A common refrain is that computers are too complicated for ordinary people to use. Yet mostly when I see people sat with a notebook on their lap I don’t see frustration. The confusion tends to come when something doesn’t work as expected. Naturally bad design plays a big part in this but the biggest stumbling block comes when a dialog box like this pops up:
There’s this feeling in the Mac community that you should avoid the first iteration of any new Apple product. Yet back at the beginning of this decade I went out and foolishly put £350 down on a first generation iPod. Sure, it looks clunky now. It’s bigger and lower capacity than the current revisions, has a monochrome screen and the scroll-wheel actually rotates. But for a version one product it was remarkably well rounded.
Like most people, most of my photography tends to happen when I travel. I do like to branch out from time to time though, this time into portrait photography. This picture is from my first (and currently only) experience in a studio and is of a model called Lena. She was professional, fun and very keen on motor racing.
This is a cropped version of the original. I usually use the full-size, black and white version which is not suitable for work.
It’s funny how it’s the places nearest you that you never quite get around to visiting. It was only a couple of years ago that I first went to Paris (and a couple of years before that when I went to France). This time the unvisited destination is only an hour away from home; so close that I have colleagues that commute from nearby. Brighton. Happening south-coast destination, home of a famous pier and Norman Cook. But was it worth the wait?
In a previous post about Internet Service Providers I hinted that their current business model — where it’s possible to download as much as you like when you like — was unsustainable. Since I’ve had a few people asking me about that I thought I’d dig into the subject.
The first question that we need to ask before we get any further is, What does your ISP do? This may look like a silly question at first glance but exactly what data they pass where is the key to understanding how they make (and lose) money.