Fifth Decade

They say your biggest rival in Formula One is your team mate. And when your team mate has just got pole at your home GP, you do have to dig deep and pull out something special  if you are not to be eclipsed.

Luckily for Lewis, his Finnish teammate is showing all the signs of being another Fisichella - fast over one lap, but scared of all the other cars and drivers when out on the track. Scared to overtake. Too tentative to try. I mean, look at how Alonso in a far less competitive car managed to keep Kovalainnen behind him for so long that Kimi Raikkonnen was able to score enough points to maintain equal first in the WC standings.

But what of Lewis himself? Just having a weak teammate doesn’t really mean you lap everybody up to 3rd place, and finish 66 seconds ahead of the second pace finisher, a remarkably well disciplined Nick Heidfeld who was once described as “being as fast as Schumacher over a single lap” based on their days in the Mercedes Benz junior DTM team.

Another ten laps and Hamilton could have lapped the field. Everyone. Including second place! Let’s hope he relaxes a bit now, Lewis has been a little over-eager at times this year, and it has cost him.

Perhaps he should take up golf - that’s a sport in which the harder you try to hit the ball, the less well you actually do so. But hit the ball when relaxed, and it seems to go miles with little effort. Don’t give up your day job, though, Lewis - we want you to continue racing for Britain for some years - and to be the first Briton since Sir Jackie Stewart to win more than one World Championship.

Ron Dennis has gone on record as saying that Heikki was in “poor physical shape” when they inherited him from Renault. So it is possible that it isn’t balls but brawn that Heikki is missing.

It certainly seems like it is Brawn that Ferrari are missing though. Stefano Domenicali seems to be overly challenged on the strategy front, and has made many mistakes this year. The Ferrari does actually seem to be the fastest car out there, and in Raikkonnen they have one of the fastest drivers around. But if even Honda can get on the podium when Ross is around, perhaps Ferrari will live to regret their witch-hunt of British employees.

As for Alonso, he was a long way behind, wasn’t he? If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen they say. Time for Alonso to hang up his gloves then and just support the Spanish football team and that Wimbledon winning tennis player who will now take up the mantle of most revered Spaniard. Already Alonso is sowing dissension within the team with his threats of leaving, his veiled attacks on Renault, his lack of team spirit. He does like to be the Prima Donna, though, doesn’t he?

Meanwhile, the two wiser dinosaurs of Formula One, Coulthard and Barrichello both had rather different races. Coulthard, in the same car that his team mate qualified in second place in spun out on the first lap, but he really hates racing in the wet even more than he dislikes his back end sliding around. On the other hand, Rubens Barrichello in a car that frequently qualifies in last place, or not far from it, managed to finish on the podium! A brilliant tactical switch to full wets for the short period of rain saw him lapping some 12 seconds a lap faster than rest of the field at one point, and with Brawn’s brains and Rubens’ racecraft who knows how well Honda could soon start doing.

But the day itself belonged to Lewis. He deserved to win, and his composure towards the end of the race was what he needs to remember the rest of the season. He’s a great driver, but over-confidence and over-driving are things he needs to continuously guard against. He can make a small difference to the performance of his car, but even he has to realise that sometimes scoring those extra points for fourth or eighth is more important than going for a win and perhaps in risking everything, achieving nothing as he has done already three times this year.

The second half of the season could be interesting!

To misquote George Orwell

All teams are equal, but some teams are more equal than others.

Specifically, I’m talking about penalties. Lewis Hamilton got a stop and go penalty for an overtaking manoevre that once completed left him not enough room to do anything but miss the chicane, yet Kimi Raikkonnen got nothing for having a piece of metal dangerously hanging off his car as it traversed France’s Formula One GP race track in Magny Cours at speeds of up to 300 kmh. The offending piece of metal eventually flew off the car and could have killed somebody if it had fallen off in a less convenient place. In past years, drivers have been black flagged for having bits of their car hanging off, or at the very least told to make repairs during a pit stop. Ferrari were once again allowed to flout the rules.

Why, why, why?

