Apple Macintosh’s 26th Birthday

This month see’s the anniversary of the Apple Macintosh. Back in January 1984, I was only 5 years old and I believe I was still to have my first true interaction with a computer of this kind. I therefore can’t really say much about how advanced the Mac was back then.

What is evident to me though, is that there continues to be this divide between Mac users and PC users (one could also include Linux users in here too!). Why can’t people just accept that they have a preference for one operating system (OS) and other people have a preference for a different one?

I recently saw a tweet pointing me towards the following video on YouTube of Steve Jobs showing the world the Macintosh:

I started reading through some of the comments. I know I shouldn’t have, but I did. As usual with this sort of thing, I saw posts attempting to put down the PC. Why?! Can’t users just praise the Mac, if they choose to, and leave it as that. No put downs of other computers?

I have both and I find they both have their benefits. If I had to, I could probably do without either, although I think I would find it more of a struggle to do without my PCs. Yes, I have issues with Windows. There are some things that I wish Microsoft would do better and differently, but I have the same experience with OS X.

So please, can’t the two just live together side-by-side without all this nonsense!

Happy Birthday Macintosh…. Happy Birthday Mac Fan boys!

Neil

Google Mobile Sync for iPhone

Google have recently released a beta of their Mobile Sync for the iphone. This allows you to

Synchronize the built-in calendar and contacts on your iPhone with your Google account.

I had been using the free Live service from mail2web to sync my contacts so that I could always access them should I lose or damage my phone. Google’s offering seemed a much better idea as I already had a Google Mail account that sync’d mail with my iPhone.

I immediately set this service up (rememberting to backup my existing contacts as changing the sync settings will clear all existing contacts – something I learned the hard way when I first got my iPhone!). Currently it only allows you to sync the Contacts and Calendar, with mail being done seperately (not via push email).

A few days later, Microsoft were heralding the fact that they licensed their Exchange ActiveSync technology to Google to allow them to do this. Good for them! The issue I have is why they haven’t provided the same service for their Hotmail service.

I tend to use Hotmail more than Google, just because I’ve had the account longer and friends & family know that email address.

What I’d really like is to be able to sync Google Contacts with my Windows Live Contacts (i.e. hotmail, messenger). Either than or for Apple to allow me to sync more than one Exchange server with my iPhone (which is who you set up Google Mobile Sync).

Still, its a step forward!