The decision is made, no iPhone for me ...

At least not the first revision anyway.

This is something that I have been thinking about ever since the original announcement. I wasn't too concern about who would get it. Even though I have been with Orange since I first got a mobile, 6 years ago, I have no particular loyalty to them, just to lazy to change. I probably could have lived without 3G, I spend far too much time and money online with my current Sony Ericsson, at horribly slow speeds, already to start worrying about such things. The fact that it is an Apple first gen product didn't worry me, although I do have concerns that it's an Apple/3rd Party first gen product (Apple being notorious at bad partnering).

No what got me in the end was the fact that it seems far too inevitable that things are going to change for the iPhone, and change fast. I really think the situation in 18 months time, when the first contacts are running out, will be extremely different to the situation now. So I'm going to wait a while longer.

Saying all that though, I really want an iPod. Now I have a decent machine, one that spends considerable time downloading podcasts and NFL match commentary, I would like to be able to listen to these on the road.

I happened by the Apple store last Thursday, and after finding a £320 accounting error in my favour (seriously), I decided to pop in and grab a Nano. My needs are fairly simple, so the size is fine, not too much video stuff to watch. All in all I thought it would be the best value thing to get.

But the buggers had the iPod Touch out on display. I tried it, ran my fingers over it's screen and fell for it completely. The only thing that stopped me walking out with one then and there was that they were out of stock. I've ordered one online, which in a happy coincidence should arrive just before my birthday.

The only thing I would truly miss from the iPhone package is the excellent free Wi-Fi access deal O2 set up with The Cloud. I spent most of Friday trying to word, in my head, a letter to The Cloud to complain that none of their partners offer a simple plan to get such a device online and that they would be missing a major opportunity if they didn't do something about this. Last night though, my prayers were answered before I had the chance to put pen to paper.

Can't wait :)

Zooomer, Firefox and CoComment issue ...

If you are a Zooomr user through Firefox you should be aware that installing the CoComment plug-in seems to cause a problem with editing of photo title and GeoTagging photos. Hopefully one or the other company will sort this out soon as both are excellent services.

It's alive! ...

Finally the day arrived. That day was last Thursday. That day was the day my new iMac arrived. Those that follow this blog will know that I made the switch to Mac back in 2005. That was after a brief and totally unsuccessful flirtation with Linux for the year prior to that.

My switch came in the form of an iBook G4, the cheapest Mac available at that time. I knew the rumours were flying about the move to Intel chips, but I still felt that I needed to dip my toe into the Apple world and test the waters. People who know me will tell you that I am now a complete Apple bore.

Yet it is hard to be an Apple bore when you can only show a really slow, 256Mb RAM, 3 generations old processor laptop. Frankly it's been a little embarrassing. I came close to buying a 24" iMac earlier in the year, but then certain financial constraints stopped me, and then more rumours about an iMac refresh started circling. So I waited. But now I wait no more



All I can say is "Wow!". This is such a leap in performance from my previous machine that any comparison would be meaningless, but wow all the same.

Figuring that this one should last me quite a while I went all out. It's a 2.8 GHz Core 2 Duo Extreme with 4Gb of Ram. Looking at Activity Monitor I am yet to get even close to making it have to do anything stressful.

I am also happy to report that I ave managed to get someone I work with to switch too, and it was the new iMacs that did it. She could not believe that Apple have managed to squeeze such a powerful machine into the monitor.

Right now I am finding and installing all those little apps that are so important yet you forget that they are not part of the core system; Adium, Stuffit, Wire Tap, etc. Feels like home already :)

Big apologies to the guys from my old work that were meeting up last Thursday, I had been offline for a while and didn't get the messages till late in the day and then found out I had to go pick up the Mac and well, you can understand I'm sure.