Posted: Wed 2 December, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Cynicism, Geeky, Own Business, Work-related |
Following on from yesterday’s post regarding the difference in price between Dell and Apple, I also ended up doing one between desktop machines. You know, just for the sheer fucking hell of it.
Similar plan – same specs where possible, same plan. Not bog-standard, not top-of-the-line, but mid-end on both models…
|
Dell |
Apple |
| Model |
Optiplex 360 |
iMac |
| Processor |
3.06Ghz Core 2 Duo |
3.06Ghz Core 2 Duo |
| Memory (RAM) |
4Gb |
4Gb |
| Hard Disk |
1Tb |
1Tb |
| Monitor Size |
22″ |
21.5″ |
| Graphics Card |
ATI Radeon HD3450 (256Mb) |
ATI Radeon HD 4670 256MB |
| Keyboard |
Logitech Wireless |
Apple Wireless |
| Mouse |
Logitech Nano MX Revolution |
Apple Mighty Mouse |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Price |
£895.35 inc VAT |
£1,199 inc VAT |
Yep, think I know which one I’d go for…
Posted: Tue 1 December, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Customer Services, Geeky, Own Business, Work-related |
Yet again today I’ve been involved in an argument about the costs of Dell vs. Apple laptops. It gets really old, really fast.
All the normal excuses get trollied out, “They’re not that more expensive really”, “Apple Macs are lovely, and built from a solid block of aluminium”, “Dells fucking suck” so forth, so fifth.
So for the sheer fuck of it, I decided to do a comparison. Dell vs. Apple Mac vs. HP (as one person recommended). HP isn’t really fair, as they don’t appear to offer much in the way of customisation.
The spec : An “office-ready” machine. (i.e. not Dell’s low-end inspiron, but corporate Latitude). 4Gb RAM. 500Gb hard disk (or highest size possible). Best possible monitor/screen resolution. And what we come up with is this :
|
HP |
Dell |
Apple |
| Model |
HP Compaq 6730b |
Latitude 6500 |
Macbook Pro |
| Screen Size |
15″ |
15″ |
15″ |
| Processor |
2.53Ghz Core Duo |
2.53Ghz Core Duo |
2.53Ghz Core Duo |
| RAM |
4GB |
4GB |
4GB |
| Hard Disk |
250Gb |
250Gb |
250Gb |
| Resolution |
1280×800 |
1920×1200 |
1440×900 |
| DVD Drive |
Not Specced |
8x DVD +/RW |
Superdrive 8x (DVD +R DL/DVD) |
| Additional Info, as requested by Matt in the comments |
| Dimensions |
WxH : 35.6×26.6cm
Depth: 3.4cm |
WxH : 35.8×25.7cm
Depth : 3.3cm |
WxH : 36.4×24.9cm
Depth: 2.41cm |
| Weight |
2.7Kg |
2.3Kg |
2.5Kg |
| |
| Price |
£767 inc VAT |
£1105 VAT |
£1299 incl VAT |
Not the most convincing (once you’ve added in VAT – Dell and HP don’t show it ’til afterwards) but still the Apple is nearly £200 more than it’s nearest competitor.
Interesting though.
Posted: Wed 11 November, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Creativity, Geeky, Technology |
via bsag, I think this slimline plug is an absolutely fantastic idea.
UK 3-pin plugs are pretty sturdy, but if you’re carrying a couple of power cords around – or phone chargers, laptop power bricks etc. – then you quickly become aware of how bulky they are too.
The design of the slimline plug is aimed at getting round that, and seems to work really well. Even better are the adapters that allow three or four slimline plugs to be used in a space similar to that of a normal three-pin plug.
Posted: Mon 19 October, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Domestic, Geeky, Thoughts |
Today the BBC has been carrying the story about “Millions” being taken in by scareware scams, where pop-up ads on web pages tell people they’ve got a virus and to download ‘this antivirus software’ to fix it. At best the ‘antivirus software’ is useless, and the person’s credit-card number is sold for use in credit-card fraud. At worst, the “anti-virus” actually contains viruses (virii?) and trojans that make the computer less secure, rather than more.
Now of course there are lots of idots out there who will fall for this kind of thing. But to my mind, it’s not just those people’s faults – both PC Manufacturers and ISPs need to take some of the responsibility too.
It doesn’t take a lot to get decent anti-virus software. Go to Grisoft, and get the free AVG anti-virus software (free for personal use) and job done. There’s plenty of others too – Kaspersky, Avast, so on, so forth.
