A few days ago I finally managed to get Apples latest version of OSX, Mountain Lion installed. It went without a hitch, took roughly twenty minutes and here are my observations so far:

1) Parallels was broken on first boot, there is an update available to fix it but it didn’t work for me. I had to remove the version I had installed and download the updated version from the web, this worked without a hitch although was a nusence.
2) Dropbox no longer has any UI integration so getting links for shared files requires a visit to the dropbox website, I expect this to be resolved soon with an update.
3) My late 2010 Macbook Air finally wakes quickly and everytime from sleep, although that saved waiting time is then wasted on a login box which seems unresponsive for five seconds.

With regard to new features, I’ve not seen or used any of them yet! I hope to spend some time investigating further in the coming weeks.

Its also nice to reevaluate the WordPress for Android app, its a far cry from the last time I used it and on the surface seems more polished and mature.

I tapped this out on my smartphone of choice at the minute, the HTC One X, a quad core powered superphone but more on that later.

The theme is called ThreatToCreativity and is made by Max is NOW!

Shout off in the comments if you have suggestions or comments.

]]> http://www.guyontechnology.co.uk/2011/08/24/new-theme/feed/ 1 http://www.guyontechnology.co.uk/2011/08/24/new-theme/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GuyAdamsOnTechnology/~3/umLo0-2A6B8/ http://www.guyontechnology.co.uk/2011/03/30/decision-making/#comments Wed, 30 Mar 2011 13:47:59 +0000 Guy http://www.guyontechnology.co.uk/?p=578

It’s been far too long since I last posted and that is something I wish to change drastically over the coming months. I’m a full time business support consultant for a small firm in the Midlands, UK. My job role entails a wide range of information technology (I.T) roles, from architect of new networks all the way through to physically deploying new infrastructure.

I had never intended to be in the I.T industry, I originally trained as a structural engineer but seemed to slip into a support role for a company I was working for at the time, this snowballed into a full time career of nearly a decade.

I would be a liar if I said I didn’t enjoy my job, I get exposed to vast amounts of technology which as you should know is one of my passions. I also get to meet and work with some incredible people, as a self confessed socialite this is a great position to be in. What I don’t enjoy about the job is the stress involved when dealing with multi-million pound companies, there is a level of pressure which I have put up with over the last five years that has become increasingly tiresome. The invasion of work on my personal life has been deep set too and although not always necessarily in the number of hours worked, is often more about my mentally exhausted state at the end of a day.

One of my other passions is writing and the sole reason I started GuyOnTechnology, a method for me to make my ideas and opinions available to an audience. It was never intended as a revenue generating opportunity, more an outlet for my enthusiasm for technology. I like to think I have come a long way with writing, when I look back at the early days of this site, its apparent I started as a complete novice but have evolved over time into a more experienced writer. This experience has become apparent to a number of parties, who have asked me to write for a fee web and printed content.

So where am I heading with this post?

Recent events in my life have made me realise that I’m at a point where I can no longer do both to the capacity I would prefer and so its time to make a decision on which career path I continue down. The stability that my career in I.T has provided has been invaluable but also acts as a method of keeping me in the industry, where as my relatively short writing career has vast opportunities in the near and distant future. My initial thoughts are to slowly decrease my I.T role as I gradually increase the articles I do and forge a solid career in writing.

Have you been in a similar situation? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

[Image courtesy of pmtips.net]

This is an ink post from the Acer 1825 PT using a Pogo Sketech capacitive stylus. Video coming later.

If you have any questions, then fire off in the comments.

So for my new device, I needed a half way house between the fantastic HP 2710P (fantastically expensive also) and my trusty 1000H. I originally had my eye on the 1820 PTZ, a ULV Intel based device with 3GB of RAM and multi touch display but that model never arrived in the UK. Then Acer announced the 1825 PT and PTZ and what seems like an  age ice later it finally arrived.

I’ve put the money upfront for the Acer but I have got the option to return if I’m not happy. A couple of weeks living with the device and I will make a decision if its a keeper. So far I’m fairly impressed, its snappy in general operation and the touch experience is positive.

Keep your eyes out here and www.upmcportal.com for more.

Hardware

The first thing you notice with the X10 is its lighter than the HTC Desire, not by a lot but enough. This is quite surprising considering its additional 0.3 inches screen size. When you turn on the device you get the usual Sony Ericsson splash screen which really hits home the screen, its very bright and crisp and although I thought it inconceivable that an extra 0.3 inches could make difference, it really does. Accuracy to touch is as good as can be expected from a capacitive screen and scrolling is fairly smooth, no pinch to zoom web browsing or picture resizing as the device isn’t multi-touch, this stood out as I’m used to that feature on the Desire.

The dedicated camera button has a half press to focus which is a feature that is oft missing from smartphones but really helps when taking photos. The X10’s photo ability is better than the Desire, when in good lighting the camera is excellent but as soon as the X10 hits low light, the camera quality is massively reduced. It has a photo light which is a LED lamp, this actually ends up leaving a bright central patch on the pictures but still leaving the rest of the picture dark.

