When I ordered my iMac late last October, I opted for the standard 1GB RAM as Apple’s prices for extra RAM are nothing short of ridiculous. A few people online recommended that I purchase more memory from a 3rd party vendor. Because I’d previously been using a Mac Mini with 512MB RAM then I wasn’t too concerned that the iMac’s 1GB was going to be insufficient.

Then I was offered a 1GB stick of RAM from Graham, that he no longer needed. The plan for me was not to install immediately as I’d been whizzing along quite happily without thinking about upgrading. But, as it sat in it’s box on my desk, it was getting harder to resist the thought of having an even zippier machine than I’ve got. I’d read the instructions for replacing RAM in my iMac manual and it seemed very straightforward. Only one screw on the whole iMac - on the RAM access door. Unscrew that, unflip the plastic tab from the empty slot and simply place it in, waiting to hear or feel the click with my thumbs.

Being that I’m quite an untechnical girl when it comes to a computers innards, then I felt watching a video or three may make me feel more confident about doing it myself. I can recommend both of these videos. After that I thought “C’mon, just get on with it” so this evening I unplugged my iMac and lay it face down on a bath towel. I grounded myself, first by taking off my purple Crocs. I wear them around the house and they are known for creating static. I touched the metal taps in the bathroom to ground myself and then slotted the RAM in. Closed it back up, plugged everything back in and headed straight to the Apple icon in the top left of the screen > About This Mac and was greeted by this…

I’ve noticed a few apps starting up much quicker. Who knows, now that I’ve done this without wrecking an £800 computer I might feel like maxing it out to 4GB later in the year

After the poor customer service I experienced with 1&1 Internet recently, it’s easy to focus on negatives where large companies are concerned, especially the big ones who lean on the little folk. Negatives do get more publicity on blogs, clearly, but it’s nice to praise the good ones aswell, from time to time. I know from experience that this kind of positive entry can prove helpful to others who have stumbled upon it. So, I’m going to be nice and do a little praising in this entry.

A few days ago I went to Harrods.com to browse their Molton Brown Bath and Shower range. I was looking for Blissful Templetree Shower Gel on the MB range page, but it wasn’t listed. I fired off a quick e-mail to Harrods at around 5.30pm to ask if they would be getting any in stock soon. I wasn’t expecting a prompt reply or even one that evening considering the time of day. However, moments later the Harrods Beauty Concierge e-mailed me with the relevant info and link to the item I wanted to buy. I also enquired about Warming Eucalyptus Shower Gel (one of my absolute faves) but he said although it wasn’t in stock on the site, the store had it in and I could call him directly to place an order for that if I wished. Since I was using PayPal as my payment method I just bought the one in stock on the site. With postage the item came to £20.49 which I think is even less than it costs at the Molton Brown website. Very pleasurable shopping experience. Always nice to get fast, friendly and personal assistance via e-mail, especially when I was least expecting it!

Another thumbs up for an online company. o2 Broadband. You can search Fruit Bytes for those terms and see lots of glowing reports from me since I’ve had nothing but good experience with them. And yeah, it might be getting boring but when the service is above and beyond what I even expect then it’s nice to say so. And ‘o2 Broadband’ is the term most commonly used to bring people here I noticed in my stats recently. Yesterday I received an e-mail from them…

Dear Samantha,

To ensure that your O2 Broadband always performs at the highest level, we occasionally have to carry out essential maintenance.

That’s why we’re writing to you to let you know that for a brief period this weekend, you may experience the odd interruption to your broadband service.

Work will begin at approximately midnight on Friday 22 February and continue until 8am on Sunday 24 February.

We apologise for the inconvenience, and we’ll do everything we can to keep the disruption to a minimum.