If Bernie separates F1 from the FIA, it won’t be a day too soon.

Ferrari went testing in Barcelona today. And lapped two and a half seconds faster than anyone else, including McLaren. Now, that isn’t a normal difference: they’ve added something new to the car.

Ground Effect.

Autosport reports that the new nosecone they used today has two slots in it that transfer air from a high pressure area between the front wing up to the low pressure area just behind the front of the nosecone and in front of the driver. This means they are in effect creating more suction between the car and the road, creating more grip. Further, this air is then channelled over the rear wing to provide more downforce. In addition, it stabilises the flow of air into the engine air intake to help with engine power.

You have to hand it to Ferrari, this is quite clever. But is it legal? Well, not for McLaren, or Williams. But as we know, Ferrari are seen to get special treatment. Or is that over, now that Max’s little secret is out? Or maybe Ferrari were actually restrained by Max, and they are taking advantage of his current weakness to launch this controversial new design.

But why was Ground Effect made illegal? Well, if you significantly increase the suction the car has in corners, imagine what will happen if it suddenly loses it. Nosecones fall off or self-destruct all the time: from  collisions with other cars as happened to Lewis Hamilton in Bahrain, or even from just hitting a kerb as happened to David Coulthard earlier in the season.

Of course, if we want more overtaking, then we really do need some changes, and some have been planned for 2009. Slicks are coming, and downforce is going. Well, not all of it, but a lot anyway. So this new Ferrari Ground Effect system will tilt the playing field again.

Damon Hill said fat slicks and good mechanical grip would do the trick, and that cars had too much downforce these days for any overtaking to take place. Well, if Ferrari stay 2.7 seconds per lap ahead of the competition, just when life was getting interesting with more than ten cars being separated by less than 1 second at the last race, then we can forget about overtaking.

Never mind overtaking, we can forget about racing, as it will just be Ferrari, and we can forget about a Championship, as it will be a foregone conclusion, with Ferrari winning every race.

Who wants to watch that? That’s what happened a couple of years ago when TV figures for F1 plummeted when Ferraris were winning everything, and Schumacher’s contract forbade his team mate from beating him. Heck, that year even I gave up watching F1 on TV for the first time since my father died, the only day I  had missed in the previous twenty years. That season I missed about 12 races! Looks like I’ll be doing something similar this year…

The nice thing about Formula 1 is its unpredictability. Well, this weekend, anyway. Never mind the unusual shenanigans happening off the track in Chelsea dungeons, on the track we are having quite a year. Quite rightly the Crown Prince of Bahrain insisted nothing would be allowed to distract us from the racing, despite all the salacious gossip in the press worldwide.

At Bahrain, there were one or two surprises. Swiss based BMW Sauber now lead the F1 Constructors Championship. Robert Kubica gained pole in a car that was clearly not the fastest at the event. Raikkonnen didn’t win. Massa did. Kovalainen beat Hamilton and got the fastest lap in not the fastest car on the circuit. Toyota actually beat their customer team, Williams. And the start was not chaotic. Presumably all that wind they experienced today - about 20 to 30 kmh gusting along the pit straight - distributed the sand fairly evenly and so the expected advantage of being on the racing line on the grid was not as great as it might have been.

OK, Hamilton cocked up big style at the start. He admitted to Autosport later that he hadn’t been able to put the mapping into “launch mode” quickly enough. I thought there were supposed to be no driver aids this year? So what’s all this talk about then?

Anyway, he was gobbled up by the pack quicker than you can crack a whip, falling from 3rd on the grid to 10th place by the end of the first lap. It didn’t help that he miscalculated just how slow the Renault was out of that corner and so ran into the back of the renegade in the Renault on acceleration, dropping himself down to 18th after pitting for a new nose. If he hadn’t have fluffed the start though, he wouldn’t have been anywhere near the middle of the pack. Looks like he’s having the kind of experience most other newcomers to F1 have in their first years in slower cars. For most of the race he was lucky to be racing with the Fisichella Force India over 13th place. 

