Monthly Archives: September 2006

Cars, Focus Grumbling

The Cheapest Trip to Reg Vardy Ever?

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So after my discovery of another blown bulb at the beginning of the week, today the Focus went back into Reg Vardy for the second week in succession.

Unfortunately, it was confirmed as another blown bulb, again necessitating major surgery to the front of the car to change it. However, unlike last week, when it came to paying the bill, the service agent said that they were only going to charge me for the parts. Whilst they could, and I guess some dealers probably would, try to argue that the second bulb blowing was just coincidence, she said that they probably hadn’t checked the car properly when they were done last week. So they handed me a bill for a grand total of 78 pence, plus VAT, coming to a total cost of less than £1. Just the kind of garage bill I’m happy to pay!

Apple/Mac, Computers/Technology

PC Pro Schizophrenic Over Apple?

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I’ve commented before over the changing attitude of PCPro to the Mac. Since then, the MacBook has even turned up, and done relatively well in a comparison of budget laptops in the magazine. However in the November issue, that turned up in the post this morning, they are getting increasingly schizophrenic. Of course this is quite obviously because they give their columnists a large degree of editorial freedom, but it still makes interesting reading.

Leafing through the new magazine, the first indication was a big two page advert for the MacBook, with the black version on one page, and the white version on the other. It is a typical Apple minimalist creation compared to most PC adverts, in that it doesn’t have masses of machine specs, nor does it even have a prominent Apple logo. In the past you’d occasionally find adverts for Apple products like the iPod, but I have rarely seen adverts for the computers in PC magazines, perhaps it is an indication that Apple is looking more seriously at going after PC owners as a potential market.

The next thing I came across was an opinion piece by Ross Burridge, the magazines reviews editor. Now if bits of this had turned up in a Mac magazine, I would have regarded it as sarcasm, but as it is in a PC magazine, I’m sure he is quite serious. The point of the article was to counter the complaint that Microsoft hasn’t really done much with Windows XP. It is a familiar practice to look at the Windows platform, highlighting that the last major OS release was Windows XP back in 2001, and then compare this with the multiple OS releases that Apple have released over the same period. Not surprisingly he turns this argument around, pointing out that there have other versions of Windows XP released in the intervening period, for example the various tablet and media centre editions. He compares this with the ‘nominally improved’ versions of MacOS X that have been released over the same period. Whilst you could argue that only nominal improvements were needed because the original was pretty good anyway, his statement is incorrect. The version of MacOS X that was around when Windows XP was first released was version 10.1, Puma which was regarded by many as not being stable enough to use as a main operating system, and missing a number of key features. Indeed at that time, Apple were still shipping Macs with MacOS 9 as boot up default. Certainly I’d challenge anybody to compare Puma with a current version of MacOS X and only find nominal improvements. Finally he caps it off by quoting £400 as the amount that a Mac user will have spent on upgrades over the same period which is also somewhat of an exaggeration. True the more frequent big number upgrades will cost more in the long run, but £400 certainly seems like he’s including iLife upgrades too, something which the same magazine said wasn’t part of the OS for the purposes of their comparison article. Oh and he also uses the classic argument that Windows is safer because it has lots of anti-virus software, making it safer if some mythical really bad MacOS X virus comes along.

However the schizophrenia really kicks in when you get to the Jon Honeyball Advanced Windows column. He quite frequently mentions his Apple machines in the column anyway, but this month he starts off talking about his visit to the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, where he was asking questions about the upcoming version of MacOS X, Leopard. The two features he particularly picks on are Time Machine and the updated Spotlight. With Time Machine he raises concerns over the frequency of full backups as opposed to incremental backups, something that is controllable through the backup software included with Vista, however he concludes that because Time Machine is so well integrated into the OS, whilst the Vista backup solution is hidden away (backup software is not even installed as part of an XP Home install, you have to manually install it from the CD) and so is unlikely to be used by an average home user. Moving on to Spotlight he focuses in on the new network search functionality, and concludes that it will be unlikely to scale well, however for the home market with a small network of machines it is fine. He then uses this as a starting point to compare the attitudes of Apple and Microsoft to the home/SoHo user. Interesting points he makes are that Apple have a straightforward policy whereby everybody gets the same version, whilst Microsoft have an array of options, with some features missing from the cheaper versions. Indeed he quotes one of his friends as saying that the Microsoft attitude is to “make it so complicated that hopefully they’ll all buy the most expensive version out of fearâ€?. Ultimately he concludes that the battle for the home market is about to heat up again, and that in his opinion the wining product is not the one from Microsoft, indeed he even goes so far as to highlight that he is advising home users to upgrade to Apple machines – something that is quite a surprise from an Advanced Windows column!

