I bought my Samsung laptop well over a year ago, and it came running Windows 7. Despite having the most awful keyboard I have ever used, I’ve stuck with it because the Core i5 is pretty decent, and it’s got plenty of storage for all my music and I’m not going to shell out for a new laptop until this one gives up the ghost.
One of the interesting features that Samsung included was a piece of software called ‘Easy Settings’ which allowed me to configure the battery to never charge above 80%, supposedly lengthening the life of the battery. I turned this on (since my laptop is plugged in 99% of the time) and forgot all about it. A few months later I installed Windows 8 and found that Easy Settings no longer worked. When I tried to install it I got this message:
Loosing 20% of your battery capacity might be fine around the house, but sometimes I do like to take my laptop out and so I really wanted to be able to configure this. Even forcing Windows to install meant the app would run but wouldn’t display correctly function at all, I guess Microsoft blocked it for a reason.
Install Version 2.1
It turns out Samsung do offer a version of this tool for Windows 8, they just don’t make it easy to find. Version 2.1 works perfectly fine on NP300E5A model. Before I could change any power management settings, I had to update my laptop’s firmware however. The link to the download was hidden away on this Windows 8 update page, so check your model is listed before performing any firmware updates!
One nice addition if the ability to turn your laptop into a wireless Access Point (yes, Macs have had this feature for years I know, and it’s very useful).
Despite my earlier post, there are times when it’s wise to put a case on your tablet. On the beach, for example. Suncream and iPads really don’t mix, and putting an unprotected device into a bag with suncream will end in disaster (I know from experience). So I thought I would try Apple’s Smart Case, the version of the Smart Cover that fully encloses the entire device. It’s not cheap, but being an Apple product you generally get top-quality goods, and it can also be engraved at no extra charge.
Upon receiving the case, I was mightily disappointed. For a start, it feels very cheap. It’s not very sturdy: with the Smart Cover you can stand the iPad up and use it as a picture frame or to watch a film. The Smart Case apparently supports this function, but the iPad seems very precarious in this position; any slight nudge of the table would send it crashing to the floor. The Smart Case also adds an enormous bezel around the screen, making the iPad’s display seem small. It also seems to trap a lot of dust on the screen, and it doesn’t wipe the screen clean when you open and close it as the cover does. Speaking of opening it, it’s not obvious which side to open it from, and once you have discovered that you will need long nails to release the magnetic closure.
On the plus side, it does protect the iPad well, even the back. However, I can’t recommend this product for day-to-day use, and given how poor it is, it seems excessive to shell out for it on occasional trips to places such as the seaside. I’m not sure what has happened at Apple; it’s certainly not up to their usual standards (but it’s still at their usual prices). I have now reverted to using a Smart Cover and it’s like I have a brand-new iPad.
On my holidays this year I’ve noticed a large number of people donning iPads. In the pub, on the train, on the ferry and even sat on the beach. Like it was intended to do, the iPad is finding its way into places no one would ever imaged a laptop would. One thing did strike me though, and that is how nearly every iPad I’ve seen out and about is parcelled up in a protective case (one person who sat opposite to me proceed to get their iPad out of one case, only for it to be inside another).
Yes, I get that these things aren’t cheap, but they’re also not as fragile as most people think. Why pay all that money for iconic design if you’re not going to ever see it? This is exactly the thinking behind the Smart Cover, which protects the screen while not in use without sacrificing the slimness and design.
It turns out that this domain imarc.co.uk celebrated its tenth anniversary in April this year. How time flies!
In 2002, the web was a very different place compared with today. The first dot-com bubble had just burst, and there was still far more amateur content online. It was quite common to find personal home pages complete with family photographs or sites devoted to someone’s favourite band. These days, the web is far more corporate, and everything we share is via platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.
Why is this? Has web design become an elitist art form? Textured backgrounds and blinking text may have looked horrible, but back then it was all about a love of the subject matter, with appearance very much secondary. No one doubts that modern design techniques have improved the look and accessibility of the web, but have they frightened off the average Joe armed only with a copy of FrontPage?
