My latest machine (Macbook Air) arrived earlier today, so I’ve been setting it up in between answering emails, phone calls etc.,

Here’s what I have on it so far:

• Microsoft Office. We’re a Microsoft partner and a LOT of documents I get sent are in Word, Excel or Powerpoint format.
• Adium. For all your instant messaging needs
• Evernote – very very handy for keeping track of notes, todo lists etc.,
• Skype. I use this a lot for messaging and talking with colleagues. Also use it heavily for recording the podcast with Conn every week
• Acrobat reader – PDFs .. need I say more
• Adobe Flash player – used for a lot of sites and services
• Microsoft Silverlight – for some odd reason MS Exchange Outlook Web Access works better with it
• Spotify – I am totally addicted to this
• Firefox (with several plugins) is still my favourite browser. I am using Safari a bit more often these days, but Firefox is still my default browser
• Pixelmator – very handy for quick image editing

What am I missing?

Which Software Is Essential On Your Laptop? is an article from Michele Neylon :: Pensieri - Technology, Marketing, Domains, Thoughts

Nick Hanauer’s speech is obviously too provocative for some people

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Related articles

• Was Nick Hanauer’s TED Talk on Income Inequality Too Rich for Rich People? (business.time.com)
• Here’s The TED Presentation About Rich People That TED Doesn’t Want You To See (downes.ca)
• TED: Here’s The Real Story About Why We Didn’t Post That Inequality Speech (businessinsider.com)

The Talk That TED Won’t Show is an article from Michele Neylon :: Pensieri - Technology, Marketing, Domains, Thoughts

Of course the downside to Apple products is that when they don’t work you’re left scratching your head.

My latest issue is with albums bought via iTunes.

For some really odd reason the audio files download, but are not playable!

And to make it all the more “fun” iTunes doesn’t throw any errors

iTunes Weirdness is an article from Michele Neylon :: Pensieri - Technology, Marketing, Domains, Thoughts

AVM Fritzbox Fon WLAN 7390

Last week, while I was up in Dublin, UPC came along and hooked me up to their fibre. Yesterday I got the fixed IP details and with Paul‘s assistance switched the UPC box over to bridging mode, reconfigured my Fritzbox and moved my home connection into the fast lane.

It’s nice

With the standard UPC wireless access point I could get a respectable 35 megs, but once I switched everything over to the Fritzbox I started getting much closer to the 75 megs advertised – over wifi.

IPv6 is working nicely as are all the other features that I had on the Fritzbox previously.

For the moment I’m using Google’s public DNS servers on the Fritzbox, though I’m overriding them on certain devices. I probably won’t stick to the Google DNS once I’ve had a chance to explore options. Since the Fritzbox supports both IPv4 and IPv6 resolvers I’ll need to do a small bit of research in that area.

The one thing I don’t understand is why UPC is limiting my upload speed to 5 megs. Yes that is way faster than what I had previously, but I don’t understand why they’re setting such a low limit. Surely it isn’t a capacity issue? If the line can give me 75 meg in one direction, why can’t it give me the same in the other?

A New Broadband Connection is an article from Michele Neylon :: Pensieri - Technology, Marketing, Domains, Thoughts

Michele + laptop (Photo credit: blacknight)

For more than a month I’ve been working without a decent laptop or desktop at home. I’ve been using a rather old and slow iMac (a late 2006 model) which will only take 3 GB of RAM and has a rather annoying habit of swapping like mad and freezing several times per day. The laptop I’ve been using is the MacBook Pro equivalent. Instead of simply freezing it will randomly lose all network connectivity and refuse to reconnect until I reboot it.

Fun times!

Fortunately the insurance companies are both paying out, so I finally ordered replacement machines today.

As a laptop I opted for a MacBook Air. I used to have both an Air and a MacBook Pro, but I’m hoping that a relatively beefy Air will work for me:

1.8GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i7
4GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM
256GB flash storage

Since it’s a 13 inch I’ll probably have to get a new sleeve for it, as the one it’s replacing was the smaller 11 inch.

As a desktop for my home office I opted for a 27 inch iMac:

3.1GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5
4GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM – 2x2GB
1TB Serial ATA Drive + 256GB Solid State Drive
AMD Radeon HD 6970M 1GB GDDR5
Apple Magic Mouse
Apple Wireless Keyboard (British) & User’s Guide (English)
Accessory Kit

The “plan” is to upgrade the RAM via Crucial, as they’re significantly cheaper than getting RAM from Apple direct. I might be able to use the original RAM in one of my other machines.. even if I can’t I’m hoping to beef up the RAM to the maximum that it’ll take (16 GB)

Replacing My Macs is an article from Michele Neylon :: Pensieri - Technology, Marketing, Domains, Thoughts

Talk about annoying!

