The long overdue “dot com” side of my website has hit another snag. Initially I was very happy with the final design and layout thanks to some assistance in design from @staceyjenkins (a local designer) however two things have troubled me.

The current ‘proposed site’ has zero blogging facility, and while I don’t need a blog, the component can be used to provide news and updates in other ways.

It also has no category function, every post is a picture an that’s that, no “drill down” gallery for things like events, special features, and again, this isn’t major as it is meant to be a portfolio, but the problem with no categories is the fact that you need categories to implement a store function, something I’m keen to do.

Short of a complete code rewrite, I’m now on the hunt for a better CMS solution that will allow it, and a theme to rip apart / create from.

It’s a real blow and another huge setback but I am confident that when I finalise and release the design, it will be worth it. The only trouble is working out how long it’s going to take!

“…checking your email is now akin to brushing your teeth…”

So just how important is technology in our daily lives, and is it really akin to brushing your teeth? For me, daily life involves waking up, doing all the bathroom stuff, checking my email and maybe one or two RSS feeds, driving to work listening to a podcast on my iPhone plugged into my car stereo before getting into work, checking my works email and so on. Coming home is much the same, I listen to another podcast on my way home, get in and read more RSS feeds while checking on various technology sites, perhaps reading a book on my iPad or a magazine before going to bed (of course brushing my teeth first).

For me technology is everything. Of course it is, it’s my job, so perhaps I’m a little biased. I’m the type of person who instead of having a tv, had a windows media center pc hooked up so I can get a few extra benefits. I’m not your typical user or consumer, so for me technology is part of my life, and no I couldn’t live without it.

What about someone who doesn’t use technology that much, hard to believe in this day and age but let’s consider my mother or even my father. My mother has an iPhone, but does not technically own a computer, she has a works laptop. However my father has a computer, but only a basic “dumb phone”. Despite these two radical differences, both my mother and father check their email daily. They both always carry their phone with them, and they all go on the web.

My father checks his email on the computer, browses a few sites at least once a day, whereas my mother uses her iPhone for just about everything. I guess you could say that for both of them, technology is also akin to brushing their teeth. Of course it doesn’t help that their son is part of the technology world and is constantly trying to push at least one form of technology into their lives, be it willingly or not. But even for these people it’s still a daily routine.

What about a friend of mine, who isn’t in a techno oriented family? I won’t name any names, but all I’ll say is even he has a nokia smartphone. He checks his email at least once a day, browses ebay every few days, and whilst tech for him isn’t quite akin to brushing his teeth, it’s near enough.

In fact i cant actually think of a single person who doesn’t at least carry their phone with them every day or check emails on a regular basis, and studies have shown that I’m not alone. In fact a few reports have shown that more people now consider it “impossible” to continue their daily lives without some form of computer related technology than ever before.

So how about you? Are you the type that finds technology a necessary part of your life, or are you the type that could happily live without it? Of course the bigger question is a far simpler one, which concerns daily life and work.

Is it possible in this day and age to survive and continue without at least one piece of computer related equipment?

Although this brings up further questions it’s a good point, we could all theoretically survive without email, but could we really survive without the rest?

Tell me your story, and tell me just what makes you think you could or couldn’t survive without a computer.

Now I want to stress something, this website will not contain all of my pictures, it will contain a selection, and a very carefully picked selection that will be decided by me and other critics I have contact with, so I will after a while give you a link to my flickr site instead if you want to see all of them. It is however going to take me a few days to fully implement, but as of tomorrow at 12 midday thelongmile.com will go down, ready to be redirected into the new site, phwew, finally!,

By the way, if you want to critique the photos I have and suggest ones for my porfolio, go to flickr.com/thelongmile and let me know which ones you like!

Production of thelongmile.com photography site has pretty much ground to a halt since I’m having trouble finding a theme under the GPL to rip apart and customise into something of my own, not only that but I can’t exactly start from scratch since I’m not sure what I actually want, what I do know I want is some form of news page to update on photography, shopping cart integration so I can fulfil print orders and a large gallery that displays exif or at the very least allows me to put some comments about the photos I have taken.

