Mediafire Vs Mega

Posted on May 16, 2013 by Rod McCall

These two services offer something quite similar in terms of cloud storage in that neither actually syncs the data on your computer; instead you upload data to a remote space and download it again or share the links with others. This is quite different from Dropbox which syncs all or selected folders across devices. The following comparison looks at a paid MediaFire account vs a free Mega one. Not entirely fair but one way to do it.

Value for Money

No contest really Mega offers 50GB of free storage while Mediafire offers 10GB rising to 50GB if you sign people or use certain apps. If you want to upgrade then again Mega is cheaper per GB of space. Mediafire however offers to carry over unused bandwidth to the next month.

Speed

Here in Luxembourg Mediafire is by far the slowest cloud storage space I have used, upload speeds seem to be capped at 250kBps even on paid accounts, on the other hand Mega free accounts even upload several times faster than this. Download speed are also much better on Mega. Mediafire speed issues seem to apply regardless of which network I use.

Files

Free Mediafire accounts severely limit file size, Mega does not. Paid accounts on MedaFire limit files to 10GB. FIle uploading via websites in both cases worked well, although the MediaFire express App often appears unstable and buggy but it is in Beta. Right now Mega offers no official client apps although some unofficial ones are available on Android.

Features

Right now Mega offers little more than space and bandwidth if you pay. If you decide to pay on Mediafire you get some nice features which are no available on Mega (or only under limited conditions). Namely, one time file downloads, password protected files and the ability to download entire directories. The latter is only available to other registered users of Mega or if you share a folder specific public key (which may confuse some people). You can also set up a filedrop on Mediafire which lets people upload files to your account.

As noted MediaFire offers a desktop app, this has some nice features such as being able directly upload via the context menus on your computer or dragging and dropping files directly onto the pop-up uploader.

Security

On the face of it Mega wins throughout on this feature, however if you forget your password say goodbye to your data as you cannot get a new one! Mega claims that you and only the people you share your key with can decrypt your files.They also claim that as they do not store your key that your also have some degree of enhanced privacy. Assuming this all works as described then the service is far more secure than most other cloud providers, however there is some debate on how secure Mega really is.

Usability

Mega wins here on almost every level, while Medafire is hardly difficult to use it has some confusing ways of doing things. Also Mediafire makes uploading files in nested directory structures a very cumbersome task. Mega on the other hand makes this a doddle.

Extras

Mediafire offers an office environment called Zoho, however this is being phased out. Frankly that is a good thing but it will be interesting to see what will replace it. Due to the speed of Mega I also found it a good service for streaming movies on my Android tablet. Mediafire struggled a bit even on a small 10mb file – the Jewish Memorial one on this website.

Trust

Who would you trust with your data? Mega sadly has a far lower feeling of trust about it, mainly due to who is behind it (Kim Dotcom). MediaFire has a longer track record, has been used by reputable companies but like all sharing sites has perhaps unfairly been criticised for hosting pirated content uploaded by it’s users in the past.

Summary

If you need features then Mediafire is probably the platform for you. For speed and security Mega wins. I’d pick Mega if you want something simple for non-essential data, if you need to trust your cloud provider a bit more then pick Mediafire.

Review: Mega Cloud Service

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Rod McCall

The charming Kim Dotcom set up a new could service after his somewhat dodgy megaupload.com was shut down by the equally lovely US law enforcement authorities. Being the kind of chap he is he set up mega.co.nz which although still in beta offers many features you can find on other cloud services. I tried this out briefly today and have to say even the free accounts offer excellent upload and download speeds typically hitting 3-5MBps, which compares with a fraction of that for Dropbox, Google and Mediafire. Also the download speeds are equally impressive, typically in the 5MB plus category. So far this is by far the fastest “free” could service I have come across.

In terms of usability the website is a doddle and registering to use it is quick and simple. All the features are readily available with a mouse click and are easy to find and understand. As Mega uses a different security model to other platforms novice users may find the idea of encryption keys and link sharing with keys with other a little daunting. However, security is really the strong point of this platform. You can also upload entire directories quickly and easily.