Best regards

o2 Broadband Team

I was pleasantly surprised. In all the years I’ve had the internet I have never had an e-mail from my broadband provider forewarning of possible disruptions. If there was planned maintenance then I, the paying customer, would be the last person to be informed. If I wanted to find out if there were any issues I’d have to call the service status line which most of the time would be way outdated anyway. So, I’d have my call passed to a customer services agent who would take me through reformatting my machine before revealing that it’s a known issue! Gaaah! Incidentally, there has been absolutely no disruption to my o2 Broadband service so far this weekend. But even if there had then they’d totally be forgiven!

One last mention for an online company who deliver the goods, just to make this my top 3 of 2008! Invision Power Services - Probably THE fastest support via e-mail…ever! I have been an Invision Power Board client for a number of years and around 6-8 weeks ago I had been making some changes to my forums. I had a couple of queries before I proceeded with these changes as I’m absolutely no PHP whizz, so I sent a support ticket in at 20.21 and received a reply at 20.23 which answered everything and more. They are super fast and friendly. If there are changes to be made to files that I am uncomfortable about amending then they will do it for me. 10/10!

Oooh, makes me feel all warm and fuzzy to know I’m a valued client.

Now that the UK iTunes Store is steadily adding some decent TV Show content, Apple TV is something I’m seriously considering as a future purchase. I don’t feel terribly tempted to download shows currently from iTunes as the option is either watch them on my 20in iMac or my 2.5 inch iPod touch screen. Watching on the iMac’s ample screen size would be fine, apart from the fact that watching TV shows on my computer is probably the last place I want to watch. Why, I’m far too busy browsing the internet working to pay attention to that

I recently downloaded an episode of The Flintstones. To buy an entire season is £19-99 in iTunes - compare that to the average DVD cost - £49-99! If I had Apple TV connected to our set then buying that up wouldn’t be a problem. I would be able to happily lie in bed (yes, we’d have it connected to the LCD HD TV in the boudoir for ultimate luxury) and watch it comfortably on 26 wide inches. I’m also thinking ahead to later in the year when the UK will finally catch up with our friends across the pond and have the ability to rent movies from iTunes. Currently I rent a DVD from Blockbuster approximately, ooooh, zero times per year, even if occasionally there’s a movie I’d rather rent before committing to buy on DVD. Apple TV will be perfect for that - just sitting back, pointing the Apple Remote at the Apple TV and selecting a movie. It’s almost too easy. The 40GB model costs £199, although I have seen it this evening for £149. Quite a tempting offer.

There are times, however, when buying something on DVD is quite a bit cheaper compared to instantly downloading. For example. Series 3 of Little Britain on DVD at dvd.co.uk is £3-49. On iTunes it’ll set you back £9-99. But I think the ability to download selected episodes of your favourite shows in iTunes, rather than the entire series, is quite an attractive feature and it’s something that appeals to me. I always download individual tracks from an album in iTunes, rather than the whole thing. Only very occasionally would I like every single track on an album. Being able to browse my own iTunes music library (aswell as purchase music), YouTube and Flickr on my TV set is just another reason I’m giving this serious consideration.

For the past 3-4 weeks there’s been some odd behaviour going on, with regards to our electricity at home. I first noticed my speakers crackling and DSL being knocked off whenever the fluorescent strip light in the garage was switched on. I did some searching around online and it appeared that it wasn’t uncommon for fluorescent lights to interfere with other electrical things, given the boost of power it draws to switch on. It seemed curious as to why it was suddenly happening after having it for years, but we took it down anyway and fit up a regular light. That stopped the problem right off.

Things were okay for a couple of weeks, but then I noticed how all the lights in the house would periodically flicker when certain appliances were being switched on, such as the kettle and toaster. A quick look at my DSL logs also showed that it was again knocking that off. Somedays it would happen, other days it wouldn’t, but it was beginning to get on my nerves especially being kicked offline everytime I wanted to make a cuppa!

