Category Archives: Apple
Waken Your Synology From It’s Slumber!
Having the facility to store data using the Synology DS1513+ and the Synology DS212 NAS units, means that I can relax knowing that I have access to all my data as and when I need it.
During the day the DS212 is used as the main workhorse, with the DS1513+ used to take all the backups of data from the DS212 on predefined time through the day. along with other devices on the network that all have their own space on the DS1513+.
At night, the DS1513+ unit is not really needed, but as it’s locked up in a secure location, going in to turn it off in the evening and back on in the morning would have been a real pain, but thankfully the Synology NAS devices have the option to set them to power down and power back up at predefined times.
While this all worked fine, I then found that I needed access to the data on the DS1513+ while the unit was powered off. Initially I thought I would just have to wait until the unit powered up in the morning, rather than having to unlock everything to get in and power it up early, but then I remembered that the LAN ports have an option for WOL (Wake On Lan), but had never gave it much thought… until now!
As my primary computer is an iMac, I decided to look around and see what would be required to wake the Synology NAS unit from being turned off. The help section on the Synology unit itself mentions applications to do this, but does not specify anything in particular, so the reliable Google search was undertaken to see what was there.
I have to say that for the Mac, I did find it difficult to find anything, but finally found a web site: http://www.readpixel.com/wakeonlan/ that had a FREE utility called WakeOnLan.
A quick download, and installation, and I was presented with a list of devices on the LAN. A simple click on the Synology device and tell it to wake up, and a few seconds later the unit was back up and running again!
To test it again, I went into the Synolgy unit, told it to shut down, waited, and then told it to start back up again using the utility, and it did so with ease! I did try and use the utility to put the Synology DS1513+ to sleep, but no matter what i tried it would not do this, so I just use the DSM interface to do this as usual.
So, if you are a Synology user with a Mac, and like to save a bit of money by turning things off, but have these items in a hard to get location, than have a look at WOL on anything you are using and check out this application to see if it will make things easier for you.
UPDATE: With the WakeOnLan software, go to preferences and make sure that the option to SCAN AFTER WAKEONLAN LAUNCH is not ticked once it has done it’s initial scan. If you have this on, once you turn the computer off and the NAS is asleep, when you restart the computer again it will not be able to find the NAS device. If that did happen with you, the way around this is to make sure you make a note of the IP address of the NAS unit as well as the MAC address of the unit as well. Once you have that, all you have to do is manually add the device to the WakeOnLan software and it will allow you to restart the NAS whenever you wish.
If you would like to see the video’s I have created of my Synology equipment please visit:
Aye think I’ve found some very nice Gear!
Glasgow based company AyeGear has released the H12 Hoodie onto the market (November 12th 2012), aimed at the person who likes to carry a variety of goodies with them while traveling.
Rather than rush in to review the H12, I have spent a week with the garment on in a variety of situations, just to see how it felt, and what sort of reaction I got from other people if they noticed anything different about what I was wearing!
I ordered the H12 from the AyeGear web site at http://www.ayegear.com and after I had actually placed the order, I got an email a little later on to let me know that the goods had been shipped and when to expect them. A nice personal touch and very fast service!
The garment arrived the next day, well packaged. On taking the H12 out, the first thing that impressed me was the quality of the fabric itself. I have spent quite a while looking at the range of products on the AyeGear site, but was always unable to make up my mind about the actual fabric quality and texture, as a photograph can only show you show much. The H12 has a very luxurious feel to it, feels well made, and looks very stylish as well (80% Cotton/20% Polyester).
Now, I’m not your average hoodie person, and at 49 years old, maybe some would think I’m a little too old for this sort of garment. Actually… you would be wrong! The H12 fits well, and considering I have a few pounds I would like to shed, that has to be a bonus!
So, after putting it on, a man’s first port of call is where to stick his hands!
The two main side pockets are at the right level, and the right cut angle to get the hands in, and sit in a comfortable position. It’s an instinctive thing for guys! As soon as the hands go in, you find that in the right hand pocket there is a smaller pouch for coins and an elasticated strap for holding the likes of a small bottle of water or Irn Bru in place. But even better, and I missed this initially, just up a little higher in the pocket there is a small strap that you can clip a set of keys onto so that they are not lost! I don’t understand why this sort of strap is not a standard issue with guys clothing, as we always seem to lose our keys!
