Are Apple's new laptops too expensive?

Apple's new MacBooks look and feel fantastic - you should see them at your local Apple store - and they are equipped with the latest cutting edge technology. However, that makes them very expensive. Although they are fantastic computers, in today's economic climate where the value of our property is falling, the unemployment rate is rising, the stockmarket is in turmoil, and money is tight, it seems like a bad time to introduce such expensive computers. Raising prices across the entire laptop range could well put off some potential purchasers. Steve Jobs with his millions in the bank doesn't know how tough it is for the rest of us.

This is why the computer I bought last month was a Windows laptop. For just under £350 I got a really nice laptop from PC World with a 15in screen, 1.8GHz processor, 2Gb RAM, 250Gb hard disk, Wi-Fi, 4x USB ports, and so on. It runs Windows Vista just fine.

I recently mentioned Microsoft's Live Mesh, a great service that puts a folder on your desktop that is automatically synchronised with every other PC that you use. You can save a file on your desktop PC at home or work, fire up your laptop in Starbucks or wherever you use it and there in the Live Mesh folder on the desktop is your file. It's brilliant if you use several computers.
Dropbox is an identical service that does exactly the same. Install the free software and it creates a folder wherever you want it. I prefer the desktop.

The contents of this folder are automatically synchronised with every other computer you install the software on. Within the folder is a Public subfolder and this is one that others can access. So you can put files in there that others can access on their own computers. The rest of the files remain private. It's very similar to Live Mesh, but the software seems a bit more advanced because there are Windows, Mac and Linux versions whereas Microsoft has only got round to producing a Windows version.

I've no idea how these services make money. Microsoft obviously benefits because it's a Windows service, but Dropbox must have to either start advertising or charging at some point. Hopefully, there will be a two-tier service with a free basic account and a paid account with extra facilities. For the moment it's free, so go and sign up.

*Update: A 2Gb DropBox is free, but you can get 50Gb ofr $99 a year.

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Microsoft Live Mesh

Microsoft's Live Mesh is an interesting project and it is another type of cloud computing service that aims to make your files available anywhere and on any device provided it has an internet connection. At the moment it only works on Windows PCs, but since most computer users in the world currently use them, it's not so bad.

Support for mobile phones and Apple Macs is promised soon though. Everyone has a mobile phone and the top models are very capable hand-held devices, so it will be useful to be able to access files from anywhere - mobile phone access is much more widespread than Wi-Fi. Even Mac users might be tempted away from MobileMe, which has a similar iDisk service.

When you sign in at Live Mesh you'll be prompted to add a device and you can download a small program for 32-bit and 64-bit Windows XP/Vista. You can also access your online desktop too. You get 5Gb of storage space for free and the really cool thing is that when you create a folder on your online desktop, it is replicated on all desktop of all the systems that you connect to Live Mesh with.

Normally folders on the Windows desktop are yellow, but you'll see a blue one and this is a Live Mesh folder. Any files you create or delete in here are copied transparently in the background to all other PCs with Live Mesh installed. What's more, there's a log window that records every action so you can see what has been done and when. It upens automatically when you open the blue Live Mesh folder on the Windows desktop.

It's an incredibly useful service if you work on multiple computers because you can keep your work files in the blue Live Mesh folder on the desktop and no matter which PC you use, you'll always see the latest files. You just open a file, make any changes that are necessary, save it and it's available on every other PC you use without you having to do anything special.

One thing you must remember though, is to give Live Mesh time to synchronise. It takes a little time to update the contents of the blue folder and this morning for example, I booted up and immediately accessed a file only to find it was an old version. I closed it, waited a few seconds and checked again. It was gone - because I had deleted it on another PC earlier. After another few seconds the up to date version that I had created on another PC was available.

Obviously Live Mesh was working through the actions that had taken place and until internet transfers become instantaneous, this update delay will always exist. I'll just have to go and make a cup of coffee after switching on my PC to make sure it has time to sync. Live Mesh even works if you boot up Windows on a Mac too. It'll be even more useful - to me anyway - when there's a native Mac application.

