Thinking the unthinkable

 Apple, Geek, Linux  No Responses »
Oct 272010
 

A few things have recently got me considering the unthinkable. ‘What is the unthinkable?’ you ask. It is the idea of buying a computer that is not is not designed in Cupertino, California and doesn’t have a big, shiny Apple on it.

For the past few years I’ve been an avid Apple fan. Not at fan boy levels of devotion but I can often to found frequenting Apple rumour sites and posting in discussions about new Macs. I should probably point out that I’ll probably always have an Apple laptop. At this point in time I can’t find another company that builds such well built, high quality laptops. Yes you pay a premium but that’s all worth it when you compare a Macbook Pro with a similarly specced PC.

What I’m looking into is building a desktop tower running Linux. Usually I would look straight towards an iMac or Mac Mini for desktop use but the past week or so has brought up a few interesting points that are swaying me towards Linux.

Firstly, Ubuntu 10.10 was released. I’ve been fiddling with Ubuntu for years. Every six months when the new version is released I download the disk image and install it into a virtual machine. I even ran Ubuntu as a server for a few months and as a media streamer for a while. I’ve always found something missing. After using Windows for years I’m sick of having to fiddle with a computer to get it to perform simple tasks. Even now that I’m learning to program, I want to spend my time with the important stuff, not installing drivers. This why I bought a Mac. The first few times I tried Ubuntu on my old PC it wouldn’t recognise the wireless card. This was finally fixed around the time of 7.04 but there was always something holding me back from wanting to use Ubuntu full time. 10.10 is, I think, the first Ubuntu release that’s ready for prime time and can be used by anyone.

The second factor affecting this decision was the ‘Back to the Mac’ press conference held by Apple to introduce the Macbook Air and provide a sneak peak at Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. It left an uneasy feeling with me regarding the direction Apple are taking with their desktop operating system. I may just be being paranoid but this convergence of OS X and iOS (iPhone) has me concerned about the future of Apple computing.

For instance, I know that users will be able to install software from other sources beside the Mac App Store but for how long? And will not being in the App Store be comercial suicide for developers. I kind of like the App Store on the iPhone (although it could do with being a little more lenient) but on a computer, and in Apple’s hands, it could mean the end of the Mac platform as we know it.

Another example of iOS ‘features’ creeping into OS X is the idea of fullscreen apps. Why do I want a full screen application on a 1280 x 800 pixel screen? Or even worse a 1920 x 1080 screen found in the smaller iMac. Mac users have always sneered at Windows users that instantly hit ‘maximise’ on their internet browser and are left with two huge white spaces on either side on the 700 pixels of information. OS X is about taking full advantage or your screen’s real estate; smaller windows are arranged all over the so as much as possible is instantly accesible. This is how you work on a Mac. Not fullscreen.

Lastly I am slightly concerned about the deprecation of Java on the Mac. I’m not a Java programmer (although I will be taking a couple of modules on it next year for my Open University course) but Apple dropping official support for such a major language is troubling.

I hope I’m wrong about my concerns. I still think Apple are years ahead of their competitors on both the desktop and mobile devices, even with some of their bizarre decisions. I just hope Steve realises that we might be happy with a slightly controlled phone or even tablet for the sake of performance, battery life and security but this won’t fly on the desktop.

Anniversary in Paris

 Personal, Restaurants, Travel  No Responses »
Oct 192010
 

I spent last weekend in Paris with my girlfriend celebrating our six year anniversary. We left early on Saturday morning and got home around 9:30 Monday night so we had a good few days to see the main sights. Jordan had never been and I only have very vague memories of being there as a young child so it was fun wondering around seeing the famous landmarks.

I ended up getting a bit annoyed at the Louvre. I don’t particularly like crowds of tourists (hypocritical I know) and the Louvre seemed to encompass every tourist in Paris standing in front of me in a queue. We decided against actually going in due to the crowds. We then took a long stroll down the Champs-Élysées taking in the scenery and heading towards the Arc de Triomphe.

Sunday was by far the best day. We started with baguettes for breakfast before heading over to the Paris catacombs. The queue was pretty horrific but the experience was definitely worth it. You can’t quite comprehend the number of dead people decorating the walls with their skulls and other bones. It’s not quite as spooky as you might think – just very daunting when you think about the time and effort that’s gone into the arrangement.

After the catacombs we headed over to the Eiffel Tower. I have a bit of a thing for tall buildings so we paid our 13€ and got the rickety lift to the top. The view is obviously impressive and the queues were actually much better than I expected. Jordan was impressed that they had a toilet on the top floor.

In the evening we ate at Le Porteger du Marais – a vegetarian restaurant located close to the rather striking Pompidou Centre. The meal was really tasty and was finishes nicely with a lovely chocolate fondant… mmmm.

