It's only a guess but I assume Australian TV has just aired Michel Cockerell's excellent series on the House of Commons. Early Sunday, my web statistics went crazy with hits from the southern hemisphere. For two solid hours, I had hits from people searching for... Well, if you've read this blog long enough, then you'll know what they were searching for.
This whole 'Kate Emms' thing is beginning to intrigue me to the point of it becoming a distraction. I watched the Cockerell series twice and I didn't immediately hit the internet to research the name 'Kate Emms'. Yet that's precisely what hundreds (if not thousands) of people regularly do whenever that second (I believe) episode of the series is aired.They say hat certain people have 'star quality', that hard to define quality which can neither be taught not bought. If that's true, then it seems sensible to reason that there must be people out there who have star quality and just don't realise it. I'm beginning to think that Kate Emms might be one such person. If this blog can get thousands of hits from 'fans' of Kate Emms when all she's done is briefly appear on TV buying chocolate bars from her co-workers, then imagine what would happen if she launched a proper career in light entertainment. Perhaps with a song and dance act. Think Madonna with a Parliamentary/Chocolate slant.
I don't know. Thinking on my feet here. I see a name in lights. A spotlight picking out a figure. It's a large cardboard cut out of John Bercow, with oversized novelty head which wobbles from side to side. The music starts and the figure does a soft shoe shuffle before somebody carries the head one way, the arms and legs another, and then the body splits in half revealing the star of the show dressed as Black Rod and doing a two minute tap dance.
There has to be money in this. Perhaps this calls for a letter to Sir Cameron Mackintosh...
***
The problem with technology is that it ages so damn quickly. At the moment I'm struggling with aging computer hardware and my limitations seem to grow by the day. I know now that there will come the day when I'll simply have nothing left on which to blog and The Spine will go dark. Already this year, I've lost a laptop which I can't afford to replace. My remaining PC is a six core beast but beginning to struggle with some of the tasks I ask it to perform. It's also hardly portable and getting on in the years. My Samsung Note is good for drawing but severely limited when it comes to painting with colour. It's also useless when it comes to writing or blogging. I wrote yesterday's blog post on it and it was a very long struggle. It's the reason why I'd probably never again buy a Samsung tablet.
There are certain things you realise about companies once you join their user groups. With Dell, it was their complete lack of responsibility. My laptop was always overheating because of a design flaw. They failed to issue a recall and I was stuck with it and it died a few weeks ago with barely enough hours on its clock to justify the initial outlay. Plus they had incorporated technology into their power supplies so you always had to use an 'official' power supply, which I always think is a bit of a shoddy trick. I won't buy Dell again. It's a shame but the thinking of some corporate types goes beyond logic when they choose some short term gain over the loyalty of very long time Dell owner. It's the same thinking, I suppose, which made them move the Dell technical support to India. It says something about any company when they choose to save money instead of providing proper support to their user base.
The thing you realise being a Samsung user is that the company seems to have the attention span of a gnat. The Samsung Note 2014 Edition is a truly great tablet but, once the product was out the door, Samsung moved on to something new. Firmware updates have been sporadic and they have completely ignored the plethora of people complaining about the Bluetooth issues that affect the tablet. Simply: it's impossible to get the 2014 Note 10.1 inch table to work with a Bluetooth keyboard. There are hundreds of pages on the web detailing the problem. Connecting to the keyboard is simple. In my case, I'm using an Apple Bluetooth keyboard, which is one of the better keyboards out there. I can type on it and the tablet captures my input. But after ten seconds, it drops the connection and I have to wait another ten seconds before it connects again. I then have about ten seconds of typing before it disconnects again... Ad nauseam.. After nearly two years, there are still no fixes.
Since my main activity is writing, the Note has been a huge disappointment. I can't type using the screen. My fingers are simply too big and I want to type quicker than the touch screen allows. It's not enough to turn me off Samsung products entirely but I'd be cautious about buying another.
Friends I know swear by Apple and though I've always scoffed a little, I can see why their loyalty lasts. I've never had such luck finding a company to whom I've been entirely loyal. Apple were about the best but I could never live with their restrictions. I wanted access to SD cards and operating systems. I want control over the devices I own and I don't want to pay the earth for beautiful hardware that's locked to me. I don't know where I'll turn next or even when I'll have a chance to move on to new hardware. Perhaps I'll go back to paper and ink and I'll grow a beard in the style of Henry David Thoreau, retire from the electronic world to live in a cabin. Sometimes it feels like it would make a lot more sense, instead of wasting my days making podcasts that only three people listen to and writing words largely ignored by the multitude only passing through in order to read the last news about Kate Emms.