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Don't remove laptop batteries

Although Macbooks are portable computers, they aren't always used away from the office or home and you might occasionally, or even permanently, use one as a neat and compact desktop computer. After all, ignoring the Mac Mini, which isn't even a complete computer because it doesn't have a keyboard, monitor, mouse, or speakers, it is actually the cheapest way to buy a Mac.

Macbooks, being portable laptop computers, have a battery installed so that they can be used away from the home or office, but if you use it as a desktop computer that is permanently plugged into the mains power supply the question is whether to leave the battery installed or to remove it. Will it damage the battery? Will it over charge? Will it reduce its efficiency? These are important questions for people that use Macbooks as their main desktop computer either temporarily or permanently.

There is a very brief article in Apple's support section that says "MacBook and MacBook Pro: Mac reduces processor speed when battery is removed while operating from an A/C adaptor." So the Mac's speed is limited without the battery and it will run more slowly than normal. This is because it is supplied with a pathetic power supply that is not beefy enough to supply the Macbook with all the power it needs. Hey, but it looks cool and it has that clever connector. This is clearly a case of looks being more important than function, something that Apple is occasionally guilty of.

Another reason for keeping the battery in place and not removing it even though it is not needed is because one of the Macbook's feet is on the battery. There are four small feet un the underside, one in each corner, but one of them is on the battery. If you remove the battery then the Macbook wobbles! Not badly and you can live with it, but it definitely isn't as stable with the battery removed.

Will it damage the battery leaving it in and with the Macbook permanently plugged into the mains? Once a battery has been fully charged the power is cut and it stops charging, so you can't over charge it. Batteries leak charge slowly and eventually the charge will fall and the Mac will top it up, but it stops as soon as it is done.

A rechargeable battery can only be charged a certain number of times, so it makes sense to charge it up as infrequently as possible, but there's no evidence that leaving it in the Mac and letting it be topped up as and when required does any harm. Even if it does reduce the life of the battery, it is an easily replaced component and a disposable one that isn't meant to last as long as the computer anyway, so leave it in and don't remove it. You mac will be more stable and it will run faster.

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Chrome is fast, but speed isn't everything

Google's new web browser, Chrome, must be the most talked about on the internet and a huge number of words have been written about it. Most people are praising it, saying how wonderful it is, how much faster it is, and so on. But is it really that good?

Google reckons that it is 10 times faster than Firefox 3. Some speed tests reported at Cnet show Chrome to be what looks like hundreds of times faster than IE7 and perhaps 10 times faster than Firefox 3. However, Firefox developers have produced test results that show that Firefox is faster. It just goes to show that the results of speed tests depend on the test, so don't believe everything you read about Chrome.

Someone else posted figures that show how many milliseconds it takes to display a web page and Chrome was something like 50ms and IE7 was more like 250ms. So what? When you have to wait 10 seconds or more for a web page to download because of the amount of internet traffic, the fact that Chrome shaves a few milliseconds off the rendering time isn't that important. Forget speed tests, just try it. It certainly feels quick, but it is nowhere near as fast as the speed tests suggest and it only feels slightly quicker.

If you run online applications then having a fast JavaScript engine is certainly an advantage, but other parts of Chrome are disappointing. For example, there aren't any add-ons. This isn't surprising because the project was top secret and the browser has only just been released. Add-ons will probably come in time, but till then you are best sticking with Firefox. Bookmark handling is awful and there doesn't appear to be any form of bookmarks manager. You can't delete more than one at a time, and moving them around and reorganising them is awkward.

There are Open All Bookmarks and Open All Bookmarks in a New Window commands. I must have hundreds of bookmarks and Chrome just crashes if I try this. They are pointless commands and only work if you have less than a dozen bookmarks. Chrome's creators obviously don't like or use bookmarks. They should look at Firefox 3 to see what you can do with a good bookmark manager.

Other stuff is missing, like print preview, shrink to fit printing, security (go to eBay or PayPal using Firefox 3 and see how much more reassuring it is), RSS feeds, notes, widgets, blocked content, links list, browsing without images, and so on. Google Chrome is a beta and the version number is 0.2, which is all you need to know.

You need more than a fast JavaScript engine and crashproof tabs to make a good browser. Firefox is much better. Even Opera is better. It's one to watch because it will no doubt get better. For the moment though, it's best avoided.

*Update: New versions have fixed bugs, but it could still be better.

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