Purchase Ponderings

Tuesday, July 27, 2010 ~ 11 comments so far

File this in the “idle window shopping for stuff I don’t need” category.

BUT.

If can anyone see any gaps or improvements to the following (and yes, I am largely going with Apple because it is easy to setup and I have no desire to hack, configure or otherwise spend ages of my time to get the thing working), please let me know. You might save me a lot of money.

Not that I’m gonna be spending anything on any of this, no no, that’d be silly and I have more important items to buy soon, like a bed, that kind of thing. This is purely and utterly an academic exercise, a small indulgementation if you will to keep me from going stir-crazy in this house.

So, the proposed new system is as follows:

• A Mac Mini – which will be hooked up to the TV
• Drobo S – which will (in the short term) hold two 500GB drives from my PC with music/photos/movies/work stuff
• Airport Express – so I can stream iTunes to a set of speakers
• Karmon Soundsticks – because they look and sound good

I’ll pick up a wireless keyboard and mouse for the Mac Mini as well. Which means that, when version 2 of the iPad comes out, I can slot that in for ‘casual web usage’ and the like.

My thinking is that I want a quiet and energy efficient machine that I can stream music from, and do a little web design work on too (with a nice big 40″ screen!). The Drobo allows me to easily add more storage space (just slot a new drive in), and if I want music elsewhere I can always buy another Airport Express (or stream through my iPhone/iPad?). Mind you, I’ll be moving to a flat so not much need for that in the near future.

Yes, it’s a bit pricey as it’s Apple equipment but it gives me a system that SHOULD just plug and play (previous experience suggests this to hold true), and is expandable to meet my needs. I could probably get the same with another (cheaper) system but having looked into it, PC/Linux equivalents require a level of configuration that I just can’t be arsed with any more, happy to pay more to have it just work.

Am I missing anything? Performance wise the Mac Mini will be more than enough for me for many years, and they’ve good reliability. The Drobo I’ve heard a lot of good things about and I’ve used an Airport Express before with my PC. I think it’s about as future proof as it can be, add in a USB hub for things like card readers and whatnot and I don’t think I’m losing out on anything.

Well, apart from the money to buy it all with…

I have a new phone

Thursday, June 24, 2010 ~ 4 comments so far

It is shiny and new.

It does a lot of things my old phone could do but does them a lot faster, and prettier.

I have a new phone.

It doesn’t do some things other phones do but I don’t need it to.

It does have some things other phones don’t.

I have a new phone.

I am very pleased.

Some people probably think the new phone is a waste of money.

They may well be right.

I have a new phone.

I’m sure there are other options out there.

I’m sure there are other phones with more features, better battery life and other things.

I have a new phone.

All systems go

Monday, February 1, 2010 ~ 1 comment so far

Back from a leisurely week in Spain, it’s now February and, frankly, I need to get my ass in gear. I have plans, I have website clients, I have resolutions, and ain’t no-one but me that can do squat about them.

I need a little focus though, but that’s coming, things are becoming clearer and with a better view of what lies ahead, I can plan accordingly.

I’ve no idea what any of that means to be honest, other than now having a direction rather than aimlessly casting about depending on what grabbed my interest.

In other news, I read books. Four of them. Books are good, aren’t they. Not sure I could read one on an electronic device like the Kindle or iPad, although I can see an iPad in my future, but it’ll be version three or four I think, you know, once they’ve figured out just what the hell people would use it for.

Tell the truth

Wednesday, September 16, 2009 ~ 6 comments so far

In direct contrast to my recent experience with Royal Mail, I’ve also had some issues with my iPhone and had to deal with the Geniuses at the Apple store in Glasgow.

Genius might be over-egging it a bit but suffice to say the experience was far far more positive and is an excellent example in how to get customer service right.

So, my old iPhone (just over a year old) had, over time, developed a crack on the back of the case, running a 1cm up the phone from where the cable dock is located. Not something I noticed as I have a case which covers that area.

A quick Google suggested that I should take it back to the store as they would likely just replace it. I was sceptical as it was past the year warranty but thought that if they wouldn’t replace it they might be able to suggest a way to fix it, or at least stop the crack getting any worse.

So I made an appointment at the Genius Bar and after managing to get there without purchasing any new shiny Apple products (I deliberately left my credit card at home, yes I am THAT weak willed), I handed over my iPhone. A quick inspection confirmed that it was something that wasn’t fixable, they’d have to replace the handset.

A quick check of my details confirmed that, yes, I’d had the handset for 13 months, one month past the warranty but hey, they’d still replace it (granted this is the older model of iPhone, so they are probably happy to get the stock moving out of storage!). A quick signature and the new handset was mine. In and out in 10 minutes, and a nice smile on my face.

