Can't attach files to Yahoo! Mail?

I have been having problems with Yahoo! Mail recently and it works fine except for one thing. I cannot attach a file to an email. I click the attach button, select a file, and Yahoo! Mail tries to upload it and fails. Every time no matter what file it is or what size it is. A search of the web found other people with this problem, but no solutions. However, I found a work-around that fixes it.

I've been using Yahoo! for years and have sent a zillion emails with attachments, so it crossed my mind that my mail account might be full. I can't see any usage indication in Yahoo! Mail, so I don't know whether it is full or not. I searched for old sent files with attachments and deleted them, freeing up some space. I still couldn't attach any files.

It crossed my mind that it could be the browser and I normally use Google Chrome. I fired up Internet Explorer, but it was no different and files could not be attached to emails. The problem seemed to be independent of the browser.

The Attach button in Yahoo! Mail is actually Flash. I uninstalled Flash ages ago partly because it isn't needed so much these days and partly because Chrome has Flash built in so you don't need to install it separately. It is also known to cause various problems too. Well, I am also using Windows 8 and Internet Explorer 10 has Flash built in too. So both Chrome and IE have Flash and neither browser would attach files to emails. Unlike normal Flash, you cannot upgrade the Flash plugin in these browsers because it is built in and you have to wait for a browser update.

The solution was to use Firefox. This is completely Flash-free because I've not installed Flash in Windows and it is not built into the browser. If you access Yahoo! Mail with it, the mail page detects that you don't have Flash and displays a regular non-Flash button. This attaches files to emails just fine.

So there you have it. If you can't attache files to Yahoo! Mail messages it is Flash and without Flash it is fine.

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Beware of Skype malware and con tricks

I just got a call on Skype that was obviously designed to con people out of money or install malware. I have heard of people being called on the telephone with this sort of scam, but not by Skype. This is new to me. It goes like this:

"This is an important security notice. We have detected that your computer is not running properly and it may be infected with a virus/malware. Your security software has been deactivated and you and your computer are at serious risk. To reactivate your security software and repair the security problem go to www.blah blah..."

No doubt some malware or crapware will be installed that will hold your PC to ransom and cost an arm and a leg to remove. It didn't fool me for one second, but not everyone is as suspicious as I am of fake calls, emails, and pop-up messages.

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Living without Flash

Some time ago I decided to delete Flash from my computer and try to live without it. Is it really necessary? Actually it is, but as I pointed out, you can still live without it because Google's Chrome browser has it built in. This means that you don't need to install Flash separately. It is one less application cluttering up the disk drive and using valuable resources. Even Internet Explorer 10 in Windows 8 has Flash built in. It only works with a few sites though and it isn't as compatible as Chrome, but it's a step in the right direction.

I don't have Flash installed, but since Flash is in Chrome then I can still access Flash websites. It is possible to go a step further and disable the Flash plug-in in Chrome. Click the menu button to the right of the address box and select Settings. Click Advanced settings to reveal the hidden settings and then click Content settings in the Privacy section. In the Plug-ins section select Click to play. Close the settings tab and restart Chrome.

Chrome should be faster (solving a problem that some people have with Chrome running very slowly on some computers). When there is Flash content on a web page you will see a blank space where it should be and when the mouse moves over it, a message says Click to run Adobe Flash Player. If you really need the item, click it and Flash runs, but if it is just an advert then don't bother.

A plug-ins button appears at the right side of the address box when plug-ins are disabled and clicking it enables you to add the website as an exception. This means that you can run Flash on your favourite websites, but have it disabled on all the others. It is one more step towards getting rid of Flash completely. You find that browsing the web is faster and less prone to lock-ups and crashes with fewer plug-ins.

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Access secret features in Android

There are some secret features in Google's Android operating system for mobile phones and tablets. They are sometimes called Easter Eggs because you have to hunt for them and find them.

Apparently there is a hidden jellybean screen saver in Android 4.2. This article here describes how you can get it by repeatedly tapping the Android version number in Settings, About.

It did nothing on my Google Nexus 7 running Android 4.2 though. I pressed it 20 times or more, but got nowhere. This may be specific to mobile phones because there's a comment on the above article from someone with a Google Nexus 10 that said they couldn't access it either.

I thought I would try tapping the build number instead, thinking that it may be different on my Nexus 7 and after a few taps it started to display a countdown message reporting that I was soon to become a developer. After a few more taps and I was a full blown Android developer.

The Developer menu appears in Settings and it provides access to a number of functions. To be honest, few of them are useful if you are not an Android developer, but it's interesting anyway. The Stay Awake option might be useful if you want your device to stay on and not blank the screen after a minute or two. There's an option to protect USB storage, and one to show CPU usage. The rest, well, I'll leave them for developers.

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33 percent of Windows users intend to buy a Mac

There are some fun quotes about statistics, such as "There are lies, damned lies and statistics," and "90% of all statistics are made up," (including that one). You can manipulate statistics to support any point of view you  like. There is always some statistic somewhere that you can quite. Examine the figures though and things aren't quite what they seem.

Here is an article: 33% of Windows users intend to buy a Mac or iPad instead of upgrading to Windows 8. The original source is an Avast! survey reported in USA Today.

It sounds like 33% of Windows users intend to buy an iPad or Mac instead of Windows 8. After all, that's what the headline says. But here is the original information:

Avast's poll of U.S. Windows users found 16% planned to purchase a new computer. While 68% indicated they would get one of the new Windows 8 models, 30% planned to buy an Apple iPad touch tablet, and 12%, an Apple Macintosh computer.

So only 16% of Windows users planned to buy a new computer and 30% of these planned to buy an iPad. That is 30% of the 16% that intend to buy a new computer, which is 4.8% of the total surveyed. Only 12% planned to buy a Mac, which is 12% of 16% or 1.92%.

Add them together and the headline should say: 6.72% of Windows users intend to buy a Mac or iPad instead of upgrading to Windows 8. Actually, I'm not sure about the word 'instead'. It's possible that people could upgrade to Windows 8 and buy an iPad. I have both for instance. It depends on how the survey questions were phrased.

An alternative headline would be: 94% of Windows users reject the iPad and Mac as an upgrade option. After all, only 16% are planning to buy new hardware and 68% of those are planning to buy a Windows 8 PC. The things you can do with statistics.

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Get the Bing Winter Wallpaper pack free

Some people stick with the default Windows wallpaper, icons, mouse pointers, screen saver and so on, but others like to customise their desktop. What sort of user are you? If you like giving your PC a brand new look then here is a great new theme from Microsoft - Bing Wallpaper and Screen Saver Pack: Winter. It works on Windows XP, Vista, 7 and 8.

Download the file then go to the Downloads folder and run DefaultPack.exe. You will be asked if you want to set your browser's home page and search provider to Bing. It's your choice. Clear the tick boxes if you don't want to change anything.

After installation you'll see a winter scene on the desktop. Bing has some fantastic photos and these themes are excellent. Right click the desktop afterwards and select Personalize. The theme is listed in the My Themes section and you can switch back to the standard theme at any time. Click Desktop Background to see the wallpaper settings. By default it changes once a day to a new photo, but you can  change the frequency if you want to swap photos more often.

Click Screen Saver if you want to change the screen saver settings, such as how long to wait before it kicks in. Use the Preview button to see what the screen saver will look like without having to wait.

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Mountain Lion Notification Center is broken

Notification Center in OS X Mountain Lion on the Apple Mac is a great idea: Whenever important events occur you are notified on the screen and messages are stored in the Notification Center, which slides in the from the right side of the screen. It works well for Apple services, but for anything else it is very temperamental and if the wind's blowing in the right direction and you cross your fingers, you may just see a notification, or perhaps not. It seems that Notification Center is broken.

When Mountain Lion was installed I added my Google Mail account to the Mail App, set up notifications for everything, went to the website and logged in so Safari stored the password and so on. The first day, possibly two, I can't remember now, Google Mail notifications appeared in the notifications panel. Since then there has been nothing. There are emails in the notification panel that are over 100 days old. They just seem stuck and there hasn't been an update for months.

Facebook integration was added to Mountain Lion after the launch as an update and this has also proved troublesome. There are currently two Facebook items in my notifications panel, one is four days old and the other is 10 days old. I don't think I've ever seen anything from Twitter in there.

I've deleted all the notifications in the panel (items were days, weeks or even moths old) and it is currently empty. Whether it will ever get anything new is anyone's guess. I'll just have to wait and see.

The one glimmer of hope is that Calendar notifications work fine.

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Fix Windows 8 Start screen Metro apps not working

After upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 8 I found that the Start screen apps would not work. When they were clicked the screen cleared to the solid colour with the app icon in the middle, but then went straight back to the desktop. No Start screen Metro apps would work and they started and immediately quit. The live tiles weren't live either.