Showing posts with label Dell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dell. Show all posts
Monday, 6 April 2015
Tuesday, 3 March 2015
The Weasel and the Woodpecker
So far this week, I've drawn about three cartoons and written a Windows program to record all my cartoon submissions. Not that I've submitted many this week -- four or five went to The Spectator yesterday -- but the program is central to my vow to take my cartooning more seriously. My problem is that I've never been much of a 'submitter' and, as they say, you have to play the game to stand a chance of winning a prize.
When the program is completely finished, I might upload it here for free for anybody who might want to use it but even as I type that I have my monetary angel is banging his head against my right shoulder as if to tell me to stop being so damn generous. But, frankly, I don't think there are enough cartoonists or writers in the world who would want to buy it or even would find a need for it. The main reason I've written it is to also help archive my cartoons. I lose too many to computer glitches that I'm trying to make more use of online storage. So, every time I finish a cartoon, I add it to the database which archives a copy to Dropbox. With all my cartoons listed, I can (for the moment 'in theory') simply click a button and generate an email based on the publisher details I've already entered and with the cartoons embedded into the email.
When it's finished, I might give it away, might keep it for myself or I'll ask a few dollars for a copy and stick it over on The Digital Nib. Unlike my previous program, The Gag Machine, this isn't a long term project. It's more of a useful tool I needed and realised I could program in a day. And I did program its basic functionality inside a day. I was writing it when my laptop died on Sunday.
The loss of the laptop has be surprisingly hard. The faded/yellowed/'cooked' label on the back would say I've had the laptop about four years but for about three of those years, I've not switched it on for fear that it would burn out. However, since my writing my 'review' and claiming that I'd never use it again, I'd started to use a thermal cooler beneath the laptop. It didn't do a great deal but it did make it usable for short periods. With a slightly cooler lap, I'd started to use the laptop at least once a day and I'd got it just how I wanted it. I was programming more. Writing more. And then, within about two weeks, it has died with an inevitable smell of burnt solder. It died exactly how it died the first time it blew its video card. I now hate Dell with a passion. That laptop cost me so much to buy, thinking that buying from the XPS range would make it a long term laptop, only to have it now burn out twice. Only this time I've not asked for a repair. I'm not investing another penny into that machine or that company. The XPS 1340 was a horrible machine that should never have gone to market.
I should really get a new (non-Dell) laptop but they're so damn pricey and my attempts to monetise the blog have come to naught. I started my new drive to earn from blogging on the 4th February. It's now the 3rd of March and in one month I've managed to raise a whopping £1.06. That's £1.06 reward for 12 cartoons, 2 Photoshops and 21,000 words. Okay, that's not one of my most productive months but it's surely worth more than £1.06.
I'm not pleading poverty here (though, perhaps, I guess I am) but this is a example of the new internet economy in which the big guys make millions while the rest of us scramble around to earn pennies. The reality is probably that I should really blog less and devote my time to selling my cartoons or my software. It's galling that I think that but even more galling that my past efforts have come to naught. Take this morning's cartoon as an example. If I type 'George Galloway cartoon' into Google, one of mine appears at the top of the search results. That's even before you go into Google image search.
That's really weird and yet deeply satisfying.
The three other cartoons are by heroes of mine: Peter Brookes and Martin Rowson. My cartoon (below top) was drawn years ago when I was first starting out. I don't think it's anywhere as good as today's (below bottom) Galloway cartoon which, I hope, is not as good as the next one I draw.
Yet the cartoon is there. Multiply all those years of effort and count up the many hundreds of cartoons I've drawn, hundreds of thousands of words (I once calculated millions for all the blogs I've written), all of which is still online: and all I have to show for that this month is £1.06.
Forgive me if I sound cynical about the internet. The truth, for me at least, is that I draw a cartoon which hardly anybody looks at whilst Twitter is today dominated by a picture of a woodpecker carrying a weasel on its back. And if a woodpecker carrying a weasel isn't a metaphor for the great democratization of media production then I don't know what is.