Slightly back from the right hand pocket there is a zipped pocket, that you can put in a pocket camera or anything else with these dimensions. The zip is a quality zip, and not the cheaper nasty ones that seem to jam on you after a single use. Top marks for that!
At the top right there is another zip, and opening that you can put in glasses, a phone, wallet etc… and then inside the top right there is a special pocket that holds your mobile phone or MP3 player, with a see through cover that allows you to touch the front panel of your device and change tracks, answer calls etc.
Now, for me and my body size, not faulting the garment at all here, I found that when I had my iPhone4S inside the right hand pocket, it was too tall for me to lock the device into the pocket with the Velcro tape, but that really isn’t a problem as the device is held in place very well.
My only problem with trying to use my iPhone4S in this pocket is that I could not turn the phone around and see the front very easily, and basically had to twist the pocket hard around and then get my glasses on to see the front of it, since it is so high up and close to the face!
Now, anyone younger, who has better eyesight will have no problems at all I reckon, but a degenerating body mass such as mine clearly had an issue with this, so I just keep the phone in my side pocket instead and there is no more issue to worry about!
On the left hand side pocket, you have the same smaller pouch for coins etc, and there is also a small stitched hole leading inside the H12 so you can route up a cable for your earphone’s etc. So, as you can see, if you have an issue with the obvious pocket for your MP3 player then you have an alternative location already set up to take your device and cabling!
Up to the top left, inside, we have another zipped pocket that can hold a wallet, passport etc, and a handy pouch for inserting a pen or a fine Cuban Cigar!
On each arm there are a couple of pockets with press down buttons that are handy for holding smaller items such as tickets, receipts, coins etc.
Around the neck area there is the facility to route your earphone cables neatly away so that the H12 is always ready for you to pick up and use with the MP3 player of your choice. A little tip, if you find the loops that you insert the headphone through to rub your neck a little when wearing, just tuck them under the Velcro tab and you will never even know they are there!
So, all in all there are plenty of places that you can put things, and just be aware that the usual locations you keep things in currently, may have to change slightly to accommodate the H12’s current pocket locations.
So, after a week of wearing it how do I really feel about the H12 now that the initial excitement is over?
The H12 really is a very good quality garment indeed, and I’d say that the cost of it is very acceptable.
When out and about I now have to aim higher to check my wallet location, but apart from that all the other pockets have been put to good use in the field, and even wearing the H12 in customer locations, it’s smart and stylish and there have already been a few people asking where I bought the H12 from, so maybe a few orders will start to wing their way into Ayegear soon!
The test for any garment is how the thing will wash, and at the moment I have yet to do this, so will have to see if my wife can wash it without destroying it in the washing machine… Watch this space for that fatal day… but I reckon it should be perfectly fine.
I suggest that you should look at the H12 if you are in the market for a hoodie with additional pockets, but you really do need to order one of these garments up to appreciate the overall quality of it!
Why not pop over to their web site, have a look for yourself and see what you think… now for me.. the decision is… should I now order up some different colours… or get the AyeGear 22 Jacket…….
I have put up a short video of me doing a little twirl of the H12., just to give you an idea of how it looks on my particular body shape!
MICROSOFT RULES? Unless YOU know better…
Microsoft Small Business Server 2003/2008/2011 has been one of the best value, best featured packages that Microsoft has ever released, but sadly the power that be have completely lost the plot and are no longer going to develop the Small Business Server line, so SBS 2011 is the final version.
With this happening, there is a massive market now going to be left struggling to find an all in one, affordable solution, and I believe this could be the time for some other company to snatch this sector if they actually have the right solution on offer.
Through the years I have become so fed up and tired of listening to people arguing about operating systems, what is the best, what is the worst, who sucks at this etc… so once again I am going to ask people to stand up or shut up about how great their chosen platform is by getting them to enter the real world of opportunities that are about to be opened up by Microsoft’s crazy visions of dropping the best all-in-one solution there is for Small Business.
