So, where have I been for 3 months?
10 July 2009

"I just hope the punters see beyond the lack of apparent new features and realise that the update to the core of the system is immense"

It's been 3 and half months since my last blog entry, probably the longest I've ever left it, however much has been happening (moving house, becoming self employed, taking a music exam) so blogging has been the last thing on my mind. Time to catch up on what's been happening (technology wise) during the last few weeks.

Snow Leopard
In my last blog entry I talked about what Apple may say at the WWDC (World Wide Developer's Conference) in early June. The next version of OS X is not far away and it doesn't have many visible changes, despite seeing some 90% of the underlying code frameworks being updated including a completely re-written Finder. I wondered if a new interface may be on the cards and predicated that without one a very low resale price may be the only option for the company.

It turned out that the low price option was what Apple went for. Apple Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard will retail for just $29.99 (£18.50). UK pricing is still to be announced, but I fully expect us to pay double the US price and for Apple to simply drop the Dollar sign and replace it with a Sterling symbol touting some rubbish about European tax laws. To be fair to them, the $29.99 price tag won't include US sales tax as this varies state to state and is added at the checkout, but even taking an extreme local sales rate of 7% this would still leave the equivalent UK price at under £20 and I still say that we'll pay 50% more than that here.

While I'm disappointed at the price hike, if you take it in isolation, even £30 is a great price for such a major upgrade to the OS. I just hope the punters see beyond the lack of apparent new features and realise that the update to the core of the system is immense, especially if you have a multi-core processor and, preferably, a graphics card capable of the new OpenCL processing ability. You'll also need an Intel computer (not a huge surprise that one). I'll be looking to upgrade my first generation Mac Pro but am two minds about my MacBook laptop as that won't benefit greatly from the advanced multi-core and OpenCL updates. However, the smaller footprint of the OS and Cocoa based Finder may be worth the update.

21st Century Business
Having become self employed recently, I've turned my sole trader status into that of a limited company and have signed up with a forward thinking accountancy firm who run an on-line based business (although thankfully you can speak to them on the phone about all those weird tax issues).

You can generate invoices via their system, add expenses and at the end of the year (as you're details are all already on their computer) they submit your return to Companies House and leave you with a very simple 10 minute job on your self assessment form. Sounds almost too good to be true. I'll be keeping a close eye on this and reporting in more detail about it in the future.

That'll do for this time, I just wanted to post to get the ball rolling again after a hectic 3 months when I've moved house, started my own limited company and been rehearsing like mad for a music exam. Blogging has been something I've wanted to do, but failed miserably. Hopefully I'll blog again before Snow Leopard launches in September!