I tried a few different things, but the last one and the one that appeared to fix the problems, was turning off the security software. I was using the latest version of Avast! and right clicked the icon at the right side of the taskbar and selected the option to turn it off for 10 minutes. After switching to the Start screen the apps were all working.

I uninstalled Avast! and Metro apps work fine now. Afterwards I discovered that Windows Defender was turned on. This is basically the Windows 8 version of Microsoft Security Essentials. I wonder whether just turning off Widows Defender would have worked. I prefer Avast! so I might reinstall it some time.

If Windows 8 Start screen Metro apps are not working for you, right click the bottom left corner of the desktop and select Control Panel. Open Windows Defender, select Settings and turn it off. If Metro apps still aren't working, turn Windows Defender back on and uninstall your anti virus/spyware software. Windows Defender is a reasonably good anti virus/spyware program, so you are still protected.

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Blown away by Windows 8 demo

I've been quite critical of Windows 8, especially the Start screen, but I've just been blown away by the Microsoft launch event. Windows 8 is stunning, it's amazing, it's the most advanced operating system out there and makes others look primitive. The things they did on stage showing off Windows 8's features were absolutely fantastic and there's nothing that compares, not even Apple's OS X. But...

Right now I'm staring at Windows 8 thinking "How the hell did they do that?" Were they running a different version to me? I tried as hard as I could to follow what they were doing and how they did it, but half of it has gone. I've forgotten much of what they did and the bits I can remember I can't figure out how to do it.

This is Windows 8's Achilles heel. It's just not obvious what you can do or how to do it. It needs a manual the size of a telephone directory to reveal all the secret taps, swipes, clicks, drags, hovers, tricks and so on.

At one point in the presentation they showed how you could dock a (Start screen) app to the side of the Windows desktop. I've just spent 10 minutes trying to figure out how they did that and I failed. I can't do it.

I must admit that I'm running the final public beta at the moment as it's not on sale till tomorrow, but unless Microsoft has added a truck load of features in the final version that aren't in mine there is a serious usability problem. Whenever I want to do something in Windows 8, I have to Google how to do it.

If you want a fantastic operating system get Windows 8, but it'll irritate the hell out of you till you figure out all the secret ways of doing the cool things it is capable of.

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Three simple tweaks to fix Windows 8

I love Windows 8, but I hate Metro. Well, that's not quite true. I love the Metro interface, but hate how it is implemented. Windows 8 could be a fantastic operating system if only Microsoft would make three very small changes. It wouldn't take much to fix Windows 8, just a few simple tweaks here and there. This is what is required...

1. Restore the Start button
The first thing that is needed is a Start button on the taskbar just like we've had since 1995 when it was introduced with Windows 95. (I actually prefer XP's pop-out panels to Vista/7's scrolling list, but I can live with the latest version.) This would take hardly any effort to put back as it's been there for so long and it is far superior to the Start screen when you have lots of programs installed. The Start button is essential.

2. Boot to the desktop
Windows should boot up to the desktop, just like it has done since, well, forever. I and many others, spend all day with desktop applications, running them with multiple windows open, switching from one to the other and so on. Desktop applications are more important than the lightweight apps that populate the Metro screen.

3. Make Metro an option
I like the new Start screen with its Metro interface. It's brilliant. I like the app store. OK, it's pretty barren right now, but just wait. It'll soon fill up with great apps. The thing is, I don't want it forced on me. I want to boot to the desktop to get my work done, then during lunch times, coffee breaks and so on I'd like to press a key (currently the Windows key, which is fine), and switch to the Metro Start screen and have some fun. Yes, the Metro interface is fun and there are some entertaining apps. I just don't want it getting in my way all the time. There could even be a startup option so people could choose between the Metro Start screen and the traditional desktop.

If I could switch to the Metro screen and its apps with a menu or hotkey I'd be happy and Windows 8 would be perfect. There's a lot to like in Microsoft's OS and really only one irritation, but it's a big one. It's not Metro itself, it's just the way it is implemented for people that actually work on PCs rather than play on them.

Apple has done a very similar thing with OS X and it has an iOS interface. However, the default is the traditional interface and I can run Launchpad (the iOS-like desktop) as and when I need it, or I can choose to completely ignore it. I can't remember ever using it to be honest. Tablet interfaces just don't work on desktop computers - Microsoft take note.

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iPad Mini won't disrupt the 7in tablet market

A lot has been written about the iPad Mini and the comments range from the price, which many people have found disappointingly high, to the way it will disrupt the 7in tablet market and kill off all competitors. My opinions are opposite to these. It is not expensive and it will not disrupt the 7in market.

The reason it will not disrupt the 7in market is that the iPad Mini is not in the same category as the Google Nexus 7 or Amazon Kindle Fire HD. Those two products will continue to appeal to budget conscious buyers who want a great tablet without it costing them an arm and a leg. Both competitors are available for £159 (UK prices) whereas the iPad Mini is £269. That's a huge difference to someone on a budget and it is a whole different market.

At first sight the iPad Mini might look expensive compared to other 7in tablets, but it's not a 7in tablet. It has an 8in screen (near enough). As Apple pointed out in the presentation, it is bigger than other tablets like the Google Nexus 7. (Apple, this does not make it better, just different. Is the Microsoft Surface better than the iPad because it has a 10.7in screen instead of your 9.7in screen? And why did you delete all the cool widgets off the Nexus 7's screen to make it look boring? A cheap trick.)

In addition to having an 8in screen the iPad Mini also has a 5 megapixel camera. It's a different tablet in a different market to Amazon and Google's and the price is fair. It's not cheap, but it's not expensive either.

So who will buy the iPad Mini? Loyal Apple supporters will queue up on launch day to buy it of course, but looking beyond the obvious fans, I think it will appeal to people that want an iPad, but were put off by the price. There's now a new iPad that is slightly smaller, but a whole lot more affordable.

My next iPad will be an iPad Mini. I am going to wait for a second generation model though. Judging by the current iPad release schedule I should only have to wait six months!

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Apple's shocking news - iPad 3 abandoned

Apple is one of the most secretive companies around and despite the well publicised leaks about the iPad Mini, there was a lot more new kit at the Apple event than anyone had imagined. There were surprises and shocks today.

The big problem I have with Apple's secrecy is that it screws customers. No-one expected the iPad 4 to be launched and the iPad 3 went on sale just a few months ago. Looking at the Apple store now, it is simply not there. The iPad 4 replaces it at the same price. Just imagine how those people feel that bought an iPad 3 last week. Apart from their iPad being abandoned by Apple, they could have had one twice as fast (with the A6X processor and other tweaks)  next week.

If only Apple had not been so secretive. Firstly, it should have warned people that there's a new model coming out. Secondly, they should have discounted the old model. Then customers could have had a choice - buy the iPad 3 with a discount or wait a week or so and order an iPad 4 at full price.

Customers have been well and truly screwed by Apple. Of course we expect  hardware to be upgraded and no doubt the iPad 5 will be even better than today's iPad 4, but to sell someone an iPad 3 just a week or two ago without warning them that they could get one twice as good for the same money if they waited a bit is shocking. They've been ripped off. I'd be mad if I'd bought an iPad 3 recently. Is there a law against this? Selling someone something with the full knowledge that next week there will be a replacement that is twice as good for the same money. If there isn't there ought to be.

Rules for purchasing hardware and software:

1. Never buy version 1 of anything.
2. Don't upgrade to the next version, skip a generation and buy alternate generations.
3. Always queue up and buy it on launch day. Wait six months and you could end up buying something that will be replaced very shortly.

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How much is a Facebook like worth?

Everywhere we go on the web and scattered throughout our Facebook newsfeed are invitations to like products, services, companies and so on. A lot of time and effort can go into getting people to like stuff and then producing endless updates to post on their Facebook news feeds. Is it all worth it though? How much is a Facebook like worth?

There is an interesting infographic here that's worth looking at. It's a bit dull at the top, but gets more interesting as you go down the page. There is another interesting article here and it's brief, but it contains a collection of good links to other articles.

Here are my own thoughts on the matter.

• People that like a brand, product or service are more likely to click the like button than people that don't like it.
• People that like a brand, product or service are more likely to buy stuff than people that don't like it.
• Therefore people that click like buttons are more likely to buy stuff than people that don't.

What does this tell you? Not much. If you really want to know how much a like button is worth you would have to get a large group of people, split them into two, one of which clicks the like button while the other doesn't. Then you can see the difference, if any, between them.

I'm getting a lot of adverts - requests to like stuff - on my Facebook feed, so I'm on a mission to eliminate them. I click the like button and then when the company posts on my feed I click the little arrow at the top and hide it. You then get the option to hide all posts from the company, which I then click. The result is no more ads and no more posts from that company and I have a nice clean Facebook news feed. How much is my like worth?

