markwilson.it

Category: Technology

  • Sometimes, simplicity is the best answer

    I have an iPhone that I use for work, but I also have a separate SIM with my personal (private) number – the one I give to friends and family (and the one you’ll catch me on at the weekend). For a while now I’ve been using that in an old Nokia 6730 that used to be my work handset but I hate that phone. It’s got some awful, unintuitive Symbian interface and I spend a lot of time swearing at it.

    I’ve been looking for a new handset for my personal SIM – nothing flash, just a simple phone, with Bluetooth (to connect to the car) and I thought I could get something inexpensive on a pay-as-you-go deal until I realised that the PAYG handsets are all locked to their networks. Then I found an old Nokia 6021 in my office (actually, I have two – the kids play with one of them…) – it’s got all the functionality I want, a classic, simple Nokia interface (the sort that works really well) – and the battery life is OK too (even though my handset is now 6 years old). The trouble was, it looked a bit tatty.

    No worries, I spent £2.79 on eBay, and a couple of days later a new faceplate arrived. Now I have a smart “new” featurephone that suits my needs perfectly.

  • Finding your Twitter RSS feed

    Unlike many people, I quite like “new” Twitter (although it doesn’t seem that new any more!) – compared with “old” Twitter, the website is far more usable but it did lose one item of functionality – that of finding the RSS feed for your Twitterstream.

    For those who think RSS is dead – it’s not dead – it’s just not something we have to think about too often (like HTTP) and (just like HTTP) it’s still a very useful technology. I think I once saw a response from Twitter that suggested browsers can identify RSS feeds in pages now, but all that seems to turn up is a feed of my favourites.

    Anyway, Twitter came to my rescue on this one – not the website/API people, but the people who follow me (thanks guys).  And then I saw the same question asked again today, so I thought I should blog the answer.

    Your Twitter stream is available at http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/twitteruserid.rss.

    So how do you get your Twitter user ID? Well, there’s a website that will help to get a Twitter ID from a username and your Twitter user number is also available in the properties displayed for your user on many Twitter clients. For me it’s 56967616 so my Twitter stream is at http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/56967616.rss.

  • It’s worth hunting around for updated software for mobile data devices

    Back in 2007, I wrote about the fun and games I had getting a Vodafone PC card working with Windows Vista and I revisited the topic in 2009 with Mac OS X. Thankfully, things have moved on since then but, a few weeks ago, I was issued with a replacement modem for mobile data, as part of a change of mobile operator. The new device is an O2 Business USB Modem 889 and the fact that it’s a USB device rather than a PC card is great (it means it works with more of my computers) but the software it ships with is awful, presenting a Windows XP-like skin, even on my Windows 7 system!

    Since my computer was rebuilt to corporate standards a few weeks ago, I’ve been making a concerted effort to avoid installing any unnecessary components (although somebody has put an in house “display manager” on the build, despite there being a perfectly good one that’s just a Windows+P keypress away, and HP’s printer driver for my company-supplied OfficeJet 6310 at home installed a pile of crapware). My intention was to simply install drivers for my USB modem, then follow a colleague’s advice to create a dial-up connection with the HSPA modem as follows:

    • Modem initialisation to +cgdcont=1,"IP","mobile.o2.co.uk"
    • Dial-up number to *99#
    • Username and password for the dial-up connection set to o2web and password

    The problem with this is that my colleague was setting his environment up inside a virtual machine, using virtual network drivers to map to the underlying host’s hardware.  I’m running directly on the hardware (non-virtualised) and I couldn’t find the drivers for my device.

    Using the USB ID Repository, I was able to check that my device was a Sierra Wireless (1199) device (actually, the label on the device would have helped there too) and I was also able to see from the markings on the device that it is a Compass 889.  After checking out the Sierra Wireless website, I found updated software for my modem, even a version for my carrier (O2) but nothing that seemed to offer naked drivers without any additional applications.  As it happens, the latest version of the Sierra Wireless Aircard Watcher installed without any issues and it seems much better than the software that O2 originally shipped with the device – although it’s interesting to note that this device is now officially end of life, despite mine only having been shipped in recent weeks.

