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Apple you got the name wrong: Vista is the Time Machine!

Vista has been, and still is, receiving a dreadful amount of bad press lately, both from individual geeks and well-known review websites. The reasons for that happening are completely substantiated, lack of drivers, software stability issues and outdated functionality. Many people such as Chris Pirillo and many other bloggers have expressed their dislikes about Windows Vista and even some who were Windows fanatics are now coming out publicly, in front of their communities, recanted and moved to Mac OS X.

As you may be aware, I use Mac OS X Leopard on my MacBook. It is by far my favourite operating system that I have used in ages in terms of features not stability. Leopard is one of the most unstable pieces of software I have EVER used.  It’s kernel panic after panic after more panics. I’M FED UP WITH IT!

On Skype the other day, I was quite simply astounded. I was in a call with somebody and my entire mac froze, Skype had partially locked up, however I could still hear his audio and he could mine. When I told him that the system had crashed, he said that he didn’t know that macs ever crashed.

Every operating system sucks, after all it’s technology which is made by humans and as I’m sure we all know, nobody can ever be truly perfect so that means the software we create is victim to those same parameters.

In my house we run three computers, two of which are running Windows Vista 32bit. Neither of the notebooks have fallen victim to the dreaded BSOD. Within the last few weeks I could not even attempt to try and estimate the number of kernel panics I’ve had on OS X.

I am only one person in a huge collection of people, some of whom hate Windows Vista but I can honestly say that I have experienced zero issues in the many months I’ve run it leading up to purchase of my first OS X system,

User Interfaces however is another problem all in its own league. I am going to start by being completely transparent; before I used OS X I thought Vista was the best thing that ever happened to the computing world. It was only when I saw Leopard that I truly recognized the many flaws in Vista. Sometimes I think we have to see what better things are out there before we are willing to move from our current, STABLE, work environment.

Time Machine should not have been the name of a feature inside OS X. In the same manner as Vista should not have its name. The reasoning behind this is so simple; Using Vista is like going back years because all the “new” features that they’ve added are things that Apple had for years.

If you think that OS X is off the hook you are absolutely beyond foolish, just like Vista has an ancient feature set that they like to refer to as innovative, Mac OS X has huge mounds of stability issues and I’m so fed up with the constant crashing.

Now I’m going to stop this post and invite you, the community, to submit your thoughts, feedback, comments and experiences, which can ether be done by emailing me at tom@therogersfamilyonline.com or by commenting on this post.

Psystar Open Mac: illegal or not?

Open Computing is an OSx86 compatible hardware platform that is capable of running ‘vanilla’ OS X Leopard kernels. Why pay more for a Mac you can’t upgrade or buy a used one when you can have an Open Computer for less? The Open Computer can now be purchased with Leopard included and preinstalled to make it fully functional out of the box!

 

Reviews: Altec Lansing FX6021 2.1 Speaker System

As I referenced in my previous post my home theater system relies on a 2.1 speaker system: Altec Lansing FX6021. This 2.1 system was my second port of call and attempt in the battle for good quality audio. You’ll find out weather it was a case of second time lucky or hell a little later on in the review. But now it’s time for us to go into a little detail concerning my old sound system and the events that let up to the purchase of the speakers I will be reviewing.

My data projector was my dream come true, well at least that’s what I thought at the time of its order – it was only when I unboxed it that I realized I had a problem on my hands. Experience told me that the built-in monophonic audio would suck. So, I’ve opened the thing, one small problem – there is no audio port at all!

So, I had already made one massive mistake and was just about to make another one. As it was my birthday soon after I got my Acer projector I asked my parents to get me a 2.1 system. Creative was my brand of choice at that time (of course now I know better) don’t know the model though.

All I can say about those speakers is that the build quality was simply terrible. The second day that I had those things they broke. I was switching the input to my DVD player as a pose to my PC and the wire snapped leaving the end of the wire to hang stuck into the subwoofer. 

Months later, as a result of a lot of searching on Google, I invested in the Altec Lansing FX6021 2.1 Speaker System for a rather cheap price of £150 (around $300 US) which is reasonably priced for what you get in my personal opinion. This is the official product description from their website.

The Altec Lansing FX6021 with InConcert™ technology is a 3-piece system for the music, gaming, or home theater enthusiast. A revolution in pro audio, InConcert technology enables the FX6021 to deliver crisp, clean, full-volume sound that feels like its being directed right at you. InConcert Technology directs the sound straight ahead and to the sides, not up and down. So the sound is pure and clean, uncluttered by reflections from the ceiling or floor. Two ultra-slim satellites feature a total of twelve 1” neodymium micro drivers, with each pair of micro drivers powered by its own discrete amplifier. A 6.5” ported subwoofer completes the sound with low frequency, full-throated bass.

