What really took me was just how easy it was. I don’t mean the technical aspect of the shot, but just how pleasant it was to work with the people who were essentially modelling for me. Everyone was co-operative and helpful, although I’ll say that I was more or less useless at directing them.

I’m surprised because of course I’ve heard all of these horror stories about difficult subjects or the more or less total control needed for the photographer. One photographer friend of mine has said ‘it’s essential to communicate‘ and that I should ‘take charge’ and ‘direct everyone’, In fact his exact words were ‘You need to be really good at directing people’. Of course after hearing that I more or less ended up crapping myself at the thought of trying to control or direct some very important people and of course in my case, a famous one.
Yet all I had to do was say to them both “just relax and do whatever feels right”, and whilst they picked up on the fact that I have never done any form of portrait work before, they did exactly as I said and just… relaxed! It was an incredible feeling building a rapport with them as I fumbled around with the studio lights, trying very hard to not burn either myself or the cast member I was shooting. Despite all this, they were great, helpful, kind and after a few nerves and a little uncertainly (on both their part and mine), I started taking shots and everything just flowed.

Shooting in a studio helped so much, this is the first time I was able to do this, but it gave a more professional environment, I was able to shoot easily and well with the camera and I think I got some fantastic shots as well (you will see some soon) but it’s left me with a completely different view of studio photography. Who knows, I might even get a huge amount of work from it, Maybe not. But there is the possibility!

Maybe this was just a really great first experience, maybe it’s all like this, but I now know for a fact that the profession I’ve always wanted to get into, really is what I want to get into.

I am more comfortable behind a camera, than I am anywhere else.

The time has come for me to trade in my car, but if I wait much longer I stand to loose thousands and thousands of pounds in depreciation. I have to get rid in the next two months or I may as well not sell. This is not such a good thing, especially when your happening to try and keep the whole ‘prestige car’ thing going and the only ones out there are high milers.

Frustratingly my current role means I can’t exactly be without a car, so I’m quite stuffed in a sense. But if I wait, I stand to loose around 3 grand, whereas if I change now, I don’t loose anything, nor do I have to spend anything at all, the current trade in value for my car is actually so good that I will more or less get a straight swap. Unfortunately that straight swap might mean getting a prestige car with everything I want, except it’s 143,000 miles, on a petrol or diesel. This is not good at all.

Oh dear. Out of interest I’ve looked at Audi A4’s, Volkswagen Golfs, BMW 1 Series and Mercedes C Class. Don’t get me wrong there are plenty about, although some are almost 200 miles away, but in the case of the 1 series, sure I can get exactly what I want, no question about it, except one of them has 114000 miles on a 2.0 diesel, now that’s a lot. The same with Audi A4’s. The only thing that doesen’t seem to have the miles, is the VW Golf, though I might have to travel to get one. Then of course theres the possibility that some little teenage f**kwit has ragged it to within an inch of it’s life, as is the case today with one example I looked at. It was perfect, aside from the blown head gasget!

Which leaves me with a very big problem, if I do it now, I wont have to pay a penny, if I don’t then I’ll have to pay thousands. Why is the used car market so atroctious in Cardiff? Why do the perfect ones have to be 178 miles away…. DAMNIT!

Whilst we’ve already missed the Cardiff leg of the tour, the rest of it is still in progress. You can click the youtube link below to see projects and features from “Valleys Kids”, some street dancers from community grouo “Urban Circle”, woodwork from “Construction Youth Trust” and life guards from “Aberavon Surf Lifesaving Club” (you can SURF in Aberavon??)

http://www.youtube.com/user/LotteryGoodCauses

I love charity events like this, I love charity full stop, especially when it goes to support things in the local community so it’s fantastic to see what the Lottery funded projects are getting up to. Look out for them in your local town, bring a camera and have fun! In the meantime if you wan’t to support the lottery fund, buy a lottery ticket! or support your local lottery funded projects

For someone like me who is relatively new to Mac (near a year) these things are invaluable to me since they let me know about fantastic applications that I’ve never heard of (or thought of).

Before you ask, I have not been asked to do this post, nor have I been paid to do it. I’m simply doing it because I wanted to tell you.

Last year MacHeist did a free nanobundle, with a small fortune of applications for free. This time, the nanobundle costs but has over $250 of applications, including the one I’m posting in now, macjournal. MarsEdit has long been my choice for blog entries while I’m offline so it’s a refreshing change. In case your wondering about the cost, its $19.95. Thats in dollars. That’s completely worth it in my eyes for applications I’ll actually use.

It’s only there for a limited time, so head on over to http://www.macheist.com and grab it while you can

The server experienced a catastrophic failure which was caused by a bad command in the system scripts. The system has now been restored with the help of the folks at linode.com and the server is performing normally. I apologise for any inconvenience anyone experienced

If we move back a week or so, the BBC got wind of the Apple iPad announcement. True to their current form not only was the announcement inaccurate but potentially misleading for potential buyers, here’s the catch line
If you want to view the article, click here. First of all, where did they get this piece of nonsense? and second of all, No it does not have iPhoto. Amongst other things iPhoto is an image editing suite as well as a gallery collection system, it syncs with most cameras, and includes the ability to work with and edit RAW files and pictures. The iPad version is nothing like that. It’s simply a gallery which supports GeoTagging and Facial Recognition. That isn’t iPhoto.