    I guess the main point of this post is to say “hunt around” – you may find that there is updated software for your device, from either the OEM or the carrier, that provides a better experience than the version shipped out-of-the-box.

    [Update: I had cause to download the Sierra Wireless Aircard Watcher again tonight and it seems the download location has changed in the last couple of years]

  • Why the consumerisation of IT is nothing to do with iPads

    Last week, I wrote a post on the Fujitsu UK and Ireland CTO Blog about the need to adapt and evolve, or face extinction (in an IT context).  IT consumerisation was a key theme of that post and, the next evening, at my first London Cloud Camp, I found myself watching Joe Baguley (EMEA CTO at Quest Software) giving a superb 5 minute presentation on “‘How the public cloud is exciting CEOs and scaring CIOs; IT Consumerisation is here to stay’” – and I’ve taken the liberty (actually, I did ask first) of reciting the key points in this post

    Joe started out by highlighting that, despite what you might read elsewhere (and I have to admit I’ve concentrated a little to heavily on this) the consumerisation of IT is not about iPads, iPhones or other such devices – it’s a lot bigger than that.

    In the “old days” (pre-1995) companies had entities owned called “users” and, from an IT perspective, those users did as they were told to – making use of the hardware and software that the IT department provided. Anything outside this tended to fall foul of the “culture of no” as it was generally either too expensive, or against security.

    Today, things have moved along and those same users are now “consumers”. They have stepped outside the organisation and the IT department is a provider of “stuff”, just like Dropbox, GMail, Facebook, Twitter, Betfair and their bank.

    Dropbox is a great example – it’s tremendously easy to use to share files with other people, especially when compared with a file server or SharePoint site with their various security restrictions, browser complexities and plugins.

    If you’re not convinced about the number of systems we use, think back to the early 1990s, when we each had credentials for just a handful of systems. but now we use password managers to manage our logons (I use LastPass) for systems that may be for work, or not. For many of us, the most useful services that the company provides are email, calendaring, and free printing when we’re in the office!

    So, how does a CIO cope with this?  Soon there will be no more corporate LANs and where does that leave the internal IT department? Sure, we can all cite cloud security issues but, as Joe highlighted in his talk, if Dropbox had a security breach it would be all over Twitter in a few minutes and they would be left with a dead business model so actually it’s the external providers that have the most to lose.

    CIOs have to compete with external providers. Effectively they have a choice: to embrace cloud applications; or to build their own internal services (with the main advantage being that, when they break, you can get people in room and work to get them fixed).

    Ultimately, CIOs just want platforms upon which to build services. And that’s why we need to stop worrying about infrastructure, and work out how we can adopt Platform as a Service (PaaS) models to best suit the needs of our users. Ah yes, users, which brings me back to where I started.

  • Adapt, evolve, innovate – or face extinction

    I’ve written before (some might say too often) about the impact of tablet computers (and smartphones) on enterprise IT. This morning, Andy Mulholland, Global CTO at Capgemini, wrote a blog post that grabbed my attention, when he posited that tablets and smartphones are the disruptive change lever that is required to drive a new business technology wave.

    In the post, he highlighted the incredible increase in smartphone and tablet sales (also the subject of an article in The Economist which looks at how Dell and HP are reinventing themselves in an age of mobile devices, cloud computing and “verticalisation”), that Forrester sees 2011 as the year of the tablet (further driving IT consumerisation), and that this current phase of disruption is not dissimilar to the disruption brought about by the PC in the 1980s.

    Andy then goes on to cite a resistance to user-driven adoption of [devices such as] tablets and XaaS [something-as-a-service] but it seems to me that it’s not CIOs that are blocking either tablets/smartphones or XaaS.

    CIOs may have legitimate concerns about security, business case, or unproven technology – i.e. where is the benefit? And for which end-user roles? – but many CIOs have the imagination to transform the business, they just have other programmes that are taking priority.

