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).
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”.
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.
Delete the original folders (which will now be empty as you moved everything into your Dropbox)
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:UsersMarcDocuments” “C:UsersMarcDropboxDocuments”
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?
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.
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.
If you’ve read anything on the web about technology recently you’ll know that many technology pundits and enthusiasts are claiming that HTML 5 and JavaScript are the future of computing. Even Microsoft is jumping on the bandwagon with Windows 8. But is it? Yes it has the benefits of being open, easy to learn and cross platform – but is it the best tool for developers? I’m not so sure, and I think JavaScript is the weak link. There is no compiler to warn you you’re doing stupid things, no way to enforce variables to be declared final or even to be of a particular data type. The extremely loose nature is a benefit when trying to learn it, but when you’re working on a project with thousand’s of lines of code it can get tricky. Want to rename a variable? I’ve yet to see an IDE that can refactor JavaScript the way Eclipse or Visual Studio can with Java and C# respectively.
Maybe I am showing my ignorance here, but it seems to me that JavaScript might be great for small scale projects, but would I choose it for a large enterprise system over Java or C#? Is it popular simply because it happens to be the only scripting language almost guaranteed to be available on any device, rather than because it lets developers write elegant, maintainable and scalable code?
[Appcelerator](http://www.appcelerator .com/) is a tool I’ve been using recently to develop an iPhone app. It’s actually quite good, if not a little buggy here and there – but their central premise is that you can reuse your web skills and code JavaScript instead of Objective C. However, all you borrow from the web is the syntax of JavaScript, since there’s no DOM, no JQuery and instead a bunch of custom components. It’s a nice tool, and will surly get better over time, but I do sometimes wonder why they chose JavaScript as opposed to Java as their supported language.
This reminds me of when “RAD” was big in the mid-nineties, Visual Basic was the future (remember, in VB there was the variant data type that could be anything). A few years later Java was the future, with its strict enforcement of OO practises. Now it’s swung the other way with JavaScript and Ruby be touted as the way forward. What will be next I wonder?
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.
Here are some of the few online services I consider worth paying for…
XBOX live
I have been using this service since I first got my XBOX 360 in 2006. I was at first very sceptical about paying to play games online, after all I’ve paid for the game so shouldn’t the online play be included in the price? Having seen other free alternatives however (Steam on the PC, and of course the PlayStation network) XBOX Live seems a more cohesive service. Starting games is simple, as is inviting friends to voice chat. A nice way to waste some time on a Sunday afternoon.
£4.99 / month (I got an annual pass for about £27, look for special offers)
Audible
Audiobooks are a great way to “read” while you’re doing other things, in the gym, in the car, doing boring household chores, or sometimes just when falling asleep. The monthly subscription gives me a book each month (which when some of them are over 30 hours long, will easily last that long) and is genuinely a good way to get more reading time in. There’s an Android app, and books will play on the Kindle too.
£6.99 / month
DropBox
DropBox is a neat online backup service. While Windows Live Mesh is technically superior, you can’t get more than 5GB of storage as you can with DropBox. Therefore I use it, and it’s very useful to have all your documents available wherever you are. If only the software would make is easier to sync existing folders (currently it’s a longwinded process involving symbolic links) I wouldn’t feel the need to be looking for alternatives all the time. Still, it’s a good price and the features they do have are very useful.
$9.99 USD / month
Spotify
I am still on my free trial of Spotify, after having initially been sceptical about “renting” music rather than owning it. Being able to try out albums is great, and now they have offline access for mobile phones it’s actually not a bad product. I have discovered a lot of new music using sites such as BBCify, which I would never have done without Spotify. It’s a shame not al of the music labels have signed up, that is misguided in my opinion. The desktop client it a bit clunky – a classic case of “design by committee” but the underlying functionality is worth the money.
Having been using the phone over a month now (nearly 2), I have a good idea of what I think of it and how it compares to the iPhone.
User Experience
The user experience is no where 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 right at the bottom), and then move back down again to begin typing. It feels awkward and unpolished. Then there’s the bundled apps. Like a new laptop, the phone was 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 manufactures being wannabe software companies? Just like those pointless Wifi utilities or Launcher bars the likes of Acer and HP used to bundle in with their laptops (HP even made their own Media Centre, the Me Too Edition). Anyway, it’s a small annoyance but the abundance of so many icons is sure to confuse a lot of people.
Battery Life
The battery life is abysmal. It will last a day if you don’t use it much, but if you do use it frequently then you’ll need to take a charger around with you. The iPhone wasn’t great, but the battery would always last a day and have plenty left over. On the other hand, this is the price you pay for having a much more powerful device in your pocket, one that actually can multitask (The iPhone currently just pretend to, save for a few limited tasks) and once you get used to that, I think it would be hard to go back to a single-task based system. Being able to have the phone download new podcasts automatically every night, update Google Reader on schedule is a breath of fresh air for anyone who used to do that 5 years ago on their Symbian or PocketPC based phone – and then (like me) switched to the iPhone when it was the big thing. There are numerous ways to improve battery life, the best is to turn off background data – which kind of defeats the point of having such a phone, but it’s nice to know you could i theory get a couple of days out of it if needed, great if you ever go camping at a festival (although the camera sucks the battery a lot too).
Missing iOS?
For all it’s UX faults, I prefer Android. You want Wifi Music Sync? There’s an app for that. Free SatNav? There’s an app for that. Tethering over Wifi? There’s an app for that. Want to download the latest albums? Guess what, you can do that too. In fact, there’s an app for almost anything there is on the iPhone, and the Android version is nearly always less restricted and cheaper. The exception here is games, but I’ve still found a number quality gems, just less 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.