When the program is completely finished, I might upload it here for free for anybody who might want to use it but even as I type that I have my monetary angel is banging his head against my right shoulder as if to tell me to stop being so damn generous. But, frankly, I don't think there are enough cartoonists or writers in the world who would want to buy it or even would find a need for it. The main reason I've written it is to also help archive my cartoons. I lose too many to computer glitches that I'm trying to make more use of online storage. So, every time I finish a cartoon, I add it to the database which archives a copy to Dropbox. With all my cartoons listed, I can (for the moment 'in theory') simply click a button and generate an email based on the publisher details I've already entered and with the cartoons embedded into the email.
When it's finished, I might give it away, might keep it for myself or I'll ask a few dollars for a copy and stick it over on The Digital Nib. Unlike my previous program, The Gag Machine, this isn't a long term project. It's more of a useful tool I needed and realised I could program in a day. And I did program its basic functionality inside a day. I was writing it when my laptop died on Sunday.
The loss of the laptop has be surprisingly hard. The faded/yellowed/'cooked' label on the back would say I've had the laptop about four years but for about three of those years, I've not switched it on for fear that it would burn out. However, since my writing my 'review' and claiming that I'd never use it again, I'd started to use a thermal cooler beneath the laptop. It didn't do a great deal but it did make it usable for short periods. With a slightly cooler lap, I'd started to use the laptop at least once a day and I'd got it just how I wanted it. I was programming more. Writing more. And then, within about two weeks, it has died with an inevitable smell of burnt solder. It died exactly how it died the first time it blew its video card. I now hate Dell with a passion. That laptop cost me so much to buy, thinking that buying from the XPS range would make it a long term laptop, only to have it now burn out twice. Only this time I've not asked for a repair. I'm not investing another penny into that machine or that company. The XPS 1340 was a horrible machine that should never have gone to market.
I should really get a new (non-Dell) laptop but they're so damn pricey and my attempts to monetise the blog have come to naught. I started my new drive to earn from blogging on the 4th February. It's now the 3rd of March and in one month I've managed to raise a whopping £1.06. That's £1.06 reward for 12 cartoons, 2 Photoshops and 21,000 words. Okay, that's not one of my most productive months but it's surely worth more than £1.06.
I'm not pleading poverty here (though, perhaps, I guess I am) but this is a example of the new internet economy in which the big guys make millions while the rest of us scramble around to earn pennies. The reality is probably that I should really blog less and devote my time to selling my cartoons or my software. It's galling that I think that but even more galling that my past efforts have come to naught. Take this morning's cartoon as an example. If I type 'George Galloway cartoon' into Google, one of mine appears at the top of the search results. That's even before you go into Google image search.
That's really weird and yet deeply satisfying.
The three other cartoons are by heroes of mine: Peter Brookes and Martin Rowson. My cartoon (below top) was drawn years ago when I was first starting out. I don't think it's anywhere as good as today's (below bottom) Galloway cartoon which, I hope, is not as good as the next one I draw.
Yet the cartoon is there. Multiply all those years of effort and count up the many hundreds of cartoons I've drawn, hundreds of thousands of words (I once calculated millions for all the blogs I've written), all of which is still online: and all I have to show for that this month is £1.06.
Forgive me if I sound cynical about the internet. The truth, for me at least, is that I draw a cartoon which hardly anybody looks at whilst Twitter is today dominated by a picture of a woodpecker carrying a weasel on its back. And if a woodpecker carrying a weasel isn't a metaphor for the great democratization of media production then I don't know what is.
Sunday, 15 February 2015
I Don't Care What @Lisagade Says: I'll Never Buy Another Dell
If I were to judge a person's value by how much time I spend watching them on Youtube, Lisa Gade at mobiletechreview.com should rightly be a billionaire. Without fear of contracting myself later, I'd say she's pretty much my favourite internet personality. Over the last few years, she's the only person I listen to when it comes to buying new hardware or, much more likely the truth, lusting over new hardware.
I noticed the other day that she's just reviewed the new Dell XPS 13. She liked it, said good things about it, and did all the things you'd expect in a quality review. It made me sigh a little as I watched the review and realised that I've been going far too long without a working laptop. However, there's no way I can afford a new laptop and, in truth, even if I did have the money, I'd much rather improve my cartooning by upgrading my Samsung Note to a Surface Pro 3. Yet, I do miss writing when I'm away from home and that's how my eyes came to fall on the dark lump of plastic sitting on the shelf.
I'm currently away from home and typing this on a previous generation Dell XPS 13 after spending most of today reviving it.