    With regards to tablets, I don’t believe it’s the threat to traditional client-server IT that’s the issue, more that the current tranche of tablet devices are not yet suitable to replace PCs. As for XaaS (effectively cloud computing), somewhat ironically, it’s some of the IT service providers who have the most to lose from the shift to the cloud: firstly, there’s the issue of “robbing Peter to pay Paul” – eroding existing markets to participate in this brave new world of cloud computing; secondly it forces a move from a model that provides a guaranteed revenue stream to an on-demand model, one that involves prediction – and uncertainty.

    Ultimately it’s about evolution – as an industry we all have to evolve (and innovate), to avoid becoming irrelevant, especially as other revenue streams trend towards commoditisation.

    Meanwhile, both customers and IT service providers need to work together on innovative approaches that allow us to adapt and use technologies (of which tablets and XaaS are just examples) to disrupt the status quo and drive through business change.

    [This post originally appeared on the Fujitsu UK and Ireland CTO Blog.]

  • A few things I learned when I “lost” my mobile phone

    A few weeks ago, I lost my mobile phone. Well, not so much “lost” (I was pretty sure I’d left it in the office) but I realised that I had “misplaced” it. I’m on a SIM-only 30-day contract and my handset is an-aging-Nokia-thing-running-some-awful-Symbian-operating-system so I wasn’t that concerned but the 72 hours it would take me to be reunited with it was too long to risk if someone had taken it as their own, so I called the mobile operator (O2) and put a block on the SIM.

    In sixteen years of mobile phone ownership, this was my first experience of this process, and I learned a few things along the way – hence this blog post.

    O2 sent me a new SIM (to use in a spare handset, or in mine, should I find it again) but there were no details in the envelope that told me where/how to activate the SIM. It turns out that I could do that on the My New SIM section of the O2 website.

    As it happens, my phone was handed in at work, and I got it back in a few days. I can’t have two SIMs active at the same time, but I could keep one of them as a “spare” for future use.

    I spoke to an O2 representative, who lifted the bar on my original SIM. O2 advised me that this could take up to 24 hours although, in practice, it was a much shorter time (about 30 minutes) but my calls were still on permanent divert to voicemail. What they hadn’t told me was that they had also barred the last handset that my SIM had been used in (based on the IMEI) and that could take up to 72 hours to lift. Again, it didn’t take that long in practice and, after a few hours, and a couple of phone resets (to force the network to recognise it), my full mobile service was restored.

  • IPv6 switchover – what should CIOs do (should they even care)?

    It’s not often that something as mundane as a communications protocol hits the news but last week’s exhaustion of Internet Protocol (IP) addresses has been widely covered by the UK and Irish media. Some are likening the “IPocalypse” to the Year 2000 bug. Others say it’s a non-issue. So what do CIOs need to consider in order to avoid being presented with an unexpected bill for urgent network upgrades?

    Focus have produced an infographic which explains the need for an IPv6 migration but, to summarise the main points:

    • The existing Internet address scheme is based on 4 billion internet protocol (IPv4) addresses, allocated in blocks to Regional Internet Registries (RIR) and eventually to individual Internet Service Providers (ISP).
    • A new, and largely incompatible version of the Internet Protocol (IPv6) allows for massive growth in the number of connected devices, with 340 undecillion (2^128) addresses.
    • All of the IPv4 addresses have now been allocated to the RIRs and at some point in the coming months, the availability of IPv4 addresses will dry up.
    • Even though there are huge numbers of unused addresses, they have been already been allocated to companies and academic institutions. Some have returned excess addresses voluntarily; others have not.

    The important thing to remember is that the non-availability of IPv4 addresses doesn’t mean that the Internet will suddenly stop working. Essentially, new infrastructure will be built on IPv6 and we’re just entering an extended period of transition. Indeed, in Asia (especially Japan and China), IPv6 adoption is much more mature than in Europe and America.

    It’s also worth noting that there are a range of technologies that mitigate the requirement for a full migration to IPv6 including Network Address Translation (NAT) and tunnels that allow hybrid networks to be created over the same physical infrastructure. Indeed, modern operating systems enable IPv6 by default so many organisations are already running IPv6 on their networks – but, whilst there are a number of security, performance and scalability improvements in IPv6, there can be negative impacts on security too if implemented badly.

