Lost In Logic

Dropbox is a great service at a decent price, it’s limited however by the fact that it only synchronises files stored inside your ‘Dropbox’ folder. To get around this limitation on Windows 7 here’s what you need to do (as with anything like this, always backup everything to an external drive first, usual disclaimers apply, follow these instructions at your own risk).

1. Inside your Dropbox folder, create folders with the same name as the ones you already have on your hard disk, in my case “Music”, “Documents” and “Pictures”.
2. Move all your data from the existing folders into your Dropbox folder (they should start uploading to Dropbox) – Yes I said move, so make sure you backed.
3. Delete the original folders (which will now be empty as you moved everything into your Dropbox)
4. For each folder, create a symbolic link from your original location to the new one inside your Dropbox by running mklink from an administrative command prompt.
   Example:
   mklink /D "C:\Users\Marc\Documents"  "C:\Users\Marc\Dropbox\Documents"
5. That’s it! When you setup a new PC, you will have to start from step 4 and all your documents, pictures and music will just appear. 

It will also work the other way round, creating a link from inside the Dropbox folder to your existing documents folder, however Dropbox only recognises changes when it gets restarted which defeats the point if you’re using it as a backup service and want to make use of it’s ‘Previous Versions’ feature.

Hope this might be of use to someone, and I hope Dropbox make doing this easier like Windows Live Mesh. Happy syncing!

There’s been a lot reported in the news lately about Apple and Samsung battling it out in court to stop each other from selling various products.

I broke my Acer laptop at the weekend (well, I put it in the boot of my car inside a laptop bag, and afterwards the screen stopped working, and I am a good driver I promise!) so I decided I needed a new laptop since the laptop was so cheap anyway the cost of a new screen plus the likelihood of it happening again just doesn’t justify a repair –and a PC is for me at the heart of all things digital that I do. I didn’t want to spend stupid money on a laptop (I would love a MacBook Air, but at £1000 for one with a decent spec, I’ll pass) so I found a Samsung with an i5 and 4GB of RAM for a decent price.

Clearly while Samsung may have taken inspiration from some of Apple’s design (or may not have depending on who’s argument you’re listening to) they certainly haven’t noticed that Apple are not just about shiny products but about the overall user experience. Unboxing and switching on an iPad for the first time is enjoyable, like getting in a brand new car for the first time – doing this for my Samsung laptop was all but enjoyable.The first screen I was greeted with was some partitioning software! Do Samsung really think the average user cares how their partitions are setup? Even I don’t and I’m a self confessed geek.

After finally getting to the desktop, (about 20 minutes later) the next thing I see is a warning from Kaplinsky Security telling me I need to pay up for some security software. Do theses companies not get it? The game’s changed and you can’t treat consumers like this any more. Microsoft have said Windows 8 will have built in antimalware, lets hope they also take control of the setup experience too.

Then I had to spend another hour or so removing crapware. An Apple-esque dock that sat above the Windows 7 taskbar, a Bing Bar, and media players I will never use.

Finally, for some reason the power management was set so that the laptop would use hybrid sleep, this is where instead of shutting down you put the system to sleep, and simultaneously the system hibernates, so if power is lost no data is lost. This is designed for desktops and should never be enabled for laptops, lots of disk activity when you are chucking your laptop in your bag is not a good idea, not to mention the battery drain of always being in standby.

So not a great experience, and nothing like getting a new Apple product. Can’t say I would be eager to try any other of their products after this – what are your experiences?

Great to relive a film I watched so much as a child, in the cinema! It’s amazing how much extra detail you notice when you have a huge screen and good sound system. To this day, it still makes me laugh out loud.

A lot has been said about the passing of Steve Jobs. The reason I am sad about his death is that Apple (under his leadership) was the first company to make technology products mainstream and fashionable. Gadget lovers like me had long been on the side-lines with their PDAs and gigantic smartphones but Steve Jobs changed all that – the iPod and iPhone made it normal to want to carry more than 15 songs around with you on the train, or to sit in a coffee shop browsing the web on your phone. The iPad is at long last a device which can be switched on instantly like an appliance, but can do almost anything you would desire to do on a full-sized laptop.

From the first Apple product I owned (the G3 slot loading iMac, released in 2001), to the  second (the first iPod – yes people laughed at me for wearing white headphones, and I still think the physical click-wheel device was the best of the classic iPods) to the iPad I purchased recently, they’ve all been accompanied by an enchanting Steve Jobs announcement. It will feel odd not seeing that again, and is something I will definitely miss.