My main worry about this site is who is behind it. For example would you trust a man who has an extradition warrant out against him in the US and is wanted there for various crimes? I am not sure if I really do but Mega does go out of it’s way to say that all data can only be decrypted and hence seen by it’s owner. That aside though, my main worry is whether they will be around in a year or two if law enforcement manages to catch up with Kim.

Mega is still in beta but there are a few Android clients available, otherwise you need to stick the Chrome browser. One word of warning if you forget your password you can kiss good bye to your data. Also like Mediafire there is no syncing of folders option. It is not a perfect service but you do get 50GB of space for free so who can complain at that? Upgrading to more storage and bandwidth is also surprisingly cheap with a 500GB plan along with 1TB of data per month being just €99.Also it is simple and above all fast and apparently secure.

Review: Mediafire

Posted on April 20, 2013 by Rod McCall

Are you looking for an alternative to Dropbox or Google Drive? If so perhaps Mediafire is the answer.

To give you some background I have had enough of spending a lot on new computers when there are lots of good cloud storage and application solutions. Two obvious ones are Dropbox, which offers basic file storage and syncing across computers and Google Drive which offers storage, syncing and applications. Mediafire is slightly different and sits between these two as it does not sync files across computers, you basically upload them and share folders or files and download them if you or someone else wishes and like Google it also also comes with a range of office applications. Here is a quick summary of Mediafire and its relative advantages and disadvantages. Please note that the review is based on a paid pro subscription to Mediafire.

Advantages

Office suite is comparable to Google Docs in terms of basic features.
Avoids problem of auto syncing files which are very large, especially when on a slow network.
Files uploaded via the website are scanned for viruses, Dropbox does not offer this function.
Paid accounts support up to 10GB file sizes, free accounts limited to 200MB. Google also supports 10GB file sizes. Dropbox only limits file sizes to 300mb when they are uploaded via a web browser.
Free accounts have 10GB space as standard, paid accounts 100GB, plus you earn more for signing up more users.
1TB of downloads per month with pro accounts, this can be rolled over. Great if you need to host files for use on your website or blog which may eat up bandwidth or space. Dropbox limits downloads per web link to 20GB per link per day for free accounts and 200GB per link per day for paid accounts.
Sharing files is very easy and the other party does not require an account or client in order to view them.
You can share files with others via Facebook and Twitter.
Files can be shared once via the one time download feature, with a set expiry date.
SSL upload encryption available.
Document collaboration is easy and other people do not need to sign up to collaborate.
Client available for all major platforms including Android and Linux
You can provide an upload link to others or on your website so that people can easily send you files.
Reasonably fast download rate.
You can share files via a link or share them using a password, the latter is a very nice feature and avoid the need to force people to sign up for services.
The file uploading tool is generally easy to use and supports multiple uploads at once. You and other can also upload to your account via the web.
Pricing is comparable to Google, with the basic 100GB plan on both services costing €4.99 per month, this is half the price of Dropbox.
Fast and helpful customer support.
Other people can upload to a designated folder without them needing an account.

Disadvantages

Adverts and captchas are used on free accounts, although if the person hosting the account has paid then these are not displayed.
Very small file size limits for free accounts.
Slow upload rate, often around a 200KBPS on connections with much higher upload rates, which is far less than other services. If I am paying I expect far more than this quality of service.
No FTP upload
Except for the office suite this is not a collaboration environment, so unlike Dropbox people cannot edit the files you share with them then auto sync.
It is perceived as less trustworthy by many people as it is essentially a file sharing site with extra features. However, it has been used by many major companies.
Free accounts DO NOT offer long term storage so do not use them as a backup solution. Paid accounts do offer long term storage but again are not recommended as a backup solution.
Mac client doesn’t seem to work on all Intel Macs (well not mine anyway).
Office environment lacks integration with other third party applications.
Their website feels slower than Google or Dropbox.
The office applications do not seem to be very well integrated into the rest of the file storage options. For example I tried using images already stored on Mediafire inside a document and this was not possible; instead I had to upload them again or forage around for the url for the file on Mediafire.
It lacks basic file handling features when sharing with others, for example you cannot password protect then share a directory. Instead you can only password protect and share files.
You cannot create an archive of lots of files online then simply put the file immediately online without downloading it. This is annoying.
If people want to upload files set in a specific folder structure, this is not possible without you setting up the folder structure first then sending them individual links to each folder.