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How much memory does a tablet need?

Microsoft's new Surface tablet comes with a minimum of 32Gb of memory storage and this is double what is supplied with the iPad at the same price point. So does this make it twice as good or double the usefulness? Not necessarily. The question is, how much storage space does a tablet need?

I have a Google Nexus 7 with just 8Gb and I have been surprised how little memory I have used. The operating system requires memory to run and I have installed dozens of apps, yet I still have several gigabytes free. Home come?

The reason is that cloud storage is everywhere these days and there is no longer any need to use the device to store movies, music, photos, and other media. It is these files that use up all the space on tablets and by storing them elsewhere and streaming them when you need them, you can manage with very little memory on a tablet.

A computer, or a NAS drive, can act as a DLNA server and there are apps for tablets that turn them into DLNA clients. You run an app on the tablet, it connects to the computer or NAS drive and you can stream all the music or movies to the tablet. On iOS devices of course, there is iTunes library sharing facilities and you can connect to a computer running iTunes and play anything stored on it.

There are a couple of disadvantages and the computer or NAS drive must be running in order to act as a media server. There are some very energy efficient computers that you can leave on all day and NAS drives use little power and are designed to run all day anyway. My computer is always on most of the day because I'm always working on something or other.

The other disadvantage is that if you take your tablet out when you leave home you won't have access to your media. However, it is still possible to connect to a computer at home provided you have a Wi-Fi connection and these are increasingly common. Wi-Fi is everywhere these days.

If you don't want to host your media yourself and leave your computer or NAS drive on all day, there are lots of services that will host your media. Buy your music from Amazon for example, and it will be stored online and you can stream it to your Android tablet from anywhere with an internet connection. There are services like 4Shared and others that let you store media files online and stream them over the internet to your iOS or Android device too.

The main reason Microsoft Surface doesn't come in an 8 or 16Gb version is because the OS and apps take up so much space. I've not tried one yet, but I've heard that there's only 20Gb free on a 32Gb Surface, which means the system uses a massive 12Gb. That's more than the total memory on my Google Nexus 7!

I wouldn't get hung up on the amount of storage a tablet has. Once you get used to storing your media elsewhere and streaming it, you'll find you can manage with a lot less. The are only two differences between a 16Gb iPad and a 64Gb iPad and that is the memory size and the price. If the memory size is not important then you can save yourself a bundle of money. The same is true with Android and Surface tablets. Buy the cheapest and just stream your media.

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Microsoft Surface sold out

I was going to blog about who on earth would buy the Microsoft Surface when in this morning's news I read that it has sold out already! It seems that a lot of people do want to buy it, or maybe Microsoft simply didn't order many).

Microsoft recently opened for pre orders and you can buy it right now with delivery at the end of the month in two weeks' time. The starting price is $499 or £399 if you are in the UK like me.

The problem I see with the Surface with Windows RT is that it is the same price as the iPad 3, which has a zillion more apps and a whole world of accessories. The Surface does have a clever cover/keyboard, but it's expensive and adds £80 to the price. A keyboard is not essential on a tablet though and this accessory is more applicable to the Surface with Windows 8 Pro. That's more like an ultra light laptop because it runs the full version of Windows 8 and Office. I can see businesses buying that instead of laptops. It's basically a smaller, lighter, laptop with a detachable keyboard and touch screen. The price of that has been announced yet.

There is the novelty value of a new tablet and the status of being the first among your friends to have the latest gadget, but I'm not sure a month after launch day the Surface will be selling that well.

I have two tablets, the iPad and a Google Nexus 7. These are at opposite ends of the tablet range and Apple dominates the top end while Android (Google and Amazon) dominate the bottom end. Surely Surface would be better as a mid-range tablet offering the best of both worlds - power without the price? Add a few accessories or a bit more memory to the Surface and it will cost more than a laptop. That would make me think twice about buying one.

And then there's the iPad Mini, not officially launched yet, but what else can Apple be launching next week? How will the Surface look when there's an even cheaper iPad rival? (Actually there is already, the iPad 2, which is still a great tablet, is £80 cheaper than the Surface.)  I foresee a price drop from Microsoft. I think I will wait and see what happens.

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Mountain Lion breaks VirtualBox

If you are a VirtualBox user and are running OS X Mountain Lion on your Apple Mac, do not install OS X 10.8.2. After the update, VirtualBox will no longer be able to run virtual machines.

There is some fundamental change in the way that OS X 10.8.2 works that is not compatible with VirtualBox and it stops with an error that only one VT-x hypervisor can be running at once. Apparently Mountain Lion already uses this and so VirtualBox can't. It tries to start the virtual machine, but it hangs and you have to force quit it. The obvious thing to do is to turn off VT-x/AMD-V in VirtualBox settings, but this completely crashed my Mac and I had to hold down the power button until it switched off.

Fortunately, there has just been an update to VirtualBox and v4.2.1 should fix the problem. From reading the thread on the VirtualBox forum, it appears that it doesn't fix it for everyone though. Use the uninstaller that comes with VirtualBox and then reboot the Mac. Download the new version and extensions and install it. If it still doesn't work you'll just have to wait for a bug fix from Apple or VirtualBox.

Thankfully I installed Mountain Lion on a separate partition so I can still boot into Lion.

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Windows 8 is Windows for the tablet generation

In just three weeks Windows 8 will be here and the big question is how people will react to it. A few people have said that they like it, but many have spoken out against it and it is all down to that Metro interface. (I know it's not officially called Metro any more, but the name is sure to stick.)  I think we're going to see some extreme reactions to it and it is something you will either love or hate.

Windows 8 is Windows for the tablet generation. There are people that have all but given up using computers and they use tablets for 95% of tasks. I know that for a fact. I have an iPad with a 10-hour battery life and it often needs charging up every day. I can hardly summon up the enthusiasm to turn it on, never mind use it, but other family members argue over whose turn it is to use it next, "You've had it for two hours, it's my turn now!" Most days the family computer never gets turned on.

Tablet users (and there are millions of them), are people with very simple needs and they use Facebook, Twitter, eBay, email, web browsing and a few other things. They use apps one at a time, full screen, and they don't do anything remotely complicated. They have an app store for finding new apps and fun, lightweight games, there is a music store where they can get the latest releases from their favourite artists, and there is even a book store where they can download ebooks. What else do they need?

I think these people will really like Windows 8. Those tiles on the Start screen provide one-click access to their favourite apps. It may require a bit of setting up first and just as with a tablet people will need to spend the first hour or two downloading their favourite apps from the app store, but once set up everything they need is on the Start screen. Those tiles are live too, so they can see the latest email message, Facebook or Twitter comment, the weather forecast and so on. It's perfect for them.

There is another group of people, and I count myself among them, that have little interest in this. I frequently have two, three or more windows open on the desktop. I'm switching between web browser, word processor and Explorer windows, I have a spreadsheet and my email open, I have a photo editor and web design app open and so on. For me, the Metro interface (or whatever it is now called), just gets in the way. It doesn't work the way I want it to and everything takes twice as much effort as it used to.

I know you can go to the desktop, but it's not the same - there's no Start button for a start, meaning a trip back to the Start screen to find apps I want to run. I'm pretty sure the Start screen will end up about 10 screens wide eventually and I'll have problems finding anything on it. I can see myself putting shortcuts on the desktop and taskbar to all the apps I use.

I have to upgrade and use Windows 8 because it's my job to keep abreast of the latest operating systems and applications, but I can see a lot of people either not bothering or installing it and then removing it and putting Windows 7 on instead.

Will businesses take to it? I suspect not. One reason is because the Start screen is a big distraction and it's too easy to get sidetracked by all the fun apps. Another reason, and perhaps the main one, is that Windows 8 is not intuitive. I have been using Windows for 20 years, ever since 3.1 in the early 1990s, yet on occasions when Using Windows 8 I have been stuck and couldn't work out how to do something. I have had to Google it. Don't laugh, but the first time I booted up Windows 8 I had to use Google to find out how to turn off the computer! Even now I'm still finding things out either by accident or on the web. Things that are obvious and simple in Windows 7. Would any business want to roll out an operating system upgrade that left users unable to use their computers? I'd think twice.

Will you love or hate Windows 8?

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Is iOS 6 the most bug-riddled yet?

Nothing is perfect and anyone that has ever tried programming will know how hard it is to make software completely bug free. However, the number of problems with iOS 6 is worrying and problem after problem keeps cropping up. When will it end?