Looking at the scores on the doors, McLaren have gone backwards since the beginning of the year scoring first 14, then 10 and now just 4 points as a team. Ferrari on the other hand has got better and better, with scores of 1, 10 and today top marks with 18 out of 18. BMW meanwhile have been more consistent, edging forward bit by bit with scores of 8, 11, 11 so far this season. BMW’s slow but deliberate progress clearly comes from the calm way that merry Mario Theissen runs things. More to come, I think.

So, now we have to wait three weeks for Barcelona, where we will see if any teams have made any leaps forward, or by standing still be going backwards. Up until now they have been away from home, and although teams as rich as Ferrari can ferry failed engines to their factory for analysis and problem solving in the week between the Australian and Malaysian GPs, most teams do not have such a $500 million budget. So, most changes - particularly to everyone’s aerodynamic packages - have had to wait until the return to Europe before they can be installed.

Hopefullly, the ITV commentary team will learn to observe and talk about what is actually happening next time, and not bore us with inane tales of gossip picked up around the paddock while something interesting is happening on the track. The usual character is of course to blame - Martin Brundle is, as always, superb. If only his colleague would watch the monitors while he is talking we might get some synchronisation between what he is saying and what we can see happening for a change.

I was just reading an interesting story in MacFormat magazine about the NHS. They’ve spent a load of dosh (they can’t do anything without spending a load of dosh, apparently) on bringing themselves into the online age with a couple of applications - Choose and Book, and the even more expensive Electronic Patient Record system.

Anyway, they’ve spent £5,600,000,000 to be exact. That’s £5.6 billion. Plus £64.5 million on top. Like a kind of tip…

The story unfolds on Page 8 of the April issue of the mag “Safari users failed by NHS” and describes how NHS online schemes are unavailable to thousands of Mac users because the NHS systems only support Microsoft Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers.

Health Minister Ben Bradshaw was queried in the House of Commons by the Conservative’s Stephen O’Brien about the £64.5 million Choose and Book appointments system and replied in a written answer using what can only be called Microsoft-speak:

Because of the number of browser versions available to internet users, priority has been given to certification of the application against the most popular browsers in the first instance.

Well, that is strange. I thought there was such a thing as Internet Standards? You know, rules like we have for driving - drive on the left, steering wheel on the right, accelerator on the right, clutch on the left and brake in the middle. Standards that when used mean that any manufacturer can build a car that works on the road, and that any driver can use without having to learn a new system.

On the internet there is a set standard, even a set of standards, and the best websites use what is known as “Standards compliant coding” which basically means they only have to design and code for one International Standard. It is then up to the browser writers to comply with those agreed standards. This saves a lot of money for developers.

I mean, why develop for many different systems when you could develop for just one global standard?

Ah, but that doesn’t help Microsoft sell their software does it, because when there are standards that anyone can use, there is no way to lock them in to having to buy Microsoft. Microsoft have a long history of sabotaging international standards, as we have just seen with the ISO voting process for Microsoft’s OOXML file format when there was already a perfectly adequate ISO standard with far wider acceptance in the Open Document Format (ODF).

That’s exactly what they have done with the internet. In order to force users to buy their Operating Systems they incorporated features into their browser that were sufficiently different to the agreed standards to make life difficult for those with different browsers. In fact, in many ways Internet Explorer does not read standards compliant websites awfully well at all - it’s a flawed browser on many levels, not least of which being security, something of a concern where our health records are concerned.

It’s the waste that gets me though. How on earth could the government spend £5.6 billion on any computer system at all? And then not have it fully working? That’s a lot of tax money. It’s a lot of free prescriptions. It’s a lot of patient beds, a lot of life-saving equipment. Oh, I forgot, it’s also a lot of profit for Microsoft and its supporters.

Well, at least we know what the NHS considers most important then.

Formula One hit the TV screens this weekend - and I do mean hit! The 2008 Australian Grand Prix saw 3 Safety Car periods, 15 retirements, and mistakes galore from many people we previously thought were quite good - but it now appears may only have done so well in the past because of the electronic driver aids.