Annoying Ads is an article from Michele Neylon :: Pensieri - Technology, Marketing, Domains, Thoughts

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Basically it’s footage of a horse race. Couple of things to note, however.

First off, they’re racing on a public road, which has normal traffic.

Secondly we drive on the left in Ireland. (Kind of important to note) And the road they’re on has two lanes ie. traffic coming in both directions.

Only In Ireland? is an article from Michele Neylon :: Pensieri - Technology, Marketing, Domains, Thoughts

I’d never been to New York, so I really wanted to see something of the city, though I also knew I was going to be tied up a bit in meetings over the couple of days that I was there.

When the house was broken into a few weeks ago the “charming” characters also took my only wearable coat. Since it’s now officially “summer” most shops in Ireland don’t stock coats. Of course the weather, as I’m writing this, is still pretty awful, but I guess this proves how out of touch with reality the fashion world is ..

In any case my first stop in New York was a clothes shop. New York has so many to choose from and as I was staying in a central location I only had a short stroll to some of the bigger and better shops including Brooks Brothers on Madison Avenue. I’m now the proud owner of a very nice, if a little expensive, Brooks Brothers trench coat.

So what did I manage to see?

Not as much as I would have liked, but I did get to wander around quite a bit and soak up the city’s atmosphere.

The Empire State Building is really impressive, though unfortunately the view from the top wasn’t that great when I was there due to fog.

If I make it back again when there isn’t fog I’m sure I could get better photos!

I spent a lot of my free time simply walking around the streets. Time Square is insane. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many advertising billboards in one place!

I watch a lot of films, so seeing so many of the streets and buildings that have acted as a backdrop to many of my favourite films was fun. Remember the big showdown in The Avengers? It was shot in the area where the hotel was!

And of course the hotel itself has featured in so many films over the years ..

Talking of films .. I also took a wander around the Wall Street area before heading back to the airport. It looks like they were filming something there as well, but I’ve no idea what.

I’d love to have about a week to explore New York at my own pace and get to see some of the iconic sights, such as the Statue of Liberty, but I guess I’ll have to wait for that

A Bit of Tourism In New York is an article from Michele Neylon :: Pensieri - Technology, Marketing, Domains, Thoughts

The Bigger Game Amnesty International is an article from Michele Neylon :: Pensieri - Technology, Marketing, Domains, Thoughts

Image via CrunchBase

I posted about my initial impressions of Netflix back in January.

It’s now nearly May and I’m still happily paying a monthly subscription.

Why?

Well it comes down to economics and a couple of other things.

Even if you don’t circumvent the content limits on an Irish Netflix account there is quite a bit of content available to watch. As I already noted, the “new releases” are a bit of a misnomer, but there’s still quite a lot to watch. I’ve found some real gems by exploring the TV series and films, as Netflix carries quite a few of the titles that iTunes doesn’t – and even when there is crossover it’s cheaper to use Netflix.

The idea of “all you can eat” TV and films is pretty appealing and the “social” element is pretty interesting.

I was paying Sky quite a bit per month for a number of movie channels which I haven’t really been using. There’s nothing wrong with them, but I simply wasn’t watching enough to justify paying for them. Cancelling my Sky Movies subscription won’t save me much money per month, as I’ll end up using whatever I “save” on my iTunes accounts.

But what about the content restrictions on Netflix Ireland?

It’s all down to licensing obviously, but there are ways to circumvent the restrictions. It doesn’t take much effort to find any number of services that let you “appear” as if you’re logged in from the US and then you get access to a much wider range of films and other content.

Even with access to the US content, however, you still won’t find everything you might want. You can find Iron Man 2, but not the original, for some odd reason. None of the James Bond movies appear to be available and you won’t get access to mainstream Hollywood hits much faster than you would on any iTunes account (either side of the Atlantic)

Overall, however, I’m happier to stick with Netflix and watch a few TV shows and movies and not have to worry about how much I’m paying. At €6.99 a month it’s so cheap it’s barely worth talking about (it works out at less than 24 cents a day!)

So what do you think of Netflix? I know what Conn and Conor think

Related articles

• Miramax the latest studio to ink Netflix U.K. deal (news.cnet.com)
• Netflix touts success of UK and Ireland launch (techradar.com)

Netflix Ireland Revisited is an article from Michele Neylon :: Pensieri - Technology, Marketing, Domains, Thoughts