Jan 31
Ian FieldhouseWeb Standards
Molly E. Holzschlag has signed on with the Internet Explorer team on a contract basis to work on standards and interoperability issues. Hopefully this will lead to further compliance to Web Standards for future versions of Internet Explorer.So, I wish Molly and the IE team all the greatest of success and look forward to a future when IE behaves with some consistency, with respect to the other popular web browsers, and I look forward to the day when I won't need to implement CSS hacks to get my web sites working in in Internet Expolorer.
Jan 12
Ian FieldhouseRants
I've just got off the phone from Marks & Spencer &More Card customer service and I am simply fuming.All I wanted to know was my account balance, but in order to do so I was asked such 'security' questions as:
What month does your car insurance come up for renewal?
and
What month does your home insurance come up for renewal?
Both of these questions were never asked of me during my application for the &More card so how were they supposed to use them for security, unless (shock horror) they just wanted to spam me with their own insurance products when the time comes for me to renew.Not only that, the man on the other end of the line wouldn't give me the balance on my card until he'd tried the old hard sell on card protection — that I had opted out of on application and had already told them I wasn't interested in on activating my card.To top it all, this was all being handled by an Indian call centre so I could hardly understand him and he could hardly understand me.Be warned, they might have a good interest free period on purchases, but their lack of online banking and automated phone systems has seriously put me off them. I think it's time to look for an alternative, and I've only been with them since November!
Jan 09
Ian FieldhouseApple, Hardware
The new Apple iPhone looks absolutely tremendous and apparently Wall Street believes so too. At the close of Steve Jobs keynote, Apple stock was up over 8%.
Jan 08
Ian FieldhouseApple, Hardware, Mac OS X, Software
Well, with under 24 hours to go until Steve Jobs walks out onto the stage at the Moscone Center to deliver his Macworld 2007 keynote speech, I thought I should post what I believe we will see tomorrow.
Summary of sales over the holiday period.
With Apple laptops and iPods literaly flying off the shelves I think it will be safe to say that we'll hear all about it and I wouldn't be surprised if Jobs doesn't take the opportunity to have a little fun at the Zune's expense.
iLife 2007
I believe that this is a definite addition to the keynote, but will see just a feature bump to the existing applications rather that anything earth shattering. Ideally I'd like Apple to open up the iLife applications so that they could seamlessly interact with on-line services such as Flickr, YouTube, Google Maps and Odeo but I wouldn't be surprised if there was further integration with .mac, which would be a shame as I'm no longer a member.
iWork 2007
I think this will see feature updates for both Pages and Keynote and will also see the release of a simple spreadsheet application along the lines of what is available in AppleWorks. I'm definitely not expecting an Excel killer.
Mac OS X Leopard
Progress report on how things are coming and a release date announced for late Springtime. Hopefully we'll see some of the super secret features that Jobs eluded to back at WWDC 2006 now that Windows Vista has been released. Expect Jobs to have another dig at Microsoft here.
Hardware Upgrades
I think that both the MacBook Pro and Mac Mini will receive slight upgrades—the Mac Mini moving to Core 2 Duo across the line hopefully—but the rest of the hardware line will remain unchanged.
iTV Released
The iTV will be released and we will all learn it's real name. Hopefully it's got something more up it's sleeve than this, but I have my doubts. I really can't see any advantage to the iTV over buying a Mac Mini and sticking it under my TV. Obviously it's cheaper, but with the Mini I get a proper computer and therefore have the ability to play and record DVDs as well as allow my kids to play their favourite games and surf the Internet. I'm hoping to be proved wrong on this one.
One More Thing...
The iPod Phone. I think this will be a slider mobile phone that looks like an iPod nano but about twice as thick. When closed it will appear—and act—as if it is an iPod nano with about 4GB of storage, but when the slider is opened it will change into phone mode and the keypad will be revealed. I also expect it to pack a 2 megapixel camera with a flash.That's it. Check back later to see whether I'm gloating over my prediction performance or hiding my face in shame.UPDATE: It appears that Intel have just launched their first Core 2 Quad branded processors so don't be too surprised if the MacPro line get bumped up to these chips.
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