However the latest one is of course the computers in cars article. Which implies, amongst other things, that cars have about 9 computer units scattered throughout the car, see diagram below

What utter idiot came up with this diagram? First off, cars do have computers, but usually a limit of two or three. A car will consist of having an ECU, or control unit for the cars engine, and second of all internal electronics such as airbags, electric windows and locking, ABS, wipers and climate are controlled by an electrical control computer. Granted parking assistance may be controlled by a separate unit however this is usually controlled by the main electrical control unit as well.

I’m sorry but this ludicrous string of false information over and over and over again is getting ridiculous. I know i’ve only posted about two BBC news articles but please Fire your tech editor now! and recruit someone who actually knows what the hell they are talking about!

ARGH!

From this I saw an opportunity to invite everyone, just as @foomandoonian did, to invite people to a long term project where anyone can join, have fun creating something they can be proud of, and submit their best possible work. It’s a chance for everyone with a phone camera all the way up to professional equipment to get creative, including myself.

The alphabet project is, quite simply, the alphabet. 26 letters over 26 months. Just over two years where each month, you have that entire month to pick a photo you already have or to go out and take a new one that corresponds to a letter of the alphabet. A for January, B for February and so on all the way up to February 2012 when the project ends on Z.

The photo can be of anything, so long as it matches with the letter for that month, it can be of an object, a builder, a place or even a person. So long as it is a photo, it’s acceptable.

I’m starting this month, and since it’s a little late, entries are accepted until the 5th of February for the letter A.

At the end of each month a thread will be created to pick out some of the best ‘letters’ of each month, where everyone can comment, give critique and suggestions for the next month. It’s a long term project, clearly, but it should provide everyone with a little challenge and the the option to learn and develop their skills. Beginner to Pro. Everyone is welcome

If you want to join in, all you have to do is join and upload on flickr.
go to The Alphabet Project by clicking here or going to http://www.flickr.com/group/alphabetproject/ or a short URL of http://bit.ly/alphabetproject.

If you tweet about it, please use the hashtag #alphabetproject and help make this work. Even if your not interested, send it to your friends, tweet it, blog about it, and help make this the biggest and most ambitious project going, and help it grow. Spread the word!

It seems I’m not the only one! Almost everyone I know with some form of Apple product beyond the basic iPod usually spends an inordinate amount of time cleaning it with everything from micro fibre cloths and window cleaner to specialist Mac cleaning products like iKlear. I’ll confess I am somewhat of a cleaning nut, and I have been known in the past to physically take apart my keyboard and stick it in the dishwasher, or spend an hour with cotton buds getting rid of the crud that has built up in the corner of my monitor, but I have to say that I find myself paying more attention to cleaning my nearly newish Macintosh. Oh and yes, I have brought the iKlear package.

Just how far is too far? And why is it Apple products demand that kind of attentiveness from their owners. Should we simply just put a bit of polish on the old lump of metal and wipe it over or should we spend more time carefully cleaning our technology? After all, it’s not uncommon for someones iMac to be a centrepiece to an office. But does it extend to our iPhones, our laptops and if it does, then why are we not doing it to our televisions?

Alas most of this hasn’t happened, we’re still stuck largely where we were at the end of the 1980’s in terms of the actual world we live in. We still drive from A to B, flying is still prohibitively expensive for some and whilst advances have been made in your Television and Telephone, if you took the TV and mobile phone changes out, the most significant change over the last 20 years is the fact we no longer carry around a Sony Walkman cassette player for our music needs.

Of course I am being cynical, there have been a great number of advances in technology, I just can’t help but feel they have been significantly slower than they should have been. I once remember a child in my school, back when I was 10 or even 9 years old, saying “they would probably have flying cars by the time you learn to drive”. Whilst that might have been a bit ambitious for a 7 or 8 year time gap, if you think about it, we all really thought something like that would happen. Remember the Slug concept car? Apparently by 2001 we were all going to be driving these. Homes would be knocked down and rebuilt with new ultra modern, low cost eco friendly buildings with mountains of technology in them.

Fabulous blade runner esq high rise buildings for people rich and poor containing hi tech homes and doors that opened with speech recognition and the whole world would either be covered in a dense smog like in Blade Runner, or as clear as the air inside the dome from Logans Run.

Yet despite this, despite the hope that we would move with the advances of technology, I still come home to a sixty year old house, with the same plugs, the same wiring and even the same door locks as we had then. The technology has advanced, but not quite in the way we’ve hoped. I have a computer sat on my desk, it just happens to be more powerful. I write letters with it and play games, like most people. We did this 20 years ago with the ZX Spectrum or the Atari ST, just now we do it in richer colour and slightly faster. I pick up my iPod instead of a walkman and watch television that comes through a cable instead of an arial. Yes the advances are there, but they are all just, minor upgrades. The same as twenty years ago I could buy a cassette that was 70 or 90 minutes long. The technology is the same, but just, a little bit better, more convenient.

