Well another Tuesday came and went without Apple releasing the new version of its flagship laptop. As I write this the Forum is currently on page 214 of the 5th thread of people waiting for the release.

The problem is nobody really has any idea when the new laptops will be out. All we can be sure of is every day that goes by brings us one day closer to the inevitable release. The problem is there are lots of people who need to make the decision to either buy the current model or wait for the new one.

Without any indication of when the release will happen, all people can do is wait and join the forum discussion  support group.

Apple is really starting to disappoint me as a company. I am a self-confessed fan-boy, but only of their products, not of their company ethos.

I will purchase one of the new Macbook Pros eventually, but I steadfastly refuse to part with significant amounts of money for year old hardware.

However, recently (over the past year) Firefox has also started to give me some other things… headaches and  high blood pressure to name just two! I have loved using Firefox for so long I am tempted to blame Windows for the constant freezes, crashes and general slowness. Unfortunately I can’t. I use a PC at work and a Mac at home, and Firefox behaves the same on both of them.

Today I found out that Firebug is now available on Google Chrome, which prompted me to take a look at what else is available. To my surprise I found a Twitter client, XMarks, a great page screen-grab utility and an SEO tool. Wow, things have moved on since I first tried out Chrome.

In fact, all my deal-clinch extensions are now available on Chrome!

So, as of 2 hours ago I made the jump to Chrome. So far I am loving it. Despite having my extensions active the browsing experience is still very slick and it has not frozen up once. I still have an open mind, but for now I think I have closed Firefox for the last time.

I will keep trying Firefox from time to time, but I think until they release v4.0 their back-end core is just too flaky for my liking.

I am glad Chrome now has extensions. I know it is a matter of debate as to whether it should be kept as a “clean browser” but I kind of figure if you want it clean then don’t install the extensions. Completely bare of extensions Chrome is still faster than Firefox!

I hope Firefox does get it’s act together. It has done wonders for the web community, helping topple IE off its perch (or at least getting them to play ball, not sit on their market share). If Chrome does compete with Firefox I think it could be a game changer for the web. With the Google Apps behind them I think they have a better chance of reaching the general public and hopefully will eventually push IE below the magic 50% market share mark!

What are your thoughts on Google Chrome?

I have planned on getting the new 17″ Macbook Pro for a long time now, but the existing models are using the Core2Duo processors and the rest of the Apple line (and the rest of the world!) has moved on since then. I decided to wait for the Macbook Pro product line to be refreshed before getting the new one, but each time the rumor mill says it will be updated, it doesn’t happen.

Once again rumor has it that tomorrow will be the big day and I will be able to get my new MBP, but alas I am getting used to it not happening and will have to make do with the 15″ for now. This is not a problem, but it has recently been slowing down and is in need of a good blatting, but I don’t want to do that with all my data on it, I would prefer to get the new one up and running before formatting the existing one.

Why am I blogging about this? I am not sure really, I am just anxious to get to grips with the new 17″ as it will be a LOT easier for Lightroom work as it has a lot more scream real estate available.

So, will tomorrow be the day? I will just have to wait and see… watch this space…

Anyway, it turns out the easiest (or only, I don’t know) way of deleting this stupid file (why Windows SERVER would need to hibernate anyway is beyond me!) is to drop into command prompt and run the following command:

powercfg -h off

Easy when you know how, but annoying if you don’t!

In the address bar, type about:config

You may get a warning message, this is fine.

From the list produced, find the following 3 properties:

network.automatic-ntlm-auth.trusted-uris

network.negotiate-auth.delegation-uris

network.negotiate-auth.trusted-uris

You need to add the server you wish to authenticate to the end of the value associated with the property, so it should read something like “localhost, myserver.com”.

You need to set that for each of the 3 properties and you should be good to go, no restart needed.

Like I said, you are unlikely to need this in an Internet environment, but it is necessary to authenticate with Windows authentication in an Intranet environment.

Over the years Firefox has grown up. As the market share continues to increase more and more developers are bringing out really cool and useful tools and plugins that make Firefox very powerful, especially for the web designer/developer. I would actually go so far as to say Firefox is now an essential part of my workflow as a designer.

Tools such as Firebug for HTML/CSS debugging, Colorzilla for grabbing a particular colour off screen, and SearchStatus for SEO information are just 3 examples of tools that I would really struggle to do without.

It is not all good news though. The more advanced Firefox has got the more problems it seems to have, especially on the Mac platform. It seems to have got progressively more sluggish and often consumes complete cores of CPU for no apparent reason (albeit more often than not it is Flash related). Stability is not what it used to be, and while all this is going on the competition are reigning it in and in certain areas overtaking it.

If you judge the browsers on a performance basis only then Google Chrome blows Firefox away, mainly in the javascript execution area but also arguably in stability. Firefox doesn’t even come second!

Unfortunately Firefox seems to have cornered the market in terms of plugins in the same way IE forced itself in the market based on being bundled with the most popular Operating System in the world. I say unfortunately because we are now in a situation where one of the best browsers available has a lot of people using it that have nowhere to go and no other alternative. This situation is never good for the end user.

The ideal situation is either one of the other smaller competitors will introduce a versatile plugin system to rival Firefox’s offering, or someone new will enter the fray with another, probably webkit based, browser which will force Firefox to pull its finger out and tidy up its core product.

Eventually I found out this is how to do it, so I thought I would share:

To change the order of the status icons you need to edit the file

“extensions.ini”

located in your personal profile “Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\{whatever}”

Change the position of the entries for the section ExtensionDirs and the order of the symbols in your status bar will change according to that sorting.