The first problem and one that everyone will be aware of unless they have been shipwrecked on a desert island without communications for the last two weeks is that Apple's Maps app has lots of flaws. I am a bit sympathetic here and mapping the world is a huge undertaking. There are 197 million square miles in the world and 58 million square miles of land. How on earth do you test a map that big? It's impossible. There's only one way and that is to crowd source it. Put it in the hands of millions of people and let them explore. That's what happened when Apple launched iOS 6. The problem is that Apple claimed that its maps app was the best in the world on its website (the wording of which has now been changed) and it clearly wasn't. The company should really have put a beta label on it with a feedback button to report problems. People would have been less critical and more understanding.

Some people have had problems with the Wi-Fi and connections are poor or sometimes not available at all. It depends on the Wi-Fi connection and some networks are fine and while others weren't. Perhaps it is the router - I've heard Netgear mentioned.

Some people reported that an iPhone would connect to a Wi-Fi network, but no data was transmitted. Another problem is that some people on certain mobile networks found that when their iPhone 5 is connected to Wi-Fi the data sent over Wi-Fi is being clocked up on their mobile data allowance. Wi-Fi data is free and this should not happen. You could potentially use gigabytes on Wi-Fi thinking it is free and then be hit by a huge bill from your mobile service provider. That's a scary thought. Bug fixes have been released for Wi-Fi problems - see Verizon users go here.

Some people have reported that the battery life is unusually short. This has affected iPhone 4 and 5 users, so it is not likely to be the hardware, but something in iOS. The suspicion is that an app is running in the background or that GPS is switching on and not switching off when you have finished with an app. (Double tap the home button, quit all apps, or reset the phone.)

Upgrading the operating system on any device or computer is always a risky process and in a few cases there have been a few glitches. People have reported that their music has disappeared. A purple halo effect on some photos has been reported and lines across the onscreen keyboard have been seen. I've seen this elsewhere too and the video driver seems a bit buggy.

I dont' think the screen is quite as responsive on the iPhone 5 as the iPhone 4 too. I've occasionally had to tap twice on something or I've mistyped a letter, which I didn't used to do on my iPhone 4.

None of this has put off buyers and millions of iPhone 5s have been sold already. Millions of people have upgraded older phones to iOS 6 too. The iPhone 5 and iOS 6 are definitely better than previous versions even with the bugs, but it is a case of two steps forward and one step backward. Overall progress has been made, but it's not perfect.

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iOS apps are better than Android

I have both Android and iOS tablets - the Google Nexus 7 and an Apple iPad 2. The obvious question is which is better? From a hardware point of view, there isn't that much between them and both devices are superbly made and offer excellent performance. I haven't run lab benchmarks, but in general use with a wide range of applications I haven't ever thought "This is taking ages, it's really slow." Apps are always fast and responsive and I've never had a performance problem.

The screen on the Nexus 7 is clearly better than the iPad 2 and although it isn't called a retina display, it obviously is. I can't see the pixels because they are smaller than the smallest thing my eye can see. The iPad 3 with its retina display is probably slightly better, but there isn't a lot of difference. Both devices have great hardware.

iOS and Android are very different operating systems though, despite what Apple might claim in the courts. There may be half a dozen similarities, but there are a thousand differences. Just look at the home screens of iOS 6 and Android 4.1. I like both and both irritations too.

The Apple iPad and Android tablets like the Google Nexus 7 are very different, but many apps are the same and it is interesting to run the same app on Android and iOS and compare them. Skype, Facebook, and many others are available on both platforms. But which is best?

Without a doubt iOS has better apps. Apps seem to be developed for iOS first and then Android second. This means that the Android version often comes along later and is then a version or two behind. Skype, Facebook and others I have run on both tablets are good examples and the iOS version was better on both. I say 'was' because Android is catching up. Perhaps it is the popularity of the Google Nexus 7, the Amazon Kindle Fire and Samsung Tabs that is encouraging developers to put more effort into their Android apps. I didn't like Android Skype when I first used it, but after some updates it is now more or less equal to the iOS version. Facebook is better too.

Android apps are definitely getting better and in some cases they are as good as their iOS cousins, but you still come across apps that don't have all the features or the great design that the iOS version has. I'm not saying that all Android apps are poor and quite the opposite is true. There are some great apps (compare maps on Android 4.1 and iOS 6!) and I really like Android devices. Probably more so than iOS devices, partly because they are so much more affordable and having limited funds. Check out the price of the Amazon Kindle Fire, for example, and you can get great deals on the Samsung Galaxy SII, which isn't the latest model, but is still a great phone.

Android will only get better and as the market grows, developers will put more time and effort into Android apps, making them just as good as iOS versions.

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iPhone 5 lightning cable problems

There have been reports that the new cable for the iPhone 5, called Lightning, has been causing problems for some people. As this report describes, the USB end of the cable fits too tightly in some USB ports and it just locks in place, becoming very hard or impossible to remove.

It's not clear how widespread this problem is, but I've not had any problems with the iPhone 5 cable  and the USB socket on my new MacBook. However, I have noticed that the socket is very loose with some gadgets I use. Sometimes when plugging things in they aren't recognised and I have to remove them and plug them back in. I wonder whether Apple is using slightly bigger USB plugs and sockets? It shouldn't be because USB is a universal standard.

On a different, but related topic, is it always better when something is smaller, lighter and smoother? In some cases it is, but not always. A problem I have with my MacBook is that I find it very difficult to unplug from the mains socket. Different countries have different power sockets, so this may be a UK problem.

We use three-pin plugs that take quite a bit of force to insert and remove from sockets. The three-pin plug on the MacBook's power cable is smaller, lighter and smoother than most of the other plugs for electrical gadgets I use like TVs, toasters and so on. The small size and smooth shape makes it difficult to get a good enough grip on the plug to pull it out from the socket. I wouldn't mind so much if my house power sockets had on/off switches, but they don't. Unless you want something powered up 24/7 you have to pull the plug from the socket. It's really hard with the MacBook's power plug.

The iPhone 5 is even worse. I plugged it in to charge it up and when it was done I couldn't get the plug out of the power socket. I tried and gave up and left it. I came back later and tried again and after a couple of minutes of effort I managed to get it out. I nearly resorted to prising it out with a screwdriver. (Screwdrivers and power sockets don't play well together, so don't try this at home folks.)

It's a serious problem and there's no way I can use the iPhone 5 power plug as it is. Perhaps I could superglue something to the back of it to help pull it out, but I'm not sure it could withstand the force required. For the moment I can use the MacBook to charge the phone or my old iPad 2 power supply which is large, but easy to use. The iPhone 5's (UK) power plug looks great, but it certainly isn't practical.

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The downside of HD resolution screens on phones and tablets

What is with the current obsession with making devices screen sizes HD resolution with a 16:9 aspect ratio? I know that the whole point of this is so that widescreen video fits exactly on the screen and can be displayed without wasted space at the top and bottom, but it compromises everything else and I find it very irritating.

On a device that is primarily used for viewing widescreen video then a 16:9 aspect ratio is an essential feature, but mobile phones and tablets are not used just for watching videos. They are used for running apps. In fact, I would guess that watching videos is actually just a small part of the total usage of a smartphone or tablet.

The new iPhone 5 (there are many other examples) has an elongated screen that is now 16:9, which makes it very tall and narrow. Hold it sideways and it is great for watching videos, but many apps are worse off and a tall narrow screen is not as good as a squarer 4:3 aspect ratio, which is more like a book, magazine or newspaper.

In portrait mode the the iPhone 5 is just 640 pixels wide and there just isn't enough width to display some apps. Those that open a panel at the side with menu options are particularly bad. The reason they open a panel is because there isn't the width to display the menu options permanently, so it's a fudge. Hold the iPhone in landscape mode and the panel can be displayed permanently, but then the screen height is just 640 pixels and this isn't enough space to see much of the app's content. It's like looking at the app's content through a letterbox.

I find it very frustrating using apps with HD 16:9 screen ratios. The Google Nexus 7 tablet is just 720 pixels wide and in portrait mode it's OK. Turn it to landscape and the screen is very wide and not very tall. It's 720 pixels tall, which might seem better than the iPhone 5, but the device uses software buttons, so at the bottom of the screen is a strip with the home and back buttons. The app actually gets maybe 680 pixels or less. This strip across the bottom reserved for the system buttons makes the vertical resolution much smaller and so apps are even more compromised. Apps are even more letterboxed on the Google Nexus 7 because of the reserved space.

As someone who uses apps more than watching widescreen video, I want a 4:3 screen ratio so there is more space for apps to display their content. This is less than perfect for people that watch video and there isn't a screen ratio that suits everyone.

Consider this though, if the iPhone 5 or Google Nexus 7 screens were wider in portrait mode with 4:3 ratios, videos would have black bars top and bottom in landscape mode, but they would have the same physical dimensions. The length and width of the video image would be exactly the same as it is now. It's really just the psychological effect of seeing black bars that people don't like.

