Macdara Butler

Just a thing that’s annoying me for a long time on Google Apps, my storage has run out after 5 years of usage.

There’s no way to purchase additional gmail storage on a per-user basis. You have to upgrade to the Pro version of Google Apps which is a pretty expensive commitment. The reason this annoys me is that you might have 10 users, in my case 2 of them have reached 99% of the limit, while the other 8 have only used 5-10% each.

The problem is that you have to upgrade every user on the site, so 10 users by $50 per year is $500 just to increase the storage on 1 or 2 users. Continue reading »

The launch of iOS5 in the very near aftermath of Steve Jobs death has created a legacy that is truly breathtaking.

Apple has delivered over 200 significant features to the iOS along with a new iCloud platform plus some significant additions to the Apple TV. Basically everything now works together seamlessly, no wires, no effort. Apple’s eco-system is entering a glorious period that will be free of the angst and recrimination associated with may of its previous incarnations over the years. They have basically removed dozens of barriers and “what if” or “if only” question marks that overshadowed many of its previous achievements.

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I upgraded my iPhone 3G to an iPhone 4 about 6 months ago and have had a good opportunity to test it in action over a prolonged period since then.

The performance improvements over the 3G were dramatic , and that may not be as apparent for iPhone 3GS owners. The 3G I had was slowing down significantly, and have installed iOS4 on it there was a noticeable degradation in responsiveness and battery life.

The iPhone 4 is noticeably heavier and slimmer than the older models, and looks slicker than the predecessor with its minimalist finish.

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I have come across some very neat shell extensions for Windows 7 over the last year that every Windows Power User should have installed.

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Anyway it was time to invest in a proper hands-free kit, but I wanted to keep the jukebox functionality that I had become used to with my old iTrip.

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I was off work for a week after getting my knee operation (ACL Reconstruction).

That finally gave me a chance to tune up my Dell XPS M1330 which is running on Vista Home Premium. My notebook is packed full of great hardware but I’ve struggled with Vista from the start, its not a great OS and will be very shortlived with Windows 7 around the corner. So I’ve put together my top 5 ways to improve Vista’s performance and make it a more acceptable OS to work with. Its actually working really well now for me.

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I bought a brand new 23″ Samsung 2333SW LCD display from dabs4work.ie last week and it only cost me €165 ex VAT (€200 incl). It runs at a max resolution of 1920 x 1080 which is full HD to the informed buyer and offers the basic DVI and VGA connections.

There was one big problem when I plugged in my “Pavillion dv9000t” laptop with “Nvidia Geforce 7600 Go” graphics card over a standard VGA cable…the bloody computer wouldn’t display the max resolution! All I could get was a distorted looking 1680 x 1050 resolution with everything looking stretched and faded.

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I started using an Adobe Air application today called “Balsamiq Mock Ups”.

Up to now I have been using Powerpoint 2007 which does an adequate job in layong out Mock-up screens for co-workers and clients.

http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups

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I have an iPhone for a few months now, a 16GB one with 3G.

The iPhone is mostly brilliant but does fall down badly in a few important areas, like battery life and text messaging.

Anyhow it is mostly brilliant, and a joy to use for surfing the web and reading email.

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