chris nixon : nixonbyname.com

In the next couple of weeks, I will buy my first Mac. My laptop has been playing up over the last few months, and I’m generally sick of Windows. I just want life to be easier. I thought I’d methodically look through what I actually do on my laptop, and what I want to do, and see if I can get some free advice (that’s a hint to you, dear reader) on what software I should use once the ’shiny thing’ arrives.

I spend most of my laptop time on the net. So I suppose I should think very strongly about what browser to use. There are two obvious choices in Safari and Firefox. I use Firefox just now, and one of the features I like most is the ability to sync my bookmarks across computers. From what I read, Safari is more stable than the current version of Firefox but I think I’ll stick with what I know (how very boring sounding) just now, and see how I get on.

I obviously do a fair bit of blogging. In the last couple of months I’ve really grown to like Microsoft’s Windows Live Writer, but what are the options on the Mac? Should I be going for free software, or should I fork out some dosh. I’m really stuck on this one. I use hosted WordPress.com blogs, so it’s important that whatever I use is compatible with that.

I want to be able to edit my photographs on my new laptop. I currently use Photoshop CS2 for Windows, but I’d like to use something different on the Mac. I find that the handling of RAW images in Photoshop is a bit clunky in CS2. Is this the same in CS3? I want to be able to edit my images, then export them as jpegs for sharing on Zooomr. What is the advice here? Should I stick with Photoshop, or should I be using something like Lightroom?

I currently use iTunes on the PC, so that is an obvious port across to the Mac. Is there an easy way to do this? I would like to retain my ratings and play counts as I have spent rather too much time getting these ‘just so’ and I don’t want to have to go through the process again.

Because my current laptop is an early Sony Vaio, it can’t play divx. Sony blame, and divx blame Sony. I get about 10 seconds into a divx video before I get a BSOD. I think it’s a video driver issue, and Sony refuse to update the driver, so I’m updating away from Sony. Do Mac users use divx video, or do they tend to use the newer H.264? What are the advantages? I’d like to do a bit of video editing on my Mac. Am I best to use the built-in software, or look elsewhere?

Well that’s enough questions for now. I’d really appreciate any advice that people have on these. I’m obviously going to do some research myself, but hearing real people’s real experiences much more valuable.

With all the hype surrounding the launch of the BBC’s iPlayer, I thought I should sign up and give it a go. I’m going to go through the installation step-by-step, and let you know how I get on. At the moment it’s XP only, but the BBC say there should be a Mac and Vista version by Autumn.

After signing up at the BBC iPlayer site, I got an email a few hours later accepting me to the closed beta. This kind of surprised me. I thought that the beta was open. There has been a closed beta of the iPlayer for a couple of years now that was impossible to get on, and in all the promotion on the BBC over the last few days, there was nothing I saw that said it was still closed. Very strange, but not to worry. I’m in there now.

The email received contains a step-by-step guide to installing the software. I click through and put in my authentication details in a pop-up password box (eew), and I’m in to the iPlayer system. There are a few good shows on the front page, one of which is the Top Gear Polar Special, which I missed during the week. I click through, hit the bright pink download button…and hit the skids as it informs me that I need to use Internet Explorer for this system. Brilliant job BBC, way to get the geeks on board. This’ll probably be part of that deal the BBC did with Microsoft a few months back.

I reluctantly open up IE, and go through the same process again. At the same stage I was stopped before, it now tells me I have to install the iPlayer software. Now we’re getting somewhere. I click the link to download, and a pop-up asks for my authentication details again. I had saved this the previous time around, but apparently I’ve got to cut and paste them across again. Once this is done a file downloads very quickly to my desktop, and I double click.

The installation process is very quick, and at the end it asks me if I want to set up a pin for parental safety. I decline, and the software opens up saying my library is currently empty. I click back to IE, hit the download button again, and the IE pop-up warns me that something is trying to open. I click to allow this, and hit the download button again…and hit the skids again as it asks me to log-in.

This is getting stupid. Apparently I have to create a log-in for my account. The log-in details they sent me in the email don’t work because they are for getting on to the site, not using it. I’ve used many betas in my life, but never one as complicated to use as this. I think most people would have given up by this point, but I’ve come this far, and I’m going to get to the end of this marathon if it kills me.

I register for the service, which is pretty easy, doesn’t require any email authentication, and logs me in automatically at the end of the process.

So…I click the download button again. A little flash box says it’s checking my progress, and the the Top Gear show pops up in my iPlayer software. At last! It’s a 60 minute show at 387Mb, and at this time in the morning, the download speed seems pretty fast. I am at 5% after a couple of minutes. While it’s downloading I have a click around the site to see if I can find anything else cool to download.

I navigate to the news and weather section to get the latest news and weather forecast (they should download pretty quickly) but unfortunately, this section doesn’t have any news or weather in it. Once again, very strange. I can get World Business Report, but that sounds as dull as dishwater. I could also get Your News, a show based on user generated content which is not really what I want either. There are a few other shows available in other sections, but I already have all the ones I want saves on my Media Center. There’s no point in slowing down the show I want to watch.

After a cup of tea, I’m back at the PC with Top Gear fully downloaded. It took about 45 minutes, which is faster than a normal torrent download for me. I click play and a nice little player opens with a BBC2 ident playing. The show starts immediately after, and I click the full screen to watch the show in all it’s Top Gear top camerawork 16:9 glory. I’m a little disappointed by the picture quality. I have got a pretty high resolution wide-screen monitor, so that could be why the picture looks fuzzy. It may not be the same on the LCD TV in the living room.

I can’t see this replacing less legal methods of getting TV shows from the BBC any time soon, they are just more convenient. Once you hit play, you have 7 days to watch the show before it expires, otherwise you have 30 days. That’s just a bit silly, being that my license fee pays for these shows already. They didn’t put the same restrictions on video recorders, so why start now? There are rumors that the DRM can be stripped from shows, but that’s an inconvenience that would just make some just look for the torrent.

We are only one day into the launch and I know that there are many improvements planned. I understand that they released the XP version quickly, and that has pissed off the OSX and Vista users, but not allowing Firefox is absolutely ridiculous. That’s surely a matter of a tiny bit of code. The system seems a little bit unfinished. I’d prefer to search for shows within the software, rather than from a web site. If they did that it would also save me from opening the dreaded Internet Explorer.

I’ll keep coming back to this software. I’m excited about what it could become, but at the moment I’m disappointed.

[update: Ryan Stewart at ZDNet had a very similar experience]