Microsoft haters, Apple haters, Linux Haters, time for you to put all this nonsense to end once and for all with regards the real world of business!!
So, here’s the scenario, and it’s up to YOU to provide the solution… if you can of course…..
A small office, with 5 computers all running the same desktop operating system.
Server for storing their data.
- The need to have an office suite in place for word processing, spreadsheet and email.
- The email must be on each desktop, and there has to be the facility for the sharing of diaries, and sharing of email accounts for certain users. Internal email as well as external email must be in place.
- They must have the facility for remote access to their email and documents from home, and access to their email from iPhone, Blackberry etc.
- There must be the facility for creating individual user accounts, with security options to restrict access to certain folders (company accounts and the likes).
- Backup of data should be available on external hard drives, or offline via ftp.
So, come on now everyone who staunchly defends their operating systems, their great applications and their hardware! Time to put something on the table, and not in a half arsed guessing manner, present a hardware/software solution that will allow a small business to do the same, or more, than can be done with Microsoft Small Business Server.
If you constantly bitch online about stuff (like I do) you have to be prepared to put up something that can justify what it is that gets on your goat, and also get ready for other people to come back at you with idea’s and solutions that you maybe did not really know about… and this is where I lay it on the line and say this.
I have yet to find any software solution that is as easy to configure, install and maintain as Small Business Server has been through the years. The whole package has been an incredible collection of components, released at a really great price, and as yet; I believe there is nothing else on the market that compares to it for the complete functionality and solution that it provides to a small business.
C’mon now, don’t be shy, provide the solution that can do all that Small Business Server currently does for a business. Who knows, if you can, present a solution, I may see myself shifting to it since Microsoft will be leaving a major gap in this sector wide open from next year, and I’m just curious who will have the tech savvy to snatch this opportunity up.
So… the simplest of things for your platform of choice to be able to do, is set in front of you. I just have this feeling that there is not going to be any affordable solution presented…. Why not prove me completely wrong?
SYNOLOGY DS212 NAS UNIT – 4 MONTHS UPDATE
The Internet is full of unboxing video’s and people telling you how wonderful some product is, when in fact they have only opened it up or used it for 5 minutes… and sometimes that instant gratification of receiving a new toy to play with vanishes rather quickly, and you move on to something else to brag about having.
I did an unboxing video of the Synology DS212 NAS unit on the 3rd February 2012, and initially the look and feel of it impressed me, and in turn, I created another video of the device having its x2 3TB hard Drive array broken live, and that too impressed me.
But, time has went on, the device has been running 24/7 and it has been getting used for a wide variety of tasks, so I think I can now come back with an honest opinion on this product and say that it’s so good, I am seriously thinking of buying the DS412+ model that offers me double the capacity that I have at the moment!
So, you may be asking yourself, why is it so good? To put it simply, the reason the Synology DS212 is so good is down to the features that are contained in DSM (the unit’s operating system) that just offer so much, and they all work for me perfectly in a way that really does put many of the older NAS products to shame that I have used in the past.
As it stands, I have a DS212 with two 3TB drives configured as a mirrored array, so have 3TB of storage available that is mirrored to a second drive, so that the chances of losing data is minimised.
I have configured the DS212 with the following features:
AUDIO STATION – Play and organise stored music and radio
ITUNES SERVER – Play multimedia content to ipad/iphone and Apple TV.
MEDIA SERVER – Stream audio/video/images to PS3 and other DLNA/UPnP devices.
DOWNLOAD STATION – Torrent/P2P download manager.
ANTIVIRUS – Checks any downloads or data that are put on the NAS box.
FILESTATION – Lets me organise and move files around.
Using the ITunes Server, I can now store all of my music on the DS212 and have that music stream out to my Apple TV, new IPad and IPhone 4S, and keep specific songs on the devices themselves for when I am out on the road. As well as that, I can also store my movies on the unit as well as do the same! Massive storage with instant access, it really is something you need to try out to understand just how great this is to use.