The biggest annoyance that I have come across so far is that you cannot password protect folders. This is a serious issue if like me you want to use it to share lots of large files but only with a select group of people. For this you must manually share a link for each file and set up a password. This means Mediafire in view is not a good medium for sharing lots of files in an ordered way, it is however good for sharing large single files.

In summary Mediafire is really just a file sharing site with an added office suite. It lacks the breadth and depth of features that you find with Google and does not automatically sync files. The latter is an advantage and disadvantage. If however you want a quick and easy way to send large files without forcing people to sign up to anything then it is a good choice. For sheer integration with other products and services Google is the clear winner. If however you you simply want a way to share large files without the privacy concerns attached to Google then Mediafire is a good option.

Google Keep vs Evernote : Quick First Impressions

Posted on March 31, 2013 by Rod McCall

For information how to to get Evernote working on Linux click here.

Everyone I work with has probably been subjected to my recommendation of Evernote many times, but the reality is that it is a good way to keep an archive of pretty much anything. I use it for a whole range of things from keeping a record of things at work through to grabbing pictures of things I want to buy in shops (and adding notes) through to storing bills etc. However, as predicted by many Google has now released a similar tool called Keep, although it has to be said it is not quite as similar as some of the press would have us think. Indeed Google Keep is little more than a note taking application for Android.

User Interface

Google Keep like all their products looks nice, is user friendly and easy to use. Evernote has more features so is quite simply more complex and to be honest does not look as nice. However, once you get into it Evernote is easy to use but just feels slightly more clunky overall.

Audio Note Taking

Google Keep has a nice audio feature which lets you dictate notes then it will transcribe them into text for you – even if this is not 100% accurate. Evernote does not seem to offer this feature out of the box. Also Evernote only lets you record quite low quality notes which probably makes good speech to text conversion problematic. In general Google Keep easily wins this point.

Normal Note Taking

For text based notes Evernote is miles in front, its organisation (via notebooks) and tagging features are miles in front of what keep offers. You can also send notes directly to yourself via email. The tagging and notebook features in Evernote also make it a very good place to archive more than just casual notes.

Space

Google Keep uses your existing Drive storage which means you don’t need to fork out for extra space (like Evernote). Evernote provides 60mb free per month, after that it costs around €40 per year for 1GB of uploads per month.

Integration with other Apps

Evernote integrates quite nicely with other apps such as Hellofax and offers a range of additional third party apps that can be connected to it. However, if all your date is already on Google Drive and you are using a range of other services in the longer term I suspect that Keep will provide a more integrated platform.

Supported Platforms

This is where Evernote Wins as it runs on almost anything from iOS through to Android via Windows and Mac. You can also run the Windows client on Linux without too many problems via WINE. There is also an Evernote extension for Chrome. Sadly from what I can see Keep is only available on Android.

Conclusion

Right now Keep is good if your demands are basic and it integrates nicely into the Google stable. However, Evernote is streets ahead in almost every other respect from supported platforms through to archiving data in a more coherent way.

Review: Google Nexus 7

Posted on November 18, 2012 by Rod McCall

Quite simply this is an excellent little tablet and given it was reduced to €189 when I bought it also excellent value! If you want more information then please read on.

The Google Nexus 7 tablet. Image copyright Google.

Specification wise the device comes with 16GB of storage and 1GB of RAM – a larger storage option is available. My version does not have 3G and it is not expandable so that is one major drawback. Also there is no HDMI out – a feature which is often found on many cheaper tablets. You also get a front facing 1.2mp camera, of course wifi and bluetooth. Plus a rather natty NFC feature that lets you easily send info/files between other tablets or devices that support this platform. You also get all the standard features such as bluetooth, GPS, accelerometer, gyro and compass. This is a quad core device and comes with good graphics capabilities. Wifi connectivity is reliable and so far I have not had any cause to reset.

