Waterfield Designs Laptop Luggage - The Best?

One of the pleasures of buying a new laptop is looking for new luggage to carry it in!

In my case, I need a versatile arrangement that gives my laptop protection when it's travelling with me on my Brompton bike. Occasionally, I might not have my bike, so need something a bit more businesslike. And then, there's the weekend trips. In short, I need something for every occasion.

Over 4 years ago, I bought a Waterfield Designs sleeve case for the 15" Titanium Powerbook. It has done great service and still looks as good as new. It was able to handle my slightly wider PowerbookG4 also, and so it has been used almost every day since. I got a few additions with the bag to handle other goodies too. I'm particularly pleased as to how the sleevecase has provided protection as I've ridden over bad roads around London. Apart from the quality and style, what has stood out for me with Waterfield was the initial buying experience. I got quick answers to my questions, and the most amazing thing was that after I ordered the stuff, it arrived less than 48 hours after I ordered it. That was San Francisco to London! Unbelievable.

So, while casting glances at other luggage, it was only natural I consider Waterfield Designs for my new MacBook Pro (17"). The range has been updated gradually over the years but still covers the same sort of needs. This time, I decided to add a flap to the sleevecase for those odd occasions I may just have the case and it's raining. I also got tempted by the combination deals, and decided that a Cozmo bag in addition to the sleevecase would provide a solution to every need. With this option, an extra gear pouch is included for free. With the current dollar/pound rate the whole package was pretty attractive - even with shipping, so I settled on that.



Again I got quick and clear answers to my questions. This time I took a slightly cheaper option on shipping (I still don't have the MacBook Pro). I still received the whole order in 3 days flat!

The verdict: Fantastic! These bags are really well made (they are made in San Francisco, not in some cheap labour country). They are well-thought-out with great details, and accents. They work well individually or in combination, and I know they will last. They are practical and protective, but also look great. If I need it, I also know I'll get great service. I can't recommend these guys highly enough. If you need laptop luggage, don't just look at the Apple Store.

Aside: The one frustration with packing my laptop is our stupid UK plug. It is so large in every dimension that it always causes something to bulge. Why can't someone invent a foldable UK plug whereby the prongs can fold away neatly for carrying?

Tags: Apple, MacBook Pro, Waterfield Designs, SF Bags, Cozmo, Luggage

Vista Marketshare

In my previous recent posts I've mentioned about my purchase of XP Pro for use on my about-to-be-delivered MacBook Pro.

I bought my copy at Amazon.co.uk and I thought I'd look at what was/wasn't selling on Amazon. I was amazed to see that XP Pro was indeed the top selling Microsoft OS on this site in 11th place (on all software titles). The first version of Vista was in 30th place. Only one other copy of Vista was in the top 50.

Wondering if this was a UK phenomenon, I popped over to the US Amazon site. Similar situation. This time, XP Home was in the top 25 at 15th place, and XP Pro somewhere in the 25-50 range. The first version of Vista was at 62.

I checked also at NewEgg a popular site for system builders, and it seems again that more people are buying XP than are buying Vista. Now some might argue the fact that Vista has so many versions dilutes it's position. But really there are also many versions of XP (Home/Pro, 32bit/64bit, OEM, Full,etc), and the gap in the position of XP and Vista is so significant that I do not believe that sum(copies of Vista) > sum(copies of XP).

I have always expected Vista to be a success, and I recognise that there is quite a difference in the PC world than the Mac world for doing upgrades etc. But to think that 6 months after the full introduction of Vista, when given the choice, more people are buying a 6 year old OS seems very strange indeed. That is a sad reflection on Microsoft's strategy and something that should cause them long-term worry. I know for sure that 6 months after Leopard is (eventually) released, the same will not be true on the Mac platform.

As a final aside, I did this check a day after Amazon.com had introduced a Leopard pre-order and was amazed to see Leopard in 1st place across ALL software, and Leopard family pack in 3rd place. Not only that, but even MacOS Tiger (10.4) was ahead of any copy of Vista (in 55th place)!

A visitor from outerspace would make a very different conclusion on the operating system market than is reality if presented with these figures. But, would they infer a more accurate view of the future?

Tags: Apple, Microsoft, Vista, XP, Mac OS X

Why XP Pro over Vista?

In my previous post I discussed my purchase of XP Pro. Why not go for Vista, you may ask? Is it your dislike of the Redmond monopoly again getting in the way of rational decisions?

In fact, I came very close to purchasing Vista. I wanted to see what the very best Microsoft can do is like. I also felt that a more recent OS would be more secure (and also require fewer changes - I'm not sure how many security downloads my copy of XP Pro will require immediately after install).

But in the end, Vista would have required me setting aside at least 20GB of my laptop hard disk - something that I don't want to give up. (XP should take as little as 5GB comfortably).

In addition, Vista does not work well today as far as I can tell with Virtualisation applications - especially if you also want to use a bootcamp partition. Part of this comes down to the new activation requirements in Vista which are torturous. While legal under license terms to do Virtualisation + Bootcamp (as far as I can tell) with the higher end versions, it is not practical to do so today. Also, the virtualisation solutions do not support Aero yet, so I wouldn't have been getting the full Vista experience except in Bootcamp (and probably quite hard to change between the two).

Finally, Vista is more expensive than XP Pro, and for the amount of use it will get, is just not worth it for me. I would have probably got the Ultimate version (for business use and virtualisation), but not used most of the features.

Coming up - an observation on Vista take-up.

Tags: Apple, Microsoft, Vista, XP, Mac OS X

I feel dirty...

Not because I haven't blogged for almost a month - though that, I should also be ashamed of - but, because I've just received delivery of my license for Microsoft XP Pro. Yes, you read that right.