Biggest surprise of all for many was Ferrari’s implosion. After First Practice it was clear that Ferrari had the quickest car under Kimi Raikkonnen, as he made the fastest lap which wasn’t beaten until Saturday practice when the BMWs were the quick cars, both lapping in the 1 min 25 secs. But race day was different. This was the first race to be held without driver aids, and this was the first race we have seen for years in which, as Martin Brundle so succinctly put it

Good driving was rewarded, bad driving was punished - and that’s how it should be.

Apart from the more technical changes, the most noticeable effect of the new regulations, according to Mark Blundell, was going to affect two main areas: acceleration and braking.

The first is pretty obvious as anyone who has traction control on their road car will tell you; the second less so, but it allows for more progressive braking on down-changes as the traction control system kicks in to add engine braking to the disk and caliper control initiated by the driver’s foot.

While these two areas are most affected, the fact that at nearly every point on a circuit a Formula One car is either accelerating or braking means the actual impact in the race is far more than just at the start and at the corners. It will also affect traveling behind the pace car when small adjustments have to be made to speed and position by each driver, and perhaps even more importantly, during overtaking manoeuvres or when putting a wheel off line.

On the first corner, Massa lost some places as he struggled to slow down now that the computer doesn’t engine-brake the car for him anymore. He over-steered quite badly and fell off the circuit pretty quickly, then had to pit to get a new nose cone. A couple of laps later he pitted again for more fuel, although why he couldn’t do this when he came in for the new nosecone is a bit of a mystery. Put it down to lack of organisation in the Ferrari pit.

Later on Massa got caught out again with lack of car control and drove into the side of David Coulthard’s car because he overcooked the braking again. This incident damaged his car and he retired a few laps later.

Raikkonnen though has a reputation as being very good. He is supposed to have supreme car control, but I think some people must be getting him confused with Mika Hakkinnen because Kimi clearly couldn’t always handle the Ferrari in race conditions without the computer helping him out.

On two occassions, he made really costly mistakes, rookie mistakes really, when a red mist descended as he tried to overtake Kovalainen (who incidentally got the fastest lap of the race) and just went straight on at a corner he must have forgotten was there, and later put a wheel on the grass and span out again as he tried to overtake Timo Glock (known by the Irish as either Team O’Glock or Tim O’Glock depnding on whether you use the German or Irish pronunciation of his name). Kimi was lucky not to hit anything or anyone, and that there were no other cars following close by as he didn’t lose any more positions during the incident.

Such were the bogeymen. But who were the real stars of the day?

Well, clearly Hamilton didn’t put a foot wrong. He didn’t get fastest lap - as I said before his team mate got that - but he did get all 10 points on offer and kept his head while all around him his rivals were losing theirs.

Kovalainen impressed with a clean drive in second place for much of the race, holding off attacks from successive drivers who subsequently had problems. One of these problems was the Timo Glock crash that brought the safety car out just one lap before he was going to pit. This unfortunate timing meant that Heikki lost his second place, and ended up racing with Alonso for 4th. Yes, with Alonso for 4th. In a Renault. Maybe Alonso is something of a decent driver then, even if he isn’t necessarily a decent team mate or team player.

Kovalainen made a great move to overtake Alonso with just two laps to go, but in his excitement on the next lap he hit the steering wheel with his fist as he tried to adjust his visor and switched the speed limiter on by accident, allowing Alonso to retake the place. He isn’t the only driver ever to have done this - World Champion Nigel Mansell is one of many top drivers who have made similarly silly mistakes.

Williams deserve much praise though. Top Toyota engined car (using customer engines, no less) and a class act all weekend. After all the tension, hostility and It was so nice to see Rosberg and Hamilton so pally in the weighing room and on the podium. Just like the joint interview ITV showed of Hamilton and Kovalainen together before the race: it’s like the era of James Hunt and Co all over again. This crop of youngsters are turning into quite an enjoyable bunch to watch.