So with that the project is on hold for a short while so that I can clear my head so to speak, however it’s still very much in progress since I am always looking for people to send ideas about sites they have seen, however this hasn’t gone as well as I hoped, since I wanted everyone to contribute and make it a site they would actually want to visit, ah well

Other than that for me personally I decided to take the plunge and upgrade teh server for the website with a little more ram, it’s a temporary thing to see if this actually makes any difference to the performance or crashing issues I’ve been having and more so because of the casimireffectfilm.com ‘s increasing web traffic, however at the moment I’ve experienced one lock up that doesn’t seem to have any justifiable cause, I may eventually get a second linode, and do some testing with another webserver platform, it’s all part of the learning but it’s definitely frustrating!

As for me as an individual I’ve decided to take another financial plunge and get shot of my car, you know the big silver mondeo that made me look like a taxi. Instead I’ve gone for something that was a little more… well me, despite this the transition has not been without hinderance, and unfortunately I can’t reveal details of this right now as there may be some legal issues involved, Yes THAT badly,

I’m also planning on doing a summer return to livevideo.com since I’ve actually missed vlogging, and well, need to get my creative feet back moving, Holiday plans for this year are again hindered by political situations all over the world and my job is slowly grinding away at my mind until such time as I get my head around what is going on and what I’m meant to be doing, In other words I’m still finding my feet, but it’s a million times better than the last place I was in thats for sure.

Apptacious.com has effectively seen a halt in all posts at the moment since no-one other than myself is contributing, and since it was supposed to be a user or community based contribution site, I’m a little disappointed that no-one else wanted to share their feelings on the applications they have purchased, especially with all the new hype about the iPad and the possibility of the iPhone 4G looming around the corner, so if you have an iPad, Mac, iPhone, iPod touch or even a humble PC but like following mac related news please do get in touch and drop an email to mark@apptacious.com as soon as you can

Cardifftweetups.co.uk has also seen a virtual stop on just about everything since again I’m the only one contributing, however I’m blaming part of this on the winter months that have come about and no doubt spayed a few people off meeting anyone, although I am a little surprised, hopefully people on twitter will actually read this part of the blog and start contributing or requesting a posting account

In other news I’ve recently started writing for the wonderful wales online blogs on their your cardiff section and it’s proving to be a very rewarding experience, hopefully I can continue on this and start posting something that people actually read and can contribute too, also my typing speed has improved to around 140 wpm, although accuracy leaves a little to be desired,

Anyway thats my smal-ish update that has actually turned out to be quite long, although I did write this in the space of about 10 mins, impressive nonetheless but no doubt I will read this over at a later stage and see just how many spelling mistakes there actually are, or that it probably doesn’t make much sense,

so what’s been going on your life’?

So what do I have to show for it come the start of April. Well, my new car has a severe oil leak and has been in my possession for all of four days while garages try to identify the cost, my new job is, as any new job is, traumatic and stressful as I get my head around all the things I have to learn, and I have another raging ear infection which I’m currently treating with double the prescribed number of antibiotics as well as painkillers.

Not ideally a great start to 2010, although the job stress is perfectly normal and acceptable, I would in fact be worried about the job if there were no stress, so perhaps thats a positive.

This isn’t a rant though, more an, honest blog updating you on my life and my current ambitions. Providing things turn out ok on the car I should have some money left over for a holiday, perhaps even two, one to Thailand, and one to the States, providing of course that the repair bill to finally fix my car once and for all does not make me want to sell my kidneys or genitals on the black market.

Although those of you that do read this, might be surprised to know that this is probably the first real time I’ve talked about it, my near vice like grip on the obsession that is twitter has loosened somewhat, indeed in the last 30 days I must have posted, what, 100 times? if not slightly more. Don’t worry, there is no particular reason for this, I have simply been trying to be a good boy and not tweet much about work, while in work and I’m sure some people could use a break from my mini meltdowns for the time being.

As anyone knows, the internet has become more of an integral part of our daily lives than we first thought. In fact so integral is it, that a recent episode of House hi-lited one womans obsessions to simply blog everything might nearly have been the death of her, but its interesting in a way to see that popular TV shows now are demonstrating the internet more and more. Lord knows, if hollywood producers actually knew what you could do with the internet, we might see a whole host more TV shows and films that touch a little too close to home.

The episode of House did however get me thinking. If I were to blog on a daily basis about my predicaments, would I get more hits? would I have perhaps gotten useful feedback from someone who has actually had an oil leak on a 54 plate BMW 120d? Would I have gotten a lawsuit from potential slandering of the un-named garage I brought the car from and would have likely screamed about? Or would people turn around and read it, not give a crap and ignore the site once more.

it interests me. In fact my silence on twitter was more of an accidental experiment to see whether people noticed, or even cared.