The Nexus 7 comes not surprisingly with a crisp 7″ display (1280×800), which makes reading almost anything a pleasure. It also beats the much more expensive iPad Mini. That said for reading books it is still not a replacement for the traditional Amazon Kindle. The display is responsive and fonts are clear, there is not really anything to complain about here. Although like all 7″ tablets the screen can sometimes be just too small, but for everyday tasks such as basic email, calendar and document viewing it’s great. The multitouch surface is good quality and is both accurate and quick.

The Tablet comes with Android 4.2 which is very easy to use and responsive. It is a noticable improvement on earlier versions of Android. Also as this is a Google device you are among the first to receive any updates to Android. The device is quite literally switch on and use and unsurprisingly setting up Google services is quick and easy. Also adding additional email accounts for example your one from work on Exchange is no problem. For a more thorough review of Android 4 click here.

If you partner your device with cloud apps such as Google Drive, Evernote or Dropbox you will quickly have something which although it’s Android in a PC and iOS/Mac world merges easily with your everyday tasks. All are free up to a point and make life across devices much easier.

To sum up I recommend buying it as at the price I got it buying an iPad mini is really a no-brainer unless there is some specific app you really must have. Also it really is a huge step up in terms of speed and display from the cheaper sub €150 tablets such as the Xelio. Given this is Google’s early attempt at a tablet then I think Apple should rightfully be terrified.

The Good

Fast, responsive
Easy to use
Well made, feels solid and looks good
Good value for money especially if you can bag it for less than €200
Lots of Apps on Android Play store
Claimed 10 hour battery life

The bad

No HDMI out
Not expandable
Camera could be better and there is no rear facing camera
It’s not iOS so Apple people will instinctively not like it:)

Review: Linux Mint 13 XFCE

Posted on August 21, 2012 by Rod McCall

It’s really rather good!

From the Linux Mint Website

Updated: 1st September 2012

If you are experiencing sound problems with Mint 13 then click on this article for more information.

Being a long-time Mint user I to be honest did not really consider any other distribution for this netbook; even the ubiquitous Ubuntu on which it is based. The main reasons were:

Ease of installation
Reliability
Relative speed on modest hardware.

I am told there may be other even lighter weight version of Linux but to he honest I wanted something that was not too primitive. So how doesMint 13 XFCE fair on my new netbook?

Installation

From an ease of installation perspective it really is rather simple, although if you are using an HP DM1 there are some important issues regarding disk partitions that you must follow (see this excellent article by J.A. Watson which is also relevant for Mint 13). As with many netbooks when Linux comes along Wifi and decent fast screen redraws can be a problem. For example without installing new graphics drivers the screen redraws do seem pretty poor although Mint kindly suggests new drivers that you can install and this results in significant improvements and so it’s well worth doing. That said the driver labelled post release update does not install correctly, so do not attempt to do so or you may experience problems. The suggested wifi driver also results in significant improvements, with the poor signals and previous disconnections almost removed. However, problems remain sometimes when the machine is restarted and the wifi device is not found. This has happened twice so far and is usually resolved by booting directly into Windows for a moment to restart Wifi then restarting under Linux.

Basic Performance

From a performance respective a quick test under Geekbench seems to result in Linux being significantly faster than Windows. It is worth noting though that this is perhaps a sub-optimal test in that I was running the 32-bit version of Geekbench in both tests under a 64 bit OS. Hence, this should be taken with a pinch of salt. Also there are many ways to correctly benchmark computers based on usage patterns and for tasks that explore the graphical power of your machine – these are two aspects which Geekbench does not cover. However, in pure Geekbench performance terms the move from Windows 64 to Linux Mint 64 was quite impressive. For example, with Geekbench Windows 64 achieves a score of around 1600 where as Linux 64 scores approximately 2000. As an indication my old netbook obtained around 900-1000. You can check out Geekbench for more information – although right now all tests say Windows 32 or Linux 32 when in fact many are also 64 bit versions of the respective operating systems. This performance improvement is well worth it and given that Linux is free it makes perfect sense. Using far less technical measures there is also as subjective feeling of improved performance when opening and closing applications.

