iPod repeats same song

I haven't had much luck with the iPod Touch. I bought one a few months after it was launched, mainly because I didn't want to pay the contract on an iPhone. The iPod Touch gives you 90% of the features of the iPhone and only the phone and GPS aren't available. Since I already had a good phone, the only thing I have't got is the GPS location facilities. I can live without them.

Anyway, first the earphones died after about six months use. Fortunately, I had a spare pair lying around and so I used those. Then four months later the screen developed dead spots and this meant that tracks and menu options couldn't be selected. I took it back to the Apple store and they replaced it. (It's incredibly irritating how you have to make an appointment and come back later, actually the next day in my case, even when the store is empty and there are staff standing around doing nothing. I could have demonstrated the dead spots in 30 seconds, but no, they said come back tomorrow - when it was actually twice as busy. How crazy is that?)

The latest problem is that it's stuck on the same song. Select any song in any album or playlist and it will play it and then repeat it. It won't go on to the next song. Every couple of minutes I have to turn it on, unlock it, move to the next track, and then turn it off. It's so annoying.

This time, however, it wasn't the iPod that was faulty. Somehow a setting was changed that told it to continuously repeat the same track. I suspected as much, but it's not very obvious where the setting is. I looked for it everywhere for it and couldn't find it and was beginning to think the iPod was faulty. Do a search at Google and you'll find other iPod owners experiencing the same problem. Google also came up with the solution to, at least a link to it anyway.

so if your iPod will only play one track, select a song and play it. With the album artwork on the screen, tap the screen to display the time bar. At the left hand side is an icon and if you tap it you'll find that it switches between three different states. One is to stay on the same track and repeat it indefinitely, another repeats the playlist or album when it gets to the end, and the third turns off the repeat function and it just plays the album tracks or playlist tracks from start to finish. Problem solved!

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How fast should Wi-Fi be?

The speed at which data can be transferred over wireless networks is increasing and there are some tempting new technologies that push the limits even higher than was ever thought possible just a few years ago. An old computer of mine still has an 11Mbit/s 802.11b Wi-Fi network adaptor connected to a USB 1 socket and those standards are positively ancient. They were replaced by the much faster 802.11g standard that offers up to 54Mbit/s and adaptors plug into USB 2 sockets. The latest Wi-Fi standard is 802.11n, and while it hasn't yet been finalised, you can buy equipment today that is based on the draft specification. The upper limit for this technology is 600Mbit/s, but do we need it though?

There isn't a single answer to this question and it depends on what you want to do. If all you want to do is to browse websites, send and receive email, watch online videos, or view online photos, then the old 802.11b standard may be all that you need and buying top-of-the-range ultra-fast networking gear would be a waste of money. The thing is, your internet connection is probably only around 5Mbit/s. Of course, ISPs try to tempt you with offers of up to 20Mbit/s connections, but you never connect at the maximum speed advertised and in the real world it's hard to connect at more than 5Mbit/s.

If you think about it, an 802.11b wireless connection offering up to 11Mbit/s should easily be able to cope with a 5Mbit/s internet connection, after all it's only half the maximum thoughput. In the real world, however, you never achieve the maximum quoted speed and you'll only get a quarter of the maximum for a technology.

It's an interesting exercise to test your connection speed at a website like www.speedtest.net Just click a server and the download and upload speeds are tested. The results may vary slightly depending on the time of day and how many people are using the internet, so try it at different times. My six-year-old PC with an 802.11b Wi-Fi adaptor achieved a speed of 1350kbit/s (1.35Mbit/s), which is actually quite fast when you think about the 512kbit/s connection speeds available when broadband was first introduced. It is certainly fast enough for web browsing, email and other internet activities. You would only notice the slow speed when downloading large files like Linux distros.

A newer PC with an 802.11g Wi-Fi adaptor recorded a speed of 2880kbit/s (2.8Mbit/s), which is roughly twice as fast. It doesn't make browsing the web or email any faster because these operations don't need a lot of bandwidth, but it's certainly an advantage when it comes to downloading large files. A PC connected to the router using an ethernet cable recorded an identical connection speed to the 802.11g Wi-Fi adaptor, suggesting that the limiting factor is not the adaptor or wireless technology, but the router's actual internet connection speed. It usually reports that the connection is 4 to 5Mbit/s, but as always what it says and what you get are two separate things. So clearly 802.11g is perfectly adequate for my 4-5Mbit/s internet connection and there would be no speed benefit from faster Wi-Fi technology until there is some way of estabilishing a faster connection over the telephone cables from my house to the telephone exchange.

