not, when it's just around the corner, it rams it home a bit. Secondly, as people that are famous (or at least well know) are reported to have been diagnosed, it also becomes a bit more scary. Obviously we've had a few politicians who have been diagnosed including the Prime Minister. Today I found out that one of my favourite musicians, American country/folk singer John Prine has not only been diagnosed, but it currently on a ventilator. That's not to say that I didn't appreciate what a terrible situation we are in before today, but this brings it home even more. As an aside, one of John Prime's songs "Ain't Hurtin Nobody" has got one of the best lines of any song ever:

There's roosters layin' chickens
And chickens layin' eggs
Farm machinery eating people's arms and legs

On the basis of that single line about farm machinery I bought his album "Lost Dogs And Mixed Blessings" which is absolutely splendid.

In #isolationlife today I've meandered between redoing the silicon sealant inside the conservatory and upgrading a laptop. You'll recall my sone was clearing out his bedroom the other day. Well he dug out his old laptop. I can't recall just how old it is (it's the one before the one he's got now), but he was going to chuck it. Ever the gadget hoarder, I dusted it down (literally), booted it up and found that it ran (almost) perfectly. I did a completer restore of the operating system (Windows 8) and today I upgraded that to Windows 10. Can't see anything wrong with the device, and it runs really well and quite fast for an machine a few years old. Bonus win as a spare machine (although I'm a Mac man).

Old laptop with W10 installed

As for the silicone..... Well I'm not the best DIY-er by a long way. But how hard can siliconing be? The professionals make it look easy. I look like I've done 10 rounds with a silicone gun and lost badly, and whilst the sealing will do a job, it ain't going to win any prizes for neatness. It's terrible stuff! And I only managed to slice my finger once getting the old stuff off. I've got a few tales about my DIY failures which I'll save for another day.

Hardly seen the cat all day.

An Apple a day

OK I admit it. I'm an Apple fan.

Not a "fanboi" in the sense that I don't believe in any tech other than that coming out of 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, but over the last 5-6 years I've slowly moved to an entirely Apple setup.

As the photo shows, I now have the complete set. An iPhone 5s, an iPad Mini, a 13" Macbook Pro, and the latest addition, a 21" iMac desktop.

I don't hate Windows as an operating system - I use it every day in work, and there's at least 3 Windows boxes/laptops loitering around the house. My Apple kit though offers everything I need, in every form factor I need (for the moment). And I'm very happy with it. It works, it synchronises together seamleslsy, and combined that many of my "go to" applications are now cloud based (Dropbox, Evernote, Skype, Twitter, Facebook, Gmail etc) it means I always have access to what I need.

I've been fortunate enough that circumstances have allowed me to migrate to Apple devices on a "want" basis - I want it, I don't "need" it. And I'm grateful for that.

The latest piece of kit is that gorgeous 21" iMac. It's the "base" model - but that still comes in at a hefty price. In part you're paying for the Apple brand, but you do get what you pay for. All my Apple devices are stunningly designed, they work pretty flawlessly, and they last a long time.  My Macbook Pro is over 4 years old now, and but for a swap out of the original hard drive for a bigger SSD a couple of months ago, and a RAM boost a couple of years ago, works as well now as it did when I first got it. And it still looks as good as new. The iMac though is the pick of the bunch. It wouldn't look out of place anywhere. It's amazingly thin considering that monitor house all the gubbins. There's only 1 lead - the power lead. It's a work of art. the mouse and keyboard are wireless - the keyboard itself is stunningly engineered - how can you say that about something as mundane as a keyboard?

It's kit that wants to be used. And it's a pleasure to use it.

Choices, choices

So the time has come. My iPhone 4 has served me admirably for almost 40 months, but it's time to change.

It still works. It still does the things I want it to do. But it is slowing down. Things that used to happen quickly seem to take longer - apps opening, screens refreshing etc. I did a restore a while back and it improved things a bit, but not much. It's starting to look a bit tired too. A couple of scratches here and there and some damage to the casing in a couple of places and a tiny crack on the topmost left of the screen. Hardly noticeable, but there nonetheless.

