Why is Windows

Vista so rubbish?

Sound familiar? A bit like one of my previous posts? Yes, that's because Vista is rubbish.

Seriously, Microsoft what were you thinking? Even with SP1 it's still a piece of junk. 2GB RAM minimum requirement and a half-decent CPU are required. I dread to think how badly it does actually run on the 'minimums' as specified by Microsoft.

Anyway, based on the last few laptops I've delivered (all with Vista), I think no-one really needs any more than Vista basic and a fat chunk of memory. Home Premium adds very little apart from a few naff games (ripped off from OSX Tiger) and the memory-gobbling Aero interface. 

Roll on Windows 7.... Vista will die a death that's missed about as much as Windows ME was ...

First full day with iPhone

Have to say yesterday I took and made a bunch of calls on iPhone and I can honestly say I think it is the best cellphone I have ever used; anyone who poo-poos it really should take a clear, unblinkered and unbiased view at it. 

From a usability perspective, it really is brilliant. A complete moron could figure out how to work it in a few minutes, and as for taking pictures (brilliant camera imo, what is everyone moaning about?), sending texts, adding new or editing existing contacts ... it really couldn't be easier.

If you're thinking about buying one, do it.

Activated iPhone on Vodafone UK

iPhone arrived at 10.05 am this morning. By 10.15am it was activated via ZiPhone, and on the Vodafone network. An absolute doddle, even if you know nothing about computers.

iPhone fresh out of the packing materials

Problem was, it wouldn't then update to 1.1.4 (current firmware at time of writing) from the shipping 1.1.2 firmware, although I'd downloaded 1.1.4

iPhone being 'assimilated'

Solution: restore the iPhone, and it restores 1.1.4, not 1.1.2. Then run ZiPhone again, and it runs the same modification, leaving you with a Vodafone-capable iPhone running 1.1.4

iPhone transformation is complete. Haha vodafone, you CAN run iPhone...

iPhone on Vodafone UK

Well, after months and months of convincing myself that I could get by using a combination of an 8GB iPod Touch and my erm, lovely Sony Ericcson K320i, I bit the bullet and bought an iPhone yesterday, direct from the Apple Store UK.

Problem is (you might think) that I'm not a UK o2 customer, who are the airtime suppliers for iPhone here in the UK.

Nevertheless, with the amount of info on the web currently regarding unlocking them, and the recent release of the iPhone SDK, I'm confident that unlocking the beast to work with Vodafone will be a breeze. 

I know iPhone 2.0 is due out at some point in Q2 (latest rumours) but even if that is the case, iPhone 1.0 will remain sellable should I need to upgrade. I bought my last iMac in Spring '07 and then they upgraded them in September which bummed me out a bit, but with 3GB of RAM my 24" iMac hardly dawdles; it'll get upgraded next May when it's two years' old anyway.

iPhone is due to arrive today or tomorrow so once it's here I'll crack on with it, and the iTouch will find it's way onto eBay. The Sony? Well, I might hang onto that for emergencies, or give it to someone. I doubt anyone will want it but that's another matter. 

Watch this space.

Vista and Speedtouch 330

Dammit, why did M$ have to go and make it so damned hard for so-called legacy hardware (speedtouch 330) to work with Vista?

Yes, you can download Vista drivers for the 330 from Thomson's website and yes the application will install - just a shame that it BSOD's half the time with a driver error.

A year after the launch of this 'fab' OS and here we are still having problems with the blasted thing.

Tweaks applied

Oh and yes, I made some very minor tweaks to the template. The basic template that came with it pretty much fulfilled all my requirements - I can't be bothered faffing around to get it working fully with the design on the main site, so color matching will be fine. After all, I can't imagine many people are actually going to read it, especially as at the moment it's not even linked off the main page - not that that page gets that many views anyway.

So, black, blue and white is the flavour I think. And why the heck am I having such a problem getting a vehicle signwriting company to come up with a half-decent design for my new car? It's hardly rocket science.

Busy busy busy

The start of a very busy week ahead.

I have a bucketload of quotes to do, and everyone wants their hardware yesterday and cheap as chips.

I've bowed out of a quote today and now I'm regretting it. The guy has written back saying he's disappointed and now I think I may have overestimated the requirements :groan:

Kick off...

First post to the new blog. Got some design tweaks to apply to it, but what I'm loving is the ability to blog directly from Mac OSX without having to open a browser. Google take care of that with the Blogger widget for OSX dashboard, surely a must-have for any user of the Apple OS and Blogger.

Anyway, it's Easter Monday and there's no rest for the wicked, so hopefully the widget will keep me blogging more often than with the last (archived/deleted) blog.