It shows that if you have a single PC you don't need anything other than old fashioned 802.11g Wi-Fi for internet access. However, if you have two or more PCs connected using a home or work network and regularly transfer large files between them, then the newer and faster technologies that are available are important because they significantly speed up the process. But how often do you transfer gigabytes of video or audio clips between your computers? If the answer is not very often, then save your money and opt for older and cheaper technology rather than expensive and exotic cutting edge kit. Web browsing is limited by your internet connection speed and not the Wi-Fi standard.

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Firmware update for MacBooks

There is an old saying that goes back many years. I don't know who said it, but it's good advice: Don't buy version 1 of anything. The latest MacBooks are a point in case and it seems that a few owners have been experiencing problems with them.

For example, the new trackpad, which is one of the new features Apple highlighted at the launch, doesn't click for some people. Is it a hardware or software fault? It's not clear. Instead of paying Apple's sky high prices for RAM, some people have bought RAM from popular online memory suppliers, but have found that crashes can sometimes occur. Some MacBooks won't stay asleep. You shut the lid and it goes to sleep, but then it keeps waking up every minute or so. The Nvidia graphics chipset has also been causing problems too and the MacBook might incorporate chips with known problems. You'll find a useful article here that has links to other reports going into more detail.

A firmware update has been produced and if you are using a new MacBook you should receive it through the usual software update facility (there's a direct link below too). It'll be described as an update to improve stability, but it's basically fixing a load bugs in the original MacBook firmware.

It's always a good idea to wait a while after something new is released, even if it is exceeding cool and from a company like Apple. If you buy a MacBook in the New Year it's not just bugs that you'll be avoiding because here in the UK VAT (sales tax) was recently reduced from 17.5% to 15%, so Apple's UK prices have dropped slightly since the MacBook launch. That's great news.

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Cloud computing - is it safe?

Many people say that the next big thing is cloud computing and that we will all be using it sooner or later, if not already. The term 'cloud computing' means the internet and in some ways it is a return to the old days where large computers in a company held data and software and everyone accessed it through cheap dumb terminals.

It's slightly different now because the internet has made large computing centres open to the general public and not just selected employees in a company. There are many online storage services that offer to store your files, webmail for email, photo sharing and video sharing, online applications like word processors and spreadsheets, and so on.

We are increasingly being tempted by offers to look after our files and cool online applications, but these are early days in cloud computing and not all services that are around now will be around next year or the year after. The problem is that running these online cloud computing services is expensive and it's hard to make a profit. You can only carry on making a loss for so long.

Xdrive, an online storage company that you can use to store files, has recently announced that it is to close. It is not the first to close and it won't be the last. When you use one of these services to store files, for email, photos, or whatever, and they close, it can be very frustrating. How are you going to get all your files/photos/email off the service? Can you transfer them to another service? What if you didn't see the closure notice and everything was deleted? It's enough to put you off cloud computing.

At the moment it is not recommended to store your files/email/photos or whatever online without an offline backup just in case the service closes or has a serious fault and loses your data. If you don't want to do this, at least use two different companies so that if one shuts down you will still have your files/photos/email at the another.

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How much RAM does your Mac need?

If you are thinking of buying a new Mac, how much RAM should you get? A 20in iMac comes with 1Gb of memory, but when you select it in the store you can choose to upgrade it to 2Gb or 4Gb. Is the 1Gb in a basic iMac adequate or do you need more, and if so, how much?

The amount of memory you need depends on the applicatations you want to run. OS X runs OK in 1Gb and about half that will be free after booting up. However, when you start running applications they can use up quite a lot of memory. Among the most memory hungry applications you can run are the virtual machines that let you run Windows on your Mac, such as VirtualBox, Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion. They run very poorly on a 1Gb Mac and you need at least 2Gb, with 4Gb being the best.

These aren't the only applications that need a lot of memory and there are others. To prevent OS X from slowing to a crawl due to insufficient memory you should have at least 2Gb. If you can afford it you will find that a 4Gb Mac runs the fastest.

Going back to the question of how much RAM should you buy in your new Mac, I recommend the absolute minimum. Get the basic 1Gb in an iMac. Why? Well the problem is that Apple charges four times the price of other companies for memory modules. Apple charges £50 per gigabyte of memory. Go to the store and click the button to buy an iMac - increasing the RAM from 1Gb to 2Gb costs £50 and upping it from 1 to 4Gb is £150.

If you go to a memory supplier like Crucial you'll be charged just £12 per gigabyte. So 4Gb of memory for your iMac will cost just £47, which is less than just 1Gb extra from Apple (and you'll have a spare 1Gb when you replace it with the 2x2Gb modules). Did someone mention 'Apple Tax' recently?

