Seems I'm not alone with my disposable ipod:
http://money.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1783783,00.html
Once bitten, twice shy: I bought a Creative M Vision Plus (stupid name, great gadget) last week:
http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=213&subcategory=214&product=14331
Then downloaded a 70 minute video of Radiohead playing at Glastonbury 2003, uploaded it onto the Creative and watched it on the Tube on the way to work.
It is an awesome machine.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
An Apple Genius at Work
She's obviously an idiot. You can see it in his eyes. Notice John and Yoko in the background placed there as if to emphasise the Genius aspect of Apple. Btw Apple are screwed when white goes out of fashion. I reckon black is on the way back. You heard it here first...
Monday, May 22, 2006
Ipod Hell
I know there are more important things in life than a bloody ipod. I know that there are massacres in the Sudan and that the icecaps are melting, but Apple are seriously pissing me off, and when I'm commuting that is the last thing I need. I could rant and rave about Apple for reams and reams of pages, but I think that it would be easier just to list the things that I hate about Apple. Before I start, I now realise that I hate Apple more than Microsoft.
Here goes:
1) That whole California thing catches in the back of my throat.
What California thing? You know, Google's "Don't be Evil" and Apple's Genius Bar. I mean what kind of c*nty knob-ends come up with spiel like that? Is it meant to make me, Johnny customer feel better when my overpriced mp3 player blows a gasket after 13 months? Does it fuck.
2) Genius Bar. This is blue-sky thinking at its finest. Most people call it Customer Service or even Help Desk. Not Apple, they have to rub your nose in it. They have to show you up for the dunce really are. You are thick. Come and see us and our Geniuses (or is it Geni-i [like cacti]) and we'll explain all and sundry to you.
3) The famed Apple Warranty/13 month ipod breakage
A brief resume of my run-in with the Genius Bar. My ipod headphone socket is dodgy... actually there's a post about this problem in the January archive. So, I finally took my ipod in and then felt like how a woman feels when she takes her car in for a service. I'll need the headphone socket replaced but, it seems that my warranty had expired. Cue sucking of air in over teeth, a sly knowing smile playing over the lips of the Genius as he said, "its going to cost you". Feverish sums in my head resulted in a personal guestimate of £70 repair cost: £20 post, £20 service charge, £20 parts, £10 because they can and they will. A headphone socket probably costs £5 tops.
But that genius quoted £160!!! To replace the headphone socket. In one fell swoop as though scales had fallen from my eyes I realised the true meaning of the Genius Bar. Its a license to print money.
4) That Genius who then went on to try and sell a video ipod to me
And you've got to give him credit. I've come into the shop expecting to spend £50 tops, and he wants me to leave with 2 ipods, one new, one broken, and short 0f £220. Suffice to say I didn't take up his wonderful offer. After all a new ipod is only £80 more than the extortionate repair charge for the old one.
5) itunes software.
That whole silver Apple our software just works and is well written and so on, and if its so bloody wonderful then why do I have to run bloody quicktime all the time too. Dicks.
6) Unexpected ipod hibernation
You turn it on and that black screen with a silver apple appears, and then the machine does bugger all and may work and may not and you really don't know. What you do know is that you need to plug it into the mains as a burst of electricity wakes it up. But you've left the house, and the only option is to go into Apple and plug into their demo sockets, in Regents Street. And in the meantime its completely useless.
7) Bono. I know he's not Apple, but he seems to be their mascot, and he's almost as much of a prick as they are.
8) Its a hard drive but not a hard drive. Really, why can't it be used as a hard drive? Why can't I download from it? That's just a stupid restriction on technology.
9) Thieving gypsy bastards.
I've been looking at the competition and I'm going to buy one of these before the end of the week:
http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=213&subcategory=214&product=14331
And there I was worried that I wouldn't like the menu software on the thing and then I read that Creative hold the patent for the gui and that Apple have copied it.
10) One more thing. The ipod is a beautiful piece of product design. It is tactile and responsive and feels as expensive as it looks, and that click-wheel is brilliant and its a shame to be leaving that behind but I just can not bear its shortcomings anymore.
