My conclusion – it could be, depending on what your requirements are (mmm, obvious statement is obvious). Put it this way, I haven’t ordered a new laptop yet. Mainly because I’m waiting a couple more weeks to see if Apple really are going to announce a new revision of the air with the ivy bridge processor (battery life ++) at some point in April. Although I can pretty much guarantee that the day I give up waiting, and take delivery of a macbook air, fifteen days later, Apple will announce the new one (as Apple have a fourteen day return period).

I’ve been happy with my podcast solution of RSSRadio, which syncs played status/position between devices, and have worked out that with dropbox, and the camera connection kit, it would even be possible to manage photos from a camera, assuming you’re paying dropbox the money for an appropriately large amount of storage. Personally, I’m waiting for pogoplug to release their 4th generation pogo plug, which I can leave plugged in at home with a 2TB hard drive in it, giving me plenty of storage for photos. That and the control of my own data, which I’m finding myself being more and more concerned about.

I haven’t just been using the ipad as a media consumption/web browsing device, it’s been my ‘on-call’ tool for the last week, and has, using the built in VPN client, and the iSSH app, performed very well. The only weakness I have found on that front is that iSSH can only support one RDP session at a time, although this is probably a benefit when doing a rolling restart across a cluster, to make sure that I only restart one machine at a time

I would quite like to find a better RDP client though, preferable one which supports multiple sessions at once.

Disclaimer – I did grab the wife’s laptop at half four in the morning, when a combination of an odd thing going on, and it being such a silly time in the morning, conspired to make me fall back to the default, I know how to use this laptop, rather than having to expend precious brain cycles on working out how to do what I wanted on the ipad. This may or may not be part of why I’m not going to live in a fully post-pc world, and will be picking me up a laptop again.

Obviously, they were prattling on and trying to score political points over yesterday’s budget, and the whole “ooh, no, robbing from the little old ladies” thing, and somebody mentioned the concept of fairness in the taxation system.

Now, this is something that has annoyed me, in that when I hear the word fair, I’d like to think I have a grasp of the meaning of the word. The current income tax personal allowance system doesn’t actually seem that fair to me. I’d be much more willing to listen to people talking about income tax being fair if there was a single rate.

Now, I don’t know the numbers that would work, but if there’s a £10,000 tax free personal allowance, and a flat rate of 20% for everyone, then a person who earns £30,000 will pay twice as much tax as someone who earns £20,000. And a person who earns £110,000 will pay ten times as much tax as someone who earns £20,000. To me, that seems fair.

Not having a higher rate of 40%, which means that someone who earns twice as much taxable income as someone else might end up paying three times as much tax.

Obviously, I don’t know the numbers, but something like a £20,000 personal tax free allowance, and then a 25% flat rate on whatever you earn above that. Go on, tell me that isn’t fair, and that once you earn a high amount, you should pay a higher percentage of your taxable income is fair. I dare you.

In other non-news, I’m actually still feeling quite happy at being laptop-free, and using the tablet only. RSSRadio seems to be doing the job for my podcasts, although I am going to have to plug into a real computer and get some old, not yet listened to, podcasts off the hard drive image I took before selling the laptop. That and actually try and keep up with the podcasts, as the ipad has a lot less space than a laptop with a decent sized SSD, and an even larger HDD inside.

Having wiped and reinstalled the MBP (after pulling my SSD and reinstalling the original HDD, sorry bud, I gave you a bargain already, I’m keeping the SSD ), and being too lazy to drag myself over to an apple store/not wanting to put up with the piss-taking about my being an apple-tart if I had it delivered to the office, I’ve been using the ipad all weekend, and I began to wonder…

Having reviewed what I actually used the macbook for, I’ve decided to give myself a little challenge, and see if I can ‘survive’ until at least April on a tablet alone. Time to see if we really are living in a post-PC world.