You could see though that Hamilton took the BMW threat more seriously, not paying much attention to Nick Heidfeld at all, a sign of rivalry, perhaps? But there was Heidfeld in second place, on the podium for BMW who must be pretty pleased with the way things went for them. Well, ignoring the problems of concentration that took Kubica out when he clipped the back of the car in front of him before going off on Turn 15. He had looked incredibly pale before the start, wouldn’t talk to anybody, and hopefully has gotten over his bad nerves after qualifying on the front row for the first time ever. Next time perhaps he’ll keep his cool a little more, although with in-cockpit temperatures of 50C today, he may have more problems in Malaysia which will be hot and humid.

The after-race Press Conference was pretty standard, except for one classic moment. When asked by the official FIA interviewer about how he had felt in the heat and conditions, the non-sweating Hamilton replied “Really, it was quite easy physically! I was very comfortable” or words to that effect. On hearing this, and as simultaneously as any synchronised swimmers could have done it, both Heidfeld on Hamilton’s right and Rosberg on his left slowly turned to look incredulously at Lewis, just to check he wasn’t joking… he wasn’t: he looked as fresh as a daisy! How does he do it? Fitness. Seeing the looks on the two Germans’ faces was a real classic. They just looked so bemused.

Biggest disappointment of the weekend had to be Piquet though. I thought he came from sterner stock than that. He never really got to grips with the car. Maybe he’s just a slow learner? Or maybe it’s Briatore slowing him down on purpose so as to make poor, spoiled Alonso feel good - but that would be a dangerous game for Renault to play.

Next race is in just a few days time. It will be interesting to see who has learned from their mistakes, and who keeps on making them. It promises to be a most interesting season - bring it on!

Whoever broke this story certainly threw a real problem at Senator John McCain.

For Republicans, close association with lobbyists is normal business. In fact, that’s how Republicans do business. Just so long as the relationship isn’t too close with an individual (close association with a specific lobbying company is OK), isn’t too often, or too personal. In this case, the relationship (platonic or not) has been with a particular lobbyist, and even worse than that, with a pretty blonde lobbyist he seems to have spent rather a lot of time with.

I’m sure a lot of GOP members are relieved that at least it’s a change from the many homosexual scandals various Republicans have been involved with in the recent past. At least, they may be saying, if there is anything going on here, it isn’t what they charmingly refer to as “deviancy”.

The crux of this problem is it’s double edged nature. It’s negative for McCain if anyone thinks there was some funny business with this lady, and it’s negative because it brings into perspective just how much time politicians and lobbyists spend together. It’s even negative for people who believe it’s OK for politicians to be wined and dined, and to go on flights and trips with lobbyists - because they normally disguise such behaviour by not spending so much time with any one individual lobbyist, and this smacks of favouritism. Personally I think McCain is too honourable, but what influence do I have?

So, which camp is most likely to have got this story going? That’s the sixty four thousand dollar question. Obama is most against the close ties Washington politicians have with lobbyists - or so he says. Huckabee probably thinks some hanky panky went on and wants to air such rumours before McCain reaches an unassailable lead, which he shortly will. Clinton probably wouldn’t mind McCain attacking Obama, but is unlikely to want to draw attention to relationships with lobbyists or bring back memories of how her husband ended his Presidency.

So, my money’s on this story originating in the Obama camp. It hits all of his opponents at once, gets in the first shot against his probable main opponent, and does him no harm at all. In fact, it even releases, by transferring attention, some of the pressure on him for his wife’s gaffe when she said she was proud of her country “for the first time” just recently - something Americans seem to take rather badly.

If I were McCain, I’d be counter-punching Obama, but he’d better do it quick or the mud will stick. He’s spent so much time lately trying to prove how much of a conservative he really is, he seems to have taken his eye off the ball.

As for Hillary, she’d better get her website reorganised, the two main words that crop up on the first two pages are “Submit” followed by “Contribute” whereas Obama’s site cries out “Change,” “Believe” and “One Million People” which makes it a lot more powerful. McCain’s is more like Hillary’s, proclaiming “Ready to Lead” which is perhaps too subtle for most folks, sounds like he wants to be given something, rather than to give something.