And so this is my problem, on coming into 2010, instead of creating new technology, instead of ploughing through and improving everything we already have, inventing new things and new technologies we’ve bumbled around with silly things. Take climate change for example. We’ve been focusing for years on how to reduce the buildup of climate change by adjusting the things we use in the home, like light bulbs. Instead of perhaps doing that, or even tearing down the old unfriendly things in favour or rebuilding it with clean new eco friendly things and then inventing a machine that cleans the air for us so that the eco change is really reversed. Why I ask, even now are we still not considering blasting things into the sun? The ultimate waste disposal and it provides our sun with fuel?

Oh I know I am being cynical and perhaps even very unfair, but if someone asked me where we would be in ten years time, I would probably say exactly where we are now. Perhaps my phone will be the size of my thumbnail or even implanted into my ear. Maybe there really will be a rapid change in technology so fast that we enter a real space age, that we start entering a massive form of silicon revolution, the same way the industrial revolution of steam changed the world in only a few years. It has happened before and it can happen again, but I have to ask why it hasn’t happened yet.

And so I leave this slightly longer than usual post aimed toward you, the readers. I ask you to be open, and honest, and to think just totally about this subject and whether it is really fair, what your thoughts are on the next year and indeed the next ten years. I invite you as the readers to indulge me in this article or brush it aside as cynicism or nonsense. But never forget, I love the technology we have now and truly admire the work that has been done, and I see huge potential for the technology we have in ways I can’t even begin to describe but I am disappointed, annoyed and even angry, that we have not pushed ourselves as a race to become more than we are and push the boundaries every day, so I ask you the readers to turn around and put me in my place, put me down, put me out, put me up but most of all just to think about the things you have already and what they have done for you.

Indulge me. I’ll be waiting.

This site alone has seen three rebuilds and no-one has helped me more on that than Sean(spoofscript.com) for the code and Andrew (stormkeeper.net) for consulting. Thank you both for helping me transform this site, and of course a big thank you to everyone that has visited my site and encouraged me, given me feedback, and more. You’re all valued. Thank you.

I hope that everyone has a very, very merry christmas and will keep following me into 2010 and beyond.

For now though, I’d like to again wish everyone, Happy Holidays, Seasons Greetings and a Happy New Year.

Mark Crowle-Groves

For example, something that would take maybe 5 steps on windows, takes about 2 on Mac, things are where they should be, and the problem is Windows has gotten us all used to using the computer in a very-straight-forward-process-that-cannot-deviaite-from-a-set-line-under-any-circumstances. Exactly like that. The best examples I can think of are joining a Wireless network. On Mac, You click the network, enter your encryption key and click join. In Windows, you usually have to enter a utility (unless your lucky enough to have one that pops up for you and gives you a network list) then you have to select the network, enter the key, then tell it what type of network it is, then click a box that says “reconnect automatically” and then click Save.

It’s not that counter intuitive, but it’s still a process we don’t necessarily need to go through. The extra steps are needed to cover a Windows ‘flaw’ so to speak. In Windows it needs you to specify what type of network it is, to apply security settings. In Mac, due to it’s Unix base, has a set, standard profile set up. For joining a network as standard, it’s great, no extra configuration needed, however there are advantages to the way Windows does it by the way it adds preconfigured ‘Network profiles’ to minimise the effort needed, but then going into why that’s actually a bad thing would require a separate article all on it’s own.

Another example is the Start Menu and the Dock. Think of the dock like that little quick launch area on your Windows machine, your commonly used applications are in it, for instance, here’s mine.

I have finder, (think Windows explorer), Mail, Safari, iChat, iCal, iTunes, Address Book, Spaces (more on this later), System Preferences, Tweetdeck, Skype, Adium (MSN Client), Pages (Mac equivalent of MS Word) and Writeroom (Word processor)

There are also three other things on the right which I will get to in a moment, the far right is of course the trash and works pretty much like the Recycle Bin on Windows so I’m not going to explain it to you (if however you do need help knowing what that is, I suggest you stop using a computer and seek guidance)

So, For me, just like quick launch, if I want to open my Word processor I open Writeroom or Pages by clicking it. Nothing else opens up or takes up the space, all you get is that little white dot underneath the application icon to let you know it’s open. And generally I don’t have to go anywhere else. Up until Windows 7 this was totally different to the way Windows worked. The icons would be there, but that’s all they would be, opening a new application would mean a new ‘tab’ would open on your taskbar which if there was any application activity would flash orange and blue at you. Windows seven now is more mac like by giving a glassier feel to it, but it still flashes. But, what If I want to open another application thats not in my quick launch or dock! Well on Mac, here’s all I tend to do if I want to open say ‘Numbers’ (the iWork equivalent to Excel)

All I tend to do these days is go to spotlight (the magnifying glass) and type “numbers” in, and low and behold numbers has popped up, there are of course easier ways to do this, I could open finder by clicking Finder, I click applications, and scroll to Numbers like so

Or if I really want to be daring I could take that applications folder and turn it into a Stack. (More on that here http://blog.woopid.com/?p=398)

Ok so let’s give the example in Windows to open Excel assuming it’s not an application I use a lot so, wouldn’t have it on my desktop, or in my quick launch icons.