Apple have just announced two new phones. The "budget" 5C at a whopping £479 sim free. Essentially it's an iPhone 5 in a coloured case. And the 5S, same form factor as the current 5, with a choice of 3 case colours, but faster, better camera and a fingerprint scanner. If the 5C is budget, the 5S isn't. The cheapest variant weighs in at £549, £80 dearer than the 5C and £20 dearer than the current 5.

I've toyed with the idea of getting an Android device. The Galaxy S4 and HTC One look nice. They rock bigger screens than the iPhone, and Android has certainly come a long way, but.....

Despite those who say the iPhone is lagging behind, it isn't. I played with some Android phones in a shop today. They're good. Very good. But pick up an iPhone and it just oozes something the Android devices just don't have. It's not the OS. It's certainly not the hardware although Apples kit is still lovely stuff. It's something in the ether. It's smoother, silkier in use. It's comfortable to hold.

And the killer for me, is the seamless integration across my phone, my tablet (an iPad Mini) and my MacBook Pro itself now 4 years old but still a honey...

No, I'm afraid it's going to have to be Apple and the iPhone again. The only question is which variant. £549 is eye wateringly steep for a skinflint like me, but then it's "only" £80 more than the 5C which is effectively last years model in a new skin. As I change phones so rarely, the sensible choice would be to get the best I could afford.then again I could get the 5C with a view to upgrading when the iPhone 6 arrives next autumn.

Choices, choices.......

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad Mini

Four of the best

I've posted something similar to this before, but it was a while ago, and may be useful to rehash for those of you who are newer to smartphones, or have not come across these before (unlikely.

In no particular order - well that's not strictly true - I'm going by the order they appear on my phone.....

Evernote

 Evernote is the ideal app for storing your snippets of stuff. It's cross platform, so there are variants for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android etc and it has an online app too - by default you sync your stuff to the cloud, but if you run it off several devices it's available everywhere. You can store notes, audio, photos, files etc etc. Basic comes free - if you have lots you start to pay, but it's worth it. There are also browser plug ins so you can snip info straight from web pages - or even whole web pages if you want. If you store loads of "stuff", it's a no brainer.

Dropbox

One of the earliest modern "cloud" repositories and arguably still one of the best. Download the app (again it's cross platform), and anything you save in your dropbox folder gets synced to the cloud - where you can also access it online. It's got versioning, sharing and loads more. Again, there's a rather stingy 2GB limit on the free version, but you can pay for more space. Again, where-ever you are whatever device you're using, you can access your Dropbox stuff.

WeekCal

I use the calendar on my iPhone a lot. The bog standard Apple calendar however is fairly sparse in functionality. I've long used WeekCal in it's place. It's brilliant. Loads of options, loads of views, great support. It syncs to the inbuilt calendar so if like me you use your iPhone hooked via iCloud to a Macbook (or Mac desktop) everything is there, all the time. A highly polished calendar app and highly recommended.

1Password

There are a myriad of password managers out there. You really need one. No you really do. Really. If you're using the same password, or simple passwords for multiple sites, frankly you're an idiot (sorry, but it's true). You're just asking to get hacked, and probably, sooner or later you will be.

1Password allows you to create and manage complicated paswords that look like "gGt6%_43@£449+qEsW3" (and no, that's not one of mine). But the beauty of it is, you don't need to know this, and you certainly don't need to remember it. 1Password does the creation, storing and retrieval from a browser plug in. All you need to do is have one (1) secure master password. Password does the rest. There are as I said, lots of these password managers/vaults out there. 1Password is pricy. But in my view it's the best. Also cross platform, so I have it on my PC, my Macbook and my iPhone and it all stays nicely in sync without me worrying about it. 

Gadget dilemmas

Generally I'm a happy iPhone 4 user. Since the mad rush of blood to the head when I stood in the opening day queue for 5 hours for my "4"  to replace my iPhone 3G I've enjoyed using the phone. When the 4S cam along, there was little in there to persuade me to upgrade, and since then - almost two and a half years now, I've been content.

