Technically Speaking

Into the deep end

Here I go! I'm putting my toes into the evolution pool. Let me start by saying that the theory of evolution has been fairly well tested over the years and 'technically speaking' appears to be a more correct view of human and animal development than any 'divine' intervention. I'm sorry to say that I don't subscribe to the theory of 'intelligent design' that is just a thinly veiled front for the fundamental Christian view of the creation. Having said that, here is a very interesting book that adds another view of why Darwin was so dedicated to his ideas of evolution and the role of natural selection in creating the ever changing world around us. It appears that Darwin's horror and revulsion to the then highly profitable slave trade became a part of his belief that we were all descended from a common ancestor. The current feeling amongst most slave owners that the African was somehow a lesser breed of man was something he felt was a fundamental wrongness in human thought. I didn't know that his ship, the Beagle, had been a slaver and, after his voyage, became one again. Whether you are a dyed-in-the-wool creationist or a devout evolutionist, I recommend this book as a part of understanding Darwin and his motivations. One day I may visit the Creation Museum and try not to laugh - it would be rude to mock someone else's firmly held beliefs - even if I think they're wrong..

No Celebrations?

It seems that Apple and, by extension, Steve Jobs, chose to ignore a special day in history. Today is the 25th anniversary of the release of the first Macintosh. I'm sure there are enough people that will celebrate today as the remembrance of a day that changed history - at least as far as technology goes. I don't believe that many people would doubt the impact of the diminutive Macintosh all those years ago. The elegance of the design, the ease of usage with it's ground breaking GUI (thanks Xerox) and the portability. It took IBM and Microsoft many years to even get close to what the Mac did for the business and home user. You may ask, 'why didn't the Mac take over?' Good question with, unfortunately, difficult answers. Firstly comes the price - if it had come in at under $2000 then I think the sales would have been even more massive. It seems that the asking price of $2500 was decided by incorporating the advertising costs into the final price - big mistake guys. Secondly, the main issue was that people were dubious about it's claims for easy use and basically didn't believe it would do as advertised. Interesting to note that the first UK owner of a Mac was the wonderful Douglas Adams - yes! Mr. Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy himself. Try to ignore or decry it, the Macintosh is here to stay and don't you forget it!

So far so good?

So - we've been running Windows 7 Beta for a couple of weeks now and I think you're owed a update of how we're doing so far. The nice thing is that there is really nothing to report - all seems to run smoothly with little or no issues. The only real issues have been with some games and various glitches with Firefox and Internet Explorer. Typically, updating video drivers has solved many of these issues and even running the most demanding applications and games hasn't caused us any concerns. Windows 7 seems to be what Windows Vista should have been. I can see many users installing Windows 7 direct from Windows XP and jumping past Vista entirely. The new Windows seems to boot faster and the web pages seem to be much more responsive and the whole system seems to run much smoother. For the XP users they will find that the changes to the user interface and the on-screen view are good changes and very easy to work with. Now, whether this is just in the Beta or not, the annoying security features that bedevilled Vista user is absent and not missed at all. Will it be back in the official release? Man, I hope not. Overall, as the title says, so far so good.

Getting on a bit

I have one problem with laptops and their ilk - upgrading is a pain in the rear. If you have a laptop that's over 3 years old, you will find it harder and harder to add RAM or even upgrade the harddrive. If you want a better CPU or better video you're out of luck. However, all is not lost. If you do your research and dig around the wibbly wobbly web a bit, you may find what you need - or close to it. The real 'sticking point' is, what do you use your laptop for? If it's just general surfing, e-mailing and the like - then you can get away with a fairly low-spec unit. If it's gaming and multimedia usage, then I'm sorry - you need a new unit and throw that clunker away. My one year old Acer is still fairly strong for high-end use due to a large harddrive, lots of RAM and a 512MB dedicated video card - unfortunately, the HD-DVD drive is a bit of a letdown now, but I still have quite a few HD films to see. If you have an older laptop, then the advise is lean and mean. Get rid of applications you don't need or use, don't fill it with too many utilities, one good anti-virus program and a good anti-spyware application is fine. I don't recommend Norton Utilities as much now as it tends to dominate and choke most older PC's - there are many alternatives (some free). Luckily, even older laptops are easy to open up to check what you have and to add or replace RAM. A five year old Compaq had just 2 screws to loosen and away you go. My advise is always to ask for help from people that know their stuff - that 16-year old next door may be just the guy you need!