The system footprint of XFCE is also quite small so it never hogs the machine either in terms of RAM or resource usage, the result is a generally fluid experience that is better than Windows.

User Experience

If you don’t install the graphical drivers then the performance of the GUI can be sluggish. Once the drivers are installed however the interface is fast, responsive and generally stable. XFCE in itself is no Mac OS X but is easy and simple enough to get the job done. That said it seems to crash sometimes and the window decorations (e.g. close, minimize etc) disappear – although the rest of the interface seems to remain live. The result is a rather annoying inability to use the GUI properly. Although not acceptable the problem can be resolved by typing “xfwm4 &” into the terminal, yes it makes “geek” sense and Mac OS X does put this usability “feature” to shame. This bug really must be fixed soon!

Third Party Software

Skype does NOT work out of the box with webcams, while you can see your own webcam for some odd reason no image is sent. Right now I have no idea how to fix this and it is very annoying! Note however, that I installed the official version from Skype and not the officially supported one that is within the Mint repository, However, the one in the repository is so old I don’t think any sane person will use it. There is also frequent problems with crackling sound on Skype, in particular when an alert tone (such as someone coming online) occurs. Also the quality during a call while good for most of the time has this odd problem as well.

Ignoring Skype the range of free software is as ever good, from the excellent VLC media player through to LibreOffice and the superb Lyx text processing system. The latter I would recommend to anyone who wants a document to appear as you want it to appear and not how the word processor tells you how it would like it. The excellent Evolution email client is also available which means you can easily digitally sign and encrypt your emails. Linux also makes the process of generating encryption keys and using them in software much easier than under Windows. Setting up and using this is far more simple than I thought and even can be used with Gmail via Evolution. Also you do not need to buy expensive tools or install anything extra to sign or encrypt your emails beyond the Evolution email client. You can also carry out these tasks using the Thunderbird email client, but in general I found this to be inferior in many respects to Evolution.

Once you get into more bespoke software you may find that only 32 bit versions available or that there may be problems with certain software running under a 64 bit architecture. Therefore before moving to this distribution from any 32 bit version please check you can still get what you require from within the 64 bit software library, unless of course you want to spend time building and installing it yourself.

Should I dump Windows and move to Mint XFCE 64?

I should be honest and say that in many ways I quite like Windows 7, it is generally pleasant and works pretty well; although as we all know it is prone to viruses and other forms of malware. Also you do get the standard real world tools such as Skype (that fully works), Office and of course iTunes. If you move to Linux you have to make some sacrifices in these respects. If however you can live without Office and probably more importantly iTunes then it is a good idea to move as you will not have the same security problems. I would however keep Windows on the system for those Office moments if required.

Conclusion

Well done to the Mint team. As ever though nothing is perfect, in particular the issues with Skype which really should be regarded as a key tool to support out of the box. Skype problems were also around on earlier versions of Mint and seem to be related to the audio architecture or to webcam. Also the annoying window decorations issue really should also be fixed. Aside from the noted issues this is a nice distribution which is fast and worth trying out.

Summary

Good points

Performance improvements over Windows of up to 25% (preliminary via Geekbench)
Small system foot print leaves resources for other applications
Easy installation
Easy to use
FREE!
Good range of software available for download

Bad Points

Graphical rendering out of the box sucks, remember to install those drivers!
Wifi has a couple of annoying issues, but the additional driver improves things a lot
XFCE is not always stable
Problems with Skype

Who should use it: those with modest hardware who are happy with a basic GUI experience, who also do not require a specific commercial application and want to avoid the security pitfalls of Windows.

