How much stuff can I fit into my bulging man bag?

Monday, June 13th, 2011

The average travelling office worker carries around a lot of technology nowadays – more ardent IT enthusiasts will carry around even more. Comfort and space are therefore important things to consider when buying laptop bags – if it looks inconspicuous and as unlike a black attaché case as possible that would be even better.

I’ve been using an old Kensington AstroPack backpack which is lightweight and looks completely unlike a black attaché bag. Unfortunately it only has room for a laptop, the battery charger, a small notepad and a pen, a handful of cables, a phone and, at a stretch, a compact camera and a small camcorder. It’s comfortable though, with the weight evenly distributed.

My desire for more space has led me to the new Samsonite Pro-DLX3 backpack. It has a rather staid, plain black appearance but it feels very well made with substantially more padding in the laptop compartment than the AstroPack, but is also a bit heavier.

It’s also far roomier as I was able to squeeze in a laptop, the battery charger, a notepad and several pens, some cables, a phone, a DSLR-sized camera, a full-sized camcorder, their corresponding chargers and a magazine. Despite all that stuff, the weight is well-distributed and the bag is still just about comfortable enough to carry. The straps are quite taut though so the bag sits quite close to your back. This is apparently ergonomically advantageous, but it can also bunch up a close-up fitting jacket or coat.

I haven’t abandoned the trusty AstroPack, keeping it for shorter trips where I don’t need as much kit, but the Pro-DLX3 is now my preferred laptop bag for longer trips. It’s a bit pricy at £135, but it’s well worth it for serious travellers. I only wish it looked a little more inconspicuous.

In-flight boredom

Monday, May 9th, 2011

Travelling by plane is far from the glamorous visions of elegance and exoticism that may have danced in the heads of our parents and grandparents. From awful food to cramped seats, surly service and intrusive security screenings, airplane travel is a hassle most of us just can’t do without unfortunately.

Technologically, one of the most annoying things about air travel is in-flight entertainment. Despite the sophistication of entertainment options we have on the ground, the best British Airways can rustle up for those of us doomed to a sardine-like Economy class seat is a seven-inch screen embedded into the back of an airline seat.

The choice of on-demand movies, TV shows and music is actually pretty extensive, but the quality of the screen is so awful you don’t actually want to enjoy any of them. It’s blurry, grainy and out-of-focus. Perhaps the eye strain is supposed to lull us to sleep, making the flight pass more quickly. Plus, it has a 4:3 aspect ratio, so Hollywood movies have to be chopped down pan-and-scan style to fit the screen.

Apart from cropping the image, this image hasn’t been edited. The screen really looks this awful.

The one concession to technological modernism is that the screen is touch-sensitive so you can use your fingers to choose menu commands and control playback. Unfortunately the resistive touchscreen not only requires a firm press, it often inaccurately recognises finger presses. Combined with the tightly packed onscreen buttons, this results in a truly aggravating experience – trying to fast forward to the good bits in Black Swan is as exhausting as actually performing Swan Lake.

I think I’ll stick to season 2 of The Wire on my iPhone thanks very much. Its battery lasts around eight hours playing videos, whilst my patience with BA’s in-flight entertainment systems runs out in about one minute and 23 seconds.

The death of the desktop?

Wednesday, May 4th, 2011

Most computer manufacturers now sell more laptops than desktops and it’s not hard to see why. Laptops are compact and portable which makes them more flexible in so many ways for both business and personal use. It’s therefore no surprise to see more and more laptops used in the place of desktops, so it’s easy to wonder if there’s any place left for the humble desktop computer. Why buy a big, power-hungry desktop when you can have a slender, electricity frugal laptop?

Even though Apple CEO Steve Jobs thinks we’re now in a ‘post-PC world’, his company is still making a pretty penny off desktops. Apple seems to have given some thought to the design of a desktop in this laptop/smartphone/tablet-drive world with its updated range of sleek all-in-one iMac desktops.

As well as the expected upgrade to Intel’s new Sandy Bridge processors, the 27in models now have two Thunderbolt ports (the cheaper 21.5in model has just one). We were greatly impressed by the potential of this new port technology when we first saw it in the new MacBook Pro laptops and its presence in Apple’s mainstream desktop computers says much about Apple’s hopes and aggressive rollout plans for the technology.

The fact that the 27in iMac has two Thunderbolt ports means that if the massive 2,560×1,440 pixel screen isn’t enough, you can connect another two displays using the appropriate adapters. Most laptops not only have substantially smaller, lower-resolution displays, but can only connect one more additional monitor. Although it’s possible to connect a third display using a USB adapter, you usually lose 3D and video playback acceleration.