The arrival of the Samsung Galaxy SIII earlier this year did peek my interest. It's a great phone, with a fantastic screen, and great specs, and over the summer I started to waver just slightly, but have always held back because I still liked the iPhone 4, and I have a Macbook Pro, and I'm getting an iPad, and Apple stuff, well...'just works'.

The other thing I was holding off for, was the arrival of the iPhone 5. I was keen to see what Apple would do to counter the charge of the SIII as one of the flagship smartphones. Well by the time Apple announced it, we all knew anyway because of the leaks. And I have to say, I'm a little disappointed. I was most hoping for a bigger screen. What we've got is a 'taller' screen. Other than that, and a few inevitable tweaks in processor/camera it's much the same as the 4S and arguably 4 before it.

Those in praise say it's all because it's evolutionary rather than revolutionary and why change a winning formula? The critics say Apple are running out of ideas. I'm largely with the former camp, but I was hoping for a bigger (i.e. taller AND wider) screen. My eyes aren't what they used to be, even with glasses. The SIII screen is very appealing.

Additionally, having played with a 5 a couple of times, it's newfound thinness and loss of weight makes it feel....let's not beat about the bush. Cheaper. Although clearly it's not with the cheapest unlocked version (the way I prefer to buy) weighing in at a very hefty £529.

And more worrying, one of the 5's I've played with, and reports from more than one person I know who's got one, have suggested build quality isn't quite what it once was - despite Apple's reinforcement of matching parts. One of the units I saw had a distinct rattle if you tapped the rear plate. The user had been told it was the vibrate unit in the phone. Sounds very dodgy to me.

The synchronicity I have with my Apple devices is re-creatable on Android & the SIII with Google and Dropbox - and I already use Gmail as my default mail anyway. I can get an unlocked SIII for under £450.  So what's stopping me shunning the iPhone 5 and going with the SIII or keeping the faith and upgrading to an iPhone 5?

Well firstly, either way it's a lot of money. £450 - £529's worth to be precise. I can do a lot with that sort of dosh. Secondly, and perhaps most importantly (and sensibly), at the moment, my iPhone 4 is still performing admirably. Arguably it does all I need from a smartphone. I won't be doing anything differently, or new if I had a 5 or an SIII. I'd just have a newer device, and be lighter of pocket.

It's inevitable that I will upgrade at some point. And it's probably inevitable that it will be a 5 as I do like Apple devices and the Apple 'ecosystem'. But it's not guaranteed - yet.

I'm off to count my money.....

Apple: Innovative, dominant or just control freaks?

Despite their über cool kit, and oh so easy to use OS's, Apple have a habit of rubbing it's own users up the wrong way from time to time.

One of the things that irritates a lot of people about the iPhone and iOS, is Apple's insistence on approving everything, and apparently vetoing apps that it thinks are too similar to it's own offerings. They usually cite the need for control and having a closed ecosystem does have positives, but I struggle to understand the rationale why when developers are coding better apps than Apple can provide.

Now I think it's fair to say that the general consensus, certainly amongst nearly all the iPhone users I know, personally and online, is that the iPhone's default calendar app is pretty crap.

There are all sorts of things that someone who makes a lot of use of a calendar (which is most of us I guess), that the in-built offering can't do. It's views are limited, it can't set a default alarm for new entries, and more.

So inevitably a plethora of alternative have sprung up. Some are relatively simplistic like Agenda and some like Pocket Informant try to cram loads of features in.

I like the principle of the default app but want something a bit more. Utilitap's Week Cal fits the bill perfectly and I've been using it for some months. I particularly like the the various views the app offers.

Tonight I noticed there was another update for this in the App Store , but imagine my suprise when checking the details of the update, its said, and I quote:

Apple ordered us to change the old month and change the day overview from Week Calendar. We had no choice but to comply, otherwise there would be no Week Calendar app anymore

This is astounding.