So, what do I think?

Appearance and Design:

This speaker system looks stunning. All the components of this sound system share a silvery colour scheme. The two satellite speakers are long and thin. Covering the 6 full range micro drivers in each speaker is non-removable, metal grills. The remote is small and well designed. The two satellites can be used on the included base stands or mounted onto a wall.

Stability and Build Quality:

When compared the Creative Labs system, the build quality on this set is quite amazing as the wires and ports are so much stronger. I do have one small issue and that is in regard to the stability and robustness of the wired “remote” control system. The volume/bass/treble dial is a part that would be likely to brake because it’s one piece of material that is responsible for all the functions of the hardware. That may lead to problems in the future because if the button stops functioning then that will mean you will no longer be able to control the system.

Specifications

Sound Pressure Level (SPL): 105dB

Total Continuous Power: 75Watts RMS

System Response: 32Hz to 18kHz

Drivers per satellite: Six 1inch Full Range Micro Drivers

Subwoofer Driver: One 6.5inch long throw woofer

Wireless remote & control pod for power, master volume, treble & bass

Headphone and auxiliary jack on wired control pod

Left right phono input, audio input 3.5mm jack on subwoofer

Dimensions (mm)

Satellite: 64(w) x 191(d) x 365(h)

Subwoofer: 216(w) x 198(d) x 406(h) 



Box Contents

2 Satellites

2 satellite bases

Subwoofer

Wired controller

Wireless remote

3.5mm stereo audio cable

Quick Connect card,

User manual

Sound Quality

In my personal opinion this system has fantastic audio quality, it offers it is fantastic for the cheap price. New great technology has been implemented here, it improves the already great sound by directing the sound around and out to the sides as a pose to up and down.

Final Thoughts

I have commented earlier that the purchase of this great speaker was my second attempt at getting good audio and it certainly didn’t fail. I’m so glad that I ended up selecting this set and if you’re considering a relatively low end set you should give these a look.

 

iPhone SDK: Good or Bad?

I don’t own an IPhone or any kind of Ipod. That’s certainly not because I don’t like them, I just can’t bear to hand over that much money! From what I’ve heard, and in the small amount of time I’ve had to play with them in stores: the devices have an elegant and stable platform.

Developers cannot currently create software for iPhone: well they can but Apple doesn’t want them to yet. The reason for this is clear as glass, If you create software that is not authorised you are invariability exposing your users to unexpected crashes and huge loss of stability.

Amazingly, despite that, people sill continue to download cracked, unstable applications and then go complaining to Apple and say that their device is no longer functioning but they “forget” to mention to the person that they jail broke or hacked their phone as that are smart enough to know that doing so will void the service agreement.

Steve Jobs recently announced the iPhone SDK. An SDK is a way of sanctioning what third parties are able to add to or do to the software that allows a device to run. 

I honestly do believe that he’s to be commended for the shire amount of control that he gave to his developers especially when compared to his track record: he was unfair and extremely rigid when you think about how he refused to let other OEMs install OS X on their systems.

Although it seams fantastic news that he has left it so open-ended that may actually turn a negative side on to it because any application could be developed for it, which could be done be badly, and serve to cripple a stable, user-friendly platform.

So, in a nutshell, I’m not at all sure what to think because like with anything freedom can be interpreted in very different ways: a chance to create a tool that to can impact the world in positive way but by the same token it may have a knock-on effect.  

Monster Cable are Jerks

Even though I don’t own any HD devices I do quite a lot of display related hardware. The Acer XD1150 projector is the display that I use for my home cinema system. Audio is taken care of by an Altec Lansing FX6021 speaker system.

Whenever anyone invests any money into home theatre equipment they are most likely to need new cabling, in my case that meant having a new composite cable and 5 metres worth of RCA phono audio cabling.

I was lucky enough to get mine from the local computer store but a lot of people prefer getting hold of their cables online especially when buying in bulk. Monoprice may well be the single cheapest place to buy AV cables of any kind. Blue Jeans is also a good place to by cables.

Monster evidently is not, they have a horrid legal department and quite honestly do not deserve our support in my opinion. They further illustrated that point when they decided to through the book at Blue Jeans cable claiming that they were stealing their intellectual property.

The owner of Blue Jeans is in fact a lawyer and he was later able to find an issue with the evidence presented by Monster which made the entire suet a complete waste of Monster time and money.