Perhaps the world has simply ‘moved on’, as our favourite Gunslinger once said. People have better things to do than maintain their own sites. Blogging platforms such as WordPress and Blogger offer the ease of use of Facebook while allowing a greater degree of personalisation and independence. Perhaps these days people are writing apps instead.
Or maybe I’m just getting old. Who knows? I’m simply rambling.
Last week, both Google and Microsoft launched cloud file synchronisation services. Together with Apple, three of the biggest players in tech are now competing with the likes of Dropbox and Box.net.
Google’s service, named “Google Drive” (a name I was hoping they would reserve for their exciting autonomous car project), offers tight integration with Google Docs and other Google products such as Picasa, and no doubt with their Chrome OS and Android operating systems in the near future. One of the key selling points of Google Drive is its search facility; they even use OCR to let you search images. You get 5 GB free and can pay for up to 1 TB of space. Crucially, Drive supports sharing files with others, making collaboration on documents much easier. There is support for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS (no Windows Phone).
Microsoft’s SkyDrive has actually been around for a few years but has always been a web-only interface, so despite their initial offering of 25 GB free it was difficult to see how anyone would ever use it if they had to upload files one by one in a browser (I think they knew that too, since now it’s more usable it only offers 7 GB free). SkyDrive also has tight integration with Microsoft’s ecosystem; the upcoming Windows 8 will use it to synchronise data within apps and to keep your settings in the cloud. Office documents can be opened using Office Web Apps and there is support for sharing files too. It supports Windows, macOS, Windows Phone and iOS (no Android).
Apple’s iCloud is rather different. There is no way to use the storage arbitrarily like a folder as you can with the other services mentioned here. Instead, developers use the APIs to build iCloud into their apps. For many people this is fine: most ordinary users just want their documents and photos to be safe and do not care much about the file system underneath. For many (including me), this is a major limitation. It’s great if you own multiple iOS devices (say, an iPhone and an iPad), because your bookmarks, notes and documents will stay in sync. It’s not so great if you want to share a document. There is no way, for example, for two iPad users to work on a spreadsheet using Apple’s Numbers app – it just can’t be done. Of course, Apple have not added support for cloud rival Dropbox to their apps, so I found myself continually emailing a spreadsheet back and forth as if it were 1998. Welcome to the future. The biggest drawback of iCloud is the lack of Windows support. Not that I would be able to open my Pages documents on Windows anyway. However, if you have a Mac and use only Apple’s products, it’s not bad.
So who needs Dropbox?
With all these major players now involved, I’ve read many blogs and comments suggesting “Dropbox is doomed” or that there’s no point in it any more. How wrong they are.
The purpose of these three services is to keep you within an ecosystem. Each has its own small limitations that might seem like a minor inconvenience now, but remember—this is your data, and one day you might decide you no longer want to belong to a particular ecosystem. How easy will it be to move all those gigabytes of data? Dropbox (and other pure‐cloud providers; I just happen to use Dropbox) is not trying to get me to adopt their phone operating system or make it difficult for me to share with a rival. They are just offering cloud synchronisation without the platform politics.
A few weeks ago, the iPod turned 10. Hard to believe I know, at the time I’d just recently been bought an iMac (of the original curvy variety) and so I was keeping a close eye on all things Mac (only my AOL dialup connection). I remember reading about the announcement of the iPod and thinking “Wow!” – and feeling pretty smug because as a Mac user I would be able to get one (they were Mac-only to begin with). Of course at the age of 16 £300 for a gadget is hard to come by and so I wait until that Christmas and to my surprise I had an iPod in my stocking.
What struck me was the simplicity and purpose the device was beaming with, it integrated with iTunes so well and songs transferred across at lightening speed. Before the iPod I had been using an MP3 CD player which was a nightmare to navigate, and exceptionally bulky. I was getting the bus to college daily, and I remember I would have to pack it up the stop before because listening on the move wasn’t really an option due to it’s general bulkiness.