So can we expect PC Pro to become a Mac magazine any time soon? I doubt it – PC Pro has a primary focus on business computing. However, if Jon Honeyball’s predictions about who will win the home market come true, it will certainly be interesting to see how the magazine changes…

Apple/Mac, Computers/Technology

How Serious are Apple about Windows XP on a Mac?

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Back in January, you may remember that Howard bought himself one of the first Intel Macs, you may also remember how he was a definite early adopter with Windows on the Mac, but then hit a number of problems with the limited driver support offered by Boot Camp. Anyway, chatting with Howard today he was talking about his new Dell laptop. Essentially, Apple has not updated the drivers that Boot Camp uses since the original release, so all the same problems remain.

That set me thinking, is it really a pipe-dream that Apple will ever provide drivers that will get the best out of Windows running on a Mac?

Thinking about it, it doesn’t really seem to be in Apples interest to get Windows to perform well on their machines. Since many of their revenue streams are tied up with MacOS X and it’s applications, if users buy their hardware and then just install Windows, Apple won’t make any more money from them. Certainly it seems to make more sense that there will remain key missing features and niggles with the Boot Camp drivers, and generally poorer performance that you’d expect, so that there remains a reason to boot up MacOS X on the machine.

Essentially, several months down the line, the Boot Camp episode was much more about publicity, and putting a stop to the third party hacker efforts to boot Windows, as providing users a fully working version of Windows on Mac hardware. Indeed, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Boot Camp changes into something a lot closer to Parallels Workstation where Windows has to run within MacOS X, again giving a reason why MacOS X has to be booted up. Certainly, it doesn’t really make a massive amount of sense to waste too much time and resources on a project that reduces the long-term revenue they could earn.

Mac running XP picture originally uploaded by alienx.

Writing

‘Do you see me, my love. I am flagging. Flagging.’ – Simon Armitage

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Sewell

For those of you who didn’t catch the 9/11 special on channel Five last night, Simon Armitage has written a poem to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the World Trade Center atrocity.

Written as the first-person account of a fictional trader near the top of the north tower on that day, it was dramatised by Rufus Sewell, and was accompanied by news footage from the day itself as well as interviews with three people who were in the Towers during the attack, and family members of two of the people who died.

I know of Simon Armitage’s work as he is one of the required poets for study on the AQA GCSE syllabus, and have always thought of his work as pretty straight forward, with some depth but not necessarily to my taste. But this work, Out of the Blue, I find to be remarkable in the way that it captures the surrealism of the day, along with the pathos of the ordinary men and women who were caught up in the attack.

I think any attempt of mine to explain the poem would fall short of the reality. You can download the whole text of the poem in .pdf format here:


Out of the Blue by Simon Armitage

Cars, Focus Grumbling, General

Another Headlight Bulb Blown?

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So having paid £32 for Reg Vardy to change the headlamp bulb on the Focus on Saturday, I checked out the lights when I put the car away tonight. However the pattern of the lights looked wrong. Taking a look at the light, although the main bulb was replaced and working, now the side light bulb that sits underneath had failed.

Whether it has blown, not been reconnected correctly or what, I’m not overly keen on going back to have it changed again, and possibly having to argue over paying another £32 to have Reg Vardy take it to pieces again. The simple fact is that nobody should have to pay that amount of money to have a bulb changed in the first place.