So, the moral of the story is: DO NOT BY MONSTER CABLES!

Blogs and Education: Will they ever be together?

You are reading this on my blog so you therefore already know that it exists. I love blogging; I adore the simple concept that anyone can publish his or her thoughts online for the whole world to see. The fact that it’s free is the icing on the cake.

On a blog it’s especially critical to have good grammatical ability and skills. This is because if a reader spots a grammatical error and is consequently unable to understand the rest of the sentence they are unlikely to be able to make communications with the writer to question what it means. That reader is then much less likely to continue reading as a result of a few simple mistakes.

For that reason, blogs could become widely used in the English education field: they can be easily commented on by teaching staff requesting edits or corrections. They can be easily edited or viewed anywhere with an available web browser and Internet connection. This means that the student could be given a topic to write a post on for homework then the teacher could read the entry and post the students mark and any required corrections as a comment at the bottom of the post.

The advantages are that the rest of the world could read that post and the person may make connections to people with similar interests and passions. Another possible advantage is the quickest turnaround between the student posting the work and them then receiving their grade.

However, like with anything, there are always downsides. In this particular case one is that once content is published on to the web there is no 100% secure way of getting rid of that data. So, that would mean that if someone posted inappropriate content there would be no means of officially removing that information.

Over time I’m sure more web 2.0 concepts will be implemented into education, the issue isn’t that the tools aren’t ready, we just need to find ways to utilise them effectively.

Do Companies Have Enough Regard For After Sales?

At sometime in our life we will all need a little more assistance and perspective in dealing with our issues.  Tech is a simply fantastic example of this. What I mean is that at the times when we get frustrated with a hardware or software problem, we are by doing that, making the situation more closed and consequently less open to possible fixes and solutions.

Although I have used technology as an example to illustrate my point, I believe that this philosophy can be applied throughout all of our lives.

Contacting somebody, such as a “tech savvy” relative or friend is often a computer novice’s first and last line of defence. If that contact then is unable to offer any more help or technological insight. When this happens the person may resort to calling a support centre.

I’m quite sure we’ve all had the experience of calling a centre and waiting 30 minutes for someone to answer your call only to realise that they can’t help and are going to ask you to hold whilst they transfer you to another operator who WILL be able to help

Problem misdiagnosis is also a very big issue in these centres. I used to own a Gateway MX6635b Notebook. I called Gateway once with regard to the DVD drive of that laptop, the drive had stopped reading DVDs but continued to read and write CD. The real problem arose when I needed to reinstall the OS from the DVD that had shipped with that computer. Anyway, when I informed the agent that the drive wouldn’t read any DVDs let alone the bootable media. The agent replied “You need to install PowerDVD to do that.” This shows a complete lack of knowledge as if you have a data DVD a decoder is not required.

So, what this demonstrates is a lack of care for their customers and a complete disregard for customers after they’ve “signed on the dotted line.”

What Is Change Really About?

As most of you know by now, I am a geek, need or whatever else you’ll like to call someone who presents a passion for technology. Technology is simply a fantastic example of change, all over the world, there are constantly new technological innovations being developed and new plans being drawn up.

The nature of the universe, and more over the beings that live in it, Is that we are constantly advancing and evolving. We are all some form of “information junky”. For me, that hunger for new information is for the latest technology. Read through the last sentence again; notice that I’ve not used the all to common expression “latest and greatest.”

It shouldn’t be all that hard for you to work out where this is going, I don’t mean where it’s being hosted, but, I’m talking about how it’s progressing.

You’re so lucky if you built a great product first time, it’s virtually imposable. Take the AppleTV for instance; to begin with it was not at all easy to get content onto the device. The company quickly recognized the many usability issues and subsequently responded with a free software update. You’re probably wondering what am I trying to demonstrate by saying all this. Well, I’m saying that it takes a long time, often years, and a huge amount of great designers to create a product that is suitable for the increasingly critical consumer market.

So, is change and failure really a positive experience that we are able to learn from – or, is it quite simply a waste of our time.

Headsets vs Stand-alone Microphone

I am so lucky that I have such an active community; I am always getting questions and requests and that is a fantastic prespect.

I got a message the other day – it said the following:

Hi.

I commented on one of your videos, but I’m not sure you saw the comment. I believe it’s an important message. It could really help your videos.

I have a suggestion for you. It would be a good idea to get a headset. You wouldn’t have to worry about where you moved your head. The microphone would always be near your mouth. Nice videos!

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This is a great suggestion, however, there are some reasons I don’t agree. So, therefore the reason behind me posting this is not to shun you, but because it is a fantastic topic and talking point.