But, do not worry, it's all in the best possible taste. I have ordered a 17" MacBook Pro and am expecting delivery next week. I will be running Windows XP on it both via BootCamp and via virtualisation. At this point, it looks like I'll be going down the VMWare Fusion route, rather than Parallels. I think VMWare is being aggressive in pricing, support and adding features as it comes from behind vs Parallels. We'll see.

I don't expect to use XP much, but I have some home automation components that haven't been updated since I stopped using an old Toshiba Libretto. My Virtual PC copies have never really worked on these items due to poor performance when doing serial operations.

I also wanted to have XP around to experiment a bit as well as to demonstrate to the great unwashed the flexibility of the Mac platform these days.

Looking back, I have bought a lot of Microsoft software over the years ranging from Multiplan, Excel/Word, followed of course by many copies of Office and Office X. I've also had Windows 95 and 98 via copies of Softwindows and Virtual PC. But these became poor when Mac OS X came along (I had to reboot into OS9 to get reasonable VPC performance).

Later this year I will undoubtedly purchase Office 2008 for Mac. I fully expect XP Pro and then Office 2008 to be the last Microsoft OS and Applications that I ever buy again.

Next up... Why XP Pro over Vista?

Tags: Apple, Microsoft, Vista, XP, Mac OS X, MacBook Pro

How reasonable is this?

I cannot believe the BBC being dragged down to this level.

How can you name a potential suspect in a case like this? A suspect who police say there is not enough evidence to arrest (should they even be saying anything)? What sort of society have we moved into?

Of course, it's not just the BBC - it seems there isn't a major media outlet that hasn't been party to this. Anyone who has participated in this "outing" should be ashamed. This is no better than medieval justice.

I don't always agree with Andrew Collins on his views (in fact, rarely), but I think this blog post sums up my views well on this whole sad affair, and it all seems to be heading in even worse directions.

WMA RIP Follow-up - H.264 to kill VC-1?

Following on from my recent post in which I claimed Windows Media Audio (WMA) was effectively dead and that I hoped the battleground would now move on to ensuring the same happened to WMV (by a hopefully victorious by MPEG-4 Part10/AVC/H.264), I was encouraged by two pieces of news last week.

The first was a report over at The Register about how Microsoft had got "mugged" over VC-1 codec patent terms by the other companies who had claims to some patents that were part of this standard (VC-1 is a fundamental part of WMV). In essence, Microsoft gets less than many of its competitors for every VC-1 license. As Microsoft gives this away in many of its products, it actually costs it money. The article also argued how H.264 had become the preferred codec for many people. I am seeing this mentioned increasingly in blog postings etc.

I can't comment on the accuracy of this article, though the author's knowledge seems pretty deep on the subject.

However in the same week, Microsoft itself released a long-expected XBox 360 update. One of its features includes H.264 playback capability. (A side note for AppleTV bashers - XBox360 also only does 2-channel audio playback!)

I think this move is equivalent to Microsoft's inclusion of AAC playback on its Zune player and is indeed a smart move. With Sony using MPEG video standards also, and of course AppleTV, iPod and other Apple products leveraging this standard, it seems to me that Microsoft is also acknowledging that at the very least, it must let the market decide, and that it cannot impose VC-1 on the world.

Those who produce content in H.264 can easily supply such content to iPod owners, Mac owners, AppleTV owners, Sony PS3 and PSP owners, many Nokia phones, as well as to XBox360 owners. Unfortunately, due to resolution and other differences in device capabilities, there may still have to be multiple versions of the content, but use of a single standard will certainly simplify things for many content providers (and users). It would thus seem a suicidal move for a content company to produce just VC-1 material and limit its market. Likewise, a company producing a playback device would be foolish not to provide for H.264, and may consider cutting WMV/VC-1 support.

It is still too early to decide this matter, but I think it is certainly a move in the right direction. If both WMA and WMV's influences are curtailed I think it's a great win for the consumer. These were Microsoft's opportunity to impose the next lock-ins on users (after Office formats were opened up), and competition authorities had failed to do anything about it. I personally believe it is lock-ins such as these that have prolonged Microsoft's massive hold on the computer user (how could any business user NOT use MS Office?). In this post-PC world of many and varied devices, Microsoft will have to compete on capability alone - though with the backing of it's huge reserves and user inertia to help it along the way, it is still very much able to flex its muscles. That's good news for Microsoft's competitors, and it's even better news for us consumers. In the end, perhaps the market has done the job that the competition authorities were unwilling and incapable of doing*. It has taken too long and there are legacy issues (eg BBC tying itself to Microsoft's "standards" for some of its initial services to consumers thus locking out Mac and Linux users, while adopting H.264 for others). But, it is at least happening.

What do you think? Is H.264 going to become the de facto codec for video for the next generation of devices? Can/will Microsoft impose its own standard after all? Is something else going to do it (Flash, DivX, etc)?

* Footnote: Of course, there is a counter argument, that it is not so much the market that made it happen, but Microsoft's own internal failings. After all with WMA, WMV, Windows Mobile, Windows CE, XBox, Vista in every flavour imaginable etc. it certainly ATTEMPTED to cover every base. If Microsoft had executed well, it would surely have nailed this and the competition authorities would be spending the next 5-10 years trying to unravel it.

Tags: Apple, WMV, H.264, VC-1, Microsoft

Hilarious Joy of Tech Cartoon

The Joy of Tech cartoons have been excelling themselves lately with some very witty content.

Yesterday's cartoon about reaction to the EMI/Apple announcement is most amusing.

Tags: Apple, EMI, DRM, Geek Culture