I click start > all programs > Microsoft Office (assuming your application icons are in the Microsoft office folder) and then click Excel. Or if you’re like my last system, Start > All programs > Office applications > Microsoft Office > Excel

It’s a long process that seems normal to us, but, Mac just seems more intuitive. When the original adverts came out that said ‘Think different’ they really meant it.  But after a while you get a feeling that this is really how it should be. You can see on the screenshot above I have a quick link to my Downloads folder, yes you can do this in Windows, but it’s not quite as simple as Mac, you just look at the Places list, think “I want a link to the folder in there” so you drag the folder into the list. it’s simple, intuitive etc.

Oh and installing an application? Usually it’s just drag and drop, and I really mean that.

However I said some things seem alien to me. Let’s start with the first. These things.

On Windows they are on the right hand side of your Application Window. The Far right is an X, meaning “Close the program”(unless your on Windows 7). In the middle is “maximise the current view” and the one on the left of that again is the “hide this application to the taskbar”

On Mac however they are on the left hand side of your application window. The one on the far right in most native applications means, ‘Resize this window to fit the content as best you can” not however to expand the window. The middle on, is minimise the window to the dock. The one on the left we therefore assume is Close the program right? Er… No. I don’t actually know what the technical name for the button is but it’s more like a ‘hide me’ button, thats just infuriating. If i want to close my program I have to press Command + Q or actually go to the application menu and select exit. The button doesn’t close it. it just gets rid of all trace of it yet still leaves it open. This confuses me no end and it’s just utterly counter intuitive.

Other things include the lack of fullscreen web browsing, and decent voice dictation and sometimes getting around. It’s not a major thing but it does sometimes feel a little strange. However I was surprised by the lack of decent voice recognition.

Don’t get me wrong, I know that Mac OS has voice recognition – to a point. It’s more for accessibility than anything else and does work exceedingly well for that purpose, however Windows Vista and Windows 7 came with built in voice recognition, which was actually incredibly good. I always used to use it with a webcam, but almost every blog post up until about a year ago was voice dictated. I loved it, especially as it took fifteen minutes to train and was one of easiest pieces of software to use. I’ve never found anything that worked quite like it, why didn’t mac sort that one out for me?

I guess I really am starting to Think Different….

This one is more special to me because of course we are coming to the end of a decade.

So, this year I have given you three things to fulfil my three promises.

1: A digital artwork piece as per usual,
2: a Christmas artwork Piece
3: Something special to mark the new decade

So, without further ado, here is all the information you need to enjoy my festivities.

The Christmas Digital Artwork Piece, entitled, New Year, New Decade (click the image)

Of course if you want to see the whole set, New Year, New Decade, you can click here

And finally, today I went to enjoy the photography opportunities up in Brecon with the snow. Click here to view

So that’s your lot for the new year, I really hope you enjoy the work I’ve done. All of these are in full resolution so you can enjoy all of it the way it should be enjoyed.

Have a very merry christmas, great holiday season, and a fantastic new year.

I today completed building and have now started rendering the 3D Landscape for this christmas and the end of the decade… that’s going to be a few more days, however in anticipation of that, later tonight I’ll be releasing my Christmas photograph for this year. 3 similar photos but all are a little different to suit everyones tastes, oh and every one of them is in HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography and in the highest possible quality.

Yup for the first time ever, you’re getting three pictures with no scaling, no reduction in size full HD quality from the 40D with almost no digital work other than the HDR blending.

There will be a separate post here later this evening when I upload them into the “new year, new decade” set, which may or may not have pictures specifically for the turn of the decade and not just christmas, and the images will be available here and on my Flickr account. I will also upload a 16:10 Widescreen version of one of them to fit most widescreen monitors, and for those of you using televisions as PC monitors or the brand new apple iMac’s I’ll stick the same picture in 16:9 resolution as well. Trouble is choosing which one!

Hope you like

Update: Here they are! Click here

With over half a million pounds invested in the new cinema screen and technology, cardiff ODEON cinema has made a substantial investment in it’s 5th IMAX cinema screen, and an even bigger investment given it is the first and only IMAX screen in South Wales.

Arranged by the great folks at ShinyRed, I turned up, was immediately handed a coffee and then we got to work. The ODEON of course hosts the Gallery, a premium service offering bigger seats, a more comfortable position, and unlimited drinks and snacks so it’s nice to know I can pay a premium on top of my premium movie experience. (and trust me it’s worth it)

The screen is the largest I’ve ever seen in a cinema and quite literally goes floor to celling and wall to wall, the auditorium has been acoustically treated and has uprated digital aligned surround sound. Essentially this means that wherever you sit, the surround sound will always feel like it’s coming form the right place.

The 2D films we were shown were utterly incredible (even with the 3D glasses on). Each film was crystal clear, and filled almost the entire screen. One film trailer for Transformers 2 was shot with an IMAX 2D camera, these scenes literally were clearer than anything I’ve ever seen, taking HD to a whole new level. It’s clear however that where this really shows off is any film with CGI. A trailer for Star Trek showed off the quality in ways I had never imagined and exceeded all expectations I had, the quality is simply astounding.

