Back in 2005, I blogged that I’d write up my dream party manifesto – and then I failed to write a single, solitary, sodding word. In some ways, therefore, I think that I’ve performed rather better than Her Majesties Government over the last seven years. Sure, I didn’t achieve much – but I buggered up far less than they did too. And, Wow!, didn’t they just bugger it up!
Which one to buy?
I’m often asked which computer I’d recommend. I don’t have a stock answer to this question – what I say depends on many things. How technologically savvy the asker is, for example, and what sort of tasks they want to do. If the asker only has basic requirements then I’ve usually recommended a low end Mac of some kind, perhaps second hand, depending on the budget. If a server is required then I’d recommend Linux for heavy lifting and OS X Server for small work groups. For serious, heavy duty, computing then there is very little (which is to say nothing) to beat a medium to high end Mac – I use a Mac Pro tower myself. For the seriously cash strapped then Raspberry Pi is hard to ignore, and it will be impossible to ignore once the Raspberry Pi Foundation manages to sort out a case for it.
Now, though, there’s a new OS that deserves very serious consideration for light computing duties. True it’s been out for a few years now, but I’d say it’s now definitely ready for Prime Time. What is it? Chrome OS.
Who Should Use It?
Anyone who only has light computing requirements. If you only need to browse the web, email, do a little word processing or spreadsheeting and play a game or two then Chrome OS is perfect.
Why Should They Use It?
It has an elegant UI and it’s very user friendly. Google has put some serious thought into Chrome OS, and it’s a doodle to use – even for someone who has never really used a computer before. It doesn’t even require any maintenance. Best of all, it doesn’t require any user accounts to be set up on the computer – a Chrome OS user either signs in their Google account, or signs in as a Guest.
What Are The Disadvantages?
Google doesn’t seem to be as confident of their OS as I am. Either that, or they’re too busy peddling Android (which just isn’t as nice as it’s competitors). This is a pity, because Chrome OS is definitely the finest OS of its kind. Given that it is also the only OS of its kind, this might seem like damning with faint praise – but it isn’t, I assure you. Chrome OS is genuinely a thing of beauty.
And this is the main problem – the only official means of getting a Chrome OS computer is a laptop like Samsung’s Chrome Book which is an over-priced, underspecced, KIRF knock off of the old black MacBook. Good luck finding one of those in Currys or Dixons. You could, of course, download the OS and then install it on your own computer – but if you aren’t very computer literate then that kind of defeats the main point of Chrome OS.
Other than that, the only real disadvantage is a paucity of available software that will run without an Internet connection. This isn’t a big deal though because the main bases are covered and as Chrome OS grows in popularity (and I hope that it will grow in popularity), good quality software is sure to follow.
Tasty Raspberry Pi
The Raspberry Pi is a truly marvellous computer, and the most exciting gizmo that I’ve owned since I got my Mac SE/30 back in 1992. Seriously, the little Pi is way more interesting than even my iPad. Continue reading “Tasty Raspberry Pi”
How do you solve a problem like Linux?
Don’t get me wrong, I like Linux. My server at home runs DSM, the Synology version of Linux. My routers run Linux. And I’ve got Ubuntu installed as the only OS on my Thinkpad and as one of the three OSs on my Mac Pro. I have high hopes that one day, and hopefully soon, Linux will present a viable alternative to Mac OS X for general purpose use – because Microsoft certainly doesn’t seem to be making any effort to with Windows.
That day is not now though, and the main problem isn’t actually with Linux itself. It’s with the support available. Linux itself is part of the problem, of course – it requires a little too much fiddling around and customisation for it to be recommendable to granny, even with good support. With good support though, it should be a viable OS for the average family, and not just those with tech savvy dads like me.
Snippet of Code # 4 – Embedding binary in a shell script
Sometimes it would be nice to embed a binary in a shell script, if only to provide a neat deployment for a command line tool. There’s a right way to do this, so that the shell script remains editable even after the binary has been attached to it, and a wrong way – where the shell script is no longer editable at the end. I’ll show you the right way here, and you can work out the wrong way yourself.
Continue reading “Snippet of Code # 4 – Embedding binary in a shell script”
On Steve Jobs…
I’ve been in the strange position of being offered commiserations on the death of Steve Jobs, which is weird because I am neither related to him nor particularly caught up in any cult of celebrity.