I think Apple is sending a clear message with the 27in iMac and its Thunderbolt ports and high-res screen – a slender all-in-one desktop can do things a laptop can’t, but in less space than a traditional tower desktop. Not everyone needs a compact desktop with multiple monitor capability and an incredibly high-speed external bus, but for workplaces that do, there is clearly life left in the old desktop computer.

Budget 2011: The Aftermath

Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011

George Osborne has laid out the Government’s Budget for the next financial year – how did the Coalition announcements match up with our expectations and predictions?

Plan for growth

Following an embarrassing reduction in its growth forecasts the Chancellor expanded on his plans for establishing new enterprise zones. Up to 21 will be established in the country with at least some in major cities such as London, Birmingham, Sheffield, Leeds and Manchester. Businesses in those zones will not only benefit from decreased regulation and tax breaks, but also from effectively free broadband.

Meanwhile an extra £100 million will be bumped into scientific research which comes as a welcome relief after science funding was frozen in last year’s Comprehensive Spending Review.

In a surprise move corporation tax will be cut by 2%, although this will be funded by an extension of the banking levy. A tax cut funded by a tax rise, if you will. A new Government body, Start-up Britain, will be set up to provide advice to budding entrepreneurs but questions remain over who will actually run and staff this new body.

Merging income tax and national insurance

The Chancellor announced a consultation over whether to merge national insurance and income tax. This could be a first step towards major tax reform or the idea may have just been kicked into the long grass. We’ll have to wait for further details about the consultation before we can be sure how serious the Government really is about this idea.

More modest tax reform in the form of simplifying the system of tax reliefs got the green light though.

Personal tax allowances

Personal tax allowances have been raised by £630 which, Osborne claims, will make over a million people exempt from income tax altogether. Plans were also announced to crack down on tax avoidance. A new strategy paper containing all the details should be published shortly.

Petrol duty

Petrol duty has been cut by 1p a litre and a scheduled 5 per cent rise has been postponed, which will be music to the ears of motorists. The cut will be funded by an increase in levies on gas and oil production, although the Chancellor reserved the right to adjust its plans if oil prices fall.

Apprenticeships and unemployment

Plans were announced to offer thousands more youngsters places on a government-funded work experience programme – if they take part they won’t lose their benefits. Additionally, 50,000 more apprenticeships will be created over the next five years while 24 new university technical colleges will be established to provide vocational and technical training. This all sounds very promising, but the Government needs to find businesses willing to take those apprentices on and provide them with real training and experience first…

Eco investment bank

The vaunted new Green Investment Bank will start working next year and it will be allowed to raise funds by borrowing from other banks. However, the Government has also scrapped a power tax that was supposed to fund carbon capture and storage technologies. Osborne gives with one hand and takes away with another.

Foreign aid

As expected no changes here.

Despite some foibles, the Budget seems to have addressed almost all of our areas of concern, but the only way to tell if the Coalition plans are working is to wait and see if the economy recovers.

What do you think about this year’s Budget? What effect do you think it will have on your business? Is there anything missing from Osborne’s plans that you would like to have seen?

Budget 2011: The Blog Before The Budget

Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011

Today is Budget Day when the Coalition Government sets out its spending plans for the coming financial year. Although this year’s Budget may seem a little anti-climatic following the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) back in the autumn, Chancellor George Osborne could still have a few surprises up his sleeve that the technology industry, and other businesses in the wider economy, should keep an eye out for.

Plan for growth

Osborne has already promised there won’t be any new spending cuts or tax increases which would limit the scope of what he can do. One of Labour’s biggest overarching criticisms of the laissez-faire Coalition following the CSR was that it had no plan for economic growth besides cutting government spending, hoping the private sector would step in to replace the lost jobs and investment. This was supposed to help nurse the economy back to health, but the Government may need to do more.

The Government has already announced new ‘enterprise zones’, an old Thatcher-era policy where companies choosing to set up in select areas would be subject to fewer regulations including, controversially, a reduction in paternity and maternity rights for workers.

A rumoured plan to boost the construction industry by offering first-time buyers advantageous loans on newly-built homes may be just the start of even bigger plans.

Merging income tax and national insurance

Bolstered by a report from the Office of Tax Simplification, Osborne could propose merging income tax and national insurance. As well as simplifying the tax system, it could save both the employers and HM Revenue and Customs the significant hassle and expense of administering the two separate taxes. It’s not without political risk though – the merged tax would make it startlingly clear how much money the government is really taking from our pay packets.