Charging the X10 is done by connecting the charger in the top of the phone which for me personally is  awkward. I’m often on the phone in the late evenings to friends and family and this is usually the time the device needs charging, having the micro USB connector on top of the device means there is a cable tugging your hand while you have the X10 to your ear and makes for an uncomfortable call over long periods.

Battery has been hit and miss, my average usage is heavy and during the first couple of days the X10 would last just over a full day, however as the weeks gone on I’ve found more often than not I will be placing it on charge around 9pm in the evening. This is comparable to the Desire but I fancy in an out to out battery test, the HTC device would just edge out the X10.

Software

I think the software is what really lets the Xperia X10 down. First things first, its not really a direct comparison to the HTC Desire in that the X10 has Android 1.6, where as the Desire is Android 2.1. This means a few things, firstly and most importantly for me, no native Exchange support. I’ve had my Exchange mailbox now for quite sometime and its an indispensible feature of my daily life, so I was shocked to discover no support from the X10. There is however a set of applications included on the device called Moxier which gives basic ActiveSync support. It can receive push emails, sync contacts and calendar but there are some caveats. Contacts do not appear in the dialler when you begin to type a number into it, you also cannot edit or add contacts from the devices standard contacts menu, for these items you need to open the Moxier Contacts application.  The email application is vastly different from Androids standard email app and it misses the ability to multi select messages to delete. I get over 60 emails a day and that is important.

Sony Ericcson include there own interface on the device which adds some nice animations to menus, this interface also includes Mediascape and Timescape. Mediascape is a portal for viewing all your music, video and pictures. Timescape is a timeline view for all your messages, twitter feed, emails, pictures, video, music, call logs and weather. I found myself using this hardly at all as it uses small squares for each item which means it pretty hard to get any real world information from it.

Browsing is as you would expect of a 1Ghz webkit enabled device, rendering is smooth and quick and scrolling is fluid. I still think these Android powered super phones are a great balance for browsing on the move, 3.7 inches and above, 1Ghz processors and an all day battery life makes for a good mobile internet device.

The on screen keyboard is simply terrible, there is no other way to describe it. By default haptic feedback is turned off, meaning you don’t know if you’ve pressed a key or not. A little digging in the menus and I was able to enable it but this is when things got worse. The accuracy of the keyboard is poor but it has a pretty good predictive setup which would often display the right word for you early into typing the word. The keys towards to edges of the screen would pop up like you had pressed them but not actually add the character to the text, this is was made worse by the fact that the haptic feedback would signal that the letter had actually been pressed.

This is a killer, for a device that’s supposed to be at the centre of your social networking, its a big fail, a bad keyboard experience will be with a user every time he or she uses the device. It might be compounded by the fact that the Desire keyboard is actually very good. When you press a key, you get a letter, no false positives.

Conclusion

As the week has gone on I have actually enjoyed the Xperia X10 more and more, its grown on me, despite of the issues. Looking back what has struck me is that all of the problems that would effect me are all software based and could be resolved with an update. I think the Android 2.1 update would be a great start but reading through the news this is not going to happen until Q4 this year. That’s too long, for a company like Sony Ericsson, the update should be quicker.

I have developed a small soft spot for the X10, despite its annoyances. Would I swap it for the Desire permanently? Hell no.

The Desire has the luxury of coming with HTC Sense, Android 2.1 and a by far better keyboard.

If your looking for a super phone with heavily integrated social networking then its a no brainer, get the HTC Desire.

Make sure you check out Steve Paines coverage of the HTC Desire over at his X10 mini site. Also check out my initial thoughts of the Xperia X10.

As part of the bloggers sharing initiative, me and Chippy have swapped smartphones for a week. He has my HTC Desire and I have his Sony Ericsson Xperia X10.

The device arrived yesterday and although I didn’t have much time to properly test the device I got it configured into a usable manner.

My first thoughts are;

1) The screen is big and beautiful although the auto brightness sensor sometimes leaves the display looking dull.

2) The feel of the device is solid, its lighter than the Desire but this does leave it feeling not as robust.

3) Android 1.6 is lacking, I first noticed this with the lack of native exchange support. A third party application is offered on the device but its not as integrated as native support.

4) Camera is very good in light situations although pretty poor in low light.

5) The on screen keyboard is awful, it misses key presses even though the haptic feedback registers a press and certain keys require a long press, specifically keys towards the edge of the screen.

6) The browser is excellent as I would expect with Android coupled with a 1Ghz processor.

7) Battery life is on par with the Desire which considering my usage habits is pretty good.

I will post more thoughts as I use the device which will lead up to a short review. Don’t forget to check out Chippys coverage of the Desire over at Carrypad.

I have previously mentioned that me and Steve ‘Chippy’ Paine are swapping phones for a week, he currently has my HTC Desire and I’m expecting anytime soon now his Sony Ericsson Xperia X10.

Well he has began to post and tweet his thoughts on the Desire already, you can follow them on his Xperia section of Carrypad and follow @chippy for his tweets.

Also if your interested in finding out more about bloggers sharing you can visit the site www.bloggerssharing.com and search twitter for #bloggerssharing