Because I spend a lot of time loading fresh installs of OSX in 10.4 and 10.5 flavours onto customers Macs following drive replacements or upgrades I don't really have the time to sit through the time it takes to install from the original DVD. Leopard in particular can take a long time to install on slower macs.
Instead I keep a disk image of each installer on the server and use that, much much faster that way. Until now. Until I upgraded my MacBook Pro to Snow Leopard.
I twigged that somethng was wrong when the second MacBook in a row refused to boot following an install, showing the flashing folder icon that means no bootable drive or system detected. Hmm, two new drives in a row with defects? Not likely.
By the time I was doing the second install I had forgotten that following the first failure I reverted to using my SL install disk. This time it clicked. When running Snow Leopard, the installer will happily run and install all the files on the new drive, however it then renders the new drive unbootable (I trying to work out how). So far my options are to have a handy 10.5 partition on my MacBook Pro (or a 10.5 drive to boot from) so that I can install direct from it again, or revert to using my 10.5 install DVD and drinking more coffee.
Time to put the kettle on then.
Sunday, 27 September 2009
Friday, 31 July 2009
Does the world need an Apple tablet?
From the hype surrounding the iPhone you would think the world would be clamouring for Apple's much rumoured and seemingly oft delayed Tablet Mac (or SuperiPhone if you will). Are Apple about to repeat the iPhone trick with the tablet and will the world go crazy again.
Netbook sales are still on the up and up. On the face of it it looks like somewhere Apple should be (and no the Air is not a netbook in any way shape or form). Personally I think that we will see a tablet but Apple needs one more that the rest of the world does.
Since the iPod arrived and took the world by storm Apple has been seen as THE innovator in mass market consumer tech. No other company can take a device that the market has never seen before and make it part of everyones lives. Releasing an Apple netbook sounds like a great idea. A small cheap computer that introduces more people to the Macintosh. Great. But not actually innovative as such.
Now a tablet. A 7 or 9in touch screen tablet, that's more like Apple. A tablet fits the Apple innovation bill perfectly. If Apple release a netbook we've seen it all before and that's just not Apple. A tablet that actually works as part of your daily life, that after six months you can't imagine how you ever survived without it, that's an Apple product.
The world might not need an Apple tablet, but Apple does. Which is why I think we'll see one eventually (probably early next year).
Netbook sales are still on the up and up. On the face of it it looks like somewhere Apple should be (and no the Air is not a netbook in any way shape or form). Personally I think that we will see a tablet but Apple needs one more that the rest of the world does.
Since the iPod arrived and took the world by storm Apple has been seen as THE innovator in mass market consumer tech. No other company can take a device that the market has never seen before and make it part of everyones lives. Releasing an Apple netbook sounds like a great idea. A small cheap computer that introduces more people to the Macintosh. Great. But not actually innovative as such.
Now a tablet. A 7 or 9in touch screen tablet, that's more like Apple. A tablet fits the Apple innovation bill perfectly. If Apple release a netbook we've seen it all before and that's just not Apple. A tablet that actually works as part of your daily life, that after six months you can't imagine how you ever survived without it, that's an Apple product.
The world might not need an Apple tablet, but Apple does. Which is why I think we'll see one eventually (probably early next year).
Thursday, 25 June 2009
The great iPhone price gouge?
Welcome to the UK, happy land where consumer electronics cost more than almost anywhere else. It's been a feature of computers and tech that the price of an item in teh UK will not so much reflect the current GBP/USD exchange rate, as be a direct pound for dollar exchange. You pay $99 in the US, we pay £99 in the UK. So far so rippy.
Now that we are all used to this stage of affairs companies have started loading the UK price on top of this, citing exchange fluctuations and other excuses. it's a fact of life. Here are some examples, taken from one of the worst offenders, Apple that illustrate the point. Exchange rates as of today (24th July 2009 are in brackets)
iPod touch 8GB - $229 (£139) UK price £165
Mac Mini 2.0 - $599 (£364) UK price £499
MacBook - $799 (£485) UK price £749
You see how it goes. However even this sort of free cash looks small compared to the price gulf we in the UK face when looking at the new iPhones.
The iPhone 3G is now available in the US for $99. Pretty cool yes. That's a £ price of 60. Who wouldn't want one at that price. Apple would clean up. Except, here in the UK we don't pay £60. We don't even pay double the equivalent price in pounds. We don't even pay TRIPLE!! We pay £342.50 a massive hike over the US price. The 3GS fares little better, US iPhone fans pay $199 for their new phones, that's £121 british pounds. I suppose we should be thankful that we only have to pay just under 3 times this for our phones.
The current 3G is obviously just an excersie in stock clearnace and will probably not be with us for too much longer (certainly in the US). However in the UK it may be some time before Apple clear these, certainly while they insist on fleecing their UK customers to such an unforgivable extent.
Now that we are all used to this stage of affairs companies have started loading the UK price on top of this, citing exchange fluctuations and other excuses. it's a fact of life. Here are some examples, taken from one of the worst offenders, Apple that illustrate the point. Exchange rates as of today (24th July 2009 are in brackets)
iPod touch 8GB - $229 (£139) UK price £165
Mac Mini 2.0 - $599 (£364) UK price £499
MacBook - $799 (£485) UK price £749
You see how it goes. However even this sort of free cash looks small compared to the price gulf we in the UK face when looking at the new iPhones.
The iPhone 3G is now available in the US for $99. Pretty cool yes. That's a £ price of 60. Who wouldn't want one at that price. Apple would clean up. Except, here in the UK we don't pay £60. We don't even pay double the equivalent price in pounds. We don't even pay TRIPLE!! We pay £342.50 a massive hike over the US price. The 3GS fares little better, US iPhone fans pay $199 for their new phones, that's £121 british pounds. I suppose we should be thankful that we only have to pay just under 3 times this for our phones.
The current 3G is obviously just an excersie in stock clearnace and will probably not be with us for too much longer (certainly in the US). However in the UK it may be some time before Apple clear these, certainly while they insist on fleecing their UK customers to such an unforgivable extent.
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