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Get the right iPhone 5 tariff - do the maths

The iPhone 5 will be on sale in a couple of days and the question is, which tariff should you go for? There are some surprising differences and you need to do the maths to work out which is best. I will use O2 as an example because I'm based in the UK and it's a popular mobile phone operator. I'm sure you will find similar deals in the US and elsewhere.

The tariffs are listed at the O2 website, and for a 16Gb black iPhone 5 you can get a contract with unlimited minutes, unlimited texts and 1Gb of data. It's a two year contract, so the total cost is 24 x the month tariff plus the cost of the phone. Here's how the deals work out:

£26 x 24 + £249.99 = £873.99

£31 x 24 + £199.99 = £943.99

£36 x 24 + £99.99 = £963.99

£41 x 24 + £49.99 = £1033.99

£46 x 24 + £0 = £1104.00

Each deal has the same minutes, the same messages, the same data. However, as you can see, there are large differences in the total cost. Getting a free iPhone 5 might seem like a good deal, but it is in fact the worst. The more you pay up front for the iPhone, the less you will pay in the long term.

The £26 a month tariff is clearly the cheapest, saving £230 over the free phone offer at £46 a month. You are effectively borrowing £249.99 over 24 months and paying £230 interest. That seems like a poor deal to me.

Whenever you see mobile phone deals you should always calculate the total cost over the term of the contract. The results can be surprising.

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Funny Photo Maker turns snapshots into great images

Some photographs stand out on their own and they are simply brilliant. The colour, the lighting, the scene - everything is perfect. If only all photos were like this. We tend to take dozens or even hundreds of photos of our children, pets and other common subjects and when you are showing them off to your friends and relatives you can see that 'Oh no, not another photo album' expression on their face. They may smile, but they are also grinding their teeth.

Funny Photo Maker for Windows might make the experience more enjoyable for them. As you can guess from the name, the software makes funny photos. It's best with people and pets rather than landscapes and it inserts your photo into another photo. Here is an example:

That's me in the photo frame. There is also a dog holding a shredded photo, a tiger chewing a photo, billboards in the street, the side of a lorry on the highway, a shop window display, a bus stop advert, Dollar bills, posters like Iron Man, Lord of the Rings, Ghost Rider and others, and many more templates too numerous to list. There are about 150 different templates according to the developer.

The software is very easy to use and it automatically loads your photos from the Pictures folder and adds them to a tray on the left. On the right are all the templates on tabs. You just click a photo, click a template and that's it. Click the Output tab, click Export and save your image.

It's brilliant and it is free. Go and get Funny Photo Maker.

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Dual booting issues on the Apple Mac

Time Machine on the Apple Mac is a very useful feature if you have a spare USB disk drive. It makes backups in the background and it runs every hour, so you will never lose any of your valuable files. However, I came across something really odd the other day.

I have a new Macbook and I got it a couple of weeks before Mountain Lion came out, so it had Lion on the hard disk. Later I created a new partition and installed Mountain Lion on it so I have both versions of OS X. The disk is quite big at 500Gb, so two 250Gb partitions is fine for me.

This has had some unexpected effects. I expected the two partitions to be completely separate as they are in Windows. You can install two versions of Windows on a PC in two disk partitions and use them independently. In some respects though, OS X doesn't treat the two versions as separate and both partitions are used. It treats the other partition as part of the system.

Here is an example. I installed some software on Lion on partition 1. If I boot up with Mountain Lion on partition 2 and right click a file to open it in an application, apps that are installed in Lion on the other partition are on the list. I can open a file in an application that isn't even installed in Mountain Lion and it runs from the other partition. If I have installed a newer version of the app on Mountain Lion on partition 2 it offers me the choice of running the new version of the app on the Mountain Lion partition or the older one on the Lion partition. That's interesting.

One thing that really confused me is that I tried to set up Time Machine for the first time on Mountain Lion. It's new, so I have only used 52Gb of the disk. I had a free 128Mb partition on a USB drive that I thought I would use for the backup. However, Time Machine wouldn't start and it just displayed a message saying that there wasn't enough room. How can 52Gb on the Mac's disk not fit into a 128Gb USB drive? After a while it occurred to me that it wanted to back up Lion on partition 1 too, because adding up the disk usage of both partitions matched the disk space it said it needed. On giving it a larger 400Gb partition on the USB drive to back up to, it ran fine.

This is interesting, but it also raises the question of whether I need to run Time Machine in Lion as well as Mountain Lion, wether they should both use the same backup disk, and whether both are compatible. Will Lion Time Machine update or corrupt a Mountain Lion Time Machine backup?

I don't need to backup that often (I wish Time Machine was more configurable and you could make daily backups instead of hourly ones), so I think I'll switch off Time Machine in Lion. Backups will be made when I run Mountain Lion. Another option is to click the Options button in each Time Machine and exclude the other partition from backups. Then each Time Machine would only back up its own partition. I think switching off Lion Time Machine is the best option for me.

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Microsoft SkyDrive for Android

If you have an Android smartphone or a tablet then Google Drive is the natural place to store your online files. You get 5Gb of online storage space in which you can store any files you like. However, it is not as useful as it could be and it is geared more to the online storage of Google Docs files. It does little else apart from store your files.

Microsoft SkyDrive is actually better for online storage and this isn't simply because you get more space (a couple extra gigabytes), but the way it handles media files is better. SkyDrive for Android (search for it in the Google Play store on your device), has been given a Windows 8-style interface with a blue title bar and files and folders displayed as tiles. It is clean and easy to use.

If you tap a Microsoft Office file it is downloaded and then displayed using whatever facilities your device has. There is a built in document viewer in Android, but I use Kingsoft Office. It is a free office suite in the Google Play store that reads/writes MS Office files.

It's really media files where SkyDrive scores over Google Drive and photos and videos are shown as thumbnail images. You can create folders to store your photos in the Pictures folder and they appear as thumbnails with a caption. You can tap a photo and it displays full screen, then swipe left and right to browse through the images. It is just like having the photo album on your device, but it uses online storage space and not your device's.

It downloads videos and music rather than streaming them, so it's less useful for these, but I'm going to use SkyDrive to store all my photos. You should check it out.

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Chromium vs Chrome web browsers

Everyone knows about Google's web browser, Chrome, but there is another web browser called Chromium. It has a similar name and it even looks similar and works in a similar way. What is the difference between Chrome and Chromium?

It is easy to see why people get confused between the two browsers because they are both basically the same. I've heard Windows users talk about using Chromium for web browsing when I'm almost certain they are not using Chromium, but have Google Chrome instead. When using Linux you might go to the package manager and search for Chrome to install it and instead it lists Chromium. Ubuntu software Centre does this. What should you do? Let's look at the differences.

Chromium is a project to create an open source web browser that is fast, reliable, secure and uses the latest web standards.

Google takes the Chromium web browser, customises it slightly and calls it Chrome. So Chrome is Chromium with a few extra features and some modified settings. You can find a detailed description of the differences between the two browsers here, but to save you the trouble, here are the main points.

Google adds Flash to Chrome. This is so that users don't have to go and find the Flash plugin and install it or keep installing updates every time it changes. Flash is used for a lot of online video content (although this is changing) and a few other things. Google adds support for PDF files so that you can view them in the browser without having to find and install some other utility like Adobe Reader/Acrobat. Google adds support for AAC, MP3, Vorbis and Theora audio and video file formats. Google tests Chrome more thoroughly than Chromium too. There are some other minor differences, but not that you will notice.

I can't see any point in running Chromium on Windows or the Mac, but if you want to, go to download-chromium.appspot.com to download it. There is a case for using it in Linux distros where you want everything you use to be open source though. The plugins Google adds are not open source, but they make the browser much more fun. Chrome is available from www.google.com/chrome of course.

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iFighter 1945 for Android

If you like old fashioned shoot-'em-ups you should take a look at I fighter. I've been playing it on the Google Nexus 7 tablet and it is a lot of fun.

This free game is a vertical scroller and your plane (there are several to choose from), is at the bottom of the screen. There are four different control methods and the simplest is to have automatic guns that shoot all the time and to control the plane by dragging a finger around the screen. You can move anywhere and you need to because wave after wave of enemy planes swoop in from any side, even the bottom.

Sometimes your mission is over land and sometimes it is over the sea. Tanks, guns, ships and other enemies are a constant threat. It is a fast paced game that is hectic, but fun with bullet flying everywhere. You can call up a bomber too. There are the usual boss enemies that require multiple hits.

If you have an Android smartphone with a large screen or a tablet you should try it. Just search for iFighter in the Google Play store.

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Don't you hate it when free is not really free?

