Apple ProCare

Recently I purchased a great product to go along side my Apple Mac Mini. It’s called ProCare and it helps me get a lot out of my Mac. For just £79 a year I get up to 52 training sessions - 1 per week and 156 technical support incidents - 3 per week along a yearly tune up, and screen, keyboard clean to ensure that my Mac is running at it’s best. This is a fantastic service and I’m surprised that no PC maker has thought of an idea like this!

I have already had my first training session and it was really good to be able to learn off an Apple expert, and get answers to the questions I had, without the feeling that I was being stupid for asking them, as well as getting the chance to work with files I had created, and get advice as to how to get them to work in the way I wanted.

Apple Mac’s may not be the market leading home computer, but couple the ProCare service with their fantastic computers and I think they are on to winner. Add in the fantastic .mac service, iLife ’06 and iWork ’06 and you definitely have a winning combo. I think in the future we will see Apple Computer becoming more popular in the home, due to their ease of use, and the proliferation of Apple Stores around the country.

Boney M - Rivers of Babylon

Fantastic video of Boney M perfoming Rivers Of Babylon, the best selling single of 1978 on Top Of The Pops.

Digital Rights Managment

I have recently read an interesting article from Steve Jobs, one of the bigwigs at Apple, he thinks that in the future digital music downloads should not have any form of Digital Rights Management added to the download to prevent piracy. This he believes will make it easier for people to play their purchased digital music on any device.

I agree with Steve Jobs, as I am annoyed that when I purchase a song in iTunes I am unable to play on the media player included with my mobile phone, as it cannot play iTunes DRM encoded files. Also if I buy music from another online store then it is more than likely I will not be able to play this music on my iPod.

We need to come to a point in music downloads where any music you purchase from an online store is free of digital rights management software to ensure that the music you have bought can be played on any device. After all when you purchase a CD you are not limited to where you can play the CD, and if you so wish you can make MP3 files from the CD.

WiFi Calling

I recently purchased a Belkin WiFi Skype phone. This is a fantastic device that enables you to connect to Skype without needing your PC/MAC switched on. What makes this phone great is the fact it gives you the chance to make free calls, to friends / contacts who use Skype, even when you are not at home, as all you need to is connect to a wireless network to make a call, which means that if you are on a foreign holiday, and your hotel has free wireless access you get cheaper calls back to the UK, free voicemail access, and don’t get charged for receiving a call, which makes it cheaper than using a mobile phone.

Also with Skype you can purchase voicemail, a Skype In number (to enable people without Skype to call you) and Skype Out credit so you can call people who are not on Skype at a cheap rate of 1.2p a minute to most countries in the world (some countries cost more to call on Skype)

I think WiFi calling is going to be a big thing in the next couple of years, due to the cheap call charges, and the expansion of wireless networks all over the country - some cities are installing city wide free WiFi, which could make a mobile phone redundant, as it costs more to use. Businesses will also benefit as it will be a cheap way to enable employees to call each others, and mean that no matter where an employee is, such as working from home, that employee will have one contact number / ID

The only downside as far as I can see is that the device does not have the ability to connect to a “pay as you use” wireless network, as the software does not have the ability to connect to networks that require you to pay to use them, and the phone itself does not have shortcut keys to key functions, as on mobile phones, such as a voicemail button etc. Also the phone does not yet support the SMS function recently built in to Skype, nor can you send a message rather than call a Skype contact.

All in all this is a great phone, and makes a great way to communicate with people.