I like Macs, but I dislike the prices that Apple charges, particularly over here in the UK.

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Apple's new laptops are expensive

After much rumour and speculation Apple has at last launched its new range of laptops - 13in MacBooks and 15in MacBook Pros. They look fantastic and the new styling is superb. The Nvidia graphics chipset is most welcome too. However, I can't help feeling depressed and the problem is the prices.

There was talk of cheap laptops, but instead of the prices coming down, they have actually gone up! Doesn't Apple realise that we are in the middle of a credit crisis and that people are severely cutting down on the amount they spend, especially on luxuries. I fear that Apple's market share will fall instead of increasing - at least here in the the UK and Europe.

To see what I mean, go to the Apple UK store and check out the prices. The new 2.0GHz 13in MacBook, which has a slower processor than the old model, costs £949. Now that is $1,654 (depending on the exchange rate). Wasn't there talk of an $800 laptop only a week or two ago? What happened? We're paying double that here in the UK. Looking at the other end of the range, the new 2.53GHz 15in MacBook costs £1,749, which is over $3,000!

MacBook
13in/2.0GHz = £949
13in/2.4GHz = £1,149
15in/2.4GHz = £1,399
15in/2.53GHz = £1,749

The US prices are much lower, which is why I'm so disappointed with these new laptops. For example, you'll pay just £829 for the 13in/2.0GHz in the US, which is £120 cheaper than we're paying here in the UK.

If you have any FireWire devices like a camcorder or external hard disk drive, you'll find that you won't be able to use them with the new MacBook because the FireWire port has been dropped. Some people have commented that that is enough to put them off upgrading to the new MacBooks. And you'll need to buy an adapter to use a monitor because there's a new type of display port on the new MacBook.

Of course, there is still the old-style white plastic MacBook and there's a single 2.1GHz model with DVD-writer and 1Gb of RAM for £719 ($1,260). However, this means that the cheapest Mac laptop has risen in price and it's now £20 ($35) more expensive than it was previously.
It is interesting to speculate which MacBook is the best to buy right now. Go to the store at the Apple website and you can buy a new MacBook with 2.0GHz processor, 2Gb RAM, SuperDrive, 160Gb hard disk, no FireWire for £949 ($1,654), or you can pop into your local high street store where they are still selling the old MacBooks and the new stock hasn't arrived and get a 2.4GHz processor 2Gb RAM, SuperDrive, 160Gb hard disk, with FireWire for £829 ($1,453). This old MacBook looks good value for money and I'd snap one up immediately before the old stock is replaced with the new kit.

A 13in/2.4GHz MacBook has risen from £829 ($1,453) to £1,149 ($2,001), which is a 39% price increase.

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Windows 7 is looking good

Windows Vista was released two years ago in November 2006, at least to business users, although it wasn't available to the general public until January 2007. Vista is two years old, so why am I still running XP? I'm not the only one and there are huge numbers of XP users who are sticking with the old operating system. Does this make Vista failure?

One of the reasons why many people have not made the switch to Vista is that XP is actually much better than anyone realised. It's a great operating system that runs on any hardware and there's a wide range of software and hardware devices for it. It's not 100% secure, but there are many security products to choose from and some of them are free. It's not 100% stable, but crashes are rarer than some people make out.

Another reason why XP continues to be used is that there doesn't appear to be any software that is Vista-only. If there were even just a few must-have applications or features that only worked on Vista, then a lot more people would upgrade.

Will Windows 7 be better? Yes. In fact, it looks fantastic. Everything I have seen and read about this new operating system is superb and once it hits the stores you will want to upgrade. Underneath it is still Vista, but Vista is actually a good operating system. In 2009 when Windows 7 is likely to be released PC hardware will be much faster than when Vista was launed three years previously, so it will be quick and responsive.

The main differences between Vista and Windows 7 is in the user interface. I don't mean the Aero look, but the tools and utilities that are bundled with it. For example, Paint and WordPad have been given an Office 2007-style make-over and sport new ribbon bars. New taskbar features and Star menu make it easier to access files and applications, gadgets are no longer in a sidebar and are on the desktop, libraries enable you to group documents into virtual folders (a bit like photo organisers let you create albums from images located anywhere on the disk), icons that show stacks of photos, simpler networking and sharing features, easier sharing of devices and media files, and more. There are a zillion new features and they are all to do with making Windows simpler, easier and more fun.

I won't go into detail about the changes because others have done it better, and besides, I don't have a copy of the beta anyway. However, you should check out some of the excellent sites on the web that are covering Windows 7, such as Paul Thurrott's. See part 2, part 3 and part 4 in particular.

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