iPhone 4… My 2 Cents…

Published on July 13, 2010 in Apple and Expensive Stuff. 0 Comments

Right…

Well, its been a couple of weeks (and a 5 hour queue) since i got my hands on the latest and greatest (arguable) mobile technology, the iPhone 4 ! Within the last couple of weeks iv already kinda decided that i prefered my old 3GS based on the following reasons…

1. Reception… Yea, this one has been discussed in length by many many many people, especially lefties… I cant say iv had the worst problems in the world with the antennas, granted if i hold the phone in my left hand and try to cause the issue, then yes it happens, the same way that if i try and drive my car into a wall, i know it will break also… So, not really the biggest issue, but non-the-less im still a little concerened that Apple didnt think of this one in their testing department.

2. Design… Not really a fan, yes it looks a little more sleak, looks more professional, more futuristic… BUT (Yup, there is a hairy but involved), when you handle the item, which is uniform in shape front and back, am i the only one that keeps getting it out my pocket and trying to answer a call on the rear of the phone… id love to know im not the only person doing this :)

3. Bumpers… Has anyone really thought why this piece of cheap-ass rubber costs £25… ouch… and still wont protect the rear of the phone (and does nothing to help with issue number 2 hehe)…

4. Proximity sensor… I, as with many people im guessing use the iPhone as a PHONE!!!! so, why after 2 previous revisions of the iPhone design that worked perfectly well, has apple decided to move the proximity sensor from the top left of the phone to the center (above the speaker)… It was perfectly happy where it was, and successfully, on many occasions managed to determine my head was next to the device. Its new position seems to ignore my head quite a lot, and decides the screen should be on, and hence controls enabled… Thus, in the past 4 days, iv hung up on several people and had to repeat myself to half a dozen because my cheek has muted my conversation… im just waiting for it to conference call me with my parents and and a random stranger from Romania…

5. Background Processing… Does anyone else think it would be nice not to have some apps running in the background, aka tomtom… around 10 or 20 times after completing a journey recently iv parked my car, locked up and walked away, only to hear a familiar voice coming from my trouser pocket telling me to “turn around when possible”… Granted this is most likely a tweak for TomTom to make, but i can think of a few other apps you might not want sitting in that tray-bar… (AKA, some app’s of adult nature, you know who you are)

6. TomTom Dock… Would it kill these people to make some kind of small adapter which fits into the cradle to make the button stick out a little more, this comes back more to point 3, if the shape weren’t broke, dont fix it…

7. Micro-Sim… Explain that one to me… iv seen the inside of one of these things, there is tonnes of space left over for a full size SIM, why get all us “SIM-FREE” buyers to hack our sims to pieces to fit your new bloody sim-tray… Grrrr

BUT… Besides all these little annoyances, Apple got a couple of things right…

1. Battery… FANTASTIC… My old 3GS would have around 20% battery left after a day at work, iPhone4 75% easily after a 9 hour day (based on very little use i have to say, but the comparrison stands, because my 3GS and the 4 both get around the same workout during my daily job).

2. Screen… Gorgeous, makes me wanna cuddle it for hours.

3. Front facing camera… This is a little crap though, given the facetime application only works between iPhone4’s and only works on Wi-Fi… but countless female iPhone4 users are loving the pocket mirror app :)

4. Noise cancellation… nice touch.

5. Background processing… I know i moaned about this earlier a little, but its a dam good feature, it just needs an “off” switch for certain applications.

6. Speed… Dam, what was that….

In conclusion, nice phone, but Apples design process of “Throw away good ideas and start again from scratch” seems to of sneeked a few annoyances into the mix… lets see if Apple can really fix them, or is this a fix for iPhone5…

Small Business Server 2008

Published on May 10, 2010 in Microsoft and Tech Review. 0 Comments

Right… Im gonna summarise this for you into a brief but accurate sentance “NOT WORTH THE EFFORT !!!”

Thats it, job done…. You can hang around for the small print, but i wouldnt bother….

Long story short, iv been running SBS 2003 for the last 4 years as the main infrastructure behind my home network, its served me well and for all its little annoyances, it keeps ticking on with the absolute minimum of tweaking by its administrator (AKA : Me)… But, i (Me) have fallen (as many of you have) in love with the iPhone, that little gadget that keeps on giving (and taking battery life)…

iPhone supports exchange server… Exchange server 2003 is compatable with this (but a nightmare to get working reliably)… Exchange 2007 has funky features designed to allow mobile devices (iPhone <- for those not paying attention) to connect with the least ammount of effort (yay)….