Reviewed on: HP DM1 Netbook running with an AMD E-450 and 4GB RAM

Using: Linux Mint 64 XFCE

You can download it from the Linux Mint website or directly from here

Review – First Impressions: HP DM1 Netbook

Posted on August 3, 2012 by Rod McCall

Updated: August 22nd 2012 with links to the Linux article.

My longstanding Acer Aspire One finally became a little less safe this week when the power socket broke. This forced me into my pet annoyance e.g. having to spend money on another computer when the old one did pretty much what I needed. Anyway I decided to cap my budget at around €350 for a new netbook and see what was around. In addition to this price my other key considerations were:

Comes with Windows for those Office moments.
Be compatible with Linux Mint in particular with decent wifi
Be quite light but with a bigger screen than the old one on my Acer
Decent video playback
Something that I can use for basic programming tasks

The DM1 is not much heavier than my old Aspire One; but that is in part due to it not having a huge long life battery attached. It’s also a bit larger, which is mainly down to the screen. The keyboard is more spacious as a result and it generally feels pleasant. In terms of overall build quality. The casing feels adequate but does not feel as thick as the One. In the box you get the minimum that is needed to get going; for example there is no recovery media – that said you can make recovery DVDs or a USB key; for the latter you will need a 32gb key or higher.

The specs are not bad for the price and it includes 4GB RAM coupled with an AMD E450 dual core clocked at 1.6ghz with an integrated Radeon 6320 graphics chip. This setup is compatible with Linux – unlike the power VR chipset built-in to the new Intel Netbook chips. This is not a high end computer so don’t expect the fastest device on earth, if you keep that in mind you will probably be quite happy. I will write about the Linux experience at some later date.

For normal netbook tasks e.g. surfing the web, using the free and included MS Office Starter or using YoutTube it works pretty much ok. There were perhaps a few stutters in the HD Batman trailer in full screen I watched but this could be down to the cloud virus scanner I am using or my Internet connection. The reason for qualifying this point is that there was no lag or consistent problems as was the case with the One. SD videos also work without almost no problems with one obvious stutter. Normal SD video files also played without any problems.

One major annoyance is that the DM1 comes pre-installed with Norton anti-virus which according to many other reviews slows it down quite a bit. I removed Norton and for now I am using the faster Panda Cloud Anti-virus. This basically has only a minimal impact on the computer but does mean more of your data is going to end up being scanned online by a third party – so you must trust Panda. I had forgotten what a pain Windows can be and it didn’t hold off from reminding me with no fewer than 50 updates within 24 hours, I switched it on again and another 8 updates also magically appeared last night. The bloatware that HP add was no speed booster either. That said Windows 7 is pleasant enough.

The display is pretty good too, being sharp and indoors atleast is more than bright enough. The trackpad is ok but not the best out there. You also get bluetooth and 3 USB ports, but not USB 3 or Firewire.

To sum up, so far this is quite a nice little device and handles what I throw at it with ease. It is much more responsive than my old N270 based netbook so is a worthwhile upgrade. Also netbooks whether they use Windows or Linux remain far less locked down than either iPad or Android based-tablets. In my case I plan to use it for small programming projects especially once I have installed Linux and got it connected to my Raspberry PI.

TIP: If you are from the UK you will pay in pounds what we overhere in mainland Europe are paying in Euro for this netbook. So if you are on holiday in Europe it’s worth grabbing one then although you may need to get used to one of the many non-UK keyboards.

Added August 22nd 2012. If you want to upgrade to Linux Mint 13 (which is rather nice) please check out this review first.

Review: InstallFree Nexus – MS Office for All Platforms? (beta)

Posted on July 15, 2012 by Rod McCall

Image from Google Chrome Store (c) Respective parties

As the “millions” of readers of my blog will know I am currently facing the choice of spending a lot of money or not on a new computer or perhaps even computers. One problem I do face is my rather mixed range of platforms that includes IOS, Android, Linux, Mac OS and Windows, to say the least this poses a number of problems. Not least the problem of compatibility especially when I want to edit Word files under say Android or Linux. While Documents to Go or Libre Office are ok, in the end neither get there 100% of the time.