There were, indeed, a few posts on twitter, asking of my whereabouts, but what really surprised me is that on this site alone, my visitor numbers briefly went up. At a low point I get 16 hits a day, on a high, over a thousand. In fact on the 10th of March I got a spike, of almost two and a half thousand visitors, it stayed fairly consistant after that, hovering around the one thousand mark until the 21st when they dropped back down to 600-ish. Strangely, it was only on the 21st that I got a text, asking if I was alright. Odd however that people check my twitter and then my site before texting or calling me to know if something is going on.

It does, however, give a good indication of just how integral the internet now is to peoples lives. I decided a while back that this website is becoming a blog, rather than a showcase of my photography work. I also decided that I would try to do more tech postings and talk less about my life and more about things people are interested in, but every now and then a regular blog can’t hurt.

In fact I would go as far as to say I need to update this far more often, given that people are now coming from twitter to read it (around 63%). I do however wish people would comment more, I like telling stories, even if they aren’t quite happy and jolly, but an accurate and public diary is still a part of me and life today as we know it.

Who knows, perhaps this story will generate some comments, perhaps I’ll have someone come along who has deconstructed the top half of a 120d engine and might offer some advice. Or maybe I’ll get some links to other peoples personal blogs and be able to comment directly on them.

This is now a life blog, more than anything else. But I do pause for a moment while I wonder just what impact technology has on your lives, and whether it is as integral to yours as it is to mine.

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!

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!

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.

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….

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.

But then, we also have the wonders of Cardiff Winter Wonderland which I missed out taking pictures of last year.
Alas that’s not what I’m talking about.

I’m talking about my traditional yearly Christmas digital art piece. Each year I try to find a theme or subject  and centre an art piece around it. Oh and there is the added challenge that I have not produced a piece of digital art all year! (minus the fact that 2008′s piece was late and got released in January) but pretty much a year.

So tomorrow I shall be building the art piece from scratch, (last years one appears to have been lost somehow from the galleries) but, since it will take four or five days to build, let alone it’s rendering time, you have an opportunity to make your own suggestions and push your own influence into the end result. Don’t worry, there are already bits of er… ‘you lot’ in the concept already.

So there are two, yes two promises I have for you here.

1: You will see pictures from Cardiff’s winter wonderland (though I am not promising when!)
2: You will see a Christmas digital art piece as per usual before the end of 2009

However there is another thing to come out of the woodwork, because of course December 31st marks the end of a decade, or at least the end of the 00′s. Yes indeed it has been ten years. Ten years of some of the most defining moments in our history, 9/11, The Iraq War.. you get the idea. However I intend doing a picture for this. Not sure if it’s going to be digital, photographic or a landscape. So I’m asking for your suggestions or ideas as to what I can do / photograph / make to mark this, so

3:You will see something created to mark the entry into a new decade

So three things, (more than my usual for december) and I am really looking forward to hear your ideas and suggestions. But for those of you that read this and then never respond, for once, say hi at least?

There is good news though, I’ve been given a little gift thanks to the miracle that is twitter. Someone contacted me on there, made and offer, and now I’m the proud owner of a full darkroom solution. Now, this is a big thing for me, I’ve wanted to go and deal with darkroom stuff for a very long time, but I have never had the money to do it. Granted the initial outlay isn’t that expensive, but it’s knowing what to buy. Now I’ve been given all the stuff, and the right stuff, so that takes some of the thinking out of the equation. It gets better though as it also supports colour!.

Now granted I need to learn exactly how to use all of this, and although there are a few instruction manuals, there are not many, (I’ll post up an equipment list when I can) but I could do with a start to finish idiots guide to a darkroom processing (I’ve even got an enlarger but No idea how to use it!) Although I’m sure I’ll learn. This is an experience, a learning experience, and one that I’m a little scared off but really looking forward to doing. It should certainly provide me with an interesting learning experience!

Anyone care to offer any advice?

I am overwhelmed.

Indeed such is the intensity of my predicament that I have become consumed with the projects I have set for myself. This website for instance is getting almost no attention from me, when really it should. It’s my outlet, my fun, my … expression? . Yet lately I have set myself the task of rebuilding the website or indeed, creating a brand new one for thelongmile.COM. And as if that wasn’t tough or time consuming enough, I’ve also got a rebuilt, admittedly forced, social life because of CardiffTweetups.co.uk which is no bad thing, but it’s still reducing my time and money at an alarming rate.