With 2D being that good, you can imagine what I thought of the 3D. Take the quality I said about before and double it. It is in a word, unreal. Again CGI shows up far better on here than conventional film, A Christmas Carol and How to train your dragon were in the kind of digital clarity and quality I’ve never seen before (now I know why they take about two years to render the film).

One of my biggest fears of 3D was the old red and blue / green glasses that you had to wear. Ok so you still have to wear 3D glasses, but they are almost clear. No red and green colours, in fact it’s like wearing a pair of very very weak sunglasses. All they do is help your eyes focus, not trick your eyes with the colour. Which of course means that you get to see each film the way it was intended, without a horrible red or blue colour cast. Red looks like red, green looks like green and fire looks like fire (yes, I flinched when the Cat appeared in front of my nose from the Alice in Wonderland trailer).

Up until now I had seen 3D as a gimmick, doing it’s once a decade comeback before fading into nothing again. This is now no longer the case. I can finally see why 3D technology is the next big thing. I know this might be a small subject since other places have had IMAX for nearly 8 years and, typically Wales is lagging behind. However given the timing and the fact the epic movie Avatar is the film launching the new system, it’s about time wales got up to date, and at least this time it’s doing it in a truly incredible way.

Worth it? Oh yes. You have no idea just how incredible it is until you see it.

So naturally being a complete tech geek, I found this out whilst ‘Googling’ for the Out Of Hours information. Did I find it? well, no not really. The problem with technology these days, is that we become so reliant on it that we forget about the other simpler means of finding information out. Like picking up the telephone for example.

Here’s what I did to try and work out what was going on with my ear. It’s a long list but I need to illustrate something, just be patient.

1: Google for symptoms
2: Google for possible home remedies to said symptoms
3: Google for “out of hours doctor cardiff”
4: Panic because I can’t find anything other than medicare insurance plans
5: Resort to trying said home remedies and thus making the problem worse
6: Call my GP, get their out of hours number ring said number, be told I have to call a cardiff GP surgery because I was out of catchment area
7: Google for my mothers local Cardiff surgery
8: Panic because I can’t find it
9: Resort to calling any GP, getting the generic number, making emergency appointment and forgetting to tell them I am a visiting patient
10: Go to appointment, panic, complications, get some sort of prescription

This, is not really how it should have been. Here’s the process as it should have been.

1: Call my GP, be told I am out of catchment area and call Cardiff GP
2: Pull out phonebook
3: Call GP get out of hours number, call it and make appointment
4: Go

Of course, something as simple as pulling out a phonebook never occurred to me, because of course I’ve become so reliant on technology, I forgot such a thing exists. So I ended up spending hours trawling through the websites. I eventually found the page I needed which told me everything I needed to know far too late, the service I have called tonight.

And then of course there is the problem of self diagnosis. I was able to find out that my symptoms could be any number of things, from a simple ear infection, a perforated ear drum, to massive disfigurement, brain tumour or worse (although whats worse than a brain tumour I will leave to your imagination).

Now, I’m going to be hypocritical here and say “I do have enough common sense to know I shouldn’t self diagnose” and I had enough ‘common sense’ to only try the home remedy of getting sterile olive oil in case it was a wax buildup. But then, I didn’t have enough common sense to check the phonebook for local listings before trying the internet.

I’ve done this in the past as well, gone looking for so much information that I’ve ended up never finding what I need, looking for parts, looking for electronics stores, looking for stockists of various things. I’m often left wondering just how much time I’ve wasted, and indeed how much stuff I’ve missed out on just by not pulling out the phonebook. Indeed now I have I find a page in there entitled “NHS OUT OF HOURS SERVICE CALL THIS NUMBER”. That would have saved so much time.

This of course, is the problem of simply Googling things. Perhaps we all need to downgrade a little. So, next time I need something or, if you need something, check your phonebook first.

Update: Just to let you know I was fine, severe ear infection that’s going to be treated with a huge dose of antibiotics and an antibiotic ‘wick’ (Google said nothing about one of those! but most of the symptoms were right for some of Googles results)

“…Zero usability testing went into this…”

This is something I never expected to see someone say about apple, ever.

Now, granted, I absolutely agree that the app store needed a refresh, it needed cleaning up, updating and generally needed to loose some weight, however, this is the wrong direction. The new image preview idea is nice, but hopelessly wrong. The description being shrunk so you have to click a “read more” button to view a standard description, is wrong. Heres the new app stire.

Yes, this is the new iTunes store. The Description now has to be ‘expanded’ to actually see what the developer intended.

The screenshots are now almost double the size, poorly formatted and now have scrollbars. I really would like to know what on earth went into Apples mind when they created this. Worse, take a look at what happens when you click the more button.

Finally more space for descriptions, but oh dear, Giant icon syndrome has taken hold, and well, the screenshots are gone.

It seems all apple really cared about here was the name of the product and the pictures of the app. This to be is really the wrong direction to be going in, especially as so many apps on the app store require disclaimers at the start of the description to ensure that people know that programs require backend support etc. This is just…. the wrong way to go Apple. Clean it up, please!