Any music player is pretty useless without good music to put on it, at the time I remember listening to Turin Brakes’ debut album The Optimist LP. Even today when I listen to this album, I am reminded of the novelty of the first iPod (as well as standing in freezing January weather waiting for a bus).
Apple released various updates, to support AAC and improve battery life – but the iPod remained the same essentially, a beautiful music player.
By about 2004 my iPod was well and truly battered, this was before it was common knowledge that that “durable” metal back was also very stretchable. I decided to move to a HP PocketPC running Windows Mobile 4, with a 500MB Compact Flash Card. It was nowhere near the 5GB of the iPod, but the geek in me wanted something that could play video and surf the web (using IrDA and GPRS). It was a functional little device, but shoddily built. In 2006 I decided to get an iPod Video 5.5. By now Apple had moved well and truly away from the physical scroll-wheel to a touch-sensitive one – I still use this iPod today and I have never managed to get on with it as well as the first iPod. The video was great though, and the battery was even better. I remember it got me through the hours I had to sit in LAX when my flight was cancelled. That trip was to New York in 2007, a few months after the release of the iPod Touch. After visiting the Apple Store on 5th Avenue, I couldn’t resist the spending my entire holiday money on one of the things and promptly purchased an iPod Touch.
The first generation iPod touch was all about music, and being able to buy it online wherever you were – there were no games, no apps, you couldn’t even edit calendar appointments – this was all about the music (and video). It was therefore a nice addition when Apple released an update (I think it cost about £5) that gave users the ability to install apps.The iPod Touch was also the first time I had ever used a mobile browser and actually enjoyed the experience. My phone at the time (a Nokia N95) was a great phone, but browsing the web it it was awful.
The iPod Touch, like the iPod Video I own remains in use today (I have passed it down the family). Shocking when you think since 2008 I have had 2 laptops fail on me yet these devices still work perfectly. The original iPod powers up, but the battery only lasts a few minutes, and I don’t have a PC with FireWire to get songs onto it anymore
So just some of my iPod memories! I wonder what I’ll be using in 10 years time?
It’s been around six months since I stopped reading paperback books and moved to the Kindle. My reasoning for 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. It means having all your books with you, being able to synchronise your place with other devices (phone, tablet) for those occasions when you forget your Kindle but want to continue your book, and being able to adjust the text size.
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 was 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 before purchasing 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 its full-colour glory, but as someone once said, you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover anyway. Being able to make the text bigger and control the line spacing really helps. Some books that were 900 pages long with an 8 pt text size would have put me off in the past, but with a Kindle you don’t really notice how “fat” a book is; all you see is that percentage indicator gradually creeping up. The built-in dictionary makes it so easy to look up 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 UK VAT laws, which mean digital books are subject to VAT, but traditional paper books are not). Taking an 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!). That said, I think the benefits outweigh the negatives, and my Kindle has 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.
So it’s nearly two years since I got my iPhone 3GS, and I decided I wanted to change. Not because the old 3GS was feeling slow – it still felt snappy and the battery lasted two days. What made me change was those ever-so-annoying “if you don’t have an iPhone” adverts. The thought of being associated with a brand that came across as self-obsessed and narcissistic had slowly been eating away at me, and when I read this story, my decision was made.
Compared to iOS, Android has a very “home-brewed” feel to it. The interface is much more complex and far less intuitive. On the flip side, however, that means everything is a lot more configurable. In this respect, Android reminds me more of Windows Mobile and Symbian than it does of iOS. I can schedule my work email to only push new items during work hours, for example – something I missed from my Nokia, which the iPhone did not offer. The home screen is far superior to that of the iPhone, but it falls down on simple things. Renaming a folder was surprisingly difficult to work out; it turned out I needed to click and hold on the folder name in the folder’s pop-up. Dragging widgets is awkward, as you can’t seem to have more than one floating at once, so rearranging them when the screen is full is impossible.
