06
September
2007

Good Experience: Apple Airport Express

I bought an Airport Express this week. They’ve been around for a while now, and I’m sure they’re probably going to end up being refreshed in the near future, but I couldn’t hold off any longer. For various reasons, it made no sense to put it off any longer.

So far, I’ve been really impressed with it. Not so much what it does; it does exactly what I ask of it, which is exactly what the site said it will do. What’s impressive is the way it does it. The experience of owning it, of using it, has been excellent.

Wireless networking is complicated. It’s not designed to be user friendly. It’s not too hard to get a router/modem up and running and sharing around a nice, public, stealable connection, but fine-tuning and configuring it is a total pain for most users. The terminology is complex and unintuitive.

To make matters worse, almost every router (wireless or otherwise) has a miniature webserver in it running an administration interface. This sounds like a good idea for most users: the controls and interactions are familiar, and no special software is required. But in practice, it’s a disaster.

Continue reading this post…

21
February
2006

design

Tagged as:
, , .

MacBook Pro: first signs of power-hunger

So ZDNet have got themselves a MacBook Pro and are unpacking it. And, whilst the lovely, slim packaging is very nice, there are some worrying signs - signs that suggest why a 12″ (or even 13″ widescreen) Macbook Pro is a way off yet.

Namely, the insatiable hunger for power.

The two important lines are “notice the larger 17-inch-style battery” and “the MagSafe adapter is about 25% larger, about the size of the Airport Express.

The larger battery and larger charger are clearly necessary to support the higher power draw of the Core Duo, and the new battery size goes some way to explaining why they need a thinner optical drive in there.

If that’s all necessary for the 15″, then I’m not sure how they’ll cram it any smaller without affecting battery life or power. The MacBook (iBook as was) might be better off with the Core Solo, which could have a lower power draw. But a smaller Core Duo machine seems difficult, right now.

21
December
2005

personal

Tagged as:
, , .

Powerbook woes: continued

This is taking the biscuit.

Way into work: unplug Powerbook from PSU, bundle up PSU. Work on train a bit. Get to work. Plug PSU into power socket. Plug PSU into Powerbook.

No light on charger ring; no indication of a charging battery.

Change the fuse, same problem. I think, after two and a half years, the PSU is dead. Investigate buying a new one. A new power supply will be

£55.

I give up.

07
September
2005

posts

Tagged as:
, , , , , .

iPod Nano

OK, so Apple have gone completely bonkers with the naming of their new iPod Nano. I’ll let that one go. I can also let go the complete axing of the iPod Mini as a line, as it never really mattered that much to me. What I can’t forgive is whichever lunatic thought that the bottom edge of an audio device was the best place for the headphone socket. That’s before you consider that it comes in black, of all the non-Apple colours in the world. Not that impressed, really - smaller, less space, same money, more whizz-bang. Sticking to my 3G 20gig, then.

(Also, I’m not convinced by this new “streamlined look” for iTunes 5, and will let others download the first stone, as it were - but you heard the prospect of it being “rubbish” here first).

Links & notes for this month

Endnotes