Last night I had the privilege to attend the opening of the Museum of Computing based in Swindon. Or should I say re-opening as the museum has actually been closed for a year while looking for new premises. Swindon Council have provided a place right next to the theatre and walking distance from the town centre. On display last night was just a small selection of museums collection and it plans to change the exhibits on display every six months.

I was able to re-acquaint myself with my first ever computing experience – the good old Teletype. The school I attended was lucky in that it had access to a computer housed at Harwell which was reached by this teletype – I was hooked from the day that I saw it, aged 11. The school then acquired a Research Machines 380z, which sadly wasn’t on display yesterday but the first computer I actually owned was - the Sinclair ZX81. My next door neighbour had built a ZX80 from a kit but that was beyond me so the ZX81, coming prebuilt, was perfect and my life in IT was sealed.

Next stop was the Sinclair Spectrum and by this time I was happy to open up the box and tinker a little. I installed my Spectrum inside a full sized keyboard and had dual microdrives (yes, dual!), an interface 1 and 2 and a printer. On the back of my Spectrum knowledge I secured a Saturday job working at Selfridges in Oxford selling them. I got 1% commission on everyone I sold and like the Apple iPods of today the Spectrum required little selling and I made a packet.

There were a host of other machines on show including some Macs, a Next and an Osbourne 1 and you can see some pictures below. All in all it is an impressive collection and the new space should allow them to attract more people to the site and understand just how far we have come in such a short space of time.

The only thing missing from last nights event was Stephen Fry, it would have been right up his street!

Click here to see more pictures from the evening.

Well that was quick. The iPhone 3.0 OS has been out less than a month and already the next version is released to beta testers. There is a slew of changes that have been identified so far and to be honest pretty much all of them are of only passing interest. With the exception of being able to access Voice Control via Bluetooth.

Voice Control was introduced in the latest version of the software and was a nice little addition that not only let you make calls by barking instructions to your phone but also to control the music player. It works ok but really seemed to be a feature for the terminally lazy as it wasn’t much effort to do the same via the touch screen.

What I really wanted was the ability to be able to make calls by using Voice Control over Bluetooth and I really couldn’t understand why that wasn’t baked in from day one. So now it seems that it is there. Given that the OS was only pushed out to developers today it is too early to say how well it works nor is there any indication of when the update might be released to the great unwashed that is the general public but I will be eagerly awaiting it.

Also I am hoping that Apple might have fixed the problem whereby my iPhone resets itself in the middle of a call – that might be a good one to fix too!

Here is a list of changes found so far:

• Ability to save a copy of a video before you edit it and realise you have chopped off the best bit
• When rearranging icons on the screen the device virbates (I am hoping that there is an off button for this!)
• MMS is enabled by default
• Improvements to OpenGL and Quartz
• A VideoEditorController API that will allow third party apps to call the video editing UI
• Video picker API.

Over the years I have tended to avoid paying for applications because the up-front cost was prohibitive. So I either went without, used an older version that may have been given away with a magazine, or found an open source equivalent. However, I am now finding myself committing to a number of applications because of the small up-front cost and, quite often, after a period of using the service for free – the so call freemium model. The question is whether that is good value for money.

The applications below are all ones that I use on a regular basis, used for free first before paying for a premium service of some sort. All the following applications make use of the Internet in some form or another.  They are not all cloud apps in the traditional sense with some being hybrids with local clients and remote storage.

Some of these don’t have desktop equivalents and so you cannot make the comparison but Evernote does in the form of Microsoft’s OneNote. I was a happy OneNote user when it was provided for me by the companies that I worked for, usually as part of the full Office package. When I became self-employed I still wanted similar functionality but not the up-front cost. As it happens OneNote can be purchased stand-alone and is currently showing as £72 on Amazon. Evernote’s premium offering is $45 (about £27) per year. So at that rate after about two and a half years OneNote would have paid for itself.

As ever it is not as simple as that. Evernote offers a number of things that OneNote does not. You can access your notes not just on your desktop but also on the web and on a number of mobile devices – not just those powered by Microsoft’s Windows Mobile. Also as part of the Evernote subscription I am entitled to all updates which I would not be with OneNote.

You can see from the cost comparison above that the recurring revenue model is a good one for businesses over the longer term. If you want to continue to use the software you have to continue to pay and over the years I will no doubt end up paying for more than I would have done had I purchased the software outright.

As I said most of these services offer a free option to allow you to try the software before making the move to the paid premium version. This is a crucial deciding factor on my trialling a service these days. I almost expect to be able to try before I buy and with so many competing services those that do not offer a trial option of some sort are rejected.