Genius is an overused word but, in the case of Steve Jobs, I think it applies. In the fields of technology and art, he made a difference. He changed the world. And, despite trying very hard, I can’t find any products that better his vision yet. That isn’t to say that Apple is perfect, of course, but they’re a lot closer to nirvana than any other product from any competing organisation. On the whole, people who disagree with this statement haven’t tried to live with an Apple product for a month and, in doing so, give it a fair trial.
Would I want to have had Steve Jobs’ life? No. Do I want to be the next Steve Jobs? Also no. One of the saddest things that anyone has ever said to me was that they ‘wished they could have my life’. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Don’t get me wrong – I like my life. I love my life. Most of the time it seems to come up aces, and that suits me very well. But it only suits me. It’s made to measure. Steve Jobs’ life was made to measure for Steve Jobs and the only person who could live it was him.
It is tragic that Steve Jobs died young and at the peak of his powers, but I feel that we should celebrate his life and his achievements and remember that his influence will be with us for a long time, and possibly for centuries. I am also happy for him, that he has now been put out of his pain. I can’t, and don’t want to, imagine what it must be like to live with cancer for eight years. I feel desperately sorry for his family and for his friends.
I don’t want to seem ungrateful though – I am genuinely happy to hear from you all, but a simple hello is sufficient. And telling me your news of course – especially telling me your news. Please offer me your commiserations if you hear that any of my family or friends have died – then I will be in need of them, and very likely in an extremely untogether place.
Snippet of Code #3 – Dumping Bits
Sometimes it’s useful to save a little memory by storing data as bits rather than bytes. After all, if you’re storing a boolean then using a whole byte is rather wasteful. In any event, sometime you might want to inspect individual bits when working on your program. If you’ve ever needed to do this then this code will help. Continue reading “Snippet of Code #3 – Dumping Bits”
Snippet of code #2 – Developing Facebook Apps
A little while ago my sister approached me with an idea which requires a Facebook app. I’ve never written a Facebook app before, so I stocked up on books, read a little, and got stuck in.
What a complete waste of time. It seems that the Facebook development system is a little fluid. Nothing I learned worked, and the books would have been more useful if I had used them as substitute loo roll. Continue reading “Snippet of code #2 – Developing Facebook Apps”
Snippet of code #1 – Gathering Disk Information in C
One of the people I work with (an excellent fellow, I might add) was grumbling about how he could gather information about the mounted disks on a computer. He was mucking around with ‘df’ in the command line, and giving serious thought to the business of parsing the result into his program.
Continue reading “Snippet of code #1 – Gathering Disk Information in C”
Reeder. First Impressions.
I discovered NetNewsWire soon after I started using Mac OS X, and it changed the way that I use the internet. Before NetNewsWire I didn’t really know much more about RSS than what it stood for. Before NetNewsWire I aimlessly clicked around the dozens of websites that interested me, mostly just checking to see if they had anything new to offer. What a waste of time. RSS changes all that. With RSS the updates come to you – there’s no need to check for updates because they’ll all be delivered to you, in one location, when they happen. And NetNewsWire on the Mac was the best, so when it came out for the iPhone I was delighted – and paid up immediately.
Bad move. It is easily the buggiest piece of software that I’ve used on the iPhone – an application which tarnishes the NetNewsWire brand. It frequently fails to update the status of its feeds correctly, so that I can’t see which stories I’ve read and which ones I haven’t. The refresh button doesn’t fix the situation – so the only solution is a restart of the app. Despite this, I stayed loyal to NetNewsWire. But now, and just after NetNewsWire was sold to Black Pixel, I’ve decided that enough is enough. I’ve decided to try Reeder.
At first glance, Reeder does the same thing that NetNewsWire does – it syncs RSS feeds with Google Reader, and makes them available for reading on your iOS device. At second glance, Reeder does a whole lot more. It’s more configurable. It has an Instapaper like reading view although, unlike Instapaper, you do need an internet connection to use it. If you want the whole page, Safari style, you can have that too – the downside being that you need to be prepared to wait for the whole page to load, images and all. The muted theme, black on grey, is very restful; far easier on the eyes than the stark black on white (with the occasional bright blue highlight) of NetNewsWire. The icing on the cake is that it seems to be faster and it hasn’t crashed either, well – not yet anyway.
I haven’t had Reeder for long. These are first impressions. But so far I like it alot, and I consider it to be money very well spent. When my iPad arrives I’ll doubtless be buying a copy of the iPad version.
As for my Mac, that still has NetNewsWire on it – but I notice that Reeder is available for Mac OS too. I suspect that I might abandon NetNewsWire altogether soon, but I will keep an eye on its development and I hope that Black Pixel can turn it around.