Alas that is not the end of this story. Yes, there is more. Sorry about that, but thanks for reading this far, seriously, I do appreciate it, I know I can waffle on a bit at times so I do appreciate you wasti spending your precious time reading this. I do. Thank you.

Where was I?

The next day, out and about with my new handset in my pocket it started to vibrate like I had an incoming call. I pulled the phone out of my pocket and… nothing. No call, no message, nothing. Odd. Put the phone back in my pocket and.. *buzzzz* and yet, still nothing.

And so it continued to the point where I could leave the handset on the table, and watch it randomly mute and unmute itself, triggering the vibration each time.

Back to the Genius Bar this morning where, after showing what the handset was doing it was, once again, replaced. In and out in 10 minutes, with an apology for the “Genius” and with a big smile on my face.

Lesson to learn? I know that not everything works all the time, things break, or aren’t properly made, such is life. It’s how you, as an organisation, deal with me at that point that makes or breaks my relationship with you.

So yes, having to get a replacement handset replaced isn’t ideal, but a quick acknowledgement, an apology, and some sort of corrective action is all it took to keep me happy. Case in point, if they’d said my original phone, with the crack in the case, couldn’t have been replaced but had suggested a way to fix it, that would’ve been ok as well.

So, well done to the Genius Bar in the Apple store in Glasgow, you’ve restored some of my faith that some organisations do know how to treat customers properly. Thanks (and ta for the shiny new handset!).

Groups app for iPhone

Saturday, February 28, 2009 ~ 1 comment so far

I’ve had issues managing my contacts for many years now and, finally, I have a solution. The Address Book software provided as part of OSX is somewhat basic and, oddly, a little clunky to use and my recent debacle with Google Sync only heightened my frustration. Surely things should be better than this?

Enter Groups for the iPhone, by Guided Ways.

From their website, with Groups you can:

1. Create, rename, delete and navigate contact groups – all in a single view!
2. Drag & Drop contacts into groups. Tap and hold on a Contact to start dragging.
3. Send Mass Email to any Group. Tap and hold on a Group name to see available options.
4. Dial, SMS, Email and visit URL/Map Locations of individual contacts by tapping on their name for quick dialing (i.e. use it as a mini-dialer)
5. Use 5 built-in ready to use and helpful ‘Smart Groups’ to help categorize and manage your contacts the way you wish. These automatically filter on contacts that 1) aren’t part of any group, 2) have No Name set, 3) have No Email, 4) have No Phone or 5) have No Image.
6. Trash (and preserve) contacts by dragging them to the ‘Trash’ Group. This would delete the contact permanently from the iPhone/iPod touch and then from your Computer when Synced or Pushed but will allow you to drag these back to normal groups, and thus restore them at a later point, unless you empty the Trash.

Your address book, too, deserves respect.

Similarly to the App Store application that runs on the iPhone, which I prefer using to iTunes when browsing the App Store, Groups makes managing contacts much easier and adds a rich layer of functionality as well, all hidden behind a very smart and slick interface.

Of all the applications I’ve downloaded it’s probably the one that makes the best use of the touch interface, dragging and dropping contacts into group tabs, press and hold on a contact for options, press and hold on a group for options, drag up and down to scroll, it’s got it all but none of it seems superfluous.

Not bad for £1.19!

Groups is the application that Apple could’ve developed, that’s for sure, and for me it indicates another good reason why the App Store (despite the number of dross applications in there) is such a good idea. The Apple iPhone platform is now being extended by 3rd party developers in exciting ways and, hopefully

iPhone Contacts

Friday, February 27, 2009 ~ Comments Off

These days, with so many different ways to keep track of people, managing your list of contacts can be a bit of a chore. Doubly so if, like me, you’ve tried various ways of synchronising your contact list between your phone and a PIM (Personal Information Manager), or even just between any mobile device and any of the myriad of online ‘contact manager’ web-based applications.

When I first switched from a standard mobile phone to a ‘smartphone‘ (about 7 years ago), one of the advantages for someone with as poor a memory as mine, was the fact that I no longer had to remember all the details for someone. I could store them in one single contact and include useful notes to make sure I didn’t get their kids names wrong, not that I’ve EVER done that. Seriously, I haven’t. I may have gotten the sex of their kids wrong but that’s completely different…

A couple of years back I switched back to a standard mobile phone, ditching internet access and other frivolous items, presuming that, by then, management of contact details would be much easier. Ohh how wrong I was. Trying to synchronise Outlook Contacts with my Samsung mobile phone was a world of painful duplicate and triplicate entries, lost information and generally left my contacts FUBAR‘d.

