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Tech

My Mac’s a Lemon (And I Want My Money Back)

It’s no secret I’m an Apple loyalist. The first computer I set eyes on was an Apple][e when I was four. I touched my first Mac when I was 6, and the first PC my family owned was a MacSE 30 with an ImageWriter II. I’ve had a couple non-Macs over the years (running everything from Windows to Linux and a shade of BSD in between), but I keep coming back to the products produced by Steve and co.

And that makes my disappointment with my MacBook so much harder. Since I got it about 12 months ago, it’s been in for repairs three times. One for a cracked topcase, and twice for hard drive failure. That means I’m on to my third hard drive now.

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Tech

Google Chrome first thoughts

So, just in case you’re not following the latest and greatest from our Internet Lords and Masters, Google have released their own browser. There’s a little comic available that explains what’s so awesome about it. Have a read, it’s quite interesting for those who get tickled by browser technology. Since every man and his blog is reviewing it, I figured I’d chuck my random thoughts out there.

I’ve had it up and running for a while, and it seems pretty nifty. The New Tab Page is the best use of that space I’ve seen yet. It compiles everything I would most likely be doing with the browser into one neat little place. I could definitely get used to it.

Overall, it definitely feels zippier than Firefox 3, and definitely better than any version of IE or Safari I’ve encountered. Some of the new features are definitely cool. The syntax hilighting in the “view source” window, as well as the “inspect element” will definitely help me with the little bits of web design and programming that I do. Also, the Task Manager will be a boon to anybody trying to figure out why the browser isn’t responding (though it’s a little difficult to find).

I’ve had some intermittent issues with some pages not being able to render and getting the “Sad Tab”. But then that stopped. I’m not sure what happened there, particularly as the site I was visiting was a very popular Australian newspaper. Also, it looks like there’s some issues with YouTube. I can’t get it to play more than 2 seconds of any clip.

Still, for a beta, it’s very well-polished, and I’ll keep using it. It may even replace FF3 on my Mac once it’s released for my favourite platform.

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Tech

iPhone Nano by Christmas?

No company in consumer technology engenders as many rumours or as much wishful thinking as Apple, but even this takes the cake. Apparently the UK’s Daily Mail is short on real news, so they are reporting that an “industry insider” believes that Apple will be making all our dreams come true with a smaller and cheaper iPhone.