No wonder Obama is hoovering up the youth vote. And by that, I mean all those under 50… the internet generation. His opponents are both looking rather out of touch, if you ask me. I still don’t think he will make the best President, but I do believe he is running the best campaign right now.

Only time will tell what happens next.

Microsoft is working to adapt a basic version of XP so that it is compatible with the nonprofit One Laptop per Child (OLPC) Foundation’s small green-and-white XO laptop.

The OLPC machine uses low-powered technology with limited processing power, no Hard Drive, and little memory but has a target price of $100 per laptop to enable users in the third world to partake in the digital age. Currently the price is $188 as further savings have been difficult to make without larger volumes of sales to drive component prices down.

How replacing the free, lean Linux based Operating System with a Microsoft controlled stodgy and resource hungry OS that has to be paid for can be seen as a boon for anyone other than Microsoft is beyond the ken of anyone who understands the principles of charitable giving.

Microsoft’s knee jerk reaction as a “Johnny come lately” to every market they didn’t think of first is probably what they imagine to be “innovation”. This lack of strategic vision is why their share price has underperformed the market for years.

If I was a shareholder I’d vote to hand the reins over to someone who knows there is more to business and technology than playing “follow my leader” and leveraging a monopoly position to try to force out competition from every niche, niches created by people with more imagination and often better business ethics to boot.

MS have admitted they have spent a “non-trivial amount” of cash on this project already, and it is unlikely to be profitable for them, but just like in other markets the wealth they have amassed through their monopoly behaviour is used to prevent these markets developing freely.

The still unprofitable XBox was launched to limit the PlayStation/Nintendo machines’ ultimate market size, the Zune to compete with the iPod, Internet Explorer was launched to kill off Netscape, Office Online was launched to damage Google’s online aspirations, MS Office was given exclusive links into MS Exchange Server to kill off Apache and Linux, need I go on? There are examples upon examples.

Undermining opportunities for advancement for the poor and underprivileged though is a new low for Microsoft in my book. It’s tantamount to competing with your local church’s weekly collection by saying “pay into our bowl, not the charitable one!” in order to further corporate objectives.

I first tried a Mac in, oh, about 1986. I hated it. Tiny little box with a screen in it, and the salesman sat me in front of it and tried to persuade me of its (expensive) merits by opening practically the only software they had for it - a Paint program. I wasn’t impressed. I wanted something to run a spreadsheet, not draw dumb pictures. From that moment on I thought all Macs were pretentious pieces of garbage for rich idiots who wanted to draw pictures all day long. How times change.

Almost two decades later, and I hadn’t looked at a Mac but I had slagged them off a few times on computer forums and so on. That was when my PC worked of course, didn’t have the anti-virus scanner working, wasn’t updating its virus definition files, or showing me the Blue Screen Of Death.

Now, one of the guys I hung out with worked for IBM. We used to go for a beer a couple of Fridays a month with some other computer guys to chew the fat. My friend’s girlfriend was very much into Macs, but she was studying a graphics course so I just thought, “Of course she’s got a Mac. She wants to make pretty pictures!”

But it wasn’t quite like that - her course was half graphics, half accounting. Huh? Accounting? On a Mac? That was a new idea I couldn’t get my head around to begin with.

After a while, my friend admitted he played around on his girlfriend’s Mac - because he could just get on and do his home stuff without worrying about things not working or needing new drivers or having conflicts or crashing. He said that both he and his girlfriend had completely different user accounts, with everything completely separate. He had his files and programs, she had hers. He ran Unix applications in the Terminal, she ran graphics files on the old Mac OS, called OS9.

Now remember, this guy worked on PCs all day long to keep them in working order. And yet he kept on going on about how reliable and user friendly the Mac was. Sure, he had a PC too, it was provided for him by his work. But when he went out and ordered a Mac mini - with his own money - I started to rethink things very carefully.

If everything was like he said, maybe I should buy one of these little wonders too. He assured me they were completely different now, and even Microsoft Office worked on it. They even had IBM chips inside, and connected to all the same things PCs could.

