Nate Lanxon

Why do Apple laptop upgrades cost 200% more than Dell’s?

 
Everybody knows Apple laptops are pricey. You know it, Crave knows it, Steve Jobs knows it. We also have a fair idea that its PC-selling counterpart, Dell, is relatively cheap. But have you ever stopped to examine just how much more you pay for Apple upgrades than you do for Dell? We have.

Having trawled the online configurator tools of both laptop makers, we’ve detailed just how much Apple takes the biscuit with its pricing. Base configurations look pretty similar on the surface, but when you start upgrading with faster internal components, Apple charges through the nose.We can understand why Apple can justify charging more for its superbly designed chassis, or its excellent operating systems — they’re bespoke, and you pay more for premium designs. Fine. But we can’t fathom why Apple charges so much more than Dell for simple components.

If you’re thinking of buying a Mac or a Dell, or have just bought one, you should definitely check out the next page to see exactly how these two computing behemoths compare.

Read the full article!

Wii Fat: How to cheat at Wii Fit

I’ve shot a new video for CNET: Wii Fat — 4 ways to cheat at Wii Fit!

It’s no secret that one of America’s biggest contributions to Western society has been fat people. And it’s spreading. Britain is becoming as bloated as our overseas friends and all it’s doing is giving Daily Mail readers more things to complain about.

Fortunately, Japan stepped in and gave us Wii Fit. It was the East’s way of saying, “Oh hai, you no can has cheezburger, you can has rice and exercise. It build small stomach, happy mind, rich experiences for all family!”

But some people just want to play cool games and not lose any weight. Here are four ways to abuse the fundamental principles of Wii Fit, without losing out on any of the balance board-fuelled fun. Go nuts (on nuts), podgesters!

WATCH WATCH WATCH!

Eight Apple questions Clarissa didn’t explain

Hip TV teen Clarissa claimed to explain “it all” in the early 90s, but she failed to explain anything about our consumer electronics, 15 years ahead of the broadcast of her otherwise astute explanations.

To compensate for her miserable failure in this area, I shall pretend to be Clarissa, explaining some persistent questions about Apple she never got around to. Here goes.

Read here!

Computational theory of mind

I was thinking about the semantic Web earlier today, and it reminded me of when I was studying a theory of psychology (well, philosophy technically) for my A-Levels — the ‘Computational theory of mind’ — that likens the human mind to the internal design of a computer.

Emotion and self-awareness are really the two key factors that prohibit computers from “turning intelligent and destroying us all,” as so many movies like to portray. But eventually, I wonder if that will happen.

But then I wondered, could that ever happen?

The brain fascinates me, and in many ways we’ve built computers based on our own understanding of how the brain works. As soon as we understand consciousness — which we don’t currently — will computers stand a chance of becoming truly self-aware, kick-starting Web 7.0 and giving us the answers to our questions before the questions have left our fingers/lips/mental probes, since a formed question exists in the mind prior to it being spoken or typed.

And would that be awesome or not?

We’re discussing this here.

Movie & TV sell-outs: When tech product placements go bad

Cue gravelly voiced trailer man: “In a world where tech companies desperately want to look cool, there’s only one thing they can do — give ginormous sums of money to film and TV producers to use their stuff…”

Ever since an Apple PowerBook saved the world in Independence Day there’s been a powerful feeling that every movie and TV show should feature a gadget doing something to make the world a better, safer place — or at least look cool and shiny.

More often than not, the choice of gadget is influenced strongly by how much money the tech company ponies up, how much of the production company is owned by an electronics manufacturer, or simply what they could blag for free.

Here, we’re proud to present our most over-the-top technology cameos from TV and films, for either being a hilariously blatant attempt to sell more kit, or simply because their presence in the production was so jarring it made us cry.

Included in our choices is our patented Sell-out Scale, so you can see at a glance just how in-your-face the placement is, from near-arthouse integrity to filthy kerchinging commercialisation.

Read away!

The hair of Nate Lanxon through the ages

As suggested by Kate, I uploaded something of a gallery of past hairstyles that have appeared atop my head.

http://flickr.com/photos/louse101/sets/72157605701214573/

‘Get well soon’ costs 49p per minute to NHS hospitals

Calling a loved one in a UK hospital? It’s cheaper to call a mobile phone in Japan.

My father suffers from multiple sclerosis and is currently lying in an NHS hospital bed. He’s miserable, as you might guess. If, like I did, you want to call a suffering family member in one of over 150 UK hospitals that use Patientline’s bedside TV, Internet and phone service, it’ll cost you 49p per minute from a BT land line at peak rate. That’s more to call a bedside across town than it costs to call someone on the other side of the globe.

Paitentline’s cheap rate is still 39p per minute. Is this obscene? Let’s see.

My full article is here.

Why I despise Orange

Seven years I’ve been an Orange customer. Seven years. Back in the good days if you had a customer service question you rang up any time of day, spoke to someone for whom English was a first language, and they sorted your problem within a couple of minutes.

Three times I’ve called Orange today for help. True, someone eventually answered, but after an average of eight minutes of waiting listening to the new “Orange lady” — whose voice makes me irate — tell me how important my call is, and how they’re experiencing a high number of calls.

No, you just don’t employ enough people to deal with your dreadful service, and the ones you do employ are clinically inept at helping customers.

I will be leaving Orange, and I will be doing everything in my power as a human being and a journalist to advise others keep clear. There’s too much competition in the mobile sector for people to have to put up with such incapable customer service.

Here are three easy steps for running a decent customer service agency, written by someone who constantly has to deal with an abysmal one:

1) If you’re permanently telling people you’re dealing with too many calls, hire more people

2) To make resolution faster for your British customers, employ British people to speak to them

3) Instead of just telling me my call is important to you, prove it — at least have a backup agency on standby.

In the UK alone you pull almost £5 billion in revenue. Instead of giving people free cinema tickets, employ capable staff, and don’t wind long-term customers up while they’re on hold for a full eight minutes a time by hiring a nasal, cold female voice to tell me call is important when above all else it is not.

And I’m not alone in this thinking. You’ll be losing this customer after close to a decade, perhaps take this previously happy customer’s advice and don’t lose thousands more — T-Mobile is looking ever so tempting, not to mention O2. God I wish I was on O2.

Excessive Sleep?

This week has been incredibly busy; packed to a stupid degree. Events, product launches, features, WWDC, awards ceremonies… I’ve not got to sleep before about 1am-2am every night this week.

So last night I decided not to set myself an alarm for this morning when I went to bed. I figured I’d just let my body take as much sleep as it need.

7:30pm. That’s the time I naturally woke up today after going to bed around 11pm.

I don’t feel I’ve wasted a day since I clearly needed that level of rest, and rest is important. And I feel so awake now. I’ve not felt this good all week.

Bring on next week.

Woohoo! Ha ha!

We’ve had a Will Smith overload day at the office today. Ours was probably the office with the single most laughter on the planet today.

See this.
And even this.
Not to mention the cause for it all: this.