May Technology News

19 May 2010

A couple of interesting and amusing pieces of tech news caught my eye recently. In an article in ComputerWeekly about Microsoft Office 2010 I was amused to learn that 64bit Excel was capable of editing spreadsheets larger than 2Gbytes. WFT 2Gbytes what the hell is in a 2Gbyte spreadsheet. Amused, why? Well one of my colleagues who deals with network storage often gets calls from people who are having difficulty in opening 50Mbyte spreadsheets, small fry in comparison. I can imagine what they’d say if someone was storing a 2Gbyte spreadsheet on their servers but I couldn’t print it here.

In the same article I was please to see that Microsoft have finally added the ability for Outlook to handle multiple Exchange Server accounts. Long overdue.

I used to hate Apple, don’t know why probably because I always though they ripped off consumers with expensive gear and to some extent still think they do particularly with iTunes music and iPod accessories which are far too expensive, but changed my tune (sorry) when I got my iPod Nano, it’s just brilliant. But I’m getting sick and tired of those TV ads “There’s An App For That”.

Recently the UK have been running iPhone ads stating that there’s an App which will allow you to switch off your house lights if you’ve left them on by mistake. Really and how does this pointless App work? First the good news the App is free but unfortunately the good news ends there. The bad news is that you’ll have to shell out some serious cash to get this thing up and running. Check out Rako for more information.

Factoring in the cost of the iPhone, monthly contract and all the other equipment it a rather expensive toy. As a cost comparison leaving a 60W bulb on all day for a year at a cost of £0.20 / KWH would cost in the region of £110. The mobile phone contract alone would cost about 3 times as much. No real comparison then, leaving your light on by mistake a few times isn’t going to break your bank unlike the real cost of the free iPhone App.