Using the Media server is similar to the ITunes server but I can stream all my content to my PS3 with ease, and this handles formats that the ITunes side may have issues with at times. The PS3 just finds the NAS box and you click what you want to listen to or view.
The Download Station is a fantastic P2P download application that really is very neat to use. I set up a folder that is monitored on the device, and just save or copy any torrent files into that folder and the software auto detects it and downloads it all for you, so you focus on obtaining while the software handles the receiving!
Since there may be some nasty files out there that you might copy across to the unit, the supplied Antivirus runs and protects your data for you with free updates done automatically.
And then we come to File Station. This allows you to quickly get around all of your folders and copy and delete files in an instant. Simple to use, and really does make things a breeze to keep things organised.
Of course, writing about these features is not quite the same as seeing them, but you can actually test all of the software out yourself on a real system by visiting their LIVE DEMO.
Now, you might be thinking… I have a PC/Mac and can do all of this as well… but then you are missing the point about this device. This small unit draws a lot less power than any PC, and is easier to manage and maintain. Also, all of the applications are in the device and work, perfectly right away. No need to go searching for software and worrying about how to share things out… it’s all in the box…
And… if you have a number of people in your home/office you can set up users and groups with passwords to restrict what can and cannot be accessed on the device. It also hooks into Windows domains with ease, and mine integrated into my Small Business Server 2008 system with no issues at all.
So, my original feelings still stand and are more solid than ever on this product, it really is something you should consider if you are on the market for a storage solution that actually does a lot more!
New iPad – Is it really what I need?
Today was the day that the world could relax, well, most of it, as Apple released the new iPad to the slobbering hoards and anyone lucky enough have one would have been in a state of extreme bliss at being so lucky to have it in their hands.
Well, that’s not true, as there is one person who is not really excited, and in fact, is in a state of indecisiveness on whether to actually keep the new iPad he has! Yes, that person is me!!!
Ok, stop your spluttering and put away all the sharp object you have at hand to sort me out and let me tell you how the day has went.
I never owned the other two iPad devices as I never felt they had a use for my social and business needs. With the new iPad specifications announced, and screen shots shown, I got that tingle that told me…. Be careful, you want it, you desire it, but do you really need it or have a serious use for it! Needless to say, blind “I WANT IT” took over sanity and I then sat back and waited for it to arrive.
Now, here’s a thing. Why is it that you can order a product up from a company, but they will only deliver during the day when most of us are working? Even asking for Saturday delivery from some companies usually becomes a nightmare with the stuff never arriving… So surely some firm needs to think of evening deliveries for products and charge and even charge an extra tenner for the inconvenience.
Sorry, I’m moving away from the iPad, so anyway, Friday the 16th was the delivery date for my new iPad, and of course, being self-employed, if I am not out and about, I’m not earning money. So I had to make the choice of lose money or go and earn, so I took the tactic of get out in the morning fast, and get back as fast as I could as well!
Cutting a long story short… 4:30pm and the device was delivered!
I got the camera out, and started to create another exciting unboxing video of the new iPad 32GB, Black device. I have to say that there was no real sense of excitement over this unboxing, and my first impressions are that the device certainly looks nice, and feel nice, but will it really be any use to me on a daily basis?
Setting the device up took around 5 minutes and I have all my apps, contacts and photos etc. all in place. And then it was down to using the device and see how it performed.
Firstly, the device does feel very nice…. The screen is really REALLY nice, and all the apps I use on my iPhone4S are there, plus a few other iPad apps so I have all the general stuff I need. But, the niggle was still there about the device, and even as I am writing this on my MBP, and after having my wife trying it out, it’s nice, but there is something that is just niggling away at me…. And after a few hours, I can now put my finger on it…..
It really is a device solely for consumption, and the creative aspect of it is limited to very basic things such as tweeting, Facebook, and general non serious productivity.
Ok, I know it’s still early days yet, as I have yet to go out on the road with the device and see if I can seriously support customers remotely, and create the content I need for my daily business needs. Yet, I still have this feeling that it maybe not be the device I need for work, and my entertainment side can still be handled by my MBP.