Unlocked Doors
While the software does have a “rough and ready” feel to it, this has benefits, as there is virtually no vendor lock-in. I managed to stream music from my DLNA NAS box quite easily. Apple will let you do this, but only within their ecosystem. There is free satnav (although the phone doesn’t come with a car kit), voice input, and a whole host of good-quality apps available from the app store. One really useful feature is HTC Sense Online, which lets you locate your phone, make it ring, and lock it remotely – great when you think you may have lost it.
Battery Life
I am disappointed with the battery life. My iPhone (when new) would be at about 70% at 5:30 pm when I left work, with average use. The Desire S was at about 40%. It is doing a lot more, however, and just proves how little battery technology has improved in the last few years.
Having used the phone for over a month now (nearly two), I have a good idea of what I think of it and how it compares to the iPhone.
User Experience
The user experience is nowhere near as good as the iPhone. A good example of this is when I enter the contacts app and press the Search key. The search field does not automatically get focus, so I have to tap at the top of the screen (having just pressed the search key at the bottom), and then move back down again to begin typing. It feels awkward and unpolished.
Then there are the bundled apps. Like a new laptop, the phone came bundled with lots of OEM crapware. It seems HTC want me to use their Twitter client, and there’s no way to delete it (or even remove the icon). What is it with hardware manufacturers trying to be software companies? Just like those pointless Wi-Fi utilities or launcher bars that the likes of Acer and HP used to bundle with their laptops (HP even made their own Media Centre – the Me Too Edition).
Anyway, it’s a small annoyance, but the abundance of icons is likely to confuse many people.
Battery Life
The battery life is abysmal. It will last a day if you don’t use it much, but if you use it frequently, you’ll need to carry a charger with you. The iPhone wasn’t great, but its battery would always last a day and still have plenty left over.
On the other hand, this is the price you pay for carrying a much more powerful device in your pocket, one that can actually multitask. (The iPhone currently just pretends to, except for a few limited tasks.) Once you get used to that, I think it would be hard to go back to a single-tasking system. Being able to have the phone download new podcasts automatically every night and update Google Reader on schedule is a breath of fresh air for anyone who used to do that five years ago on their Symbian or PocketPC-based phone – and then, like me, switched to the iPhone when it became the big thing.
There are numerous ways to improve battery life. The best is to turn off background data, which rather defeats the purpose of having such a phone, but it’s nice to know you could, in theory, get a couple of days out of it if needed. Great if you ever go camping at a festival (although the camera also drains the battery quite a lot).
In fact, there’s an app for almost everything available on the iPhone, and the Android version is usually less restricted and cheaper. The exception here is games, but I’ve still found a number of quality gems – just fewer of the big names.
So I can’t say I miss iOS much, except for the eye candy. Maybe iOS 5 will sway me next time.
So Windows 8 will be all things do all people, a tablet operating system to rival iOS and Android for consuming content, while at the same time a fully functional desktop operating system that we use to create content. Sounds great, right?
How can that be possible? Can you imagine the iPad having 10 hours of battery life if it had to run all the background processes (and crapware) that comes preinstalled on most PCs? Bloated AntiVirus software, scheduled disk clean-ups, random Adobe icons, it can be a bit unwieldy for a system that is suppose to be “always on” – the iPad will after all, receive notifications while in standby (and yes the 10 hours is actual usage, not standby). I can’t see Windows doing that, and even with specially tuned hardware all it takes is for someone to install a bit of rouge “classic” software (rather than software using the new JavaScript and probably Silverlight APIs) and that all gets thrown out the Window (sorry, bad pun).
So maybe Microsoft has taken the technology it developed for Windows 7’s “XP Mode” and made it so when you buy a tablet PC, the classic side of the system that can run all your old software is completely virtualised. This would mean the entire legacy system would be contained within a single process that could be paused to save battery.
When installed on a desktop, this extra layer probably wouldn’t be needed (Obviously games and other high-end software won’t run well in a virtualised environment) – but for a tablet I think it makes sense.
Obviously this is just pure speculation on my part, so lets hope all will be revealed at this year’s BUILD conference.