Apple must be aware that users want more from the in-built Calendar app - if they don't their head is in the sand. They are clearly aware that there are better apps than theirs out there. But to make a developer remove functionality and stubbornly fail to develop their own app to provide the functionality that users want (unless by some miracle it's coming in the iPhone 5) beggars belief and is arrogance in the extreme.

I am seeing more and more people starting to talk about the closed nature of the iOS system as a problem rather than a plus. If Apple keep doing this, developers will get fed up, and they'll go and code for Android (if they're not already).

Apple needs to take a long hard look at itself in relation to this. Idiots.

I've "downgraded" Week Cal with the latest update, but I'm never going back to the default Calendar app. It's been long consigned to an "unused apps" folder, along interestingly with the default weather app, the default stocks app.....get my drift?

Lion comes to Mac

The latest iteration of the Apple Mac operating system, "Lion" allegedly comes to UK users at 1am tomorrow morning according to Mactrast.

This is an exciting and major release for Mac users, with a raft of updates, enhancements and general UI developments.

I'm going to be downloading it as soon as I can (though won't be waiting up until 1am to do so), and am looking forward to using it on my Macbook Pro.

Apple goodness....Lion, iOS5 and iCloud

For users of Apple products (and that's me with an iPhone 4 and a Macbook Pro), the keynote delivered by Steve Jobs and his crew at this week's WWDC has shown us some wondrous goodies that we can expect over the next few months.

I'm no techie, so I'm not going into any massive detail here, but essentially there are three strands to what's coming.

1. Lion - the new incarnation of Mac OSX - the core Mac operating system. Already a super slick user interface, Lion brings a whole host of UI enhancements, better and clevere multi-touch gestures, improved apps and a whole lot more. And all for $29.99 (though here in the UK that'll probably translate to a more expensive £29.99. And that's for a 5 license OS - yes, you can install it legally on 5 Macs!
2. iOS5 - the latest operating system version for iOS devices - the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Again a whole ream of developments and enhancements - too many to go into here, but some notable ones include improved notifications, better handling of previously purchased apps, improved mail app, and great use of the lock screen. It's coming in the Autumn.
   
3. iCloud. The new way to sync your data across all Apple devices. At the moment I use MobileMe (and pay for the privilege). That's now effectively dead in the water. When iCloud arrives it basically means if you change data on one device (my iPhone for example), that data is automatically updated on my Macbook Pro. In the words of Steve Jobs...."It just works" No set up, no fiddling, it just works. And.....it's FREE! Awesome.

If you want more detail about all this lovely Apple goodness, then trot across to any of the tech blogs/sites which are awash with the detail of these three core elements. Me, I just can't wait to get hold of them.

Keeping it all together

Regular readers will know that I've got a pretty eclectic approach to computing. I have no real affinity for any one OS, and have desktop devices running Windows 7, a Macbook Pro on Mac OSX and a netbook running Ubuntu netbook edition. Chuck in my ever to hand iPhone, and the challenge for me is keeping everything together and in sync.

In all honesty, it's made a bit simpler in that the Ubuntu netbook rarely sees the light of day. It's an old Asus Eee with virtually no memory or storage, and I put Ubuntu netbook on it more as an experiment than anything else (it works fine though).

What is happening therefore, is a slow and gradual transition to cloud computing. Applications I tend to prefer are cross platform, and with an ability to sync seamlessly with whichever device I'm using . I'm not a complicated, or power user, which makes life simpler still, and what follows is a brief description of my key picks.


Dropbox
If you work in different locations on different computers and haven't used or come across Dropbox yet, you're missing out. You install the Dropbox client on all the devices you use and it creates a Dropbox folder - so it's installed on all my PC's, laptop, netbook and I have the iPhone app. Whenever you are connected to the Internet, whatever you have saved to this folder is synced to Dropbox. Then, whenever you connect using one of your other devices, all the changes are automatically synced back to that device. Simple. Add in versioning, so you know which is the latest version, and the fact that it's free for up to 2GB storage, and you not only have a way of keeping everything in sync across multiple computers, but some free online storage too.

If you are going to check it out - drop me a line first. I can refer you, and that helps me boost my storage space!
Highly recommended.