Well, a tablet, my home server, and my vps that I host my bloggy website on. So not exactly using only a tablet, but, you know, one less computer than I previously had

So far I seem to be managing, I’ve found what I think will be a solution to fact that ios podcast handling is, to be honest, cack, and I’m also giving lastpass a go, for my password management needs. No doubt, more to come on those.

The only problem is that sat here typing this on a bluetooth keyboard, while streaming a 720p video podcast over airplay to the apple TV, I can just about see the battery meter going down as I watch.

Now, I wonder how well it will hold up to on-call duties.

So far, it looks good. If it delivers everything the wiki page says it does, then I like it. As far as I can tell though, there are even fewer people using it than there are using Diaspora*, and that isn’t exactly flush with users at the moment. (NB – that may just be that I haven’t managed to find the right circle of people to get in with, I recall the early days of twitter were similar, and I struggled to get up to following twenty or thirty people, and I now follow, erm, well over seven hundred.)

Apparently this link should allow you to add me as a friend on there, but I’m guessing that depends on if your browser knows what to do with a retroshare:// link or not. If not, here’s my public key

-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (Darwin)
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=VwXS
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
--SSLID--bd6cbc71a291c70de9a167621205f664;--LOCATION--MBP;
--LOCAL--192.168.168.206:22901;--EXT--94.195.123.152:22901;

Apparently you add this, then send me your public key, then we’re connected and can chat/message/share files/various other things in a full on decentralised way. I’m not sure how it copes with machines that are not on full time – I assume that when you’re using it on a laptop/home desktop that is rarely on, it is somewhat like ships passing in the night.

Now if only I could find someone else who is using it to test that assumption.

Two white wireless controllers, with black rechargeable battery packs (because microsoft stopped making the white ones apparently, so when I came to buy new ones earlier this year (the old ones had stopped holding a charge), I had to get black ones. Only affects things if you’re massively fashion conscious/OCD about matching bits

The USB <-> controller charging cables, obviously (actually, two black cables, and one grey).

Some games: Sega Rally, Mercenaries 2, FIFA 09, Forza 2, Skate, Gears of War 2.

Some more cables and things:
An HDMI cable.
A cable for hooking up to a VGA display, with phono left and right breakout on it. There’s probably a technical term for these things, but meh, you know what I mean.
Component/composite to scart adapter (never used).
The power brick and cable.
The original headset, with it’s single earpiece and microphone. I don’t think I ever used this beyond seeing if it works, and looking at it, you might not want to either – the foam looks a bit brittle (it may have been left in the sun), also, I can’t remember it being overly comfortable. But it’s there.

The bad bits (full disclosure and all that):

According to the box, and the darkest recesses of my mind, there should be another display cable, xbox to (component/composite – I never know/care which is which), which I’m sure is somewhere in one of my computer rubble crates, but I can’t find it at the moment. I only ever used the VGA, and then HDMI connection options. I’ll have a look for it.

Also, the spring which holds the “little door in front of the USB ports” has fallen out, so the door doesn’t close. The spring is still in a known location (or in plain English, I haven’t lost it), and I was thinking of having a go and seeing if I could put it back on, but it doesn’t really do anything. In fact, I believe that microsoft sent back repaired xboxes with fascias that didn’t even have that little door, so it can’t be too important. I had a look at this. Without an inordinate amount of time spent sourcing spare parts, and lots of fiddly jiggling about/melting and re-melting bits of the (non-visible side of the) fascia, this was going to be silly to do, so it’s now just like a more modern xbox 360, and doesn’t have the USB port door.

I haven’t had time to trawl ebay/amazon trade in/gumtree yet, so hit me up with offers (don’t worry, I am going to be realistic about it, I know it’s not a 360 S). I’d prefer to do an in-person deal, mainly because I’m lazy, and dislike the post office, but I am open to a postal deal, if you cover the postage, and don’t mind me not posting it until I’ve got the cold hard cash in my grubby little paws (or at least see some numbers change on my online banking).