One of my pet hates is things that are advertised as free when they aren't free at all. They are just con tricks trying to get you to try stuff before hitting you with a bill. It is not that I don't like paying for stuff or that I expect stuff to be free, the problem I have is being told something it is clearly not.

It often happens with software on the internet and it could be Windows or Apple Mac software, it happens with both. One way in which people try to deceive you is by describing software as a 'Free download!' You can make anything a free download and you are rarely charged to download anything.  When you see this phrase it usually means 'we won't charge you to download it, but if you actually want to run it you'll have to pay $123.99 or whatever.' I usually avoid software described as 'Free Download!' because it means it is most definitely not free.

I was browsing the Mac App Store today and was looking at the Top Free charts. I looked at one app, Billings Pro, but it could have been any one of a number of apps. It is in the Top Free Business section. The buy/download button says Free, the price in the information box on the right says Free, but guess what? It's not free. Well, technically the app is free, but it relies on a subscription to an online service. To be fair, it does say this in the description, so you are warned, but some developers don't even do this nd you don't discover that something isn't free until after you have downloaded it and installed it.

The Newsstand app on the iPhone/iPad is particularly bad and every single app is listed as free. Of course they aren't free. Well, yes it is true that the apps are free, but they are just a shell with no content. If you actually want to read any of the newspapers or magazines you have to pay, either for single issues or a subscription.

I don't have a problem with paying, it is just the description and the word 'Free' in everything when nothing is free. It would be much better if instead of Free it had the price of an issue, or perhaps the app instead of being free was the price of an issue of the magazine or newspaper. So when you buy a Newsstand app you get one download issue of your choice. More issues or a subscription could be purchased in the app as before.

It's not just an Apple issue and many Windows downloads as described as free when they are actually 30-day limited trials. You don't discover this until after you have downloaded and installed the software. I like 30-day trials of software because you can try it before you buy it, but I don't like being told something is free when it's not.

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Dumbing down Apple Software Update

I use Windows PCs as well as Macs, but if you look back through all these blog posts you will find more rants about Apple than Microsoft. Windows is far from perfect and sometimes I have problems with it, but it doesn't really bother me. It's Apple Macs and OS X that get me worked up. I think it may be because Apple can be so brilliant and yet so dumb it provokes extreme reactions, whereas Microsoft is bland and doesn't really excite me or irritate me so much.

I checked Software Update on Mountain Lion and as any user will know, the old Software Update that we have had for years has been replaced by the Mac App Store. The old app would scan the Mac and display a list of updates and most importantly, their size.

I'm sometimes out with my MacBook and while I'm having a coffee at Starbucks I might run Software Update and if there are some small updates I'll download them. Sometimes I'm at home, but I'm busy and don't mind installing a small update, but if it's a gigabyte download (OS X updates are sometimes huuuuge), I will put it off  and do it on a day I'm not busy.

Mountain Lion no longer displays the size of software updates. OS X 10.8.1 is available, but the Mac App Store does not say the size. Clicking the More link displays more information, but not the size. Clicking the hyperlink opens a web page, but again there is no size information. Is this update 1Mb or 1Gb? Will it take 5 or 50 minutes? Has it already downloaded in the background and just needs installing? There's no clue. So here I am at Starbucks (I should buy shares the amount of coffee I drink here) and I don't know whether to click the Update button or not. I think I'll wait till I get home. I've got some Windows stuff that needs doing. I can set the update going and if it takes an hour or two it won't matter.

Microsoft Windows Update is much better than Apple Software Update. I've used both for years and there's no contest.

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Store notes in your Google Mail account

Sometimes you need to jot something down, such as a name, an address, a book you have heard about that you want to read, a website URL, or something else. Where do you store your notes? There are note taking apps, sticky notes, text editors and so on, but one option you may not have thought of is to use Google Mail.

In the left panel in Google Mail I have Notes. I don't know how it got there and perhaps I created it years ago or it could have been some software I was using. Looking at the list of system labels in Google Mail settings, it is not there, so I'm not sure how I came to have a Notes label. It doesn't matter because it is easy to create a note taking facility in Google Mail.

To create and store a note you just have to create a new email and enter your own address as the recipient. Just email it to yourself. It may sound like an odd thing to do, but it does work and the message goes to the email server and comes straight back to your inbox. All you need to do is to select the email using the tickbox on the left and then click the Labels button at the top. The first time you do this you will need to create a Notes label. Then you can simply assign the Notes label to emails you want to save.

Sending emails to yourself is a handy way to store information you want to remember. Don't forget that an email can contain images, hyperlinks and attached files, so your notes can be used to store almost any information. It's useful for storing things for work projects, items found when browsing the web and similar things.

It is a bit of a pain having to select emails sent to yourself and label them as notes, so why not configure Google Mail to do this automatically? Go to the gear icon, Settings, Filters. Create a new filter and in the From box enter your own email address. Click Create a filter with this search. Select Apply the label and choose Notes, and also Skip the inbox. This makes it only appear when the Notes label is selected on the left and not in your inbox.

Now when you send an email to yourself it will automatically be added to Notes.

Bug fix update: It didn't take long to realise that there was a flaw in this. Google Mail doesn't just apply filters to incoming messages, it applies them to all messages. Messages you send are not placed in the sent Mail folder, they are simply tagged with the Sent Mail label. When you select Sent Mail you see just those emails with the Sent Mail label. Of course, all mail I send is from me, so the filter turned every email I sent into a note! The solution is simple. Just edit the filter (or when you are creating it), apply the Notes label to emails with your email address in both the To and From boxes. That way only emails you send to yourself become notes.

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Get OS X Mountain Lion free

There is a catch of course, there's always a catch. To get OS X Mountain Lion for free you need to have bought a new Mac between 11th June and 25th July.

The Mac will have come with OS X Lion installed and if you have not yet upgraded to Mountain Lion, go to this web page and there is a button to request your free copy of Apple's new operating system.

Bear in mind that this version of OS X works best if you have 4Gb of memory or more. I wouldn't like to run it on a Mac with only 2Gb.

Time is running out. You have until the 24th August to claim your free copy.

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Microsoft Surface tablet to cost $199?

Enter 'Microsoft Surface $199' at a search engine and a zillion results will be displayed. It is all over the web that Microsoft's Windows 8 tablet will costs a smidgen under $200. In fact, it will match the price of Google's Nexus.

All those stories on the web can't be wrong can they? They could be. All the stories appear to be quoting just one source and it seems that Engadget got the rumour from an anonymous source at a Microsoft TechReady15 conference. It may or may not be true, but everyone is writing news stories and blogging about it.

If it were a 7in tablet then it would be believable, but not for a device with a 10.6in screen, magnesium case and 32Gb of memory for the base version (pdf spec sheet here). An iPad 2 has 16Gb of memory and a 9.7in screen and costs $399. There's no way Microsoft could make a tablet with a bigger screen and twice the memory for half the price.

I think $399 would be a more realistic price for the Microsoft Surface RT (the cheaper of the two versions, the pure tablet as opposed to the Pro version that actually runs Windows). This is $100 cheaper than the iPad 3, which would be its main competitor. It cannot cost any more than than an iPad if Microsoft wants to grab anything other than single digit market share.

Selling computers at cost price would lose you a lot of money, but the same isn't true of tablets, which are more like mobile phones. Phones can be given away cheaply and even for free because of the monthly contract fees we have to pay. With a tablet that is locked in to an online store, Microsoft will earn money on every app sold in a similar way, so there is a remote possibility that the device could be cheaper than expected if this is factored into the price.

I wonder how many apps the average person buys over the life of a tablet? Is this a factor in the pricing? If the real cost is $399, but Microsoft reckons it will make $100 on average through app sales per device, it could sell it for $299 and still make a profit. I think that's the best we can hope for.

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How long will Apple's iCloud last?

Apple has a poor track record when it comes to internet services. It has launched them almost like clockwork every three years and has then shut them down and abandoned them. Anyone remember .iTools, .Mac. Mobile Me, Ping? OK, Ping is still with us, but it is on its deathbed. There has been talk of poor numbers of people using it and little enthusiasm. It's only two years old, so it has one more year at most and then it will be closed. All the news stories around the web can't be wrong.

The problem Apple has is a clash of cultures. The internet is open and Apple is closed. Anyone can use the internet from anywhere, any operating system, any computer, any software and any device. Apple like to lock things down, reduce the options to a minimum, and totally control everything. It doesn't work with the internet.

Take Ping for example. It can only be accessed from within iTunes and there is no web access, no third party clients, no access on devices, computers and operating systems that don't have iTunes. It is not the only reason Ping is failing, but it is probably the biggest one. How do I check Ping or post a comment when all I have on me is my Android phone, or when I'm on my lunch break at work and my computer doesn't have iTunes? It's bad enough having to run iTunes just to access Ping.

iCloud has similar problems and unless Apple changes it, it will fail like all of the company's previous internet efforts.