Evernote
One of the things that many people require from their computing devices is a good way of collating all those snippet of information, notes, screenshots etc. There are literally hundreds of thousands of solutions out there, but one of the best is Evernote.
Evernote, like Dropbox is cross platform, and you can sync to all your platforms. Like Dropbox it's also accessible online, and like Dropbox free at the basic level.It also has browser extensions so you can clip all, or bits of web pages directly to your Evernote account.
You can record text notes, voice notes, photo notes, documents - pretty much anything. It's fully searchable, you can have multiple "notebooks" within your account, and use tags on notes. A Premium version (which I use) brings added benefits, but for most people, the free version is just fine. If you need to store "stuff", then this is the way to do it.
Brilliant!


Email/Contacts/Calendar
Gmail is my preferred email route, because everything is available on any Internet connected device. It's got a a lot of functionality too - more than most people realise, you've just got to dig a bit to find some of the optionsd and settings.


My calendar and contacts are all handled by Apple's "MobileMe" service. You have to pay for it, but it keeps my calendar and contacts beautifully in sync on my Macbook and iPhone (I tend not to do anything that needs calendar and contact access on the PC, although I could always access Mobile Me through the browser if I wanted to.

I've tried a few times to manage contacts via Google Contacts, but I find there's always some corruption/duplication though the sync process back to the iPhone/Macbook. I know some manage this perfectly fine, but I've never managed to do so to my satisfaction.

So there you have it. Core functions of email, contacts, calendar, notes and document sync/storage handled through some first class online/cross platform applications, that are free.

It's a no brainer.

Ubuntu Linux

I'm feeling pretty chuffed with myself.

I've got an old Asus Eee 701 netbook, which has been gathering dust for a while. Originally it had Xandros Linux as an operating system (OS), which was OK, but not great. I eventually took the plunge and after much tweaking managed to install a very cut down version of Windows XP on it. That gave me the comfortable Windows interface, but to be honest it wasn't much fun on a 7" screen. Additionally the arrival of a 13" Macbook Pro consigned the Eee to the furthest corners of the study.

Recently, I got it out and was fiddling around, and decided to have a crack at installing Ubuntu's netbook Linux edition on it. Ubuntu is now one of, if not the Linux distro of choice for many, and has come a long way from the old command line only interfaces of Linux variations of yore.

So armed with a USB flash disk to download the distribution and act as the install disk, I duly cracked on. In the end, it was pretty painless - I consider myself an experienced rather than advanced user, and I can follow instructions, and it was straightforward. The Ubuntu interface was a revelation after my previous (albeit limited) experience of Linux. It's far more "Windows" like, and the Ubuntu software centre in particular does away with all that synaptic and repository stuff for installing software. which had previously put me right off. It's there hidden away if you want it, as is the terminal console - but I don't particularly.

It hooked up to my network like a dream, and I installed OpenOffice with no hassles - all this on a netbook with only a 4GB SSD mind you.

So, I've got a working Ubuntu netbook. Next up, though I wanted to connect my printer. This works over a wireless network, and the Ubuntu software centre didn't find the relevant printer drivers (it's a multi-function Canon MP560. So I downloaded the drivers after a quick google. I hadn't a clue what I was supposed to do, so double clicked a bunch of files, seemed to extract from the archive, tried to open/run some files that looked like executables and got a few errors. Another google suggested I had to edit an install executable. So I found a text editor, edited the offending line as instructed, and via a quick trip to the terminal window (really, this is gobbledy gook to me too) and a comand line instruction - bingo! Installed. Not only working, but I can print and scan - first time. Brilliant (considering I'm flying by the seat of my pants).

I've also just installed the brilliant Dropbox that allows you to store files "in the cloud" and then sync them and make them available to any device you install Dropbox on.

That just about does it for the moment. I've now got everything I need. A small, robust device, running a tidy OS that's Internet connected, I can print from and has all my key documents available to me via Dropbox.