Alas, all the effort microsoft took out of setting up the mobile device support, they imported into the setup and usage of Server 2008. Everything has moved, nothing is centralised, there are more wizards/consoles and widgets than you can shake a 3.5″ floppy at, and to top it all of, it sucks more RAM than a disturbed zoo keeper !

Suffice to say, the benefits of SBS2008 come no where near the costs you will have to endure (least of which is the fact its entire look and feel comes from windows 7, yes thats the one that your nephew helped Microsoft design with that pack of crayons you stopped him eating last year).

Okay, details.

  • Installation process provides NO interactivity, all options are preset and cannot be altered during install (without configuring some answers file which is ‘beyond’ stupid for an installation…)
  • Installation process disabled administrator account immediatly after installation… its nice to have it around for a while (i mean common, if were installing a server operating system, its nice to be given the benefit of the doubt and trusted with our own admin accounts)
  • Look and feel is windows 7 (whaaa!)
  • Active directory Users and Computers has no exchange features built into it (meaning all exchange functionality has to be done from exchange console, no more right clicking on a user and doing exchange tasks)
  • Exchange console is painfully wizard based… Every-dam-thing does not have to a wizard microsoft…
  • SBS Console is about the only way to create users with full attributes (aka, if you want them to have a PC assigned, Mailbox creating, etc) creating a user in ADUC does not create a mailbox, and does NOT give you the option to add one !
  • Operating system grabs way too much RAM (granted i was running this in VM, so some of that could of been dedicated allocation… but i feel its maybe not)
  • POP3 Connector finally allows sheduling to happen more often than 15 mins (despite microsofts desperate warning that this would cause the end of the world), BUT does not allow advanced schedules to be created (aka, acc1, 2, 3 check every 5 mins, acc4, 5, 6  every 10 mins… So still kinda limited (but now supports SSL)… Do yourself a favour, go grab a copy of POPCON (brilliant little app)
  • Exporting of 2003 pst files do NOT  import correctly into 2008, my test import of my mailbox ended up with dozens of strange calendar entries which were not reccuring, but now are… my contacts have no pictures, my tasks list is all ‘not done’ (pretty sure i did some of those things), etc, etc, etc….
  • Outlook web access still only runs in light access mode for Firefox, and IE really doesnt have any additional features that 2003 didnt have… (looks a little better, but nothing to get excited about :(

Im sure there are more annoying things going on, and some good features too… But im still playing around with it, and no where near ready to format my 2003 box to update just yet…

THIS BLOG IS NOT DEAD :)

Published on March 19, 2010 in Personal. 0 Comments

Quick post here, realised the other day that chirstmas was the last time i actually threw anything up on here… Well, a lot of stuff has been happening between now and then, not least of which is this full time job stuff (Yea, thats gonna dampen anyones efforts at EVERYTHING lol)…

Also, returned from a two week trip to Vietnam a few weeks back, such an amazing country, having a Vietnamese girlfriend made the trip even more fantastic (gotta love that language barrier falling over). Id reccomend the trip to anyone and got tonnes of suggestions on things to do (or not  hehe)… below is a panoramic i took from the top of Marble Mountain, a place fairly central in the country where local sculpters spend months carving the most amazing statues. Ill get some more posts up soon…

Also, just noted some very strange things going on with post links, seems every post was leading to 404 errors. Did some research and had to regenerate the permalinks from within WP, but all seems to be working again now… hmm, odd :)

Festive Greetings

Published on December 25, 2009 in Random Stuff. 0 Comments

Merry Christmas to all, and a happy new year ! (Now bring on the presents)

Telnet on Vista

Published on December 8, 2009 in Microsoft, Tech Lessons and Utilities. 0 Comments

By default, Vista doesn’t install the Telnet client. The client is for text-based communication with remote systems. You can install it by following these steps:

1. Click Start then select Control Panel.

2. Select Programs and Features.

3. Select Turn Windows features on or off.

4. Select the Telnet Client option.

5. Click OK.

6. A dialog box will appear to confirm installation. The telnet command should now be available.