So has this changed my buying habits? Yes, without a doubt. I haven’t totalled up the annual amount I am spending on all the services I am now subscribed to but I know instinctively that it is much more than I was spending on one-off purchases of software. Equally I also feel that I am getting much better value for money that I did previously. The rate of change of software is so great that regular updates with significant functionality improvements is the norm these days and this is all built into the price.

I will just list the services I subscribe to here and review them all in a later post.

• Carbonite
• Remember the Milk
• Evernote
• Flickr
• Zumodrive
• Unfuddle
• Skype
• ScanR

Do you subscribe to any of these services? Do you think that the freemium model is a good one? Let us know.

[image : SMercury98]

So I am in the market for a new Netbook (some would ask when am I not in the market for a new gadget). This would be my third, therefore I think that you can safely say that I am a convert to the form factor.

There have already been two iterations of Netbooks. Version 1 was the original Asus Eee PC 701 device that introduced the Netbook to the world. This had a 7" screen and ran a specially customised Linux OS. I had one of these and loved it but found Linux to be hard work.

The second version is where we are now with a standard offering of a 10" screen, Intel Atom processor, 3 USB ports, 1gb of ram and, typically, Windows XP. This second wave of Netbooks has been with us for a while now with many companies producing very similar products - the internals are the same but only the exterior shows any real difference. I have an Advent 4211, a rebadged MSI Wind, and I use it constantly.

So I am thinking that we must be about due another iteration – Netbook v3, but what would I want from such a device? Well the following list would be a good starting point:

WWAN

For me the whole wireless broadband revolution has been great. I have been able to get access to the net pretty much wherever I go (with the possible exception of my mother-in-laws in North Yorkshire) but having the dongle is just one more thing to carry around and potentially lose. So the ability to stick the SIM card into the machine and forget about it would be great. Obviously I would require a Netbook that was not locked to any network to allow me to get the best deal – currently I am on an excellent deal with 3.

Longer battery life

When I first got my Advent I got an underwhelming performance out of the battery so I bought a six cell upgrade and now get close to three hours but still not long enough to not have to take a portable charger with me. Ideally I would like the battery to last all my working day and some of the newer models on the market are claiming some incredible times. For a mobile warrior this is a must

More memory

I use my Netbook for a lot more than simply browsing the web and knocking out a few documents. I also do some web development on it with both Apache and MySQL installed. While this works fine it is obvious that the memory is taking a bit of a hit and could do with a boost. I think that this would need to be an after market mod as I think that Microsoft only allow XP on Netbooks with 1gb of ram or less but that is ok as I am handy with a screwdriver.

Sleeker design

This one is pretty subjective as everyone has an opinion on design but the newer models seem to be thinner, lighter and more business like. At the low end they still seem to suffer from cheap looking plastic and flex in the chassis but the more you send, inevitably, the less that this is an issue. This does raise an interesting point in that some Netbooks are now more expensive than larger laptops. It seems that mobility now commands a premium.

Windows XP and not vista

I like Windows XP and I don’t like Windows Vista – nothing unusual in that but I also think that Windows XP is better suited to the netbook environment than Vista. Windows 7 is on its way but I have concerns about its ability to run all the Windows XP software I have accumulated so it seems sensible to stick with XP for now.

Full Width Keyboard

My current model has just such a keyboard and it makes a huge difference compared to other models I have used. I couldn’t go back now and so the keyboard is something I am going to be taking a close look at. The other thing is positioning of keys. I have always felt that the position of the Func and Ctrl keys on the Advent were wrong and should be swapped. So again I will be investigating this.

None of the above is earth shattering but these changes would make my Netbook life so much better. There are probably other things that would help: faster processor, better graphics and sound but these really aren’t going to make that much difference to the sort of work I do.

So when will all of this available? Well most of the items on the list are there now. It is only the WWAN that is not universally available and until there is plenty of choice will I take the plunge and I suspect that will be at least another six months.

Know of a Netbook that meets my requirements? Leave me a comment and let me know.

Those people that live in the UK or have ever travelled here will know that we can proudly boast one thing that is bigger than anything offered by the USA and that is our plug – it is huge! If you have travelled with any electrical equipment that requires the UK adaptor then you will know how much space it takes up. That’s why I have invested in so many local cables that I can swap out for the UK equivalent when I travel.

Now, however, someone (it is not clear who) has come up with a neat design for a folding plug that takes up minimal space. Judging by the way it has been received on the web this is something that people are crying out for and would be a huge hit if it ever made it to market.

Check out the video below for details of the plug and a neat extension block design too.