If you're a real tech-head, this probably doesn't sound like very much of an achievement. Believe me, installing ANY OS is often fraught, one you are unfamiliar with is often treacherous. To get everything up and working, almost first time is an achievement, especially when you have to go digging in executables and editing files.

So all in all I'm very pleased with myself. I can now truly say that I am diversity personified when it comes to computing. I've got a Windows 7 desktop PC, a Macbook Pro laptop running Snow Leopard, an Ubuntu Linux driven netbook and an iPhone running iOS4.2. A tool (and OS) for every occasion!

Neat

Christmas goodies: Flip Ultra HD

I must have been a good lad this year, as once again, Santa left some techno goodness under the tree for me.

I'm now the lucky owner of a Flip Ultra HD 8GB pocket video recorder. It's a marvellous, and very simple piece of video recorder gadgetry. Smaller (but about twice as thick) as my iPhone 4 - bearing in mind the iPhone is the "world's thinnest smartphone", there's really not much to this recorder. You turn it on, press the big red button and it records. To stop, press the big red button again!

To upload video, just "flip" out in-built USB adapter, whereupon on first connection you get the chance to install the Flip software (to Mac or PC), and off you go.

The only other two buttons on the device (other than the on/off and big red button) are a review and delete button. The settings are basic - language, whether you want sound on button press, the red recording light to show etc).

It runs on the inbuilt battery, which is removable, and replaceable by 3x AAA's. The 8GB holds about 2 hours worth of the HD video it records. Note that it doesn't take stills.

You wouldn't want to record an epic on it - or even anything overly lengthy. It's ideal for short clips which you might want to email, upload to YouTube of embed on a site.

The Flip software is pretty basic, but does allow you to do some pretty limited editing and movie creation. You van of course import it into any video editing suite that you may have that supports it's native MP4 file format.

It complements my Samsung FD30 perfectly. If I want longer scenes, with bigger zoom (the Flip has a pretty limited and digital only zoom) and fancy effects (which I never use), then the Sammy gets the nod. If it's quick clips and I don't want to lug my Samsung around (which is slightly smaller than a can of coke anyway) then the Flip will do the business.

Why have this and the iPhone that records HD video as well? The iPhone's definitely a good backup and is with me all the time, but for longer clips the Flip is easier to hold, is easy to upload, holds 2 hours without me worrying about either space or battery life on the iPhone.

It's beauty is it's pocket-ability and the high quality of the video you get. It's a far, far cry from the cumbersome handled recorders of some time ago.

I love it!

Data, data everywhere.....

So the good news is I've got my shiny new network hard drive set up and whirring quietly away. The next job is to consider how best to use the darn thing.

Here's the current situation.

I've got two desktop PC's running Windows 7, a Macbook Pro running Snow Leopard, a 7" Asus Eee running Ubuntu (to be fair hardly ever wheeled out) and an iPhone. Two iPhones if you count my son's 3G. Oh, and an iPod Touch belonging to my daughter.

I have a wireless network which includes a Canon multi-function printer not connected to anything except the power outlet (how clever is that - never ceases to maze me when it churns out paper without being connected to a PC).

There's also a 500GB external HDD attached to the main W7 PC, but available on the network to all other PC's and the MBP.

One of the problems I have is that I tended to keep the MBP/my iphone separate, so I have music on the MBP, and a bunch of music on the Windows network HDD> Same for photos. A bunch on the MBP and a (mostly duplicated) bunch on the Windows network HDD.

Oh, and this is discounting a bunch of "personal files" stored on Dropbox, but the beuaty of Dropbox is that it syncs to any computer it's installed on - in my case, both Windows boxes, the Eee, the MBP and my iPhone.

So what's my strategy going forward?

Well, I'm going to use my new wireless network HDD/NAS as the "master". My plan is to consolidate my music and photos and videos/movies onto this drive, back them up routinely to the standard external drive.

I can then free up space, especially on my MBP (not that it's tight for hard disk space, but I'm a bit paranoid when I get below half the drive full). My iTunes on whichever box I'm using will be accessing the network storage source, not individual local sources, and it will be the same for photos via Picasa.

Hopefully this will all work.