However, yesterday I discovered perhaps one of the cooler apps which is Installfree Nexus Office for the Chrome Browser. This essentially lets you run standard apps within your browser such as MS Office You can link it to your Google Docs, Dropbox and Box storage spaces and run Office on ALL the platforms I mentioned earlier! Rather neat! Right now it comes with a 60 day trial of Office 2010, and while its not 100% perfect (read stable) it beats having to set up VNC type connections it is VERY easy to set up and install. For sometime I also ran Office 2007 under Wine, this in general worked ok but the installation process was so bad that root canal work at the dentist was often quicker and less painful.

What are the downsides? Well for now it only supports some countries namely the USA and Western Europe and should you be moving around and try to use it elsewhere then it will display an error message. What’s more there are sometimes problems with loading or reading files and opening dialogue boxes, but this could in part be down to me using it on a rather old Atom N270 netbook. Other potential issues include data privacy and security as they require access to your cloud storage accounts – I personally am always a bit nervous about granting this to companies I don’t know to well. That said InstallFree Nexus with Office 2010 is not anywhere near as fast as the original application or even running it under Wine. It is also slightly slower than using Google Docs, well on this rather old netbook anyway.

As I said it’s as yet not stable and right now it’s in beta but is certainly worth trying out. It’s far from being 100% stable or ready however unlike when using Google Docs you get the option to work fully and natively with your Office files, this in itself is a big bonus and installation is very easy.

One Year on- Linux Mint 11 LXDE

Posted on July 10, 2012 by Rod McCall

Image from the Linux Mint Website. Stable and Reliable Even After One Year

Over the years I have used a number of Linux distributions from Slackware, through the awful Linpus Lite that came with this netbook (Acer Aspire One) and Ubuntu. For various reasons I ended up having to get of all of them within a few months. This happened for variety of reasons ranging from the user interface progressively failing until I could only interact with it via the aid of “shift+tab” or the wifi breaking after 60-90 minutes of use and requiring a system reset. In all cases while Linux could do what I wanted it rarely lasted the pace, with the result I was generally left me underwhelmed and not infrequently I wished that I had bought the Windows XP version of the One instead. That’s why I think it’s perhaps an idea to share good news. i.e. when something actually runs as it should for nearly a year! In this case it is Linux Mint 11 LXDE. This is a special version designed for older or slower hardware and uses LXDE rather than other more flashy window managers. This in general reduces resource requirements and helps speed up the machine slightly. Having now run it for almost a year on this netbook for anything from programming to Google Docs, I can safely say it is the most reliable I have used yet. So just in case you are looking to update or even “age” your netbook’s OS I can thoroughly recommend it.

Good Points

So far almost no problems, except with Opera which does not seem to behave too well with the Window manager
Fast and responsive once it’s up and running for such old hardware
A software repository with many good apps that seem to work without any problems (well the sort of standard ones I use anyway)
So far no problems after any updates (if you stick to those rated 3 or better)
Wifi works without any problems
Lighter weight user interface when compared to other versions has sped up frame rates in some applications
Currently more stable than my iMac

Bad Points

This is not a sexy Mac OS User Interface, it’s basic but does the job
Some early UI issues e.g. duplicate items in the system bar (now fixed)
Some early issues after updates with the audio system (now fixed)
Not the fastest book-up time
Old version of Skype worked fine, Skype 4 works and has more options but there are some graphical issues.
Some issues with apps such as LiveStation, which stutters a bit when playing live video streams
The software manager is painfully slow
This is an old version so perhaps there are better ones around
This is not a long-term support edition so at the time of writing there are about six month of updates left.

I cannot say anything about the more recent versions of Linux Mint but if like me you have this rather old piece of hardware then I thoroughly recommend it. Stable, reliable and as yet no serious issues. I cannot say that this will be the case on all hardware, and certainly one reason for this review is that it works on hardware that to say the least was unlucky with earlier versions of Linux, so hopefully it will be useful for some people.