Nuts and bolts

I know, I know! I said that I wouldn't bother with Windows 7 Beta but....my son (no, really) decided to give it a try. He had an external harddrive for his Dell laptop and decided to use that to install Windows 7 on. A good idea, but flawed in execution. In a way, we were screwed - in respect of the number of screws used to place the external drive into the laptop as it's boot drive. This was after the built-in CD drive wouldn't mount the downloaded and burned beta software and an external drive wouldn't either. We even tried a bootable USB drive - nope, nothing. More screws later we placed the drive into my Acer laptop and then recreated the bootable CD on the desktop PC. This time it all worked great and we had Windows 7 running in all it's glory. Now my laptop is up in his room and playing Left 4 Dead on-line via the new Microsoft offering. Was it worth it? I have no idea as I haven't even had a chance to play with MY laptop since. This excercise does indicate that it's not that hard to replace things in most laptops - 4 screws for the Dell and 8 for the Acer. The harddrive just plugs into it's socket and away it goes. The only trouble is that some of those screws are so tiny and some are covered up so you don't even know they're even there. Ah well, better than trying to fix things on cars - is it metric, Imperial, US or some weird and wonderful measurement and standard known only to GM.

Keep it coming

Now that CES is in full swing, we are seeing an avalanche of new gadgets and a whole whack of updates and tweaks to current items. Big news seems to be the free (from Microsoft?) release of Windows 7 beta - use at your own risk - I won't yet. The resurgence of Palm - maybe. Newer, thinner, greener and cheaper TV's. Recession news from Lenovo, Dell and TDK about mega layoffs and plant closures along with the failure of Circuit City have seemed to have had no effect on the hordes of people surging through the exhibits. The Swiss Army knive people, Victorinox, have created a true 'geeks' knife with the Presentation Pro. Along with the usual sharp edged weapons there is a removable 32GB USB drive with fingerprint authentication, laser pointer, and Bluetooth remote control for your presentations. Mind you, it will cost you $330 when it ships in May - ouch! Toss in everything from leaf blowers and sewing machines and you have the perfect CES - everything including the kitchen sink - man, I wish I was there.

More of the same?

It's Macworld and CES again. Macworld without Mr. Jobs does indeed feel weird and almost unreal. He has looked ill for many years and its a relief (in a way) that it's not the dreaded 'c' word that is used. I was discussing with my son some of the announcements - his response was as muted as mine. Nothing really new and nothing to give that 'wow!' response. iPhoto and iLife had some small tweaks that Picassa from Google already had. iTunes was perhaps the biggest thing - no more DRM copy protection and lower prices. The new Macbook was nice, but again, nothing really overwhelming or really impressive. A nice 17" screen and a powerful processor with lots of memory and storage. The lack of a removable battery does concern me, but there again, how many people have multiple batteries or change the one they have? It's nice to see a much longer battery time and a commitment to 'greener' processes - whatever that is. There is one problem that I have with the new laptop - the price - $2799! That's just silly. It always seems to me that Apple has great products and amazing designs with some clever ideas about usage of technology, but.....those prices.

Taking bets

I have no doubt that you have seen the news items regarding those poor Zune owners who rushed out and bought the first release of the 30GB players thinking that Microsoft was onto something good. According to the big M, the 'bug' that caused almost all of them to become useless pieces of plastic, silicon and metal on the last day of a leap year is easily solved by just waiting a day - what a brilliant solution! I wonder what brainbox came up with that one. Here is the thing that Microsoft should really be thinking off - how many current and possible new buyers of the Zune will be looking for a replacement player as soon as possible? Any takers of a bet that they will be switching to the iPod? No? What a surprise. Who would have thought that Y2K would bite us in the bum eight years later. I'll stick with my Creative player - still performs beautifully - even in a leap year.