The Dell XPS 13 1340 is a cankerous boil of a laptop. Worse than that. It's the kind of machine that could leave you with cankerous boils where your wrists have come into contact with its blisteringly hot body. It's a machine that's legendary in the ranks of horrible machines. Reviews on the internet will still say it's a great machine yet you only discover how astonishingly bad it is after a month or so of use, by which time it's too late to get your money back. I should know. I tried to get my money back. Some people argue it had a design flaw in the way the lid opens and blocks the vents at the back of the machine. Other people will tell you that the vents have nothing to do with it and the problem stems from a design flaw inside the machine that restricts airflow. Others simply point out that the graphics chip was one of Nvidia's worse and was notorious for overheating.
I don't really care about the cause. All I know is that I've never owned a PC, Mac or toaster that gets quite so hot quite so quickly. I'm working on the laptop now and my wrists are already hot and sore where they've been resting on the front of the machine. At the back of the machine, it's already so hot that it's not comfortable to touch for more than a few seconds. I bought a thermal cooler to rest it on but the thermal cooler does nothing to improve matters. It just makes more noise. And all this heat and noise is being produced when the machine is in power saving mode and all I'm doing is editing this document in Open Office.
This particular machine has already burnt out one graphics card which I had replaced under warranty after the machine started to issue a smell indicative of melted plastic. I don't know how much longer this current card will last but when it goes, this monstrous heap of junk will be dead and I won't pay to recover it. The whole thing has been an absolute waste of the 800+ of the extremely hard earned pounds I paid for it.
That wouldn't be so bad but the XPS range has always been Dell's top of the range laptops. They're supposed to be the best they can produce and give the best experience. My experience has been one of abject misery. Consider the four laptops I've owned and how useful they've been.
My first was a monster back in the day when laptops were the size of suitcases. It was a brand whose name I can't even recall and the laptop probably weighed more than all my subsequent laptops put together. I wrote all my degree essays on it but it was a nightmare to lug around.
When I finished my degree and moved on to do an MA, I bought the one laptop I've only ever loved. It was an absolutely beautiful tiny Sony VAIO. It was simply the best laptop I've ever owned and, in all likelihood, will ever own. It had a magnesium body and weighed next to nothing. I wrote so much on that small 10 inch screen. I edited at least three academic books on it. I edited countless volumes of a literary journal. I wrote both my MA and my Ph.D. on that machine. I loved it. And then an anthology of romantic poetry (edited by Duncan Wu) fell on it from a high shelf and it was never the same. I was devastated. Utterly heartbroken.
I couldn't afford another quality VAIO so I bought a cheap plastic-bodied Sony. It did its job. I wrote about three books on that laptop including many of the 600+ Stan Madeley letters that become 'Second-Class Male'. I blogged on it for a few years. It was a good machine but when I started to work in Manchester and needed to travel, carrying it started to hurt my back so I sold it and bought this Dell.
On this Dell I've done absolutely nothing of note. I've owned it as long as my original VAIO but it's so unusable to be practically useless. I could have written a couple of books in my downtime had it been usable. But I've not. I can't take it into quiet study rooms in libraries because the fan start spinning and annoyed people begin to look my way. The battery life is so poor that it's pointless taking it to a coffee shop to do a little writing or light web surfing. It's only useful if you're in a noisy environment and near a power supply and you can endure the misery of hot wrists. Just writing this has convinced me that it's going back on the shelf. I notice one is currently selling for £50 on eBay but I'm not sure I could bring myself to wish it on anybody. I should in all honesty just dump it or give it to a charity shop because it's so bad. However, I just can't bring myself to do that. After all: it's my laptop.
All of which brings me to my point. Why are companies are so happy about pissing off their consumers by stubbornly refusing to acknowledge bad products? Dell knew about this problem years ago yet they did nothing to rectify it when I complained. I just got passed between a succession of Indian telesales operators. What would it have cost them to replace it? Since then, I've lost count of the number of times I've been asked to recommend laptops to family members and friends. I've always been the 'go to' guy when people need PC help so I now only recommend Asus and Lenovo, usually based on Lisa Gade's reviews.
Like I say, there's nobody I trust more than Lisa Gade when it comes to hardware reviews but even she can't persuade me to look again at Dell. My wrists are hot. I'm publishing this and shutting this machine down. Not sure I'll ever find a reason to turn it back on.
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