    Network providers are actively deploying IPv6 (as are some large organisations) but it’s likely to be another couple of years before many UK and Ireland’s enterprises consider wide-spread deployment. Ironically, the network side is relatively straightforward and the challenge is with the hardware appliances and applications. The implications for a 100% replacement are massive, however a hybrid approach is workable and will be the way IPv6 is deployed in the enterprise for many years to come.

    So, should CIOs worry about IPv6? Well, once the last IPv4 addresses are allocated, any newly formed organisation, or those that require additional address space, will only be accessible over the new protocol. Even so, it will be a gradual transition and the key to success is planning, even if implementation is deferred for a while:

    “The move to IPv6 will take a long time – ten years plus, with hybrid networks being the reality in the interim. We are already seeing large scale adoption across the globe, particularly across Asia. Telecommunication providers have deployed backbones and this adoption is growing, enterprise customers will follow. Enterprises need to carefully consider migrations: not all devices in the network can support IPv6 today; it is not uncommon for developers to have ‘hard-coded’ IPv4 addresses and fields in applications; and there are also security implications with how hybrid network are deployed, with the potential to bypass security and firewall policies if not deployed correctly.” [John Keegan, Chief Technology Officer, Fujitsu UK and Ireland Network Solutions Division]

    As for whether IPv6 is the new Y2K? I guess it is in the sense that it’s something that’s generating a lot of noise and is likely to result in a lot of work for IT departments but, ultimately it’s unlikely to result in a total infrastructure collapse.

    [This post originally appeared on the Fujitsu UK and Ireland CTO Blog and was written with assistance from John Keegan.]

  • What might “Windows 8” (or “Windows Next”) bring for tablets/slates?

    Once upon a time, Microsoft used to share information about developments in new versions of Windows with customers and partners. Then came Windows Vista (codenamed Longhorn), a project fraught with difficulties, and there was much consternation about cancelled functionality.  So, for the next release (codenamed, and later released as, Windows 7, even though it’s only 6.1), Microsoft kept quiet, before shipping a very public beta and asking people for feedback, long after all the key decisions had been made!

    “Windows 8” looks to continue in the same vein – except that Microsoft won’t even tell us a codename – only making vague references to “the next version of Windows” or “Windows Next”. So, it’s hardly surprising that the tech media is trying to glean information about what the next release of Windows may have in store.  And, as an MVP and an employee of a major global systems integrator (but speaking for myself of course – my views are personal and should not be interpreted as a statement on behalf of my employer), I can tell you it’s not just technology journalists and bloggers that want to know – I want to be able to talk to customers about roadmaps but Microsoft is keeping schtum.

    So, when journalist, author, ZDNet blogger and long-time Microsoft commentator, Mary Jo Foley ran a webcast this afternoon looking at Microsoft’s strategy for tablets/slates “Windows 8”, I tuned in.  Of course, it was nothing that Mary Jo hadn’t already written about – and it was purely speculative (albeit based on some good sources) but it’s the best we have to go on right now about what might be coming – and a good summary of the current situation.

    The following are my notes from the webcast.  I may well look back in a year or so and laugh at how wrong we were (as I did with my tweets about the iPad from late-January 2010!) but I have a feeling that most, if not all, of this will come true.

    It was interesting to see what people think about the market for slates/tablets.  Based on a poll taken during the call: 13% think that Apple owns the market [as of now, they do – but that could still change]; 8% think it’s overrated and will slip away like netbooks [unlikely – have you seen the sales figures for the iPad?]; 22% think the market is in its infancy and will hurt PC sales [definitely nascent; but I generally see slates as additive, rather than alternatives to PCs]; and the vast majority (57%) think the market is in its infancy but that there is room for Android and Windows “pads”.  Based on those figures (which are far from scientific, and likely to be skewed in Microsoft’s favour given Mary Jo’s readership) Microsoft has not completely lost its chance to ship a decent tablet but it’s clear there is still a lot of work to do – and a lot of unknowns.