Here goes:
1) That whole California thing catches in the back of my throat.
What California thing? You know, Google's "Don't be Evil" and Apple's Genius Bar. I mean what kind of c*nty knob-ends come up with spiel like that? Is it meant to make me, Johnny customer feel better when my overpriced mp3 player blows a gasket after 13 months? Does it fuck.
2) Genius Bar. This is blue-sky thinking at its finest. Most people call it Customer Service or even Help Desk. Not Apple, they have to rub your nose in it. They have to show you up for the dunce really are. You are thick. Come and see us and our Geniuses (or is it Geni-i [like cacti]) and we'll explain all and sundry to you.
3) The famed Apple Warranty/13 month ipod breakage
A brief resume of my run-in with the Genius Bar. My ipod headphone socket is dodgy... actually there's a post about this problem in the January archive. So, I finally took my ipod in and then felt like how a woman feels when she takes her car in for a service. I'll need the headphone socket replaced but, it seems that my warranty had expired. Cue sucking of air in over teeth, a sly knowing smile playing over the lips of the Genius as he said, "its going to cost you". Feverish sums in my head resulted in a personal guestimate of £70 repair cost: £20 post, £20 service charge, £20 parts, £10 because they can and they will. A headphone socket probably costs £5 tops.
But that genius quoted £160!!! To replace the headphone socket. In one fell swoop as though scales had fallen from my eyes I realised the true meaning of the Genius Bar. Its a license to print money.
4) That Genius who then went on to try and sell a video ipod to me
And you've got to give him credit. I've come into the shop expecting to spend £50 tops, and he wants me to leave with 2 ipods, one new, one broken, and short 0f £220. Suffice to say I didn't take up his wonderful offer. After all a new ipod is only £80 more than the extortionate repair charge for the old one.
5) itunes software.
That whole silver Apple our software just works and is well written and so on, and if its so bloody wonderful then why do I have to run bloody quicktime all the time too. Dicks.
6) Unexpected ipod hibernation
You turn it on and that black screen with a silver apple appears, and then the machine does bugger all and may work and may not and you really don't know. What you do know is that you need to plug it into the mains as a burst of electricity wakes it up. But you've left the house, and the only option is to go into Apple and plug into their demo sockets, in Regents Street. And in the meantime its completely useless.
7) Bono. I know he's not Apple, but he seems to be their mascot, and he's almost as much of a prick as they are.
8) Its a hard drive but not a hard drive. Really, why can't it be used as a hard drive? Why can't I download from it? That's just a stupid restriction on technology.
9) Thieving gypsy bastards.
I've been looking at the competition and I'm going to buy one of these before the end of the week:
http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=213&subcategory=214&product=14331
And there I was worried that I wouldn't like the menu software on the thing and then I read that Creative hold the patent for the gui and that Apple have copied it.
10) One more thing. The ipod is a beautiful piece of product design. It is tactile and responsive and feels as expensive as it looks, and that click-wheel is brilliant and its a shame to be leaving that behind but I just can not bear its shortcomings anymore.
Microsoft's new operating system, Windows Vista is to going to be launched in January 2007, replacing what, apparently is a now redundant XP. Today MS published the minimum and recommended specs for running Vista:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4996998.stm
Should I want to run it at full spec, then it means a new pc for me (and mine's only a year old). The problem MS has is that they are launching a product just after the peak period (Christmas) on a market which doesn't neccessarily still exist. Though XP has had its security issues, on the whole its a very stable OS and for the average user there are few faults with it. I'm not convinced that MS know why XP needs to be replaced, other than that's the business model they work from: continually replacing software that if it had been made right in the first place wouldn't need replacing. Look at Word 2003. Its utterly shambolic - the epitome of lazy programming. They could fix it, but why should they now that there's a new version of Office coming out soon.
Of course MS is a company and companies sell stuff to stay in business. The problem comes when you reach complete market saturation. When you look at a pc you look at Windows xp, much the same as when you look through a hole in your wall, you look through glass. Now there's fancier glass around, specialised glass. Windows 3.1 was your standard glass, 2000 and XP your double-glazed and tinted.
What's Vista going to be?
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