Then last week I noticed the street light was off, outside the front of the house. Ever since that went out the problem in the house has simply deteriorated. On Friday I was vacuuming and all the lights flickered insanely as soon as I switched it on. DSL was down more than it was up. Even when switching on the shower (which is electric) would make every light in the house dance. I thought the whole house must seriously need re-wiring, or that we have a poltergeist that doesn’t like modern home appliances! Either way up, this was *really* concerning me, but I couldn’t help think it was in some way related to the street light which was out…and I’ll explain why…

A few years ago we experienced similar goings-on with flickering lights and eventually one night it all went off, including the street light which had also been flickering the whole time. The fuse blew outside my neighbours driveway and it had to be dug up. Power had been out for a few hours but it was quickly remedied. The NEDL guy said it was indeed related to that street light. Once everything undergound was fixed we had no more flickering lights and the street light was working perfectly.

At around 9pm last night I was in the middle of something not-terribly-important on my iMac, when suddenly I was plunged into complete darkness. I felt my way around into the utility room where I grabbed the torch, then went out into the street to see if it was just us, or a powercut. One neighbour looked to be in darkness, but the neighbour on the other side was lit up…as were the other houses all around. I called NEDL to report it and ask if there was a fault in the area. She said no and that I should check everything before they get an engineer as there would be a call-out fee. I did a quick check (well, as much as I can, what do I know?) and then called back where I was told my neighbour had reported it aswell, and that the engineer was on his way to the sub-station.

I’m going to cut a very long and probably boring story short by simply saying they located the fault, eventually, as again being outside my neighbours driveway but was told at 11pm that they couldn’t dig until 9am! I hunted out candles and then popped the gas oven on (thank GOD that isn’t electric) so I could stand infront to keep warm, bearing in mind that this was the coldest night of the year. Absolutely bitterly/icy cold. We went to bed at midnight wearing pyjamas, fleece tops, dressing gowns and wooly hats. Mmm, we looked great. I boiled up some water in a pan and filled the hot water bottle. I had a rotten nights sleep, dreaming only of hot water, showers and all the other things you take for granted when power goes out.

9am came and the drilling started outside. This carried on periodically for something like 2 hours. I got a phonecall at 11.30am from NEDL to say power would be back on for 2pm. A knock came to the door seconds later by one of the engineers to say he was reconnecting us back up now. I could have kissed every wire in the house! I started up the iMac, tentatively, to see whether it was happy after being abruptly ended last night. He was a little sluggish about starting up, or maybe that’s just because I don’t tend to shut down very often. Time Machine kicked my external hard-drive into action for a good 20 minutes or so when I rebooted and everything seems okay. I’ve also tried the vacuum and there’s no flickering lights now. Hoorah.

So, I’m looking forward to having a shower, first and foremost, then a nice hot cup of coffee, some hot food and sitting in a warm house without needing two duvets on top of me. I always say I’ll never take home comforts for granted after a powercut, but I always do. I’m going now to savour every drop of that hot water.

Thesedays I find that I listen to music more at my computer than anywhere else, even more than my iPod touch! So, it’s important for me to get the best sound that I can. Last November I bought some Altec Lansing VS2321 2.1 speakers and I’ve been more than happy with the results. Prior to buying those I had been using JBL Pro speakers with my Mac Mini.

This afternoon I was alerted to an audio enhancement plugin for iTunes by my friend Nik, when he mentioned it on Twitter. After a recommendation like that I could hardly wait to get over to the iWow website, where I downloaded the v2 demo. The difference is pretty astounding. I’ve been more than happy with the sound my set-up produces without any extra enhancement, but when you switch iWOW on then you really do know about it!

It took me approximately 3 minutes after hearing the difference in the demo, to head to the site to purchase it for $19.99. I captured a little video of me switching on and off iWOW so you can perhaps get an idea of the difference. Sadly it doesn’t come across well, so I’d recommend you download the demo, either for Mac or PC. Without the enhancement enabled you can hear mostly bass, but when you enable it the sound is full and rich - quite a remarkable difference that you will only be able to appreciate fully when trying it yourself. But, here’s my video clip anyway. When the music starts it’s without the plugin enabled, but you’ll see on the screen when I do switch it on