'Die uitgelekte foto's voelt echt kut, beetje als de overgang de menopauze. Je bent bang dat het eraan komt, maar je hoopt dat het bij jou niet komt'.

Erm... okee... ik blijf bij mijn eerste oordeel.

This surprises me as Gaga is apparently quite musically gifted; an accomplished pianist and composer of hit songs for other artists. That's something that Madonna can't claim (although Madonna compensates by surrounding herself by highly talented producers and musicians).

Both women are obviously very smart and savvy at developing their flamboyant and often shocking image into a brand of its own and I greatly admire Lady Gaga for how she's managed to do that in such a short space of time. Her flamboyant and humorous music videos are the only thing that enable me to listen to an entire song of hers.

Why is this frustrating me? I want to like her music because I admire her. The two interviews she did with Jonathon Ross convinced me that her extravagant appearance is a great camouflage concealing an extremely intelligent woman.

Oh well, I suppose I'll just have to watch her videos on YouTube and resign myself to admiring an artist without liking her 'core business'. Some may argue that music is not her core business, in which case - there's no problem

Klik op het plaatje van het artikel voor een grotere weergave.

I love this system. It really makes it so easy to read at any given moment without having to lug your book(s) around with you. One word of warning, though. If you have a toddler, as I do, who likes to play with your mobile devices, try not to let him start up the Kindle app and start flicking through your book as you will lose your place... synced over ALL your devices **Learned the hard way**

Reading on the iPad and iPhone isn't as great as on the Kindle itself because Kindle uses e-Ink and the iPad/iPhone screens are lit and therefore cause more eye-strain. The advantage is, however, that you can read in bed without a light on.

But now for my angry rant about Kindle content (and other e-Reader content, for that matter, as this problem seems quite universal).
I paid $9.99 for the Kindle version of "Just Kids" and was disappointed to find that it did not include any of the photos that are included in the hard copies of the book. When I checked back at Amazon for the other copies I was frustrated to find that the paperback including photos is sold for $6.98 with free shipping.

Why are publishers as obtuse about the great possibilities of digital media as the record companies are? They are charging more for an electronic version of a book which they do not need to print / distribute / wrap / mail etc. I can only read it on a Kindle device (if I ever switch to another e-Reader I cannot read the books I paid for), I may not lend my books to a friend (DRM restrictions) and in the above mentioned case, I paid more for the electronic version of the book despite the fact that it contained less content (i.e. photos).

I want to purchase legal content, but refuse to be ripped off like this, so if an electronic version of a book is stripped and costs more, I shall buy the paperback version. Actually, by my reasoning, even identical versions of a book should be cheaper in the electronic edition. I'd love to hear from a publisher who can explain to me why it should be more expensive.

And while this is going on, the publishers and record companies keep calling downloaders thieves?!?

This morning I received an e-mail from Apple politely asking me if I might take the time to give them feedback on my recent contact with "Mick" from Apple Care. As you can imagine, I was itching for the chance to give that feedback, but to my disappointment the survey consisted of just three multiple choice questions which didn't concern the actual contact with Apple Care at all:

So even more frustration with Apple for me. With a survey like this I am beginning to think that Apple has become so arrogant that they really aren't interested in anything their (usually very loyal!) customers have to say anymore.

During the past few weeks I have been enjoying an incredibly nerdy e-mail correspondence with my old friend Eric about various Apple hardware and software (chiefly iTunes library sharing/syncing, my favourite subject). There will be a post about that soon, but first I wanted to share with you his experiences of the new 11" Mac Book Air.

Take it away, Eric...

Executive summary:
I'm deeply in love... This is one of the nicest pieces of hardware I have ever played with. Apart from when I received my first MBP years ago the "wow" factor has never been higher.
The MBA is not a replacement for my 17 inch MBP or an iPad, but fits perfectly in between.

Configuration:
I got the 11.6 inch model and I maxed out, as none of the stuff is upgradable later:

1.6 GHz instead of 1.4 GHz CPU
128 GB instead of 64 GB SSD
4 GB instead of 2 GB RAM

Dimensions:
I think the MBA weighs around 25% more than the iPad. As I use a rather heavy leather case for my iPad the MBA actually feels lighter.
The screen dimensions are 16:9, which gives you a screen that is rather "wide" compared to for example a MacBook.
It takes 10 minutes or so to adapt yourself to the MBA keyboard after having worked on the MBP as the keys are much closer to each other.

Performance:
Thanks to the SSD, for non-CPU intensive stuff this baby is like a Formula 1 car and runs around my i7 iMac and i7 MBP, which have both 7200 rpm disks and 8 GB of RAM. Almost all applications load so fast that you even don't see them bounce in the dock.
As the CPU is not of the latest generation, heavy stuff, like ripping a DVD or re-generating previews in Aperture, is rather slow.
For photos and videos the GPU is rather decent, although not comparable to the ones in my other Macs.
Sleep and wake is instant, as advertised. A restart is about twice as fast as on my other Macs.
I did not yet have a lot of time to test battery life, but I managed to get almost 5 hours out of it while working on it continuously.