My wife raised a very interesting point though, and here again it proves the points I raised above… She said the iPad would be handy when in the car (me driving of course) and handy if we went on holiday or a short break. Allowing us (her of course) to catch up on FaceBook, and various web sites…. Once again re-enforcing the feelings that I have that it’s just a non-serious device.
I have the device to try out and can of course return it to Apple within 14 days for a full refund if I still feel it’s not going to be the sort of thing I need. Time will tell, and hopefully it will be still with my after day 14… we will soon see.
Having a Small One Is OK!
If you read a previous post, “DOES SIZE REALLY MATTER?” you will know that I took out the inbuilt hard drive in my MacBook Pro and replaced it with a 64GB SSD drive.
I decided to do this as a test to see if size really matters, and after a bit of time (23/10/2011 is when I installed it) I have to say that I still have around 30GB of space available, and that’s after me installing my apps and using the MBP daily for all the stuff I need to do. I don’t store a lot of music, nor do I do much video work on the MBP, so that would account for there being plenty of space available, but it does show that while it’s alway since to have huge drive capacity to store things, that does lead to sloppy data storage as well as holding onto a lot of junk.
Speed wise, I have to say that YES the system felt faster loading up, but after that I’d not have a clue if I had a hard drive in it or an SSD…. Why do I say this? Well I have now inserted the hard drive back into the MBP and am now testing the SSD on my PlayStation 3 here to see what different that makes!!!
So once again, the smaller devices can be used pretty well if you are watching your budget, and just ignore anyone who moans at you for not buying a size that they have bought… trust me, enjoy what you can afford and ignore everyone else!
DOES SIZE REALLY MATTER?
IS A 64GB SSD – TOO SMALL?
To evaluate SSD technology, I bought a Crucial 64GB drive a while back (video here) and have been using it on the main Windows 7 PC here ever since.
I consume and store a lot of data, so you would think that this device would have been too small for any serious use? Not really, if you decide to manage exactly what the drive is being used for, and for me that was for speeding up the operating system, with my data stored on 2TB drives attached to the main system. It has worked fine, been very quick, and has in fact pushed me into being more thoughtful on what I do and where I store data, rather than just dumping it onto the desktop in a folder!
I have been tempted to get another SSD drive for use in my MacBook Pro, but once again, I don’t want to spend a lot of money… so I thought I would do a test to see if I could manage with the Crucial 64GB SSD inside the MBP, and see how long it would take before I encountered storage issues!
So, I removed the internal 320GB hard drive and replaced it with the Crucial 64GB SSD (video here) and proceeded to install Lion onto it via a DVD I had made earlier.
After, what seemed like an eternity, Lion finally installed and I than had to download all the new updates that recently came out for iCloud iTunes, iPhoto etc…
Yes, this actually felt like I was back to a Windows XP machine and having to wait ages for it to install and update fully!
Windows 7 systems are up and running in 20 minutes…. Well the one’s I have done and that’s a lot, so let’s say well done to Microsoft on this side of things!!!
So… after the installation of Lion, and all my applications have been installed, my email configured what am I left with to play with??? 36GB of space!
On my MBP I don’t store music, I don’t store much video or Photographs, that’s all handled by my I7 27″ iMac, so (in theory) I really should be ok with the amount of space I have left… but as I mentioned at the start of this post, this is a long-term evaluation, and I’ll update this post as time goes on, and that way you get a serious and useful evaluation on whether size really does matter at all, depending on your own storage needs.
So, when other people comment on your size (of data storage) don’t worry, as it’s all about how you use it, and that’s all that matters!
IOS5 & ICLOUD – WORKS FOR ME!
Upgrading my iPhone4’s to IOS5 along with the rest of the world, I have really liked the various changes that have been added, and I think Apple has improved an already superb OS just enough to make most of us happy.
Now all the excitement has died down a bit away, I’ve had to take a long hard look at the way I am starting to use my iPhone4 and my new iPhone4s.
Previously, I have used my iPhone4 mainly for email and general messing around, while my business related calls and contacts have all sat in a normal Sony Ericsson phone. This was done due to contracts I had in place, but now that I have upgraded to the iPhone4s I was a bit worried about how it would all work for me in my day-to-day business.