    So what about Windows 7 slates? It’s difficult for me to comment on this, for professional reasons (although I have previously written about how Steve Ballmer told me what to do with my iPad) but Mary Jo Foley is not a fan. She sees some interesting designs, but considers them to be generally pricey, not portable enough, with poor battery life and not true iPad competitors. [For what it’s worth, I can’t argue with any of that.]

    And what’s the difference between a slate and tablet? Not a lot.  Microsoft likes to talk about tablets – they see a stylus as a differentiator but the two terms are used interchangably by analysts and media – like notebooks and laptops (or twenty-eleven and two-thousand-and-eleven).

    On Windows 8, Microsoft has said nothing – although they have spoken of “the next version of Windows”.  That could be Windows 8, or it could be something else (Windows Compact Embedded?) but is really likely to be a successor to Windows 7.

    Microsoft has accidentally leaked information about “Windows Next” in job advertisements, blog posts, leaked slides from confidential presentations to OEMs. Some of the information gleaned includes references to identifying modern form factors to target and optimise for:

    • Lap PC
    • Workhorse PC
    • Family Hub PC

    The second and third categories are familiar – and the first sounds/looks like a slate [albeit with a terrible lable].

    There is a view that “Lap PCs” are about consumption (I think there is scope for some content creation – I certainly write on my iPad) but some differentiators might include more built in sensors (facial recognition to log in; ambient sensor to detect that the user is not there and hibernate/shutdown) as well as apps to integrate with home automation – but remember we’re likely to see at least one [maybe two] iteration(s) of the iPad before any of this comes to market.

    Whilst we don’t know what “Windows Next” is, assuming it is a replacement for Windows 7, we can expect to see it within 24-36 months after Windows 7 shipped (so 2012) and it will run on x86, ARM and Intel/AMD system-on-a-chip (SoC) architectures.

    Microsoft has said nothing official about RTM dates/betas, etc. but Mary Jo Foley believes milestone build 1 (M1) was released within Microsoft in September 2010 with M2 due this month and M3 around July/August.  After that, we might see A public test build in September (at PDC?) with a beta in 2012, and release in summer 2012?  There are some question marks around which architecture(s) may ship first, as well as whether it will be all 64-bit [I think it should be, but expect a 32-bit version to be available, at least for some SKUs].

    It looks like there might be some interesting features for tablets/slates too:

    • Jupiter looks to be an application development model/framework that provides a XAML layer on top of Windows, maybe with its roots in version 5 of the Microsoft.NET Framework, for seamless creation of apps that are optimised for the tablet/slate experience.
    • MoSH may be a Modern SHell – an alternative user interface for Windows on slates/tablets – maybe using the Metro style we’ve seen in the Zune and Windows Phone software [let’s hope so].

    Microsoft would like there to be “one Windows” but there isn’t and it’s only natural to ask if “Windows Next” will be the only slate operating system? We can expect to see version 7 of Windows Embedded Compact (definitely for data consumption only) released around April/May 2011, but there is also a chance of Windows Phone on tablets, despite Microsoft statements to the contrary [I think it could be be a great solution – although Mary Jo Foley notes that Windows is more mature and more stable than Windows Phone 7].

    Can Microsoft win back iPad users? Well, maybe some of them – many of us are iPad users because there is simply nothing better in the market. Perhaps a Windows tablet could be good – but I for one would take some convincing – and it wouldn’t be running Windows 7 (and, from what I’ve seen of Google Android “Honeycomb”, it’s not really a step forward from current Apple iOS functionality either).  The real questions are around applications and access to data – and only time will tell what Microsoft has in store (excuse the pun) or what effect the revamped Android Marketplace will have.

    For now, Mary Jo’s big unknowns are:

    • What will Windows slates do to address the issues of weight/cost/battery life? A tablet needs to be lightweight with a 10 hour battery life (as a minimum) [and to compete on value with the existing market leader].
    • Will Microsoft lock down the slate chassis specifications (as they did for Windows Phone 7), providing a common ground for applications?
    • Will the Metro user interface appear on a “WinPad”?
    • What about the Windows Application store? What apps will it have? Where from? Written by whom?
    • Will any of the Courier concepts re-emerge?

