August, 2005 – David Hughes

23 August 2005

Things Ain’t What They Used to Be

I was beginning to wonder if I was just unlucky or fussy or both as almost everything I buy these days seems to be faulty when I get it home or goes wrong quickly; I’m pleased to see that I am not alone.

I mentioned this to a friend after his second Apple Powerbook power supply failed within days of buying the Powerbook and he’s beaten me to posting about it.
Looking at what’s gone wrong recently it seem that spending money and buying brands no longer guarantees that something will work or last:

iMac – first one had a noisy PSU fan
Mont Blanc fountain pen – has been for repair three times in less than 12 months
Baby’s cot mobile – on/off switch did not work
Mamas and Papas push chair – faulty rain cover and missing parts
iPod Photo – headphone socket failed
2 Powerbook power supplies

To name just a few.

Reading my list you do have to wonder about the quality of Apple hardware…

15 August 2005

Improving My Memory

I’ve just upgraded the memory on my iMac from 512Mb to 1Gb. and it was amazingly easy.

Just undo three screws that hold the back of the iMac on, remove the back, pop out the old memory stick, pop in the new sticks, replace the back, do up the three screws, cross your fingers and switch on. It works.

Having built many PCs and seen teh insides of even more over the years the insides of the iMac are a work of art in comparison. No wires, none of those awful flat HDD cables – all very elegant.

Tiger works OK with 512Mb but with 1Gb it feels much smoother.

15 August 2005

Jack Into Your Ono Sendai

NTT are releasing a 3D web browser that looks a little (just a little) like how I imagined cyberspace to look when reading Neuromancer by William Gibson although my cyberspace was much darker and a little more Tronlike.

Neuromancer is one of my top books of all time. It blew me away when I read it and that was when I was firmly a ‘cyberpunk’ as a collegue of the time called me. When it was released in 1984 it must have been even more awesome – William Gibson invented the term cyberspace in Neuromancer.

I loved the idea of visually moving through a virtual world representing cyberspace; where sites where portrayed as physical objects that you could interact with or attack.

If you haven’t read Neuromancer put your mouse down now and go and do so.

11 August 2005

iMac Number Two

Collected my second iMac from john Lewis this morning. I rushed home, plugged it in and with my breath held switched it on…

There’s fan noise but the awful whime the first one had is not there. Hurrah.

’ve spent the day loading it up with my software and I’m very happy indeed. I’ve just paid £7 for a lifetime membership to a website specialising in widescreen a very high resolution wallpaper as there is a bit of a shortage of both on the net if you have a widescreen computer check out Plasma Design.

10 August 2005

iMac Continued

I’m pleased to say that the Apple Store happily accepted my iMac back and gave me a complete refund.

I’ll be picking up my new iMac from my local John Lewis store tomorrow AM. I really hope that this one will be quieter.

8 August 2005

Very Disappointing

I finished work early on Friday and headed across London to the very lovely Apple Store on Regents street.

I was standing around for waiting for the usual email checking foreign student to clear off so I could have a last confirmatory play with a 20” iMac when a member of staff approached me. Upon finding out that I wanted to buy something rather than merely access Hotmail he immediately removed Sebastian from the iMac – hurrah.

Now, I don’t know if his name was actually Sebastian but since the greatest advert ever was taken off the air they’ll always be Sebastian (‘all hair gel and fancy loafers’) to me.

Anyway, I played with the iMac, established that extra RAM wasn’t needed and handed over my credit card.

I hadn’t realised how heavy a G5 iMac would be and so got a taxi to the station although the walk from the platform at my home station resulted in very sore hands.

I spent the evening loading up all my data and settings and re-installing OS X onto my old Mac Mini for which eBay beckons. Only once that I had finished did I start to realise that the iMac was rather loud. I can accept some fan noise and air noise and the G5 needs air moving as it runs very hot but one of the fans makes a really nasty noise. A bloody shame and annoyance.

This morning I phoned Apple Care as I’d splashed out on the extra warranty and support. It took ages to get through and deal with the very slow and almost incoherent call handler (I think his name was Sebastian) but I finally established that somebody would come to my house tomorrow and try to fix the iMac if they couldn’t they would take it away.

“Excellent” I thought that should be nice and easy. That is until that is the company that carry out the repairs called me. They informed me that actually all they do is send out a courier and that I would be without the iMac for 9 working days.

I called Apple Care back and the chap I spoke to (not Sebastian this time) explained that Apple tells them one thing but reality is different. Luckily I can return my iMac within 14 days.

So Apple Care is worthless and my iMac is noisy and is heading back to the Apple Store tomorrow for a full refund.

I pick up a new iMac from my local John Lewis on Thursday as I figure that if it goes wrong they are at least local and even better I get a 2 year warranty for free.