Tested on: Acer Aspire ZG5 (Linux), 1 GB RAM and 160MB HD. Four years on and for €200 one cannot really complain too much. Also for your information this blog is usually written on the Aspire and not my half dead iMac.

Android 4 – A very quick and dirty review

Posted on June 17, 2012 by Rod McCall

Android 4 (Ice Cream Sandwich) Logo Courtesy of Google

My first experiences back in 2010 of Android were always a little unpleasant, it felt unpolished especially when compared to iOS. However, I recently tried out Android 4 on a very cheap tablet, although that has since died I will write here instead about the experience of the OS. It should be noted this was a very basic tablet, a single core ARM Cortex A8 with a basic graphics processor. Thus making it about the slowest experience you can expect from anything currently on the market, however even with that limitation I was pleasantly surprised.

Multitasking Performance

I was very impressed by this, even on such a basic tablet. In general it was difficult to notice much slow down when flipping between apps. Of course the tablet I used is slow by current standards, hence the time to load applications was poor but once they were up and running for the most part problems disappeared.I often had many applications opened at once and the Android architecture made using them very pleasant.

User Experience

If you are unfamiliar with Android then the act of switching between tasks can at first seem a little hidden, this is especially true if you have just moved from the IPaD or iPhone. However, by clicking on the onscreen icon it is quick and easy to move between apps. You also just kill apps by swiping them away.

Navigating on the device either between applications, or the the home space or back is quick and easy to understand. Some cheap tablets provide physical buttons but newer ones rely on the three touchscreen icons.

App Store/Google Play

Now comes perhaps the weakest point of the experience. Unlike Apple which vets all applications for anything from security to usability there is no such detailed analysis of Android apps, this in theory can leave you a little concerned. Also you can side load apps, this basically means you can download them from unofficial source and install them. This is much like any other computer but opens you up to many potential problems, so only do this if you must.

Another criticism you can level at Android is that some tablets (my cheap one included) do not come with a working Google Play (app store) installed. Instead you have to rely on third party ones such as Android Pit, which can work but also frequently redirect you for some apps to the non-working Google Play store. This can be avoided as I said in another article but is a pain.This problem seems to apply across many of the cheap tablets these days so it’s worth checking out if Google Play works out of the box. This is a small niggle but does remind you that Android is not such a well integrated platform as iOS.

If you are really wanting to try out the concept of cloud computing I thoroughly recommend downloading Google Drive. Here you can store all your docs online and what’s more the Google Docs (Word processor, spreadsheet and presentation) tools are available. Simply write your documents and they are automatically saved and will sync with your Mac or PC at home without any problems. The cloud print service also lets you send your documents to any on line printer that you have permission to use. This is a very neat little feature.

Perhaps the only major downside with Android is that unlike the soon to be released Windows 8 or the current iOS platform is that the app options are not as industry based as the other two. Certainly I am sure MS will ensure superb support for it’s Office suite across all versions of it’s new OS. Apple of course also have a suite of rather nice office apps that you can use. With Android though you are sadly stuck either with Google Drive (previously Docs) which is good for basic tasks or third party tools such as Documents to Go that support MS Office. While these two solutions are ok, they come nowhere near close to offering a good alternative to Office. So if reliable Office compatibility is key for you then I’d wait for Windows 8.

Built-in Apps

The built in email client is very quick and easy to set up either for Exchange or not surprisingly Gmail can be almost painlessly set up. Sadly though the movie player does have some codecs missing so it’s a good idea to check out the alternatives, MX Player being a good one to look at.

I may be wrong but so far I have been a little disappointed in the lack of ways to synchronise such as tasks from Exchange. There are third party apps available, but if course if like me you are using mixed devices from Apple and Windows, all of which support tasks this is a bit of a let down.

Overall

Overall I can recommend Android and I say that as a long time Mac and more recently iOS user. Android has now matured enough to make it a good choice and if you add to that the many more hardware options to choose from than with Apple then I think the choice is clear.

Rod McCall

In-car systems, games and human-computer interaction

Category Archives: Reviews