Late night shopping. It’s a curious phenomenon but one that I’m very much in love with. I’m currently off work with a variety of things to deal with, most of which I will not go into publicly, suffice to say I have set myself a routine to keep things more normal in my life and keep my mind active whilst I work through the issues that I am facing.

So whilst this might look like mindless posting on the internet and messing around abusing the time off work that I have, rest assured it’s not, it’s part of my routine, process. These blog posts are keeping my mind active, and keeping me thinking.

Part of my routine involves half the week trying to relax, and yes, sleeping in to get as much rest as possible, which invariably leads to late nights. Since I’m not sleeping much anyway it’s difficult for me to actually get tired in the evenings and so at 1 am, I usually find that I wander down to Tescos for a late night shop. It gets me out of the house, gives me some fresh air (so to speak)  gives my mind a little taxation by actually having to remember a shopping list, and helps make me more tired through actually moving. However Late night shopping is one of those curious things that some people enjoy and some people hate. I’ve come to love it, and the distinct lack of people, it’s like having an entire supermarket to yourself, and there are deals to be had where things are marked down. But the same as that, it’s somewhat, peaceful. It’s again hard to describe but it really is nice wandering through empty aisles.

Curiously there seem to be three distinct types of people that turn up there. People who can’t sleep and just want to wander down there like me. People who work nightshifts, and of course people that are drunk or drugged up to their eyeballs, who are actually the most fun to watch prodding away at the self serves until someone tells them they have to put money in it.

It’s a strange thing late night shopping.

I find looking at operating systems as anything less than a “power user” since I’ve been tinkering with computers pretty much since I was born. There has, as far as I am aware, always been a computer in the house. My parents had a Sinclair ZX Spectrum before I was born and after reading through the manuals I remember getting my first taste of BASIC back when I was in infants school (oh how I wish that trend had continued, I could make a fortune if I actually learnt to code) never the less, that machine gave way to me playing with BBC Computers in my infants school, complete with the old 5 1/4″ floppy “B:” disks and SPACE X with, by this time, an Atari 1040 ST E in the household with it’s signature “TOS” operating system, complete with the mother of all “Point of Click” games ‘Shadowlands’.

As you can see, there has always been a computer in the house. Always. I won’t go on outlining the history of my experience with computers, nor will I list each computer from there on in, but suffice to say, I was brought up with a computer, and never ‘introduced to one’ at a later age. I learn them, it’s second nature to me, so I decided to write this as an extra long blog post, more so that anyone can comment and press ideas on the operating systems they use and the ‘Features’ of Windows 7 that they like and dislike.

Now rather than your usual blog post, I’m going to outline this into two sections, If you can’t be bothered to read all of it or don’t have a full mug of tea / coffee / gin available to you, you might want to skip to the part that your most interested in. There will be a summary at the end, like a conclusion if you will. There will be four sections to this blog post:

1. The completely lazy one line summary to the question “Is windows 7 any good and should I get it?”

2. My thoughts on Windows 7, how it compares to previous versions of Windows and what I like and dislike

3. Should I actually be switching to Macintosh or Linux because I’m going to have to buy a new computer or reinstall the whole computer

4. A lazy but more detailed summary and conclusion to the last two questions

So without further ado or digression, let me start with the completely lazy one line answer to the following question

Is Windows 7 any good and should I get it?

If you are buying a new computer and spending up to £1000 and don’t want to switch to Mac or Linux Yes, it’s wonderful.

There, that was simple wasn’t it. Of course no question like that can be answered without making the user ask further questions. Sorry, but thats just the way it is so now we move on to the second section.

My thoughts on Windows 7, how it compares to previous versions of Windows and what I like and dislike

Now, I’m doing my best here to write this as a ‘user’ and not a power user. I’m going to write this based on someone who’s had a computer since say, Windows XP, is ‘reasonably’ competent and has a computer purchased in the last two years with a budget of £700. So on that basis, this user is going to have likely come from Windows Vista.

Now coming from Windows Vista means you have a few distinct advantages. You’re probably going to have a reasonably decent computer that runs Vista reasonably well, and secondly you’re also more likely to be able to click the ‘Upgrade’ button rather than do a completely fresh install i.e. installing rather than Wiping the entire computer.

The good side of this means that upgrading the computer is perfect for most users. It’s simple, requires no real messing around and Windows does most of the work for you, and great news, Windows 7 has been rewritten so that it works dramatically faster than Vista. So if your computer ran Windows Vista reasonably well, it’s a good bet to say that Windows 7 will run it incredibly well. It’s fast, and it’s really fast at that. The bad news is on some computers you will have to add more RAM to the computer, especially if you only just met the specs for Windows Vista, and worse still, you might just have to let the installation take up to twenty four hours. No that is not a miskey, this is completely genuine. Some computers have been known to take up to twenty four hours to actually run.