    [Update 3 February 2011: Paul Thurrott also looks at Windows 8 rumours, among other things, prompting Jamie Thomson to ask another good question: Will Microsoft allow enterprises to run their own internal application stores?]

    For now, we don’t really know the answers – I’m hopefully that things will fall into place towards the end of 2011 but the longer Microsoft has nothing, whilst Apple ships significant quantities of iPads (and “iPad 2″s), the larger the gap becomes, and the further Apple encroaches into Microsoft’s enterprise heartland.

  • Tablets: How will they impact your enterprise IT?

    It seems that last week’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) can be summed up with one word:

    “Tablet”.

    Even though Steve Ballmer, CEO at Microsoft, demonstrated an HP “slate” running Windows in last year’s CES keynote, Apple managed to steal Microsoft’s thunder with the iPad and this year’s show saw just about every PC manufacturer (and Fujitsu is no exception) preparing to launch their own model(s).

    Tablet computers aren’t new but Apple’s iPad has revitalised the market – I recently wrote about this when I examined the potential impact on desktop managed service – and one report I read suggested that there were over 80 tablets launched at CES!

    For many years, CIOs have been standardising end-user computing environments on Intel x86 hardware and Windows operating systems, with appropriate levels of lockdown and control which makes it all the more interesting to see the variation in hardware, form factor and operating system in these new devices.

    Our IT departments will struggle to support this plethora of devices yet IT consumerisation will force us to. But this isn’t a new phenomenon – ten years ago I was working in an organisation which was trying to standardise on Windows CE devices as they provided the best application support platform for the business, whilst the execs were asking for BlackBerrys so they could access e-mail on the move.

    Guess what happened? We ended up with both.

    And that’s what will happen with next-generation tablets, just as for smartphones. To some extent, it’s true for PCs too – the hardware and the operating system have become commoditised – and our task is to ensure that we can present the right data and the right applications to the right people, at the right time, on the right device.

    Which brings back around me to my opening point: tablets featured heavily at CES but tablets are just one part of the IT mix. Will your organisation be supporting their use in the enterprise? And do you see them as serious business devices, or are they really just executive toys?

    [This post originally appeared on the Fujitsu UK and Ireland CTO Blog.]

  • Hardware lineup for 2011

    This is a bit of a copycat post really but I saw Mike Taulty and Phil Winstanley‘s hardware lineups and thought it was a good idea. So, here it is, a summary of the technology I use pretty much every day and how I see that changing this year.

    Car: Audi A4 Avant 2.0 TDI 170 S-Line

    Audi A4 Avant 20 TDI 170 S-LineMy wife and I have been Volkswagen fans for a few years now (we find them to be good, solid, reliable cars that hold their value well) so, a couple of years ago, when I heard that Volkswagen and Audi were being added to our company car scheme, I held back on replacing my previous vehicle in order to take advantage. I did consider getting a Passat but the A4 (although smaller) had a newer generation of engine and lower emissions, so it didn’t actually cost much more in tax/monthly lease costs.

    After a year or so, I’m normally bored/infuriated with my company cars but I still really enjoy my A4 – so much so that I will consider purchasing this one at the end of its lease next year. My only reservations are that I would really like something larger, sometimes a little more power would be nice (although this has 170PS, which is pretty good for a 2 litre diesel) and I do sometimes think that the money I contribute to the car might be better spent on reducing the mortgage (I add some of my salary to lease a better car than my grade entitles me to).

    Either way, it’s on lease until I hit 3 years or 60,000 miles, so it’s a keeper for 2011.

    Verdict 9/10. Hold.

    Phone: Apple iPhone 3GS 16GB

    Apple iPhone 3GSI actually have two phones (personal and work SIMs) but my personal needs are pretty basic (a feature phone with Bluetooth connectivity for hands free operation in the car) and I recycled my iPhone 3G when I was given a 3GS to use for work.

    After having owned iPhones for a few years now (this is my third one), I don’t feel that the platform, which was once revolutionary, has kept pace and it now feels dated. As a result, I’m tempted by an Android or Windows Phone 7 device but neither of these platforms is currently supported for connection my corporate e-mail service.