There are two parts to iCloud and one is the syncing of calendars, notes, reminders, and so on. This mostly works, although I've had to turn it off on my iPad, but that's another story. It is the online file storage that Apple has got completely wrong and it must change significantly if it is to be useful.

The problem is that Apple has simplified and locked down online storage to such a degree that it is unusable. Run TextEdit for example, and you can store files online in iCloud. No other application can access those files, only TextEdit. Run Preview and you can store files online in iCloud, but no other application can access those files. So TextEdit can't open a file stored by Preview and vice versa.

You can't access the files of either app on an iPhone or iPad because they don't have Preview or TextEdit. You can't access the files by logging in to iCoud with a web browser, you can't access them from a Windows PC or an Android phone or tablet. You can't even access them from another Apple Mac unless you're logged in to iCloud with your own ID, which may not be possible if the Mac isn't yours.

Storing files online in iCloud is only useful for Pages, Numbers and Keynote. These are available on iOS devices and so can share files with the Mac. What's more, you have internet access through the iCloud website. There's an iWork section in iCloud that enables you to view your files and download them or even upload files. (iWork is another abandoned internet service.)

I see no reason to use iCloud for file storage except for rare occasions where I want to work on the same file in Pages, Numbers or Keynote on my Mac and iPad at the same time. This is actually quite rare. To make internet services useful Apple has to open them up. All apps with iCloud access should be able to see all file stored on iCloud. There should also be access to your files through a web browser, the ability to restore deleted files or even previous versions of files. Other services do this, why can't Apple?

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Problems opening text files on Mac and Windows

Computers and software are far more intelligent these days than they ever were in the past, but sometimes they can still be very frustrating. How hard can it be to open a text file stored on the disk drive? It turns out that it can be a lot harder than you might think. I've just spent the last quarter of an hour trying to open a text file and it was harder than it should have been.

The problem was that the file, a plain text document with a .txt file extension, had been created on Windows. I can't remember whether it was in Microsoft Office or LibreOffice, but it had been saved as plain text as a .txt file. I wanted to open it on my Mac and that's where things started to go wrong.

Double clicking the .txt file opened it in the default application, which is TextEdit. Now TextEdit is a handy little word processor/text editor, but it messed up the file. The problem was that dashes (-) and apostrophes ('), and possibly other characters too, came out as foreign letters with accents, making the document all wrong. Changing the font didn't help and there didn't appear to be any way of correctly loading it. I suppose I could have copied the characters, pasted them into a search box and replaced them, but I wanted to open it correctly in the first place. TextEdit couldn't do it.

I tried TextWrangler, which is really a programmer's text editor, but seeing as it was plain text anyway, I tried it. It was wrong. I then tried Bean, a handy word processor that requires little disk space or memory, which is useful. On opening the text file a window appeared asking which character set I wanted to use. There was a pop-up list of character sets and a preview box showing the text. It didn't take long to work out that Western (Windows latin 1) was the one that was required. Selecting this opened the text file correctly.

I wondered what LibreOffice on my Mac would make of this plain text file. That turned out to be harder than expected too. Right clicking the file and selecting Open With, LibreOffice would only allow me to import it into a spreadsheet. On the plus side, it did recognise that it wasn't a standard file and it offered a list of character sets to choose from and a preview pane to show what it looked like.

To get LibreOffice to open a plain text file in LibreOffice Writer isn't that obvious. You have to start LibreOffice and click Open. In the Open dialog click All Files and there is a long list of file types. You have to ignore the obvious Text Documents entry and scroll further down the list. The file types are then organised by application. You have to select Text Encoded in the text document section and not the spreadsheet section. What's more, you have to select Text Encoded and not just Text. Selecting Text, even in the word processor section still opens it as a spreadsheet with every word in a different cell. You must choose Text Encoded. It is then opened in the word processor and you have a choice of character sets.

Sometimes things are harder than they should be.

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Is a 7in iPad possible?

The court battle between Apple and Samsung is likely to continue for some time yet. One thing that has come to light is that Apple has been seriously considering a 7in iPad. You can see the email in this CNET article here, and apparently some people at Apple were in favour. It all stems from a blog someone wrote about the iPad not being portable enough and that the 7in format was superior.

I have a Google Nexus 7, a 7in screen tablet, and the iPad, a 9.7in screen. So which is better?

Neither is better and they are both different. A 7in tablet is in many ways superior to a 10in one, but in some ways a 10in one is better. I like both, which might seem like I'm sitting on the fence, but it's like asking which is better, my desktop PC or my laptop. They are both good in their own ways and I use them for different purposes.

The Google Nexus 7 is a great tablet and it is smaller, lighter, easier to hold and more portable than the iPad. It actually fits in the pocket of the trousers I'm wearing right now (but don't ask me to bend over or sit down). It certainly fits a jacket, coat or bag. If I wanted to go somewhere with a tablet, it is the one I would choose. If I want to read a book, it's the one I prefer. It is better for many apps like books, news, email, notes, reminders, calendars, and so on. This is all because it is small and these apps suite the small screen.

The iPad is better for apps that need more screen space, such as Pages (word processor), Numbers (spreadsheet), iPhoto (photo editing), GarageBand (music editing) and others. Apps like these benefit from a large screen and they just wouldn't work as well on a 7in one.

It is interesting to see how Android phones are growing in size and I'm leaning a bit towards this myself. I'm wondering if something a bit smaller, but more portable might be better. Something like a Samsung Galaxy Note. There's a new one coming out soon and it is rumoured to have a 5.8in screen. Now that's big for a phone and some people may find the idea of holding it up to their ear ridiculous, but to me it's more like a tablet that fits my pocket, but lets me make the occasional phone call too.

I have an iPhone and it's far too small. I use the apps so much and the phone so little that I would prefer something with a bigger screen. The screen is cramped and the text is so small on some apps I'm struggling to read it, so I hope the iPhone 5 is bigger.

I think there is a place for large tablets like the iPad, but also room for smaller, more portable devices too. Being half the size and half the weight of an iPad makes a big difference in your hands.

Will there be a 7in iPad? Only Apple knows the answer to this. Steve Jobs said no, but that was a long time ago and if the 7in market continues to grow then we may well see a 7in iPad.

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Outlook is the new Hotmail

Hotmail has been given a makeover, no make that a complete redesign from the ground up. Yesterday I logged into Microsoft's new outlook.com site and it is basically a completely new interface for Hotmail. Everything is there that was there before, only with a new look.

It seems to have permanently switched me to outlook.com and now I get it even when I enter hotmail.com into my browser. Not that I would want to go back to the old style web mail, but it would be nice to have a choice. Maybe there is a link somewhere to get back (OK, just found it, it's on the gear icon menu), but I actually prefer the new style.

It is very plain, very simple, and very clean. It is obviously designed to fit in with Windows 8 and it looks just like a new Start screen app. There is already a Windows 8 Start screen email app that does Hotmail and this simply gives Hotmail through a web browser the same look and feel.

Give it a try, go to outlook.com and switch to the new Hotmail, or Outlook as it is now called.

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OS X Mountain Lion - the most successful yet

Apple has been reported as selling over three million copies of Mountain Lion, its new version of OS X in the first four days of its launch. It is the most successful version yet. It is also the cheapest. In fact, as the price has fallen, so the numbers of people buying it has risen. I'm sure there is a correlation there.

Of course, making something cheap doesn't guarantee success and Linux is free, yet few people use it. There is obviously something wrong if you can't even give away something.

Mountain Lion is actually very good as well as being cheap and for me, it is the best version yet. Other upgrades have been more like tweaks here and there, but this has more features that I actually find useful. Things like the Notification Center, the Reminders and Notes apps, the better Calendar, iCloud. They are all useful features, particularly if you have an iPhone or iPad.

Windows 8 will apparently be cheap too, but probably not the sub £14 price of Mountain Lion. If you have a Mac with 4Gb or more of memory, I would recommend it.

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Should the Google Nexus 7 camera be on the back?

In order to keep the price of the Google Nexus 7 tablet as low as possible, it was decided to have only one camera. A front facing camera, in other words, one that faces you. Is this the best option though? If you were designing a tablet and could only have one camera, would you put it on the front or the back?

One way to look at this is to consider how many apps would use the camera on the front and how many would use it on the back.

A front camera just points directly at your face and so the only applications that can be used are a photo-booth type app that takes head-and-shoulders snapshots, perhaps with special fun effects to make you look fat, thin, old, bald or whatever, and video calls. Is there anything else a front camera is used for? I can't think of anything.