The next day we wondered around Montmartre. We found the Moulin Rouge and ate at a brasserie that turned out to be a bit touristy and not actually very good.

Overall it was a pleasant getaway. I’m not sure I’d go back again in a hurray though. Prices for hotels, food and drink are extortionate which can get a bit annoying. We also couldn’t work out why people find the city so romantic when everywhere smells of piss and you’re constantly dodging dog crap on the paths!

Fibre Optic Broadband – Installation

 Fibre Optic Broadband  2 Responses »
Oct 042010
 

I was fairly sure that installing fibre to the home wasn’t going to be very straight forward. Vivaciti (the ISP I’m trialling with) advised the appointment would be around four and a half hours but said it would be better if someone could be in all day as it might overrun. And overrun it did. The engineers were here from 9am until gone 7 in the evening! Something tells me this might not be considered financially viable until they can think of some more efficient ways of pushing the fibre to the house.

It seems to me that the engineers BT have doing these installs are pretty new to the whole situation. It became clear whilst trying to discuss with them the placement of the termination box, use of wireless and the type of cable needed to connect the router to the fibre box that they had a fairly limited knowledge of these subjects. For instance they tried to convince me that 802.11N wireless is not affected by walls. This is, of course, completely incorrect. Yes, it is much faster and has better range than 802.11G but a thick wall will still cause signal loss.

The main issue they had was with blowing the fibre cable down the tube from the cabinet to the house. The weather was very wet and apparently this was causing the cable to snag; a situation that required them to disconnect the equipment from that end of the duct, reassemble it at the house and blow the cable back. Apparently it took them six attempts to finally get it through. Once connected we were left with this…

The cable comes from the duct into the box on the right. A cable is then fed into the box on the left which I am sure is meant to be on the inside of the house seeing as it has ethernet and telephone ports as well as a bog standard power supply. Luckily this is all inside the garage but the engineers tried to tell us it was water proof and they had already installed some outside! I can’t see how that is safe or secure.

Since installation we’ve had to run a 20 metre length of ethernet from the garage to the study where the router is kept. This wasn’t too much of a hassle for us but I can imagine people less technical would have trouble if an engineer just plonked the box in some hard to reach corner of the house.

So overall installation could be seen as barrier for both the customer and BT. If every house takes this long it just won’t be economical to do every house on the exchange, or even in the estate. The engineers seem slightly apprehensive to place the termination box too far away from where the duct comes through so there may end up being a bit of installing left for the customer as well. In my opinion this is a small price to pay for the increased performance over your average Milton Keynes internet connection.

Next post – speed tests!

Fibre Optic Broadband in Milton Keynes Very Much a Reality

 Fibre Optic Broadband, Geek  5 Responses »
Oct 022010
 

Back in March I mentioned that BT were planning on running fibre optic trials in my area (Walnut Tree, Milton Keynes). Details were fairly thin on the ground but I tried to post here whenever I heard anything new. Since May there hadn’t been much news until I stumbled across this broadband availability checker. It’s not one that I’ve seen on any other website and the only links I’ve seen to it are on forums. I entered my phone number and to my surprise I was informed that my number was enabled for fibre to the premises (FTTP).

Now that I was enabled, I just had to find an ISP that was involved in the trial. Easy! Well, not really. It seems like none of the major ISPs even know about it. Two names that kept coming up on forums were Plusnet and Zen. I e-mailed both but only Plusnet replied. They told me I had to swap my ADSL to them before I could be put on the trial. However, they couldn’t promise me that if I did switch I would definitely be put on the trial. After speaking with a rather rude representative on the phone I decided they didn’t seem like a company I’d like to deal with.

A few weeks passed by with not much more information until I saw this post on the Thinkbroadband forum by the company Vivaciti saying they were on the trial and to e-mail them if you were interested and in the enabled area. So I did and I got a very helpful reply with this information…

If and when you are accepted by BT for the FTTP trial, they will do a site survey to see if the house is suitable (you are not on the 12th floor of a tower block) then they will arrange for an installation date. We will supply you with a suitable router to use but the router remain our property at this stage.
We have no control over the service that is put in as part of the trial, so can not specify the 100/15 40/10 etc (although my understanding is they want the 100MB (sic) rolled out first)

During this time there is no cost to you for installation or rental/usage of the service.
The trial is due to finish at the end of December although we think this will be extended, but either way at the end of the trial you have a couple of choices, you can either cease the service at no cost or liability or once prices are released you can agree to stay on the service although at that point there would be a 12 month contract imposed on the service.

So as you can see, it was a bit of a no brainer. No cost, no commitment and no contract! I let them know I was more than happy to join the trial and after a few more e-mails I had a installation date for when BT would come and physically connect us to the fibre network.

I’ll save the installation details for the next post.