So I bought a Mac mini. It was the best decision I ever made buying a computer. Since then I’ve gone on to buy nine Macs in total for myself, my family, and my office. What I’m trying to say is, I’ve got a lot of experience from a PC user’s point of view about choosing a Mac - but I’m not you, so this is a guide, not a recommendation.

Mac mini
The first Mac for many people, and certainly the one with the lowest ticket price, is the Mac mini. Like all Macs, they look great but in addition it’s just so small. It fits anywhere, and runs very quietly. Compared to my previous PC, it’s silent. Perfect for the lounge. And it has been trouble free.

Mac minis do not come with a separate graphics card so share some of the standard system RAM. This means the largest screen they can power would be a 23″ Apple Display, although I have heard they could power a Dell or other model 24″ screen. The latest Mac minis are pretty nice right now, particularly the Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz model.

iMac
The new aluminium iMacs have a glossy screen which many people cannot bear, others seem not to worry about it. Personally I hate reflections on the screen and had a look at the new iMac in a variety of lighting situations at a number of locations (three Apple resellers and the Bluewater Apple Retail store) before excluding it for being too glossy. Not for nothing do the TV ads show the new glossy screened iMac from side on only! Any other view would put many people right off.

Talking of TV though, getting rid of screen reflections has been like hunting for the Holy Grail for most manufacturers for decades - there have even been products developed to counteract the reflections, so why the fashion has returned as an “advantage” is quite beyond me.

If you find the shiny screen doesn’t irritate the hell out of you, which iMac should you get? I bought a Refurbished 24″ white iMac (last model) from the Apple Online store and got a sizable discount, but these seem to be in short supply right now. It does have a large screen, but the size is very useful and not too big for a normal desk, especially since the computer is in the screen and there’s no beige box to have to work out how to hide.

The screen on the older iMac is non-reflective, and the size allows me to work on a full page on one side of the screen, and have my reference pages open on the right and just drag and drop pictures, charts, and even lumps of text straight from one to the other, not even needing to use cut and paste. Just seeing the two pages next to each other is a huge advantage.

When it comes to the new aluminium iMacs, there is a significant difference in quality between the 20″ and the 24″ models. Mainly, the 24″ model uses better components than the 20″ model, whose screen is actually of lower spec than its white plastic predecessor! Of course, with the glossy screen the reflections are larger the bigger the area they can reflect from…

Power Mac / Mac Pro
Unfortunately there isn’t a mid range Mac without an in-built screen, so if you don’t like the new iMac and can’t get an old iMac you have to go for either the Mac mini or a Mac Pro which is, err, B I G !!!

We use the current Mac Pro’s almost identical predecessor, a G5 PPC 2.0 GHz double processor powered Power Mac, in the office as a file and database server and it is very under-utilised, seldom using more than 30% of processor capacity.

It’s massive though. Not for on top of a desk. Solid sculpture, beautiful design. The metal case is thick, solid, sculpted anodised metal that weighs a ton. From an engineering point of view, it’s art. It feels nice to touch. Inside it’s as beautiful as outside, and very well designed and put together. Putting in new RAM is dead easy. In the new ones, even changing a Hard Disk drive is easy. We have two Hard Disks in ours, set up in a RAID configuration so that if one disk fails, the other is a mirror image with no data is lost.

When the new Mac Operating System, OS X 10.5 Leopard has had all the bugs ironed out, we’ll probably use its new Time Machine backup system for data security and change the RAID configuration to allow for faster read/write speeds to boost performance even more.

Laptops
Not everyone wants a desktop Mac though, and Mac laptops have become more and more popular this year, taking 17% of the laptop market and making Apple into the third biggest computer manufacturer after Dell and HP.

Power Book/MacBook Pro
Before Macs went from PPC chips to Intel, I bought a Power Book as I needed some portability for international travel. It is another piece of scuplted Aluminium beauty that is wonderfully rewarding in so many ways, not least of which being the tactile satisfaction of just using it. When light levels fall, the screen dims and the aluminium keys automatically light up so you can still see which keys to press, a big help for my aging eyes.