A rear camera though has lots of uses. It cam be used as a digital camera, for example. Although 10in tablets are a bit bulky to carry around, they are still useful as cameras, and 7in tablets are quite portable. Even if your tablet never leaves the home there are still lots of photo opportunities, such as parties, visiting relatives, your pets doing funny things, and so on. A rear camera opens up opportunities for a lot of other apps like photo editing tools, apps that turn photos into slide shows or video clips, apps that upload photos to sharing sites like Instagram. What's the point of Instagram if you can only take photos of your face?

You can also do things like create eBay listings. You can enter the description, take the photo and do everything you need on the tablet. Without a rear camera you have to fiddle around with another one, upload the image, download it to the tablet and so on. It's not as good.

A rear camera is not just for taking photos and barcode readers and QR codes can be used too. You could take video clips too.

Given a choice, I think I would rather have the camera on the rear and not the front. I can live without video calls or at a pinch, I could turn the tablet around to face the camera. You wouldn't be able to see the person on the screen, but they would see you. Or you could stand in front of a mirror. The rear-facing camera would show you in the mirror.

You can use a Google Nexus 7 or similar tablet as a camera, but it is awkward. You have to point it away from you and you can't see the screen, which means you don't know if the shot is framed properly. The button to take the photo is on the screen too, so you have to reach round to press it, which is a bit awkward too. I does work though and the shots, although only 1.2 megapixels, are OK.

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BitDefender 2013 here already

It is only July 2012, yet BitDefender has already released its 2013 product line. I remember when we used to get next year's products in September or October, then it became August/September and now it's July/August. Where will it end? I like having dates in product names so you can tell how old something is, but when the date in the name doesn't match the date it was released it is just plain silly.

Never mind the name, I like BitDefender products because they have lots of features, configuration options and information displays, yet they are cheap too. They are consistently cheaper than rivals, yet they perform just as well.

Whenever you buy a security product you get one year's worth of updates - program updates, virus definition updates and so on. I always recommend buying new software rather than renewing the license on old software. You get the latest technology and this is needed to combat the latest threats. You also get new features too. The discounts that are often available on new security software means that it doesn't cost any more to buy brand new software than it does to renew the license.

New in BitDefender AntiVirus Plus and Internet Security is a USB immuniser. This immunises a flash memory drive from viruses when it is plugged in so you can't be infected or pass on infections to others that use it. SafePay is a new feature that increases the security when using online banking by opening pages in a separate secure browser. There's a new security widget that shows security related tasks and you can drop files on it on the desktop to scan them for viruses. (How would you get a file on to the computer without it being tested by anti viruses software?) There is an improved dashboard and parental controls.

Total Security has all this, plus Device Anti-Theft. I've not tried it yet, but it sounds like an idea borrowed from mobile phones and you can remotely lock, erase and locate a laptop over the internet. This is a useful security feature for laptop users and if it is stolen you just go on the internet using another computer or device and choose what you want to do with it. As soon as the thief connects to the internet the laptop is locked, wiped or located.


If you've not updated your security software for a while, it's worth taking a look at these from BitDefender.

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The Archos Smart Home Phone

The Archos Smart Home Phone is an interesting idea. It is an Android phone that looks, feels and works like a mobile phone, but it is a home phone. In other words, instead of working with a mobile phone service, it works with your land line instead. You get all the benefits of a mobile phone, but without the monthly contract. Of course, there are charges for a land line, but most people have a land line anyway, so switching from a normal phone to the Archos Smart Home Phone involves no extra cost.

It is basically a mobile phone and it has 8Gb of memory, runs Android 2.2, a 1GHz processor and... well, it's just like any other budget Android phone so it's hardly worth listing the features here. The difference is that it has a base unit that plugs into your phone line. The phone uses the DECT standard (Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunication) and you can put the base unity anywhere in your home.

Is this a revolutionary new device that we will all want in our homes? It is certainly a fascinating idea and it looks very tempting. The land line phone I have now is positively stone age compared to this. It's a brilliant idea and I'd love one, but does it have a future?

Surely it would be very easy to incorporate the technology into a standard mobile phone. Then you would have a device that works as a land line at home and a mobile when you leave and go out. All Android phones have Wi-Fi, so all it needs is a Wi-Fi base unit that plugs into a standard phone socket. Is this possible? Alternatively, DECT could be built into the mobile phone. Mobile phone companies are always looking for new features to make their products stand out from the crowd. How about it?

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Malware on the iPhone

The unthinkable has happened - malware on the iPhone. An app called Find and Call in the App Store accesses your contacts stored on the phone and uploads them to a server on the internet. The contacts are then spammed with junk messages To be fair, this app is also in the Android store too, but it is more surprising to see it in Apple's store because of the strict rules and vetting procedure that you have to go through to get listed.

The app has now been removed from the stores, but it was available for a while and it's not clear how many people downloaded and installed it. Initially, it appeared to be a worm transmitted by SMS from phone to phone, but further investigation revealed it to be a rogue app. If all your contacts start receiving SMS messages supposedly from you, it may be because if this malware.

The SMS message your contacts receive contains a link to download the app and this is how it is spread. Apart from spamming your contacts, Find and Call doesn't do much else, although links on the app's website  prompt you to use PayPal to add money to your account, whatever that means. It sounds a bit dodgy.


Don't assume you are safe just because you use an iOS device. This shows that rogue software can get into Apple's App Store. Fortunately, malware in the Apple store is a lot rarer than in the Android store, so you are safer using iOS, but not 100% safe.

Kaspersky has the details here.

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Upgrade your RAM for Mountain Lion

In a few weeks Apple will release Mountain Lion, the latest version of OS X and it will be so cheap that there is no reason not to upgrade to it. In fact, there is only one reason not to download it and install it from the Mac App Store and this is if your Mac's hardware is not supported. Can your Mac run Mountain Lion?

According to Apple, these are the minimum hardware requirements:

• iMac (Mid 2007 or newer)
• MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminium, or Early 2009 or newer)
• MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer)
• MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer)
• Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer)
• Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer)

No Mac Minis older than 2009, no MacBooks older than late 2008 - almost 2009 - and only the iMac is supported beyond this and then only to mid 2007.

Are old Macs not supported because they aren't powerful enough? Is Mountain Lion so demanding that it would run too slowly? I'm not sure that processing power is the problem. Perhaps, but I think a bigger problem is the memory.

All computers are designed with a limit to the amount of memory they can accept and with old Macs this could be as little as 2Gb. I'm typing this on a 2006 MacBook that has 2Gb of memory and that's the limit. According to Apple it won't accept any more. It is running Lion just fine and I have Chrome running with five tabs open, Text Wranger open, and Activity Monitor. According to Activity Monitor 1.32Gb of memory is in use and 692Mb is free.

Mountain Lion uses lots of memory and although Apple says the minimum spec for running it is 2Gb of RAM, it takes about 1.5Gb just to boot up to the desktop. Open a couple of apps and the memory usage is over 2Gb on my new MacBook with 4Gb of RAM. During normal use I often seen memory usage creeping up to 3Gb and I'm wondering if 4Gb is enough and whether I need to upgrade.

My advice to anyone wanting to upgrade to Mountain Lion is to make sure you have at least 4Gb of RAM and if you can, upgrade it to 6 or even 8Gb. When you've got all the cool new stuff running in Mountain Lion, it's going to need it.

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iPhone and iPad apps for Google Drive

I recently wrote a group test of online drives with offline syncing for a magazine (is there a name for these things, there should be). You know the sort, Dropbox, Google Drive, SkyDrive, Wuala, OpenDrive, and SugarSync. Google Drive is good, but it didn't win. This was mainly because it lacked features compared to some of the other services.

I chose Microsoft's SkyDrive as the winner of the group test partly because these online drives are really useful on mobile devices like tablets and smartphones and there are some good mobile apps for SkyDrive. You can view Office documents stored on SkyDrive on your mobile device like Word, Excel and PowerPoint files, you can upload photos from the mobile device and view them as a slide show, and so on.

At the time I wrote the review Google didn't have iOS apps and a lot of people have iOS devices. Well, now there are iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch apps and they make Google Drive useful to a wider audience. Just search for it in the App Store on your device.

The Google Drive app enables you to view the files online, store a copy offline, share files and see what others are sharing with you. However, it still lags behind SkyDrive in some areas. For example, I can't see any way to upload files. It is so useful to be able to upload photos and videos from a mobile device and store them online. If you do have photos in Google Drive, saved from your PC perhaps, you can view them in the app. However, SkyDrive lets you swipe from one to the other in a perfectly natural way. Google Drive doesn't and it doesn't treat media in any way different to other files.

The main benefit of Google Drive is actually Google Docs. If you use Docs then Drive just makes it better, but other services are much more fun. Sign up for free space on SkyDrive or SugarSync and check them out, SkyDrive has Microsoft Office Web Apps of course, and SugarSync has a fantastic iPad app.

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