Personal tax allowances

The Chancellor could attempt to sweeten the pill of income tax reform by increasing our personal tax allowances – the amount of income we can earn tax-free before taxes kick in. Given the spending cuts and the budget deficit, any increases would likely be modest at best though, especially for higher income earners.

Petrol duty

A 5p per litre increase in petrol duty, planned to start in April, may be cancelled or postponed. Oil prices have now reached $105 a barrel compared to $68 last May. The Chancellor may also heed calls from pressure groups to introduce a ’stabiliser’ to protect businesses and motorists from the most dramatic changes in oil prices.

Apprenticeships and unemployment

There might be some money in that little red box to pay for apprenticeships to help the unemployed young back into work. Whether this would be a one-off gesture or a precursor to serious reform and improvement of the vocational training opportunities available to school leavers remains to be seen.

Eco investment bank

Anything hailed as ‘green’ or ‘eco’ now seems achingly trendy and a little gauche these days. Nonetheless a government sponsored loans system for businesses looking to develop and invest in alternative energy sources and more energy efficient versions of existing products and technologies could be a good idea given the banks’ stricter lending requirements following the recession.

Foreign aid

Foreign aid and development was one of the very few areas of government spending protected from the worst of the cuts. We don’t expect this to change, but we don’t expect to see any increases here either. We’d like to see the Government take a similar approach to China which is increasing its influence, and potentially opening new markets for Chinese companies, by offering sub-Saharan Africa countries specially negotiated loans instead of aid. We’re not holding our breath though, especially following the debt reduction campaigns of the past decade.

What are your predictions for the Budget? Let us know in the Comments.

Don’t throw tablet-sized rocks when you live in a glass greenhouse

Wednesday, January 26th, 2011

Toshiba is the latest computer manufacturer trying to muscle its way into the potentially huge tablet market. The Japanese giant has previewed an Android 3.0-based tablet with specifications very similar to those of the Motorola Xoom. Just as interesting as the actual product itself though, is the website promoting it, www.thetoshibatablet.com .

If you visit the site on a laptop or desktop computer with Adobe Flash Player installed, you get the usual specs, interactive graphics, photos and other information you’d expect from a product website. But what happens if you visit the site from a mobile device without Flash, such as an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch? You see the following page at thetoshibatablet.com/mobile/apple.html:

Slightly smug in tone, but nonetheless true for an iPhone or iPad visiting a Flash-dependent website. But not this particular Toshiba site if you remove the apple.html part of the address and reload. You then you get a mobile-optimised version of the site with almost all the information and photos from the full Flash site:

Although this mobile-optimised Flash-less site has now been taken down, it does undermine Toshiba’s smugly-made point about the lack of Flash on Apple’s iOS devices.

Although the iPad has its fair share of flaws, it’s still a pleasure to use and it has the advantage of actually being widely available. Unlike Toshiba’s as yet unreleased Android 3.0 tablet. Or the Libretto W100, Toshiba’s dual-screen Windows 7 tablet currently in very limited distribution. Or the Folio 100, Toshiba’s first attempt at an Android tablet which was hastily and mysteriously recalled shortly following its launch just before Christmas.

Plus, our own tests reveal that Flash video can drain your mobile device’s battery life more quickly than H.264 video. Its new tablet may turn out to be great, but Toshiba really shouldn’t count its eggs before they’re hatched or, as another old saying goes, throw rocks from a glass greenhouse…

Wake Me Up Before You Go Go

Friday, January 21st, 2011

The most annoying thing about the recent iPhone alarm clock bug is that we have no guarantee that it won’t happen again. It happened last year when British Summer Time ended and again during the New Year transition. Even more annoyingly, the effect is different each time – the BST bug affected recurring alarms, while the New Year bug affected non-recurring alarms. What next? Chinese New Year comes round and suddenly alarms set for Wednesdays don’t go off? Apple should really sort out this embarrassment.

The iPhone has failed me for the last time. However, I’m not here to moan about the problem, I’m here to glorify the solution. The obvious thing to do is to download an alternative alarm clock app from the App Store, free or otherwise. That shows a distinct lack of imagination though.

Much more fun is the Star Wars Lego Alarm Clock – an alarm clock in the shape of a Lego Stormtrooper figurine.