But people still have to know about these, rather than using the clusterfuck shitpieces like Norton, McAfee that come with most PCs and that people never use – or just assume that it’s installed, so Everything’s OK. Not knowing that they need to subscribe, and make sure it’s updated regularly (for which read daily, rather than monthly)
So why don’t the ISPs supply a free antivirus like AVG, Avast or Kaspersky on the CD you invariably get? Why don’t PC builders install a free anti-virus with the PC rather than the paid-for POS software? (Of course, we know that PC Builders like Dell etc. must get some whacking kickback fee for providing paid-for software, which is the reason)
If computers were provided with free anti-virus that didn’t require any further financial investment or effort from Joe Everyday-User, there’d be a lot less problems of this sort.
Posted: Tue 15 September, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Geeky, Technology, Work-related |
As part of setting up the new laptop over the weekend, I’ve installed (among other things) AVG for anti-virus and Firefox as my main web-browser.
Bizarrely, I found that when I was entering a URL in Firefox, the Enter key wasn’t working – I had to click on the ‘Go’ arrow in order to get it to go to the URL. Now, I never click to go to a URL, always just type it in and whack Enter, so this was going to be something that was deeply annoying if it stayed around.
It turns out that AVG installs a toolbar/add-on in Firefox called “AVG Safesearch” and for some reason it’s that add-on that was breaking the functionality for the Enter key. I don’t know why this is the case – it strikes me as just something that hasn’t been tested properly.
But if you’re having a problem with the Enter key not working in Firefox, the first port of call is to check you’re not running AVG Safesearch. As soon as it’s disabled, everything works fine.
Most odd.
Posted: Mon 14 September, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Geeky, Own Business, Work-related |
Following on from the recent post where I wrote about the fact my current laptop is/was dying at a great rate of knots, I ended up ordering a new one and it arrived (without prior warning, which is always a bit of a worry) on Friday.
It’s nothing hugely special, just a Dell Inspiron thing, but it will more than fill my requirements for the forseeable future. There’s a twin-core beast of a processor, 4Gb of memory, and a 500Gb hard-drive, coupled to a monitor with a 1600×900 resolution. I got the extended battery, as it’ll still get used on a regular basis while travelling and so on.
And even better, at the time I ordered it it cost me exactly £500. If it lasts like the last one did, it’ll be 2012 by the time I think about getting another one. God only knows what the basic spec will be by then!
It’s got a couple of idiosyncracies – I think the weirdest thing is that for the first time ever, I’ve got a machine that doesn’t have any indicator lights on it for hard-drive, battery charging, etc. It’s *very* strange to not have them – or maybe this is a new trend that I’ve just not spotted ’til now.
As always, I’ve spent time over the weekend copying files over, archiving/deleting stuff, sorting out software installations and the like, but I think we’re pretty much there now. I’m still missing my CS3 install, but I’ll get the disc back for that sometime (and there’s no real hurry) and then it’ll all be done.
So it’s nothing hugely special – but it’ll do, and it cost me less than half what a commensurate MacBook would do. I think I’ll stick with what I’ve got, thanks.
[Update : Having looked at Apple’s on-line store, an equivalent MacBook Pro would’ve cost me from £1,500 – so I’ve got what I need for one third of the price of the Mac. Can’t think why I don’t want to go Apple, can you?
Posted: Fri 28 August, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Geeky, Getting Organised, Own Business, Thoughts, Work-related |
I know I’ve written about this before (on a couple of occasions, to be fair) but it does now look like my laptop is seriously dying.
In fairness, it’s just under three years old now (Bought it in mid-September 2006) and in that time it’s been heavily used- lugged around from Bracknell to Cambridge for three months, used between Attleborough and Cambridge for another eighteen months all told, used daily at home, taken on holidays, and now being used a lot in London. In that time, it’s spent most of the travel-time rattling round in a backpack, sharing space with all my other daily junk. So it’s been beaten within an inch of its life – the CD tray is cracked and just about unusable, and there’s a few other knocks, scratches and cracks.
They keyboard has been ropy for a while, but now it’s badly interrupting my typing flow when I have to beat the shit out of certain keys ( A, U, M and N, for example – non-essential keys all. *ahem*) in order to get a response out of them.
Finally, it’s beginning to wheeze a bit. During this week I’ve had a few instances where it’s lagged massively, just from the stuff that’s been running at once. I know, I could run less stuff at once, but sometimes that’s just impractical – I’ve been using it all, so I’ve needed it.
And as such, I’m thinking that it may just be time for getting a new laptop. It needs some thinking about, but the need is becoming stronger, for sure.