RIP Steve.

It’s been around six months since I stopped reading paperback books and moved to the Kindle. My reasoning behind doing so was not so much environmental concerns (I’m sure an electronic reading device isn’t exactly green to produce and keep charged) but convenience and hopefully a better reading experience. Having all your books on you, being able to synchronise your place with other devices (phone, tablet) for those occasions when you forget your Kindle and find yourself wanting to continue your book, and being able to adjust the size of the text.

Wi-Fi only would have been enough

I opted for the more expensive 3G option thinking I might take advantage of the free 3G to browse the web or buy books when I am out and about. I have rarely needed or wanted to do this. When I’m at home I can use the Wi-Fi, the same goes at work. When I’m on holiday there’s usually no shortage of Wi-Fi available (in Lisbon even the tour bus had free Wi-Fi!). In those situations where there is no Wi-Fi, frankly I can wait a few hours to purchase the next book. Oh and the web browser isn’t particularly useful, not when you have a smartphone in your pocket at least.

A better reading experience

In all honesty I can say that the Kindle is a more enjoyable reading experience than a normal book. Yes it lacks that woody aroma, and you never get to see the cover artwork in it’s full colour glory – but as someone once said, you shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover anyway. Being able to make the text bigger and control the line spacing really helps. Some books that were 900 pages long with a 8pt text size would have put me off in the past, but with a Kindle you don’t really pay much attention to how “fat” a book is, all you see is that percentage indicator gradually creeping up. The built in dictionary makes it so easy to lookup words that I actually learn a lot by looking up words I didn’t know instead of simply inferring what the meaning might be.

It’s still a gadget

Of course there’s no getting away from the fact that these things cost a lot of money, and the books themselves aren’t really that much cheaper than their paper counterparts (thanks somewhat to the UK VAT laws, which mean digital books are subject to VAT, but traditional paper books are not). Taking a expensive gadget everywhere isn’t always an option, and you’ll probably want to buy a case for it. Oh, and PLEASE don’t do what I did and put the Kindle in the same bag as a bottle of sunscreen (yes, the case was a good investment!).
However, that said, I think the benefits outweigh the negatives and my Kindle had survived trips to the beach. I’d definitely recommend a Kindle.

I have been tempted by the iPad for a while now, it seemed to offer the power of a laptop without the inconvenience of a laptop. A long battery, yet always connected and always on. I knew full well about the downsides and I didn’t expect to be typing large documents on it, but for browsing the web, checking email and chatting on instant messenger it seemed perfect. So was it?

Not prefect, but very good

The iPad 2, despite considerably lower specs than my laptop on paper feels snappy and rarely do I have to wait for anything to happen. Unlike a laptop, there is no fan – so I feel comfortable leaving it on my bed, or on the carpet knowing I’m not to come back and find it with fans whirling while it melts. The device seems durable, whereas the iPod has a an easy-to-scratch surface, the iPad won’t get scratched under normal use.

Lack of apps

One thing I have found is the lack of iPad specific apps. It’s still quite a new platform, so I can forgive app developers slightly – but the big hitters such as Spotify and Audible still make you use the iPhone versions of the app, which only work in portrait mode and look pixelated. The keyboard layout is also different for iPhone apps, which is rather confusing. While I can type pretty fast on the iPad, the lack of any blogging software as good as Windows Live Writer means I still prefer to fire up my laptop to write anything substantial. An iPad version of Google Chrome would be nice, or at least a way to sync your Google Chrome bookmarks easily (it can be done now, but involves using a 3rd party service and isn’t worth the hassle in my opinion).

Quality not quantity

Having said all that, the apps that come with the iPad are of a very high quality. The Mail, Calendar and Contacts app are very impressive. I was surprised Apple didn’t include an alarm clock and weather app, seeing as there is one available for the iPhone but it’s not a big deal as 3rd party apps have filled the gap.

For casually browsing the web or responding to emails, iPad wins. Booking a holiday? Then I’ll want 30 tabs open at once, and the iPad isn’t good at context switching. Overall I am impressed, it really does fill the void between a smartphone and a laptop. Tablets won’t replace laptops in my opinion, but they will take on many of their roles relegating laptops to the more comprehensive tasks.

Highly recommended.