Couple that with the fact I am now, or at least appear to be, second in command at apptacious.com and having rebuilt it, I’ve now got to manage it. I’m getting involved with a local project called The Sprout, and I am continually deprived and depressed about my ‘real life’ job. Frankly it’s a little worrying.

I am consumed….

I’ve been sucked in by all this, and the fact that Cardiff has exciting times ahead of it thanks to the new St Davids centre opening, the winter wonderland, and the rest and I’m actually getting pretty bogged down with just… living! None of which is a bad thing, but it does explain where my time is going at the moment.

The angst however comes from apprehension at how you’ll receive this blog post, since these are all so few and far between these days. I have not even told you about all of the photography I’ve been doing, nor have I uploaded it to NextGen gallery.

I am hopeful….

Hopeful of the fact that my efforts will pay off, my workload will reduce, and I’ll get a decent job. Of course I’m also hopeful that someone out there will read this and perhaps offer a little encouragement. I of course expect my social life to continue, however I just need to sit down for an hour a day or so and pay attention to this site, and plus once I develop my photography site, then maybe, JUST maybe, I’ll be able to have a pop at getting the rest of the things done.

I am determined…..

I am, really, determined to make sure that I as a person get this done, because not only am I rebuilding the site, but I am also rebuilding myself. I’ve changed as a person, for the better I hope, but I’ve also changed for the right reasons, at least I hope I have. I should imagine I have developed as a person.

I am happy, however, that my entire life is in chaos but in a great way. theres so much going on, but it’s so worth it right now, and let’s also not forget that the moment this post goes live, I know that at least 45 people are looking at it, and that makes me happy.

So interesting times with me, with Cardiff, and you know what? I know I said that my job is getting on top of me but hey, It’s the money I’m interested in, and everything else is going reasonably ok, so, everything, for once, is not bad.

Not bad at all.

It’s a strange experience really being sat in public with a thirteen hundred pound laptop and a three pound bottle of beer with the capacity to kill it if one of the locals gets rowdy.
?However, the funky buddah does not have the joy of free wifi. although the downside is that BTOpenzone is available. Why is that a downside? Well with the number of places that are offering free wifi or minimal cost wifi options, BTOpenzone is a frustratingly expensive product, especially for it being a 512kb connection and horrendously slow and notoriously buggy.

In fact my own experiences of BTOpenzone were that it failed to recognise I had disconnected and proceeded to use all of my minuets and money in one fell swoop when I had actually only gotten about 30 second use off of it.

But is wifi now at the stage that it’s a neccesity rather than a luxury or gimmic? With more and more phones using wifi I really do wonder how many people find themselves checking their facebook or twitter or indeed any other webpage on their phones when they are out. I know I do, but then I am indeed a bit of a geek.

Now notwithstanding the potential for people and students with laptops and students and all of the other people that actually need wifi. I for one am starting to think that it’s now a requirement that places offer free wifi, especially as social networking gets bigger and better.

So I’be made the decision that since I work in IT I should start focusing some of my blogs toward that. Confessions from a computer geek or something similar. This isn’t for any commercial reason at all, I stress that now, and I absolutley assure you that it is not about that, it’s just I want to give you all something to keep you coming back to.

Some things will be personal reviews about products, services and things I’ve seen that are interesting. So you might see some things posted with the title “About” where I talk about services and things that I use, you might see a technical paper that I publish or a review, or a good old fasioned rant and observations like the ones I made about online dating. These are the things most people seem to want to read about.

So don’t worry, you’re not going to loose any of my personality or any of my humour, just I’m going to cut out the REALLY personal blogs and leave that to something like live video.

A few changes are a foot really. I’m getting the photography onto it’s own site, I’m redoing the blog and I’m re-opening old ones… Finding the fit and feel is hard, this sites been through two transformations already, the move to wordpress and the move to another theme, I AM KEEPING THIS THEME! I PROMISE! I SWEAR! I just need to refocus. I know it’s an inconveniance and I could carry on with the site as it is, but the whole thing is getting neglected.

So I’m making a commitment that once every two weeks I’m going to sit and write a blog post in starbucks or similar to at least give you some content.

That’s all for now folks