Broken Apple Mail URLs

If you're getting lots of emails like me, you are bound to get one from an Apple Mail user, which means you'll suffer the broken Apple Mail bug. So that the links are not clickable, and appear mangled like:

http://www.openrightsgroup.org/orgwiki/index.php/
Keysigning_party_London_2008-06-02

This is one of the problems with proprietatry software, because none of the thousands of programmers who have encountered this bug have been allowed to checkin a fix to the Apple Mail source code. Had this been in Evolution or Thunderbird.. of cause it would have been fixed within hours!

Unlike this outlook bug, there is unfortunately no workaround like using <> around the URL. As a final note, Outlook also breaks URLs in the plain-text email like Apple Mail does! Time to switch to Ubuntu and Thunderbird like the rest of us?

No more Apple iTunes excuses

I've long argued against using Apple's proprietary DRM beast that is iTunes, but I still know people who put up with the DRM and other problems because they like the UI. Now we have Miro, the free software media player which is fortunately a Joost killer. Also we have Songbird, this will suit those still using Apple's iTunes.

A few years ago i saw that VLC was popular, but not mainstream in the way that Firefox had become. We've needed a media player which can complete for a long time, and now we have two! What's a shame is that they both advocate Adobe's Flash format on their screencast pages here and here, that's a bit bad form after your great effort guys!

I myself am still using XMMS, loads in under 1 sec and doesn't take up much screen space. I'd give KDE's Amarok a go, but it takes 6 secs to load! eek.

Apple Milking Europe with 20% higher prices

Arp has posted some US figures to go with my Apple Macbook Vs Dell Laptop comparison.

Looks better, only a $180 US difference, which translates in to UK pounds as:

• Apple Macbook - £778
• Dell M1330 - £686

I wonder why Apple have such different prices in the states, 20% more expensive! The Dell is only £33 (5%) more than in the UK! Apple milking it's European "fan base" ?

Apple MacBook Vs Dell Laptop price comparison

A year or so I calculated it was about £50 more expensive to buy a Apple MacBook than the equivalent spec Dell Laptop. Now I thought I would do the comparison again and see what had changed in the last 12 months.

Laptop specification:

• CPU: 2.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
• RAM: 2 GB
• HD: 160 GB
• Screen: 33cm (13") diagonal
• Optical Drive: 8x DVD+/RW

The Dell HD was 7200rpm and the Apple was 5400rpm.

Both include free delivery.
Neither includes a carry case.
The MacBook does not include a 2MP web-camera.

• Apple MacBook (white): £969.01
• Dell XPS M1330 (N01X3303): £718.99

Dell comes in £250.02 cheaper! That is a lot of money for an Apple logo, the Apple banding price has leapt £200 higher than my comparison 12 months ago! I recall my comparison previously had the Apple around 800, so it looks like Apple is not passing on the savings Dell has found in cheaper parts 12 months on, and then is charging a bigger margin on the higher-spec components it us using this year!

Apple Mac OS X software refunds

Apple's new "Air" laptop looks sweet! ..but they're not selling it with a GNU+Linux install yet.. :( So looks like I would need to buy a standard model, then disagree with the software license terms and return that part of a refund. The Apple Mac OS X License terms seem to allow for a refund in the following ways:

• "IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THE TERMS OF THIS LICENSE, DO NOT USE THE SOFTWARE AND (IF APPLICABLE) RETURN THE APPLE SOFTWARE TO THE PLACE WHERE YOU OBTAINED IT FOR A REFUND OR, IF THE SOFTWARE WAS ACCESSED ELECTRONICALLY, CLICK “DISAGREE/DECLINE”."
• "Apple warrants the media on which the Apple Software is recorded and delivered by Apple to be free from defects in materials and workmanship under normal use for a period of ninety (90) days from the date of original retail purchase. Your exclusive remedy under this Section shall be, at Apple’s option, a refund of the purchase price of the product containing the Apple Software or replacement of the Apple Software which is returned to Apple or an Apple authorized representative with a copy of the receipt."

I wonder if they would try and get around it by only giving me a £1 refund or something for the OS software? After all it didn't cost them more than £1 to copy the install CD as it didn't take anything from the original version of the disc.

Check out this Air review, it rightly points out that the Sony X505 is also good, and it even has about 500g mass less than Apple's Cyclops beast with only one USB port!