As I neared the end of my contract I looked, again, towards smartphones and as luck would have it, the 2nd generation iPhone was due out mere weeks after my contract finished. I’d already bought a MacBook, was loving it and thought it would solve my problems.

And it did! After a lot of tidying up I managed to get my Address Book (on my MacBook) nicely organised and synchronised with my iPhone. Finally. All sorted.

Then (to cut a long story short) along came Google’s latest ‘Sync’ offering which would let me synchronise my calendars between work and my personal Google calendar (useful when planning physio and dentist appointments!). I was thrilled as this was the last of my PIM issues finally being sorted.

So my calendar is now synchronised and my contacts… yeah they are back to being FUBAR’d as, for some reaason, you can’t get around the first time SYNC ALL option. Google presume that you use their contact management functionality, offered as part of Google Mail. Except I don’t, cos it sucks.

So for the past couple of nights I’ve been deleting duplicate entries, renaming email only entries as Google Mail creates a ‘contact’ everytime you send to a new email address, meaning I have (after a purge) 38 ‘email only’ contacts in my Address Book.

This has pissed me off no end. I like order, I like things to be neat and ‘just so’ and the one area of my personal information, information that *I* should be able to control and manage how *I* want for fecksake, has been nothing but a source of irritation.

Until last night that is, when I downloaded a new app for my iPhone which has helped soothe and calm me and get my contacts sorted out, for once and for all.

And, tomorrow, I’ll tell you all about it.

Previously on 24… er.. this blog…

Tuesday, January 27, 2009 ~ 6 comments so far

One thing I don’t do very often is revisit previous, recent, posts and offer any closure or update. However I think the following are worthwhile revisiting:

1. My iPhone Apps
In the process of writing that post, I realised that the some applications I did have on my iPhone weren’t quite right. So I spent a little time hunting for better alternatives and on the way picked up a couple of new applications.

Replaced applications include:

• Tweetie in for Twitterific – Twitterific was great when it first came out but seems to have been left dormant, Tweetie is far more complete.
• Remember the Milk in for Zenbe lists – Zenbe is a good, web aware, list app but it’s not as good as RTM for task management. I’ve had a badly used RTM account for ages so this was a good push to get me focussed on using it, especially as I’ve now put money behind it (you need a Pro subscription to use the app on your iPhone). Working well so far.

New applications, some of which I’m still evaluating, include:

• CameraBag – a simple photo manipulation app with presets that mimick various effects. Very much a one trick pony but kinda fun nevertheless.
• Tumblrette – I have a Tumblr account, and this app might help me make better use of it rather than just recycling blog posts and Twitter statuses.
• RunKeeper Pro – I had the lite version of this but the Pro version was offered free for one day, so I’ve nabbed it and put it back on the iPhone in the hope I get back to jogging sometime this year.
• MMS – which provides MMS capabilities on my iPhone, not done much with this yet
• SaiSuke – which gives me direct access to all my Google Calendars. Not quite sure why I have this, think I thought it did more than it does!

I also re-jigged my home pages some, and they now look like this (click for bigger):

2. MacBook screen issues.
I reported a weird glow, right in the centre of my MacBook screen, that would appear and disappear, seemingly, intermittently.

The circumstances of when I first noticed this was when I was sitting on the sofa with the laptop, I was facing the window and it was a nice sunny day outside. I was dropping the brightness to eke out a little more battery life (too lazy to go upstairs and get the power cord) and when I dropped the brightness to 0 (a black screen) there was the weird glow right in the middle of the screen. I tried to replicate this effect later in the evening but couldn’t.

Got all that?

Now take a look at this photo of the case of a MacBook. Notice where the Apple logo is, that translucent section of the casing? Right in the middle of the screen.

Yup. That’s right. Sunlight streaming through the Apple logo onto the back of the ‘darkened’ LCD screen.

Thanks to Matt for figuring this out.

So, apparently, it’s not just my Mother that is an idiot.

Speaking of which…

3. My Mother is an idiot.
At Christmas we got my parents a Wii Fit board to go with their new Wii. My Mum has been using it and enjoying the various mini-games, one of which includes using the position of your body on the board to help balance a tight rope walker as he walks between two buildings (on the tight rope).

You lean left on the board to make him lean left, right to go right. It’s pretty basic but quite tricky.

So I could understand when my Mum said that she couldn’t complete the task, that she kept ‘falling off’. It is quite a tricky game.

However it was only when she mentioned it to Dad that she realised why.

She had the Wii Fit board round the wrong way. Lean left to go right…

Sorry Mum, but I need to do SOMETHING to distract from my moment of idiocy!