However, this is in an ideal world. Most users will have a computer that is four to five years old, be running Windows XP, wont be a particularly good spec or worse it’ll be only slightly newer, be about £300 worth and will be running Vista Basic, and not very well. Bad news for these users, you’re probably going to have to replace your computer, or at least spend quite a bit of money upgrading your computer to get the most of the new operating system you are going to buy / install. Now, I know full well that these computers will probably run Windows 7, but most people will prefer to get all the bells and whistles that they pay for. This of course leads way to the question, since I am buying anew computer isn’t it worth just switching to Mac or Linux, which we will get to later.

So let’s move on to how it compares to previous versions of Windows, and I’ll combine it with what I like and dislike. Let’s begin by putting it very simply. This is Windows like you have never seen it before, in fact it’s so different it doesn’t really class as Windows, it’s more like Mac OS or Linux than I’ve ever seen before. Now you can turn most of these features off granted, but let’s forget about that.

The first thing thats immediately noticeable is the taskbar. The quick launch buttons that first came in with Windows 98 are gone. Instead you can now “pin” any application to the taskbar meaning that you are less likely to open the ‘Windows’ menu to get to your programs. However it’s a little tricky to see just which programs are open. Clicking one of these buttons of course opens the application, but open applications have a small glass box surrounding their icon rather than in the past where the Window would occupy another portion of the taskbar, This is exactly how Mac OS Works

In this screenshot, you can see that Windows Media Player, Internet Explorer and Windows Explorer are open, due to the little glass box that surrounds them, and Windows Mail and Windows Messenger are not open, it’s hard to see but compare this to Mac OS

From here you can see the application icons. Anything with the little ’spotlight’ icon below it is open, in this case, Finder, Mail, Safari, iCal an iTunes, with iChat and Address Book remaining closed

This is the first major change that you’re going to see in Windows 7, so new users to this operating system are going to find it particularly tricky to make the switch, not only that, it’s going to be confusing and mildly annoying at first since in order to close a program now, you really have to click File > Quit or right click the application icon and select ‘Close this program’. No longer does clicking the red X work to close your programs. Again this is exactly like Mac OS.

In Mac OS you have to press Option + Q to quit or click + hold on an application icon to select Quit as you can see in the screenshot. Now why has Microsoft made such a dramatic change? Not only is this a change, but it’s not one that you easily notice first time. Personally I hate it, I don’t find it particularly easy to see what programs are open, and not only that but if you have a program such as Spotify that likes to minimise itself to a small application icon in the System Tray (that little area next to the clock) you’ll frequently find the application icon disappearing into the autohide menu, or disappear altogether and remain open, leaving the only way of closing the program is to re-open it from the start menu and right click the application icon, madness!

Not only that but if you have multiple windows open in something like Internet explorer (and not just tabs) instead of having more application icons, they all tile on top of each other. Look closely at the Windows 7 Taskbar shot above, the Internet explorer icon actually has two or three tiles or squares around it, indicating that more than one program is open. Now I both love and hate this compared to Mac OS which just shows that one little spotlight. However what I utterly hate is that it’s not only hard to see, but the way in which you open the Windows or applications that are in these stacks is so different to past windows applications. In previous versions of Windows, Vista and XP, if you have multiple windows open the taskbar button will compress into a list, one click on this would bring up the list of open windows for you to choose from

However in Windows 7, it looks very different, as now you have a ‘Quick look’ feature, allowing you to see a screenshot of the application window in the icon.

You can turn this off, but I find it very counter intuitive for some reason. Granted it works and granted it is growing on me, but for some reason it doesn’t work in the way I would expect but it’s hard to explain why. Of course closing application windows becomes a whole different story. Meet the new Jump menu, or as I like to call it, the “explode-a-menu”

I don’t know about you, but this is a mess, granted it does work, but it’s counter intuitive to use, and pretty much the only way you can close some applications, and of course if you click unpin this program from the taskbar while the application is running, you might suffer from the disappearing application syndrome I mentioned earlier.

I’ll summarise the other two features of Windows 7 that I like and dislike. Namely Snap and Quick Look. The short answer with snap is unless you have a monitor thats at least 22 inches wide, the left and right snap is useless. You just can’t do the side by side editing that some people are demanding. The top snap is good, you throw an application up there and it makes it fullscreen, I like that.

Quick look, aka, this thing (below)…

Totally and utterly pointless. It’s a gimmick. You click and hold the icon and it shows the outlines of all the windows you have open, you can’t do anything other than look at what windows you have open, no selection ability whatsoever.

Aside from all of this, Windows 7 does boast great driver support, so upgrading is usually quite painless, it’s fantastically stable and runs very well indeed. In fact I’ve not yet experienced a single crash on the operating system, a rarity indeed! and from my clean install I did not have to find any drivers whatsoever for the components I was using, finally Windows 7 just Works. Theres little point in me going into further detail than this, you’ve used a computer before, so you know what an application is, but these are the main things that Windows 7 boasts.

Onto the next (shorter) section which is of course that big question

Should I actually be switching to Macintosh or Linux because I’m going to have to buy a new computer or reinstall the whole computer?

In short: if you are spending over £600 on a computer then yes It’s worth considering. Linux not so much because it’s not as well supported and still not ‘quite’ at the user friendly level it needs to be, although granted it’s very very close. If however you’re going to be upgrading your computer, then probably not.