Of course, I've got to set up the back-up strategy too, but I use the highly effective and configurable Acronis True Image for this.

Fingers crossed!

Shiny happy people

Wooho! It's my birthday, and as is so often the case that means shiny gadgets!

This year I unwrapped a lovely 1 terabyte network hard drive - the Western Digital MyBook World Edition (bit of a mouthful for a bit of electronics).

It looks marvelous in its white casing, though rather clashed with my 500MB black MyBook external drive.

And it's so simple to set up. I unpacked it, plugged in the ethernet cable to my router, turned on the power and let it configure itself.

A couple of minutes later, and there on my Windows 7 PC home network, sits the drive with it's public, download and backup shares.

I turned on my Macbook Pro, and bingo, it's sitting there in Finder just waiting to have lots of lovely data copied to it.

It comes with a set up disk, but I didn't need it. Brilliant. Now, where can I find a terabyte of data?

The good and the bad

Interesting comparisons .

A couple of months ago I bought a PAYG mobile broadband dongle from O2. This week I've also bought one from T-Mobile, as I know I'll be somewhere this summer that has very poor O2 coverage but pretty good T-Mob coverage.

Having both might seem extravagant but it does give me some backup options. Anyway, the interesting thing has been how easy (or not) these things have been to set up and get going with.

The O2 one was pretty straightforward. Installed the network manager on my Mac, put the dongle in. Went to the O2 mobile broadband top up page, entered my number, paid my money, connected and off I went. Now, every time I need to top up, I just do the same. I haven't needed to set up an account (even though I have an O2 account) or register a card.

The T-Mob experience was much harder. The network manager install was easy - easier than O2, as everything was installed from the dongle when I put it in.

However, that's when things went a bit pear shaped. When I bought the dongle it had a compulsory £10 "top up" on it, so I should have been good to go. But I wasn't. When I tried to connect I kept getting a message saying that I was trying to connect but hadn't any top up or hadn't activated my account. Activate my account I had to register a card! So I did. But to register a card I had to put a top up on it! Minimum £5. However, I must have tried a couple of times without success as eventually it told me I couldn't register the payment as I'd exceeded the number of attempts. So a long call to T-Mob ensued. The first problem was I couldn't register my debit card because that's already registered with another T-Mob account for my son's phone, and yo can't register a card with 2 accounts - apparently. So I topped up on my credit card. Now I had paid £15 of top up including the original £10 with the purchase of the dongle, but still only £5 was showing on my account.

Tried again, and got the same message - have to activate, and to all extents and purposes it looked like it was still asking me to pay. In the end I worked out that I had to go through the motions as if I was going to top up again whereupon my initial £2 daily top up charge was deducted from the £5 top up payment I'd made earlier (this was entirely unclear to me). A further phone call to T-Mob as to where my original £10 top up was elicited an apology and assurance it would be put right within the hour (and it was).

So eventually, I'm there. I just hope it's easier next time, and that the bloody thing gets a network connection in the middle of nowhere, where I'm assured by my sister who also uses a T-Mob dongle, it will.

Contacts in the cloud

I've used the sync to Google function in my Mac to sync my contacts to Google Contacts over the air. Everything seems to have come across although the way Google works I've ended up with a few duplicates. I'll sort those out soon.

I now have (I think), what I really wanted which is my contacts in three (or is it 4) places. They're on my Mac in the Address Book, my Phone in the Contacts app, on Mobile Me in the cloud, and now on Google in the cloud. That might sound a bit like overkill, but as someone who's got a bit of OCD about keeping things in sync, it suits me.

I'm trying hard to start using Google for a lot more. I'm migrating to it slowly as my main email address way from my long time ISP pop email, but it wasn't that effective without all my contacts available. Should be fine now.

I've migrated two of the three websites I've built and maintain (Chepstow Male Voice Choir and Dinas Powys Cricket Club) to Google Sites, and I'm in the process of switching the third (Hendre Eynon Caravan and Camping) as well.

I haven't really used Google Docs much, but as I keep all my important and most frequently accessed docs in the cloud too on Dropbox, it makes sense to start using Google Docs more as well.