Closing the lid automatically sleeps the computer, opening it gives you an almost instant restart. Amazing. My girlfriend’s HP notebook would crash if you did this. To be fair, it was running Windows 98 though.

My old model Power Book is completely at home doing everything I have asked of it though - basically it is a portable version of a G4 iMac with equivalent specification. I run mine with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, plus a 19″ standalone monitor, so have a portable desktop. The two fingered scroll pad is fantastic. So intuitive. So unlike a PC. And the new MacBook Pro is much, much better.

MacBook
When the HP finally gave up the ghost (not only had all the key labels vanished from the keyboard so hitting the correct letter was often guesswork, eventually the keys stopped working too, it would never run without crashing and a host of other minor irritants) I got my girlfriend a MacBook. Bad mistake. Not because of the computer - but because I didn’t consult with her, I deprived her of the fun of choosing.

But the MacBook itself is pretty fast, it’s the Black 2.16 GHz Core 2 Duo version with the 13.3 inch screen. This is a bit small for most eyes, but unfortunately the MacBook is not available with a larger screen. You have to go up to the MacBook Pro for that which has either a 15″ or a 17″ display.

For most purposes, the MacBook is fantastic and fun, but it doesn’t have a separate graphics card, so for big movie making work it probably struggles a bit. For general office work though, it is fine and connecting to an external monitor is definitely a good idea.

Making your Mac faster.
In all cases, max out your RAM wherever you can - but don’t buy it from Apple unless you are getting a Mac mini which is remarkably compact and difficult to access. One supplier that has a great website for helping you identify which RAM you need and its cost is Crucial. 2 Gb will have your Mac flying, although 1 Gb is really sufficient if you aren’t running Windows and OS X simultaneously on the same computer. Yes, both Parallels and VMWare alow this, not to mention Apple’s own Boot Camp - now replaced as part of the Leopard OS.

Whichever Mac you get, you won’t be disappointed. Do make sure the one you get is sufficient for your needs though, just like choosing any computer.

Have fun! But remember all those folks still on PC who have to fight their PC constantly, rather than have it work with them to get things out rather than just put effort in.

On a Mac, things just work.

The 2007 season has had more twists and turns than a race around the old 14 mile long Nurburgring. Even now, with no more races to go, the results could still change due to apparent rule infringements by the BMW and Williams teams.

For a number of years, the fuel in a Formula One car has had to be analysed carefully by the FIA during races to prevent unfair advantage accruing to one team or another. The fuel is the basis for the power an F1 car produces, and the more power the car has, the faster it can lap. The cooler the fuel, the higher up the field the car finishes.

In the past, some teams added illegal substances to their fuel tanks. These days it is the temperature of the fuel that makes a difference, and both BMWs and Nico Rosberg’s Williams were all found to have been using fuel that was overcooled. Spyker technical chief Mike Gascoyne said he believed the variation would have provided a performance advantage:

“It can be five to ten horsepower easily,” he told autosport.com. “The car is producing a performance advantage during the race. If they dump fuel in that is below the limit, it is an illegal performance advantage. They should be excluded from the event, there is absolutely no doubt.”

Initially the FIA Technical Delegate, Jo Bauer, announced that the three cars in question had broken the rules. Then, after some politicking no doubt, some hours after this announcement the stewards at the race said he was wrong.

With the huge heavy hand they applied to McLaren earlier in the year, the FIA have boxed themselves into a bit of a corner when it comes to how they treat any other team when it comes to rule infringements. They were so concerned with applying the rules when it came to McLaren, if they back out of using their own rules again now they will be giving support to anyone claiming they are biased in favour of Ferrari and against McLaren.

If, as Mike Gascoyne says, the three cars should be disqualified, that would move Hamilton up three places in the race classification, give him three more points, and elevate him from second to first in the Championship. But the stewards decided they could not bear to do this and chickened out.

So, McLaren had no option other than to appeal. Hence the 2007 Drivers’ Championship is still not over, and may be settled in the courts, just as the Constructors Championship was.

Now, that would be poetic justice.