The long story however is more like a flow chart. Think of it like this. Most users who are upgrading to Windows 7 are going to have to copy all of their files onto an external hard drive, wipe their current computer and install them afterwards. This is true for at least 80 – 90 % of users. Or you’re going to be buying a new computer, and still having to copy off all the data to your external hard drive, and put it on the new computer. If it’s an older computer, you’re going to probably spend £200 on RAM for your computer, and maybe a graphics card, and still you’re going to be backing up your data and wiping and reinstalling.

So since you’ve completely backed up your files why not switch computers. You’ve already got a Mouse Keyboard and Monitor, so a Mac Mini at £699 is a reasonably buy considering a reasonably specced PC is going to cost you around the £700. Mac OS is frighteningly easy and intuitive to use. I should know, I’ve been using Windows for 15 years and six months ago brought my first Mac, and now can’t really see a place for it. Everything works as it should, there are a wealth of programs (and games) available for it, and although the cost of the hardware is greater, it generally lasts a lot longer, since very few programs require higher specifications. A Mac from 4 years ago will still serve you very well today. A contrary to popular belief is not just for geeks, specialists or idiots. It’s very easy to use and very powerful. Compare it as well cost wise to a PC.

PC

PC Running Windows £700 (with monitor keyboard and mouse)

Microsoft Office Standard 2007 £349 (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, http://emea.microsoftstore.com/UK/Microsoft/Office-Standard-2007 ) OR Open Office (Free http://openoffice.org)

Logitech Webcam C300 £39.99 (Link)

Photoshop Elements £50.97  (Photo editing software, something to keep your family photographs in do a few edits, Link)

Logitech X-140 Speakers £17.99 (Link)

ESET Smart Security £39.10 (Firewall, Virus Scanner, Spam Blocker etc, Link)

That tends to be your typical PC purchase. Total cost of this assuming you buy everything on the list and stay brand loyal, £1,197.05 . Suddenly your new PC just got more expensive.

For a Mac

Mac Mini with 500GB Hard Drive £729.00 (use your existing keyboard mouse and monitor and speakers, be kinder to the

iWork £54 (apples equivalent of Office, works perfectly with office files back and forth or if you want office mac £95.99 Link)

No need for photoshop since iPhoto does most of what people need.

Logitech X-140 Speakers £17.99 (Link)

Logitech Webcam C300 £39.99 (Link)

You don’t really need a virus scanner, but I’ll include one anyway

Norton internet security for mac £49.99 (Link thats a firewall and virus scanner and antispam)

Total cost of this assuming your using your own Keyboard Monitor and Mouse, £890.37… With MS Office instead of iWork £932.96

OR

21.5″ iMac with 500gb Hard Drive £949, which includes webcam, mouse, keyboard, speakers, screen (Link)

iWork £54 (apples equivalent of Office, works perfectly with office files back and forth or if you want office mac £95.99 Link)

No need for photoshop since iPhoto does most of what people need.

And the Virus Scanner

Norton internet security for mac £49.99 (Link, thats a firewall and virus scanner and antispam)

Total Cost with iWork £1,052.99 or with ms office £1,094.98

So, your PC will really cost you £1, 197.08 or a Mac Mini with your existing hardware for £890.37 or iMac all in one for £1052.99.

Looking a bit more realistic is it not? And don’t forget of course if you are particularly attached to a Windows application, you can always run Windows on a Mac thanks to BootCamp or Virtualisation, all easy to do.  As for the learning curve it’s easy, intuitive, and most people will get used to it in no time at all, apple runs workshops for free for anyone making the switch, they will even copy your files across to your new mac for you if you take your old PC in store plus you get 90 days complimentary telephone support for any questions whatsoever. So essentially there has never been a better time to make the switch, and yes there are plenty of games out there. Most games being released now are on the Mac as well, including, the Sims 3, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 and World of Warcraft to name a few.

So the final section of course s the detailed summary and conclusion.

On the whole I like Windows 7, it’s very Mac like and a huge difference to any previous version of Windows. is it too different? I’m not sure, it’s going to frighten some users off, but it’s now so similar to Macintosh that Microsoft hasn’t done itself any favours to other people who might be considering switching to Apple. There are some massive counter intuitive features, but I suppose if you have a 22″ monitor or bigger then snap works very well. But given 90% of people are going to have to do a complete reinstall, and most people are going to have to buy a new computer, theres never been a better time to switch to Macintosh and it might just work out to be cheaper too. If you’re like my father and ask the question “why should I have to learn a different operating system?” my answer would be that Windows 7 is so different, you’re going to have to do it anyway, like it or not. To those saying “well I just won’t upgrade” keep in mind that Windows XP Vista will stop being supported as well as newer operating systems, and certain applications will eventually force you to upgrade, forgetting of course potential component failure.

So this article has taken me nearly three hours to write, at the end of it we have of course come to a reasonable conclusion, Windows 7 is good, but if your spending the money on a new PC you may as well switch. I may have loathed writing this, however I am pleasantly surprised by my own findings, somehow I’m very pleased. The things I do for twitter.

Feel free to leave your comments, and of course suggestions.