Category Archives: IT

As I found when I installed the latest edition of Mac OSx onto my macbook the just downloaded install media self destructs after it has finished reading it’s message. In order to prevent this from happening you have to take a copy of the installation DMG from the package contents prior to installation. Looks like I’ll be downloading another copy of Lion shortly. In addition Lion seems to create a 650mb partition called Recovery HD but this doesn’t appear to include the installation media which requires another download from the Apple servers. Not very friendly for people who don’t have easy access to the internet like myself. Given the Recovery partition doesn’t include the installation media I have to wonder why it needs to be as large as it is – surely on base Macbook Air this is significant for … Continue reading →

John Gruber on why Windows 8 is flawed as a response to the iPad They can make buttons more “touch friendly” all they want, but they’ll never make Excel for Windows feel right on a touchscreen UI.

I’m not convinced by what I’ve seen of the Windows 8 interface demoed at the D9 Conference today. It’s the first real departure to the design that originated in Windows 95 and having been around for over 15 years quite a number of users the “START” menu is the only interface to computing that they have ever experienced. Fast launching of apps from a tile-based Start screen, which replaces the Windows Start menu with a customizable, scalable full-screen view of apps. Sounds awfully like Windows phone 7 and would suit a mobile device, but having never used it myself I’m uncertain to how I would find it on the desktop. Could a change be as good as a holiday?

The guardian uk on the Dell XPS-15 (which looks remarkably like a Macbook Pro) XPS-15 the world’s thinnest… apart from any thinner 15-inch laptops it wasn’t compared against.

Jean-Louis Gassée comments on the recent Microsoft acquisition of Skype and puts the case that they would have been better off buying Nokia. Why did Microsoft pay $8.5B — 10 times the company’s revenue – for a business that has changed hands so many times, never made money, and comes with substantial debt?