And of course, Google own the Blogger platform that this blog is based on. I also use and love Picasa for photo management and organisation, and Flickr for online photo storage, and my default search engine of course is, Ask Jeeves. No it's Google. I was joking.

Add all that up, and I've almost become a Google junkie without even thinking about it.

There's no doubt that Google has matured well enough for me to stat making the move more consciously. Given that all of the above is free as well (bar the Flickr premium account), I'm amazed more people don't make the move. I've got over my concerns about cloud data storage. I haven't done anything specific to dispel those concerns, rather just accepted that provided I'm sensible, it shouldn't be any more risky than using any other storage mechanism.

O2 mobile broadband. The good and the bad

My O2 mobile broadband dongle arrived today, less than 48 hours after I ordered it. Top service O2!

Followed the instructions. Plugged it in, Mac recognised the device, opened the folder to the "mobileconnect" package. Double clicked it to install, and got a flurry of terminal window with the message "The application quit unexpectedly". Bugger.

Tried again. And again. And again....there's a pattern here.

Quick Google suggested there are problems with this particular unit, but that it was solvable. Sorted in the end. Instead of double clicking package, did a right click, "view package contents" and then ran from the ensuing package icon.

After that, up and running in no time.

Bit poor though that it doesn't work as instructed out of the box.

I'm off to Manchester tomorow for a conference, so will look forward to testing it out.

Cloud computing - Google's ever increasing dominance

A lot of people who write on the sites and blogs I frequent use and swear by Googlemail, and Google in general - Google Calendar, Google Contacts , Google Apps and so forth.

It always seems such a clean and neat idea to have everything in one place under one "brand", and I frequently think I should migrate all my email and PIM type activity to the monster that is Google, but I haven't yet done so.

I do have a Googlemail address, although my primary email address is on a long standing Pipex account (which incidentally I've been threatening to leave for years). I've slowly been advising some of my contacts of my gmail address and changing contact details on the multitude of websites I've registered with over the years, and sooner or later, my gmail address will become my primary address.

However, I'm less inclined to migrate my contacts and calendar. I used to use Outlook on my home PC (an old XP version), which was adequate rather than great. OK it was horrible.
Since buying a Macbook Pro, I signed up to Mobile Me, and now all my contacts and calendars are managed via my MBP or iPhone, syncing seamlessly via Mobile Me. OK, it's costing me, but it's a price I'm currently prepared to pay. There's the bonus of 10G of iDisk space too.

Additionally I have an irrational thought that storing my 250+ contacts on Google's servers isn't very good for data protection, but conversely seem to ignore the fact I'm happy enough having them sitting on Apple's Mobile Me servers!

My calendar and contacts needs are pretty comfortably met by the iCal and Contacts apps on the MBP (I don't use the Windows PC for this at all now), and being an iPhone user everything "just works" pretty much flawlessly, which after some of the issues I had with my Palm devices with duplicate entries, disappearing entries etc (not often, but enough to be irritating), I'm just happy to see the iPhone and MBP work like they're joined at the hip (which I suppose they are).

So, email aside, I have no real need to move Contacts/Calendars to Google currently. But the worm is slowly turning. Email is going slowly that way. One of the two websites, the cricket one I run is now hosted on Google Sites (www.dinaspowyscc.co.uk), and the other (www.chepstowmvc.co.uk) will be going that way this year, and of course this very blog is now part of the Google empire. For the moment though, Apple hold sway in calendar and contact management.

Iphone tips

I've had my iPhone for just over a year now, and love it just as much now as I did when I originally opened the box.

I've found all sorts of tips when flicking around the Internet, but tonight came across a blog where a post of a year ago lists a number of tips that I'd either forgotten about, or, in a couple of cases didn't know about. D'oh. Some of the tips aren't tips as such as the blindingly obvious, but a couple are really useful, like changing the dock icons in the iPod mode, or using accented characters.

The post is on a blog called "Reality Distortion - A blog about macs and that" which I hadn't come across before.