What is missing and for which there is a workaround:
Superdrive: I bought the external Superdrive, but sharing a Superdrive from another Mac works fine as well. The software actually comes on a tiny 8 GB USB stick which is so small and cute that I believe it would be a hit if Apple would start selling these.
Ethernet port: I use Apple's USB to Ethernet adapter, which works fine.

What is missing and for which there is no workaround:

Firewire.
Backlit keyboard: not a real issue for me but if I look at the forums it's a dealbreaker for many.
External microphone input: no issue as I can't sing anyway.
Infrared receiver: not nice when you do a lot of presentations and want to impress people using the remote control.
Slot for Kensington lock: quite inconvenient as these babies will be a target for theft. There seem to be some solutions but these are not perfect and actually rather ugly.

Encountered some minor glitches that I have to look into further, but no serious problems. Now busy setting up syncing and all that stuff.

So, where does it fit in, a.k.a. how do I justify this purchase?
Can the MBA replace my iPad? Partly. The iPad is still much more convenient for reading books, surfing on the couch, playing games and sending the occasional short e-mail reply. In addition the iPad is unbeatable when it comes to battery life. However, I won't use the iPad anymore to create documents or presentations while being mobile.

Can the MBA replace my 17 inch MBP? It will, except for the heavy stuff, like running Windows stuff in a Virtual Machine. So from now on the MBA will be my standard companion for day-to-day tasks.

And the scariest question: could the MBA replace my wife's 13-inch MacBook? If we stored her large music and photo libraries on a tiny external disk, the answer would be: completely. But don't tell her that

Eric King

Fibre Power 60
Standaard Telefonie
Digitale TV Royaal HD met DVR

Best een riante combinatie van diensten en UPC biedt ook nog 100% installatie garantie - dus dat zal wel goed komen, dacht ik. Wat UPC niet vertelt is dat ze alleen garanderen dat de diensten werken op het punt waar het kabelsignaal je woning binnenkomt. Bij de meeste nieuwbouw huizen is dat in de meterkast. In de meterkast sluiten ze het modem aan - anders kunnen ze niet garanderen dat je de snelheid en stabiliteit krijgt die ze beloven.
Prima, maar hoe zit het dan met computers, telefoon en de decoder voor digitale TV aansluiten?

"Moeten die in de meterkast aangesloten worden op het modem?" vroeg ik op een onopgemerkte sarcastische toon aan de zesde UPC medewerker die ik deze week aan de lijn had.

"Ja, maar u heeft een draadloos modem dus u hoeft uw computer niet bedraad aan te sluiten," antwoordde hij vriendelijk.

"Dat is zo, maar ik wil liever bedraad voor optimale snelheid en overigens verkopen jullie het pakket ook zonder draadloos modem. Wat moeten die mensen dan doen?"

"Het modem moet aangesloten worden op de hoofdaansluiting in uw woning."

"Dat is geen antwoord op mijn vraag."

"Maar u heeft een draadloos modem."

"Ja dat weet ik... Maar wat als ik dat niet had?"

"U moet het modem aansluiten op de hoofdingang".

"Maar ik ga toch geen computer in de meterkast plaatsen?"

"Dan kunt u een draadloos modem gebruiken".

"Argh! Laat maar... Maar hoe zit het met de telefoon dan? Verwachten jullie dat ik die ook in de meterkast plaats? De telefoon moet tenslotte op het modem aangesloten worden, toch?"

"Dat klopt, mevrouw."

"Dus?"

"Dus die kunt u aansluiten op het modem".

"In de meterkast?"

"Dat klopt".

"Dus ik moet staan bellen in de meterkast?"

"Heeft u geen draadloze telefoon?"

"Jawel."

"Dan kunt u in een andere kamer bellen."

"Maar het basis station van de telefoon staat dan in de meterkast."

"Als u dat niet wilt kunt u een monteur een draad laten trekken naar een andere ruimte."

"Ja! Dat zou ik graag willen. Dat is dan kosteloos binnen de installatie garantie, neem ik aan?"

"Nee, daar moet een andere monteur voor komen. Onze monteurs installeren alleen het modem in de meterkast."

"En wat kost zo'n monteur die wél kabels kan trekken?"

"Voorrijkosten zijn €65. Het uurtarief weet ik helaas niet. Ik kan u wel het telefoonnummer geven van een monteur."

"Dus dit betekent dat ondanks jullie 100% installatie garantie, ik minstens €65 extra kwijt ben om niet in de meterkast te hoeven bellen."

"Dat klopt mevrouw."

"Ik ga er nog even over nadenken."

"Dat is prima mevrouw. Aan het begin van dit gesprek heb ik aangegeven dat u graag wil helpen met uw vraag over UPC. Heb ik u goed kunnen helpen en kan ik verder nog iets voor u doen?"

"Neeeeeeeeeee. Rot op!" [OK, dat zei ik niet, maar wilde wel.]

We hebben het modem nu zelf op een CAI punt in de woonkamer aangesloten wat op zich lijkt te werken, maar de verbinding is heel erg wisselvallig en valt soms helemaal weg. Aangezien UPC geen enkele garantie geeft voor haar diensten als het modem niet is aangesloten op de hoofdingang (bij ons dus de meterkast) vrees ik dat we toch moeten kiezen voor een monteur. Wat zeg ik? Twee monteurs (en een vette rekening)!

To be continued....