Simple as that

Both managed and unmanaged hosting have good and bad points but it is important to differentiate between the two and choose the option that is right for you.

The following list is typically what you should expect from the different types of hosts. Not all hosts are alike though so please be sure to check before signing up.

Managed hosting

The good points

• You have a point of contact on the end of the phone
• If there is a problem with the server they will fix it
• They will take nightly backups
• If you accidentally overwrite your files they will restore from the backups
• If you get stuck configuring your site they will assist you
• If you need products setting up they can advise and assist

The bad points

• They are sometimes a little more expensive than unmanaged hosts
• The level of service is dependent on the particular host

Unmanaged hosting

The good points

• You usually have a control panel so you can configure your site yourself
• Sometimes cheaper than managed hosting
• Setup time is quick

The bad points

• If you need help you usually have to work it out yourself or log a support call and wait
• If things go terribly wrong the fix time can be slow
• You sometimes have to tell your client “I am waiting for them to answer my call”
• Backups are sometimes taken but access to restores is usually not available unless you have total failure

Which is the right hosting for you?

That entirely depends on the individual. If you like to get your hands dirty with configuring sites then unmanaged is the way forward. However, when things go wrong having someone managing things for you can be invaluable.

A case in point is reseller packages. In this case you have all your eggs in one basket. If something goes wrong you need to know you have the technical skill to restore backups (if you have access to them), configure email and web access and get things working again, fast! In this situation having someone at the server end working for you to restore normality can be a life saver (and a client saver!).

Generally my recommendation would be to use an unmanaged solution if it for a personal site, it is a great way to learn, but think twice about it if you are hosting a business site. The few pennies you save by not getting a managed solution could one day lose you a client.

Don’t drop the phone!

My first impression of the phone is it feels very very slippery. The smooth screen and the smooth plastic back make it feel like it is going to jump out of your hands. This is not just my opinion, everyone I have passed it to has handled it like it is made of crystal.

With this in mind my first purchase was a leather slip case from Ikonicedge. Without going into details, fantastic product!

Usability

I must say the new 3.0 features are really rather good. Push notification is coming to a lot of my day-to-day apps and it really is welcome. I can have IM+ active and will receive an alert when a new message arrives. I have seen a noticeable decrease in incoming SMS since that has been active, in favour of shooting over an IM instead.

The wifi works REALLY well! When I walk into the house it auto-connects to the wifi network, which is great for receiving calls on skype etc, and great if your house isn’t in a 3G area.

Features and Apps

Just like the adverts suggest, for most things you would need to do day to day there really is “an app for that”. Not all of them are free, but most of them are quite cheap and generally very good quality.

I like the way the app store auto checks for updates, and when I wake up in the morning I click update and several of my apps update to the latest version… slick!

One thing to beware of it I have found myself loading the phone with small cheap apps for 59p, then finding that 59p + 59p + 59p + 59p etc does add up! (yes, to £2.36!)

Addictive!

Oh… my… word… If you want your productivity levels to remain what they were before you bought the iPhone do NOT install games, specifically Flight Control. This is positively the most addictive game I have ever played and I just can’t put it down! You have been warned! BTW, if you buy it (just 59p at the moment) my high score is 74 on the default map.

Phone + email

As a phone it works great. The contacts list is slick, the interface is great and the call quality is fantastic. I can’t fault it one bit. If it had a blacklist feature (you can get this only by jailbreaking it) then it would be perfect.

Email works really well too. I don’t use push email so I have yet to experience that, but the standard 15 minute check works for me. If an email reply cant wait 15 mins then the sender really should have called me! The interface to mail is very nice. There are a few features I would like to have seen like the ability to “select all” or select a group of messages without having to click them individually, but for a mobile app it does the job and does it well.

SMS

The sms functionality is nice too. I used an N95 before which was nothing short of embarrassing… really!!! To have an SMS app that didn’t display the time the message was received, well, enough said about that!

The iPhone deals with SMS’s as conversation threads. When a message is received and you open it you also see the previous messages sent too and from the individual. I tend to send my SMS via JellySMS and clickatell (Internet SMS provider) as international SMS messages are much cheaper that way, consequently I only see half the conversation. For general use though, it works well.

Conclusion

I love the iPhone! Not in a physical way, that would be wrong(!), but as a phone/gadget it really is great. The camera in the 3GS is great (no flash, but you can’t have everything) and there are very few frustrations with it. Battery life would be one I suppose, but the N95 had the worst battery in the world, so even that seems good to me. With normal use it could last a couple of days.

I am still in the honeymoon period with this phone, where I am taking great care of it and making sure it does not get scratched/bashed etc. I imagine this will last a bit longer than it usually does with my phones, especially considering how much I paid for it.

I will no doubt post more updates as I go, but for now I am very happy with my purchase. As a phone is it value for money… hell no… not as a geek gadget does it make me smile when I use it, absofreakenlutely!

The problem is, Google has told us time and time again that you should do everything in your power to avoid duplicate content. We also know that if you have part of your site that must have duplicate content the easiest way to avoid it is to add a do not follow line to the robots.txt file.

This is great, and it works, but then how will Google know if you have a privacy policy or not, if you don’t allow it’s robots in there? Is there a guy employed on minimum wage to trawl through manually and make a note of it?

For now I have left it as it is, but I do wonder if Google will see it as duplicate content, along with half the Internet? Or is it clever enough to pick up on the keywords and turn a blind eye?