Is Apple rattled by Samsung? Let’s hope so

Monday, March 18th, 2013

Defensive, prickly and occasionally flat-out disingenuous, Apple’s attempt to swing undecided buyers to the iPhone is great news. For Android users, it confirms that the long wait for an alternative mobile platform that you can bring home to your parents is almost over. Apple’s anti-Android potshots are an indication that Android has finally come of age for consumers.

That’s good news for everyone. If Apple now sees Android as a real threat, it will have to find ways to stop users drifting away. In the long run, Apple on the back foot should mean nicer, better-value products. In the short term it means snippy, linkbait anti-Android marketing barely worth the HTML it’s written on – but still, Apple’s rattled. That can only be a good thing.

(more…)

Your package is in the bin: worst courier ever?

Thursday, February 28th, 2013

I arrived home last night to find this card on my doormat. For those of you unable to read the handwriting, it says “PTK in blue bin”. What PTK stands for, I have no idea, but it was the three words that followed that caused me to utter naughty words. “In blue bin” refers to the recycling wheelie bin that sits on my front drive.

Yes, that’s right. The Royal Mail decided the safest place to leave my expensive box of electronics was in the recycling bin.

(more…)

Windows 8: a touch of madness

Monday, February 18th, 2013

For the last week or so I’ve been using Windows 8 and, for the most part it hasn’t been the least bit horrid.

Yes, it forced me to restart this morning just as I sat down to get some work done and, yes, the procedure to actually turn off the computer is like a putative storyline scribbled on a napkin by Franz Kafka but later rejected for being too complicated. And yes, the way PDFs, JPEGs and a few other file types insist on opening full-screen (how many PDFs are that important?) is jarring, but still, most of my work is done in a browser these days, making the operating system in the background irrelevant most of the time.

It is, as operating systems go, perfectly fine.

(more…)

Poor service killed Jessops, not the internet

Friday, January 11th, 2013

Jessops has announced the closure of all of its stores. The story on administrator PriceWaterhouseCoopers’ website points to obvious factors such as competition from the internet and supermarkets, and the fact that it has been in financial trouble before. But there is another story and it’s the one told by the consumers.

I am a professional photographer and, as such, walking into high street photographic stores used to mean receiving good advice from like-minded and competent individuals who were not trying to “pull any wool”. Unfortunately, that is no longer the case, and online retailers or specialist stores are the only places where I feel that the technical support actually has something to offer above and beyond my knowledge.

Aside from technical competence, I really want to see a company that is hungry to please me as a consumer and keen to offer something extra on delivery, and perhaps even bail me out when I need urgent help.

(more…)

The world’s worst phishing attack

Tuesday, January 8th, 2013

It’s not often I get actual, handwritten mail sent to me at the office, let alone from South Africa. So I was intrigued when the envelope above landed on my desk yesterday. Was it an invite to come and meet Nelson Mandela? Fan mail from afar? No, it was the worst phishing attempt in the history of mankind.

(more…)

Instagram scam: how the media was sucked in

Wednesday, December 19th, 2012

And so, with all the predictability of an EastEnders plot line, Instagram has started back-pedalling on the controversial “we own your photos” policy that it had no intention of implementing in the first place.

It was such a predictable PR stunt that we told you exactly how it was going to pan out yesterday morning:

(more…)

Where you can’t watch football online

Tuesday, November 6th, 2012

A press release arrives from the BPI, the zealous defenders of copyright holders. It has contributed to a new website – The Content Map – a portal for “British digital content services” that  is “encouraging UK online consumers to explore more than 150 authorised websites and platforms offering films, TV programmes, music, video games, e-books and sports broadcasts”. Because the reason people turn to file-sharing sites is because they’ve never heard of LoveFilm and iPlayer…

Anyway, being a footy fan, I head straight to the Sports section, eager to find out about all the legal ways I can watch the beautiful game live online. “Click on your favourite sport below and see the different ways for you to watch online,” the website implores, which sounds just the ticket.

And then I look at the four websites listed under football: the official sites of the Premier League, the FA Cup, the UEFA Champions League and the Europa League. The first two show no live football whatsoever, and the second two only deliver live streams via partners such as Sky, ITV and ESPN. The aforementioned Sky, which shows more live online football than any other broadcaster in this country, isn’t listed.

If the rights holders can’t even point us to legitimate streams of their own content, is it any wonder that people turn to file-sharing services and iffy foreign TV feeds?

Into the bowels of hell with InDesign

Thursday, July 5th, 2012

Before we begin it’s important to categorically state that what I contribute here is a personal opinion. Not a review. Not a judgement on behalf of PC Pro the brand. They’re good people. They know stuff. Here’s what I know: every single day I work with InDesign is a living hell.

This is partially my fault. I use it for one week a month without any sort of training whatsoever. What I know about InDesign I’ve picked up through bloody minded necessity. A former technology journalist, I’m now a travel writer by trade, happiest knocking out Word docs and editing photos in Photoshop. InDesign is my life’s third wheel, and I hate every single moment I’m strapped to its rim.

I hate the way it lumbers across my machine, dragging its toolkit of horrific torture icons behind it. Do you want this pointer, or this other basically identical pointer? Tell you what; while you mull it over I’ll have a little crash, see how that goes.

(more…)

Why are laptop screens so far behind mobiles?

Thursday, May 10th, 2012

Pop quiz, hotshot. Of all the visitors to this website in the month of writing, what percentage arrived using 1,920 x 1,080, Full HD screens? Make yourself a cuppa and have a think, we’ll come back to the answer later.

In the meantime, you’ll no doubt have noticed we reviewed the new iPad last month. As is customary, it attracted all sorts of negative reports at launch, from teardowns showing it’s the most tightly sealed, least recyclable iPad yet, right up to Daily Mail hysteria about it burning people’s hands. But there’s one feature no-one in their right mind was criticising: the screen.

Love or hate Apple’s methods, few can deny that its products drive technological progress. When Apple first introduced the Retina display on the iPhone 4, minds were set racing as to where this would eventually take us: if high-pixel-density displays were viable on a mobile phone, with Apple’s huge economies of scale, how long before they’d spread upwards? (more…)

Android fans: pay for your apps, please

Friday, April 27th, 2012

The Football Manager series is one of the world’s most popular gaming franchises, and no-one could deny that its iOS version has been a success. The recently released Android version, though, isn’t doing quite as well, with studio boss Miles Jacobson claiming that, at last count, the piracy rate for his game was at 5:1 in favour of illegally acquired copies. (more…)