With iCloud.com being made available at the same time as IOS5, I visited it and flicked around with it for a few minutes and then dismissed it as of no real use to me. I went back to messing around with the iPhone4s and tried to arrange things into a working order for myself.
I transferred my contacts from Outlook into my address book on the iMac, and once I enabled the iCloud feature, everything transferred across to iCloud, and in turn on my iPhone4s, seamlessly! It just worked! On my MacBook Pro, same thing, all the contacts are there, the diary information is there, JUST LIKE THAT!
Now, you may be like me (initially), and maybe went “Pffftttt” there, snorted and thought, “What a load of crap”. But until you actually take on board, what is happening here, and really think about it, the new way of storing contacts and diary features really is pretty impressive… and simple!
When I am in the field working, I take photographs of various jobs as a reference on my iPhone, and previously I had to come back and connect the iPhone up, sync with iPhoto and then start to check the images out… whereas now they are all sitting there ready for me to view as soon as I sit down to the 27” iMac… how? The images transfer via WiFi and are there all ready for me by the time I sit down and need to do more work.
What it means for me now is that when I am out and about, I can update my contacts on my iPhone, sit at any PC and update contacts and their information, and no matter what piece of kit I sit a front of when I get back in, all of that data is there, so no need to worry any more about linking up different computer/tech components through the day!
Also, if I decide to go out and buy the likes of an iPad, I know that as soon as I link it up to iCloud, all my stuff is there and I am ready to get on with other things in a matter of minutes!!!
I’m not wearing Rose Tinted Glasses, and I am not a fanboy (honestly), but with Apple’s track record on their previous cloud ventures, it will of course take a bit of time before people can actually start to trust all of this 100%, as it all just seems too good to be true. And usually the old adage is pretty accurate when it comes to technology…. but I’m (at the moment) extremely happy with the way everything is connected and the way it’s running.
And this more than anything else is why people get excited about Apple products. They just link in and work, and there is very little brain power needed by the end-user to get things all set up!
So, to all the other brand phone users out there, I’d like to know what their systems are like for setting up and configuring, and what they think are the negative things about the whole Apple connectivity!
Don’t Believe The Hype…. Actually This Time… YOU SHOULD!!!
As time has moved on, I have bought a range of iMac computers with the latest one being the I7 27” model with 16GB of RAM installed in it. This was done as more and more of my client’s are buying Apple equipment, and like anyone serious about supporting their clients, they too have to use the equipment that they use, to know what issues may arise, so their client’s can be helped out quickly and efficiently.
Through the years, I have never felt the need to look into virtualisation of an operating system, as quite frankly, my business is Windows-based PC’s and Servers, and when I need a PC to do something, or to test out anything, I usually have plenty of spare gear to hand.
On the Windows side of things, as the new operating systems have come out, the hardware specifications have increased, so the standard bench kit I use to test and evaluate has had to be upgraded as well.
Microsoft releases Small Business Server 2011 and the likes, the specifications went up on the equipment you had to install it on, and quite frankly, kit wise, I did not have anything around that would make a suitable system to evaluate this operating system on, so that meant it was that time again to buy in some new equipment.
With what I had in mind, the equipment I was looking at, was nearly a thousand pounds for a system, and yes, I could buy cheaper components, but when I buy stuff I try to get something that will last! I was finding it hard to justify that sort of outlay for a system that really was only going to be used for the occasional testing rig, so I kept putting it off and the months rolled on…
One morning while going through my various Twitter feeds, I read a post from @JohnPAtkinson who was using Parallels 6, for running Windows on his Macbook Pro, and he raved about how good it was. As one of the main systems here used is a new I7 16GB iMac, this caught my attention and I went over to the company web site to read up more about this software.
From what I read, it seemed (in theory) that the software would allow me to install just about any operating system I wanted, onto my iMac… but my initial thought was the experience would have to be terrible, as everything would be virtual, rather than dedicated hardware, the path I have always taken… so to say I was sceptical was a bit of an understatement.
So, I downloaded Parallels 7 Desktop, (talk about luck – new release just out) ran the installer, and then proceeded to install Windows 7 Professional to see how things went.