    The main advantages of this device for me are the apps and the Bluetooth connectivity to the car (although I needed to buy a cable for media access). I use Spotify and Runkeeper when I’m running but there are a whole host of apps to help me when I’m out and about with work (National Rail Enquiries, etc.) and, of course, it lets me triage my bulging mailbox and manage my calendar when I’m on the move. Unfortunately, the camera is awful and it’s not much use as a phone either, but it does the job.

    I could get an iPhone 4 (or 5 this summer?) but I’d say it’s pretty unlikely, unless something happened to this one and I was forced to replace it.

    Verdict 3/10. Not mine to sell!

    Tablet: Apple iPad 3G 64GB

    Apple iPadAfter several weeks (maybe months) of thinking “do I? don’t I?”, I bought an iPad last year and I use it extensively. Perhaps it’s a bit worrying that I take it to bed with me at night (I often catch up on Twitter before going to sleep, or use it as an e-book reader) but the “instant on” and long battery life make this device stand out from the competition when I’m out and about.

    2011 will be an interesting year for tablets – at CES they were all over the place but I’ve been pretty vocal (both on this blog, and on Twitter) about my views on Windows as a tablet operating system and many of the Android devices are lacking something – Android 3 (Gingerbread [correction] Honeycomb) should change that. One possible alternative is Lenovo’s convertible notebook/tablet which runs Windows but features a slide out screen that functions as an Android tablet (very innovative).

    I may upgrade to an iPad 2, if I can get a good resale price for my first generation iPad, but even Apple’s puritanical anti-Adobe Flash stand (which means many websites are unavailable to me) is not enough to make me move away from this device in 2011.

    Verdict 8/10. Hold.

    Everyday PC: Fujitsu Lifebook S7220 (Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 2.2GHz, 4GB RAM, 250GB hard disk)

    Fujitsu Lifebook S7220My personal preference for notebook PCs is a ThinkPad – I liked them when they were manufactured by IBM and Lenovo seem to have retained the overall quality associated with the brand – but, given who pays my salary, it’s no surprise that I use a Fujitsu notebook PC. Mine’s a couple of years old now and so it’s branded Fujitsu-Siemens but it’s the same model that was sold under the Fujitsu name outside Europe. It’s a solid, well-built notebook PC and I have enough CPU, memory and disk to run Windows 7 (x64) well.

    Unfortunately it’s crippled with some awful full disk encryption software (I won’t name the vendor but I’d rather be using the built-in BitLocker capabilities which I feel are better integrated and less obtrusive) and, even though the chipset supports Intel vPro/AMT (to install the Citrix XenClient hypervisor), the BIOS won’t allow me to activate the VT-d features. As a result, I have to run separate machines for some of my technical testing (I’m doing far less of that at work anyway these days) and to meet my personal (i.e. non-work) computing requirements.

    My hope is that we’ll introduce a bring your own computer (BYOC) scheme at work and I can rationalise things but, if not, it’ll be another two years before I can order a replacement and this will soldier on for a while yet.

    Verdict 6/10. Holding out for a BYOC scheme at work.

    Netbook: Lenovo S10e (Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz, 2GB RAM, 160GB hard disk)

    Lenovo IdeaPad S10In its day, my netbook was great. It’s small, light, can be used on the train when the seatback tables are too small for a normal laptop and I used mine extensively for personal computing whilst working away from home. It was a bit slow (on file transfers) but it does the job – and the small keyboard is ideal for my young children (although even they could do with a larger screen resolution).

    Nowadays my netbook it sits on the shelf, unloved, replaced by my iPad. It was inexpensive and, ultimately, consumable.

    Verdict 2/10. Sell, or more likely use it to geek out and play with Linux.

    Digital Camera: Nikon D700

    Nikon D700After a series of Minoltas in the 1980s and 1990s, I’ve had Nikon cameras for several years now, having owned an F90x, a D70 and now a D700. I also use my wife’s D40 from time to time and we have a Canon Ixus 70 too (my son has adopted that). With a sizeable investment in Nikon lenses, etc., I can’t see myself changing brands again – although some of my glass could do with an upgrade, and I’d like an external flash unit.