There’s a saying, that goes something like “whatever is invented before you’re 18 has alway been there, if it’s invented when you’re between the ages of 18 and mid-thirties, it’s amazing technology, and anything invented after your mid-thirties is witchcraft and should be banned”.

I’m not sure I’d agree with those age ranges, but I definitely feel like I’m now moving into the middle age band, where new bits of tech are making me think “Ooh, wow”, rather than just “well, yes, of course someone sells a box to do that”.

My new TV (well, the replacement for the crap one) came with some cashback, so I used that to buy the hideously expensive proprietary USB camera that Samsung currently sell. Short review – well packaged, easy to open (none of that blister pack rubbish), easy to install – plug in two ends of a USB cable, then use the magnet to mount it to the TV. Small and unobtrusive (apart from the BRIGHT blue LED to let you know it’s powered on, and it works very well, as it’s first test proved last night, with an hour long video chat with a couple of friends who moved out to New Zealand.

(insert dirty affiliate link to amazon, please click, I want pennies to buy more gadgets, thanks ;-p )

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go and lust over some sonos gear…

At work, we have a ticket system. This is a good thing. It allows different people to pick up a task, and (in theory), there doesn’t have to be a lengthy handover. All relevant information is in the ticket. It also means that people are more likely to get their task done. OK, maybe it might not happen today, or this week, but it’s logged, it will happen. If you tell me in passing, or come to my desk while I’m in the middle of something (pro-tip, I’m always in the middle of something ;-p ), then there’s a high chance that it may just slip my mind. The same if you email it to me. I get lots of emails, and occasionally, despite my best efforts, I can miss things (or Google can think it knows best, and mark it as spam).

When submitting a ticket though, apart from trying to send it to the right people, it’s usually good to have some substance to the ticket. For example, a ticket with the subject “check config on www.example.com” and a body of “has something changed?” is likely to get a response in the style of those (possibly not entirely true) airport mechanic repair log sheets, for example

P: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear.
S: Evidence removed.

Or in the case of this ticket “yes, something changed”.

Please, when you raise a ticket for a problem, try to describe the problem, and if you don’t know exactly what the problem is (hey, I’ve taken a car to garage and said “Broken, please fix it”), then please try and describe what is currently happening, and what you are expecting to happen, and if that used to happen, when did it last happen, or rather, when did you first notice it not happening. Actually, when I took the car into the garage I didn’t just pull in, say “Is something wrong with this” and walk out, I explained that it used to do X, now it’s doing Y, can it be made to do X again. It turned out that no, not without spending three times what the car was worth, but that’s what happens when you’re a student driving an old knacker of a car

Anyway, please remember that your sys admin loves you (sometimes), and isn’t there to make your life hell (occasionally), and anything you can do to make their life more easy is definitely appreciated.

And if you can’t make their life easy, make it better by buying them a beer

I live in E1, which is pretty damn central in London, and yet I can’t get a delivery from Dominos. I’m stuck in ADSL land (ADSL2+ is available, but it’s not worth having as I get no speed gains), and although there are cable TV cabinets around, they are just lumps on the pavement, as the digital cable TV (and therefore Virgin’s high-speed cable internet) was never available here.

Don’t be daft. There are a million and one other pizza places that deliver, I have three train/tube stations within a five minute walking radius, with a total of two train lines and three tube lines between them. There are a multitude of bus stops, which will take me North, South, East, and West. The buses and the trains are all incredibly frequent, mostly running to an “every X minutes” time-table, where X is somewhere between 4 and 10. There are multiple super markets pretty much on our door step, rather than a 40 minute drive away.

And if we were in a rural backwater, we’d be able to afford an abode with more outside space than a three feet wide balcony, and I’d have a superfast Internet connection at home too

Well played to the people selling them on ebay for £35 though.

Oh, and here’s a link. moustair.tumblr.com – don’t have nightmares