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A reason to upgrade to Leopard and a reason for staying with Tiger
November 6th, 2007
First the reason to upgrade. Apple have added a generic SyncML plugin for iSync, so any device that supports SyncML can be made to work. All you need to do is follow the instructions to create a plugin and you’re away.
However, that means you have to survive the latest bug in Leopard. It seems that someone got confused with the idea of moving files. E.g. copy the files to the new location, delete them from the old one if the copy went ok. It seems that if the destination goes missing (say a network drive disconnects or an external drive gets unplugged by mistake) Leopard just decides that it’s finished copying and deletes the source files. Oops. There’s also a bug where Time Machine can hide your backups if you’ve put anything but [a-z A-Z 0-9] in your computers name.
Yet again it seems the advice to never use/buy and Apple .0 release is as true as ever. Pity really since Leopard does seem to be a good upgrade otherwise.
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The non-existant Mac Tax
February 8th, 2007
Well the fuss started here, and is now getting silly.
Here’s what the Vista EULA for Home Basic/Premium states:
You may not use the software installed on the licensed device within a virtual (or otherwise emulated) hardware system.
I’ve made the important bit bold. What that says is, if you’ve installed Vista on your machine, then you’re not allowed to use that same licence on a virtual machine, since you’ve only brought a single licence.
Premium and Ultimate come with an extra licence that lets you run a virtual machine on a machine you’ve installed Vista on. This is aimed at developers and power users.
Of course the really funny thing here is Apple. Their licence forbids you to run Mac OS X on anything but Apple hardware. So installing it on a normal PC is forbidden, as well as on a virtual machine, even if the host machine is a Mac, since you only have a single licence.
So Microsoft, that allows you to install the copy of Vista you’ve brought on any device you wish (once), is evil relative to Apple that only lets you install it on a device you’ve brought from them (once) and is non-transferable.
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Bye bye battery
September 7th, 2006
Well my replacement battery for my iBook arrived today. Only two odd things about it.
The first is that the same battery that Apple wanted you to remove after sending off the request for a replacement they now want you to put back into your machine. Why? Because they want you to send it back to the flat. So they advise that you unplug your machine, set the power saving mode to ‘Highest Performance’ and play a dvd or something for the 3-4 hours that it takes to discharge. Oh yeah, and not to leave it unattended during this time. Unless it’s a funny shape or really hot, then they want you to contact them and arrange for special delivery (I’m imagining a big armored truck turning up with flashing lights, loud-hailers and guys in full hazmat suits).
The second funny thing is that my little battery is off on a little trip to the Netherlands. Quite why I’ve no idea. Maybe Steve Jobs doesn’t like the place and is plotting to melt a hole to the earths core with defective batteries and wipe it off the face of the earth or something. Or maybe it’s just Apple’s base in Europe, but I think the first is cooler and you have to admit that Steve would make a great evil villain.
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Xbox 360 pricing and a surprise from Apple
August 2nd, 2005
Three interesting things today. The first is the rumor that Wallmart have been told the pricing of the Xbox 360 and it’s going to be around $300 (via TotalVideoGames.com).
The second is also Xbox related with Joystiq posting more news including bits on the various leads that will come with it and that pricing information will be released at a game conference in Leipzig, Germany, on the 18-21st of August. JoystiqFinally Apple have finally released a two button mouse, well, actually it’s a three button mouse. No sign of Apple bundling it by default with their Macs yet but maybe they’ll start doing that when they release the first Intel based Mac next year. I’m a bit unsure how the thing feels to use, and I think that having a speaker to make mouse clicks and scrolling noises is gimiky so I’ll wait until I’ve had a play with one before ordering one. More info here.
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