    The D700 gives me a lot of flexibility and has a high enough pixel count, with minimal noise and good low-light performance. It’s a professional-grade DSLR and a bit heavy for some people (I like the weight). It’s also too valuable for some trips (which is when I use the D40) but I always miss the flexibility and functionality that the D700 body provides. Maybe sometimes I think some video capabilities would be nice but I won’t be changing it yet.

    Verdict 9/10. Hold.

    Photography PC: Apple MacBook MB062LL/B (Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 2.2GHz, 4GB RAM, 320GB hard disk)

    Apple Macbook White (late 2007)It’s been three years since I bought my MacBook and, much as I’d like one of the current range of MacBook Pros it’ll be a while before I replace it because they are so expensive! In fairness, it’s doing it’s job well – as soon as I bought it I ungraded the hard disk and memory, and whilst the the CPU is nt as fast as a modern Core i5 or i7, it’s not that slow either.

    For a machine that was not exactly inexpensive, I’ve been disappointed with the build quality (it’s had two new keyboard top covers and a replacement battery) but Apple’s customer service meant that all were replaced under warranty (I wouldn’t fancy my chances at getting a new battery from many other PC OEMs).

    I use this machine exclusively for photography and the Mac OS suits me well for this. It’s not “better” than Windows, just “different” and, whilst some people would consider me to be a Microsoft fanboi and an iHater, the list of kit on this page might say otherwise. I like to consider myself to have objective views that cut through the Redmond or Cupertino rhetoric!

    So, back to the Mac – I may dive into Photoshop from time to time but Adobe Lightroom, Flickr Uploadr, VueScan and a few specialist utilities like Sofortbild are my main tools. I need to sweat this asset for a while longer before I can replace it.

    Verdict 5/10. Hold.

    Media: Apple Mac Mini MA206LL/A (Intel Core Duo 1.66GHz, 2GB RAM, 120GB hard disk)

    (+ iPad, iPhone 3GS, various iPods, Altec Lansing iM7 iPod speakers)

    Apple Mac MiniMy Mac Mini was the first Intel Mac I bought (I had one of the original iMacs but that’s long gone) and it’s proved to be a great little machine. It was replaced by the MacBook but has variously been used in Windows and Mac OS X forms as a home media PC. These days it’s just used for iTunes and Spotify, but I plan to buy a keyboard to have a play with Garage Band too.

    It may not be the most powerful of my PCs, but it’s more than up to this kind of work and it takes up almost no space at all.

    Verdict 6/10. Hold.

    Gaming: Microsoft Xbox 360 S 250GB with Kinect Sensor

    Microsoft Xbox 360sI’m not a gamer – I sold my Playstation a few years ago because the driving games that I enjoyed made me feel ill! Even so, I was blown away by the Xbox with Kinect when I saw it last month. I bought myself a 250GB model and now Kinect Adventures and Kinect Sports have become family favourites (with a bit of Dance Central thrown in!). I can’t see myself getting into first person shooters, but I can see us doing more and more with the Xbox, particularly if I can use the Connect 360 application to hook into my media library. The final piece of the jigsaw would be BBC iPlayer on Xbox – but that looks unlikely to come to fruition.

    Verdict 9/10. Hold.

    Servers and Storage: Atom-based PC, Dell PowerEdge 840, 2x Netgear ReadyNAS Duo

    As my work becomes less technical, I no longer run a full network infrastructure at home (I don’t find myself building quite so many virtual machines either) so I moved the main infrastructure roles (Active Directory, DHCP, DNS, TFTP, etc.) to a low-power server based on an Intel Atom CPU. I still have my PowerEdge 840 for the occasions when I do need to run up a test environment but it’s really just gathering dust. Storage is provided by a couple of Netgear ReadyNAS devices and it’s likely that I’ll upgrade the disks and then move one to a family member’s house, remote syncing to provide an off-site backup solution (instead of a variety of external USB drives).

    Verdict 6/10. Hold (perhaps sell the server, but more likely to leave it under the desk…).