This week saw the arrival of 3 new gadgets to my clutches.  A laptop (works really hence the ‘mostly’), my new iPod nano (after much deliberation as to which to buy) and an portable, external hard drive for carrying my documents and files around with me.  So how has mu experience of using these gadgets gone then?

Lets start with the laptop.  Although it shames me to say it I purchased a PC rather than a Mac.  The reasons were simple.  The laptop will be used to power the interactive whiteboard and work and the classes I teach all use Windows.  Therefore I could hardly demonstrate on a Mac and then let them use Windows.  Also price was a consideration.  I have to say though that I have regretted ever moment since the purchase.

Lets get this straight first of all, that if you want a laptop then the Toshiba Satellite Pro A300D is a good buy.  With an AMD Turion x 64 2GHz processor (Dual Core) and 3GB ram along with its 160GB hard disk the computer is great and provide ample computing power in order to do most tasks.  This is not were my fault lies.  As most laptops do these days, it came with Vista.  No problem there until you get to the fact that it was Vista Home Premium and you cannot marry Home Premium with a domain.  Therefore I would have to be wiped and rebuilt using Windows Vista Business (which can’t play DVDs and so on….).

The process seemed simple, you shut down, insert the Windows Vista Business DVD, reboot from the DVD drive and then let the disk do its job answering a few question here and there.  Then we booted and finished you download all the drivers from the Toshiba website, install them and hey presto you have a great spec laptop hooked up to the domain and away you go.  If only it was that simple.  Installing Vista Business was fine but the drivers afterwards, not so good.  I couldn’t get the display to work (in fact it is still not working properly - see below) and also the wireless card was not working and I just kept getting an error messages saying that the hardware was not present.  Armed with this failure I decided to plug in an Ethernet cable straight into the router (the LAN driver was fine) and then see if Vista could find the drivers itself.  It managed to find the Wireless Drivers but not the graphics card.  Therefore I went straight to the ATI website for the latest drivers.  I selected the one that it said on dabs.com were I bought the laptop, however although it displays correctly on the laptop I cannot get the external display to the projector to display in 16:9 aspect ratio or even letterbox mode.  I have had to settle with the projector cutting off the start menu!

Hassle from the word go are these PCs.  If it was an Apple you would literally just put the disc in and press go.  Petty we are not using Mac’s at work.  Talking Mac brings me onto Gadget number two for the week - the iPod.

In the end I decided to go for the iPod Nano 3rd generation (the square one).  They were going cheap on Apple’s refurbished stock store and therefore I picked up the 8GB model for less than £75.  Great value.  First impressions are good.  It is slim and small with excellent quality music and video playback.

Finally today my external hard disk arrive.  I went for a Seagate Freeagent portable drive with a 250GB capacity.  Again I have only had limited use so far but it is small and seems to connect to the laptop fine, which is what I intend to use it for.

P.S. sorry to Lisa Bettany for the title of this post, but it just seemed appropriate.  Visit her blog and you will see what I mean.

Yesterday Apple announced the new iPod Nano.  I don’t know about you but it only feels like two minutes since the last release of the Nano?  Anyway I just wanted to write this post for two reasons.  Firstly to give my first impressions, and secondly to get your advice.

So the new iPod Nano.  Looking at the photos and watching the Keynote speech from Steve Jobs on the Apple Website, it seems that they have gone back to a design that is more like the 2nd generation design - the longer and thinner look.  There are some added features but to be honest are they features that we really want?  HD video on an iPod?  I have to say that my first impressions are that I think the old iPod design is better, what do you think?

The thing is what to do.  I have an iPod 60gb of which I only ever seem to use around 20GB, unless I fill it with video for a holiday.  Therefore do I try and flog my iPod and buy a new nano?  Or should I flog my iPod and buy one of the older nano, in the style that I like better?  Decisions, decisions.  Your thoughts, as always are welcome.

As readers of this blog, and friends will know I am a keen Apple fan.  So much so that I have 3 Apple computers in my collection - two Mac Mini’s and a MacBook.  It is the Mac Book that I want to concentrate on in this article.  In particular the MacBook’s battery life and how to optimize your battery power to get the most out of it.

Laptops are notorious for being great gadgets, but poor on battery efficency.  The MacBook is a little different in that it probably has one of the best battery packs around in terms of the amount of battery life that it can provide in terms of no. of hours in my experience.  That said the longest I have out of it is about 2.5 hours, still not enough for a long journey here and there.  So how can we get more power and a longer run time out of our MacBook batteries?

Over time I have learnt a little bit about this in order to firstly extend the amount of time you get from your MacBook battery and secondly the life of the battery itself.  In order to extend your MacBook’s battery for as long as possible it is crucial that you never use it plugged into the mains, unless it needs charging.  Batteries work best charged fully when empty, used to they are almost dead and then charged fully again.  Charging your battery constantly will your MacBook is being used will reduce the lifespan of the battery.  Other top tips for saving battery power are:

• Most modern MacBooks (Intel ones) have an Airport (or wireless) card built in, for connecting to Wireless networks.  When this wireless card is not being used then make sure that it is switched off.  To do this right click on the wireless icon in the upper right corner of your MacBook and then select “Turn Airport Off”
• Your MacBook will probably also have bluetooth card inside and therefore do that same as for your Airport card. Turn your bluetooth off whenever you are not using it as it is draining power.
• Your MacBook will use significantly less power when you dim the display.  To do this select the display option from the System Preferences which can found by clikcing on the Apple menu in the top left of the screen and lower the brightness
• Only have programs open that you are using as additional programs take up memory, which in turn takes up power

Following the above will help reduce the power consumption of your MacBook and therefore make your battery last longer in the short, and in the long term.