Impractical you say? I find your lack of faith disturbing. Setting both the alarm and the time is easy enough using the push button controls on the little fella’s back. His non-removable helmet serves both as a five minute snooze button and illuminates the digital clock face. His legs and arms are fully articulated (for a big Lego man anyway).

Disappointingly, the alarm sound itself is a simple beep rather than a John Williams theme or sound effects from the film. There’s also no way to store multiple alarms, set different alarms for different days or alter the duration of the snooze. Although far smaller than an actual stormtrooper, the wee lad isn’t ideally suited for traveling along in your luggage. Although no bigger than a thermos, his slightly awkward shape and reliance on a pair of AAA batteries hidden behind a screw-on hatch are things most travelers wouldn’t want to deal with.

Still, the only thing better than a Lego Stormtrooper alarm clock is the upcoming Lego Darth Vader alarm clock. Both can be ordered from Firebox for just £20. Just don’t get clocky kid.

The Spending Review, coalition cuts and IT part 2

Wednesday, October 20th, 2010

The coalition government has now laid out what it will cut and by how much in its Comprehensive Spending Review.

Plans to broaden access to next generation broadband networks have survived the Treasury’s cuts. However, £300 million of the £530 million projected cost to widen broadband access to include rural areas will come from the BBC despite the corporation facing a funding cuts due to the license fee freeze. Despite past Beeb involvement in national IT projects (remember the BBC Micro?), the BBC is still an odd match with the broadband programme, especially as the BBC is expected to reduce its online content at the same time.

The future of the Home Access programme supplying free computers and broadband to disadvantaged families remains stubbornly unclear. Becta, the government agency that originally ran the programme, was abolished back in May and this decision has not been reversed. Whether the programme is set to continue, who will run it and whether it can still be effective is not certain.

It’s not all doom and gloom though. Although short on details, HM Revenue and Customs will apparently use better technology to crack down on tax evasion. Despite the brutal cuts faced by much of the Ministry of Defence, a new national cyber security programme will receive £500 million of funding to protect the nation against a projected increase in cyber attacks from both rogue groups, terrorist cells and rival nations. Both of these areas could be opportunities for specialist technology companies to tender for government business.

The Spending Review, coalition cuts and IT

Wednesday, October 20th, 2010

At the time of writing, the full details of what public spending will be cut as part of the coalition government’s Comprehensive Spending Review had yet to be revealed. We’ll be providing coverage on our live blog as it unfolds though.

However, Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude has already indicated that he wants to introduce stricter controls on government IT projects in an effort to reduce the likelihood of schedule overruns, ballooning budgets and barely functional end products that have dogged previous government IT projects. The potential of stricter IT outsourcing/tendering rules have an obviously significant impact on businesses that depend on public sector contracts.

Another area where Maude thinks the government can achieve savings is delivering more public services online. There are few details about Maude’s proposed ‘online first model’, such as which services could be delivered this way, but we already have our doubts about how fair this will be.

Although there’s never a shortage of cut-price laptops available at PCWorld, the growing income disparity between rich and poor means that the level of computer ownership and broadband usage amongst low-income households is both relatively and substantively low, especially in rural areas. If this trend continues, moving more frontline services online combined with cuts in frontline staff could disadvantage the poor.

Although the previous Labour government’s Home Access scheme for providing free computers and broadband access to low-income families is technically still in place, anecdotal evidence from our readers suggests actually applying for this scheme is a bureaucratic maze. It also wouldn’t surprise us if Home Access becomes a victim of coalition cuts.

The coalition will likely brandish its commitment to increasing broadband penetration amongst the poor by pointing to its delegation of broadband rollouts to the BBC. Although the details of what role the BBC will play exactly is currently unknown, we doubt how effective Auntie Beeb will be given that its budget has effectively been cut due to the six-year licensee fee freeze.

We’d also be wary of tendering for government business related to any new broadband/computers-for-the-masses initiative given the capricious  nature of Westminster politics. Evesham Technology, once one of the largest British PC manufacturers, collapsed in 2007 due, in part, to the Labour government’s sudden withdrawal of the Home Computer Initiative.

Windows Phone 7 + Flash = iPhone killer. Wait, what?

Tuesday, October 12th, 2010

The internet is a bit like a slightly eccentric relative. It makes a lot of noise and always seems to be around, whether you want it to or not. The latest mad tattle spewed out on the web is an alleged meeting between the CEOs of Adobe and Microsoft and the speculation that this forms part of merger negotiations between the two software giants in an effort to combat Apple in the smartphone market.