To say I was stunned after the installation is an understatement! The operating system installed perfectly, and ran quickly; so much so that I then installed 3D Studio Max 2010 to see about pushing the whole system’s processors and memory as it rendered some footage… and it was blisteringly quick, even while working away on my Mac applications!
After hammering the operating stem and applications further, I installed Office 2010 and then brought the virtual Windows 7 Professional onto the Small Business Server 2008 domain here in the office, and everything ran (and is still running) flawlessly! No matter what I seem to throw at the virtual operating system, it handles it as though it was on it’s own PC hardware, and the Mac side just continues to work away as though the other operating system was not there!
So, not only have I save myself nearly £1000.00 in hardware, I am now running the I7 iMac in a way that I never intended it to, and the outlay I had on the I7 iMac actually seems more justified now that I am running such a variety of operating systems at the same time!!
If you are a sceptic (like me) about any application that seems to been hyped up by the tech people online, gushing praise just to get themselves attention, do yourself a favour and download the trial, and install it for yourself. Honestly, you will be impressed at just how well this virtualised system works on your iMac (specifications permitting of course).
Also, the guys at Parallels are easy to reach and interact with via their website, or even better, on Twitter @ParallelsMac. Don’t be shy and say hello to them!
As it stands, my main PC system is no longer switched on in the morning and all my PC related work is down on the iMac here running under Parallels Desktop 7. That to me says it all. My trust in the whole “experience” really is one I am more than happy to shout about to my client’s, and who knows, maybe in time they will upgrade to Mac equipment rather than Windows PC’s… Only time will tell!
If you want to see the rendering speed of 3D Studio Max 2010 running under Windows7 on Parallels 7 Desktop pop over here and watch!
DON’T WORRY…. BE HAPPY! (at a price…)
Why on earth do people get so worked up about an advert of television, more so one from Apple? The point of any advert is to push a brand across to the general public, and tell them that this product is the best product, and all the other products are inferior. So you must buy theirs!
Heck, pity the poor women who are subjected daily on television with skin care products that claim to make them look younger, when in fact everyone knows they do not, even the people who buy the stuff know they do not, but they buy into the product because of what the advertisers do, and do very well… they are selling an illusion that says we wants it and need it, when in fact the reality is completely the opposite.
Most people can live without an Apple product of any kind, and the same goes for any Microsoft software solution or hardware that is used to run it on. It’s products like these that we are manipulated into buying, more so as they are interesting, entertaining and of course, got to be affordable…
Like everything in the world of technology advertising, you have to offer an entry-level product and of course offer the ultimate/premium product that the more cash rich person will wish to have. The consumer gets drawn into buying the affordable item, but deep down most people would like to have the premium product, but cash will always be the deciding factor on what they end up with.
How many car adverts do you watch on television and you drool over the car shown on TV, They show you the cheap price for buying this car, but in ultra small print they point out that the car on the screen advertising the product costs about another £10,000 to buy, and when you see the car at the promoted price, it usually looks like the inside of an empty match box!
Apple has taken the approach with technology as has the likes of Bang & Olufsen has with audio, and decided to bypass the lower end of the market and only focus on consumers who have money available to spend on a premium product. They do not need to show a cheap price to entice you in; the entry-level is usually beyond the average consumers price reach anyway, and the same goes for the likes of Bang & Olufsen as well, that’s just the way these brands are!
Most of the people who bitch and complain loudly about the likes of Apple, and other brands that charge a premium price for products that can be obtained at a cheaper price, are usually the very same ones who deep down would love to have these products, but either cannot afford to buy them, refuse to buy them on principle, or just live in hope that they will win or be given the products for nothing., and if that was to happen, their tune would probably change.
Just accept the fact that there are products out there that some of us can afford, and that others cannot, and even though you feel that you are in the right on what is good or bad technology wise. Why not allow people to make their own mistakes or experience their own delights and allow your blood pressure a moment to rest, your spleen to heal and your venom to dilute a little and maybe take the time of rest to worry about more important things in life.
Gordon's Tech Talk! 