But first, something completely different

Unlike a mad relative and their crazy ideas about tin foil hats and aliens, this rumour deserves to be taken a little more seriously. Microsoft’s software products cover almost every category imaginable – operating systems, servers, office suites, web browsers, databases and games. One of the most noticeable omissions is creative design software – Adobe’s territory.

For a company that depends almost exclusively on Office and Windows for profits, buying Adobe and its extensive range of lucrative creative software to add some diversity and conquer yet another market must be very attractive. Given Microsoft’s size and greater finances it would almost certainly be a purchase of Adobe by Microsoft and not a merger of equals.

However, if Microsoft does buy Adobe, Ballmer and his crew will need to do a better job of integrating and exploiting it than they have compared to other, recent acquisitions. Bungie, despite bringing the lucrative Halo video game franchise to the Xbox 360, has been spun off which potentially allows Bungie’s talent to be exploited by rival console makers once their post-spin off exclusivity agreement ends. The acquisition of smartphone maker Danger has so far brought little benefit to Microsoft, despite the burgeoning smartphone market, apart from an embarrassing loss of customer data and the Kin smartphone which was canned after mere weeks on the American market.

For Adobe, the benefits of being bought by Microsoft for its desktop software business are less clear. The company doesn’t need Microsoft’s help to sell shiploads of its software. A large portion of those sales are to Mac users. They now have Apple-developed alternatives to some Adobe products, such as Final Cut instead of Premiere and Aperture instead of Lightroom. However, unless Apple also develops credible alternatives to Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign, Adobe’s future in the Mac market will be safe and it still has significant Windows sales to rely upon.

I love it when you call

Despite the potential benefits that Photoshop and the rest of Adobe’s Creative Suite could bring to Microsoft, it’s smartphones and tablets that may be the real driving rationale behind any potential acquisition. Both Adobe and Microsoft may miss out in these lucrative markets and they may be better able to compete by combining their efforts, if the pundits are to be believed.

Apple has famously barred Flash Player from the iOS for a variety of reasons. Although Apple now accepts apps developed in Flash, Adobe is still at the mercy of Steve Jobs. Although Flash Player is now available on some Android phones and Flash-developed apps will also run on RIM’s upcoming PlayBook, Adobe’s position in the smartphone and tablet markets is nowhere near as dominant as it is on the desktop.

On the desktop, there’s little choice other than Flash for multiplatform streaming video and apps. With smartphones and tablets, there are HTML5 videos and apps, as well as native platform apps. Despite the buzz surrounding HTML5, Adobe’s support for the emerging standard in its web development program Dreamweaver is incomplete at best so it’s still dependent on Flash and Flash Player.

Microsoft has of course launched Windows Phone 7 in an attempt to compete against the iPhone, Android and Blackberry. Like Adobe, Microsoft is in a position of weakness here, compared to its overwhelming dominance of desktop operating systems. Although, judging from initial impressions, Windows Phone 7 is a vast improvement over Windows Mobile, it’s a late comer to a market where Apple has set the standards, RIM has a large following among business and government users, while Android is now the operating system of choice for many OEMs that were previously Windows Mobile licensees.

One way for both Microsoft and Adobe to compete in the smartphone and tablet markets is to combine their resources and back a unified development standard to rival iOS native apps. What standard a combined Microsoft-Adobe would back, however, is up for debate.

Flash is well known and is supported in one way or another by iOS, Android and the PlayBook, but not, tellingly, Windows Phone 7. Microsoft does support Silverlight, its home grown competitor to Flash, as a development environment for Windows Phone 7. Choosing one over the other, or merging the two, would be full of technical, political and commercial hurdles, many of which would be tricky to overcome.

Perhaps the greatest of which is how Apple, Google and RIM would react to a Microsoft Flash. If they react negatively, which Apple almost certainly will, they would embrace native and HTML5 apps even more. This would undermine the supposed write-once, run everywhere advantage of Flash, and there’s no guarantee Flash or a Flash-Silverlight hybrid be compelling enough to attract developers to Windows Phone 7 to both boost Windows Phone 7 as a platform in its own right and make up for the loss of development business on those other platforms.

Even if these hurdles could be overcome, whether they’re worth overcoming is a different matter entirely. If desktop software is just a sideshow and smartphone/tablet development is the priority, a Microsoft-Adobe alliance or joint venture rather than a full-on merger/acquisition would be less risky and costly. As I see it, what Microsoft and Adobe don’t want to do is to repeat the mistakes of AOL-Time Warner – merge for woolly reasons rather than for concrete, achievable benefits.