Not a car or a laptop.

No, this mini is the smallest mainstream desktop computer. The Apple Mac Mini with a 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 1GB RAM is a small cute box of a computer with everything you need except a monitor and keyboard. It runs Macintosh OS X 10.4 (a.k.a Tiger) and comes with Apple’s iLife ‘08 digital media productivity suite. The Mini includes a 120BG Hard drive, slot-loading DVD writer, integrated video card and built-in 802.11b and 802.11g wireless, Bluetooth 2.0. For expansion there are 4 USB ports and one Firewire port.

There is a new class of buyer for the Mac Mini: the Mac-less Apple iPhone Developer. With the required peripherals, the iPhone SDK (Software Developer’s Kit) and an upgrade to Apple Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard (as well as possibly an upgrade of the Mini’s RAM to 2GB), the Mac Mini becomes a development machine for the killer iPhone app a lot of developers are hoping to write..

Naturally the Mac Mini should not be confused with the iPod Mini which was the predecessor to the iPod Nano.

The Dell XPS M1730 Notebook is not quite back to school gear, unless money is really no object, and you don’t mind lugging a 10 pound plus notebook around.

The XPS M1730 is in the Desktop replacement category (7.5 pounds or more). This entertainment and gaming notebook is really well equipped, with an Intel Core 2 Duo Extreme X9000 processor running at 2.8GHz, which can be overclocked up to 3.4Ghz (this is according to Dell), 2GB RAM (upgradeable to 4GB), a choice of hard drives: a 400 GB RAID (2 x 200GB) 7200 rpm drive or a 128GB Solid State Drive. The screen is a 17 inch 1920 by 1200 pixel resolution active matrix display with a NVIDIA GeForce 8700MGT PCI Express x16 graphics card with 512MB of graphics memory (these are actually a dual graphics cards in a scalable link interface).

A 2 megapixel webcam with digital microphones is integrated above the screen for those important video conferences, or in-game chats. Keyboard illumination can be turned on for gaming in the dark.

Another great feature is Dell’s MediaDirect software, which allows you to play CDs and DVDs without booting the system.

There is also an optional Blu-Ray disc drive, with a choice of either a reader or a burner.

Although it is frowned on by some, I personally find Wikipedia quite a good source of reference material for my blogging. Of course I have to use common sense, and will try not to refer to an article that is just way off base. The rule of thumb of when in doubt check the references works fairly well.

Now Google has started a web-based encyclopedia-like service called “Knol”. Knol contains a number of knols. A knol is defined by Google as “a unit of knowledge” or “an authoritative article about a specific topic“. So far there seem to be a number of medical articles (some about medical conditions I’d rather not know about).

Now, personally I’m a fan of Google in that I Gmail and some of their other free software, both web-based and downloadable. This doesn’t mean that I think that everything that Google does is wonderful. In the case of Knol I’ll reserve judgment and continue to use Wikipedia while keeping an eye on Knol.

There seem to be varying views of Knol, from it being a possible Wikipedia killer “Google’s Knol Finally Goes Public. A Wikipedia Killer?” from InformationWeek’s Google Weblog, to it being “Wikipedia-for-cash” as Jack Schofield refers to it in his technology blog on the Guardian newspaper website.

Meanwhile you can pickup the “Encyclopedia Britannica 2008 Deluxe” DVD right here on Pricgrabber.com.

Databases, what can I say? Since getting drawn into computers and programming while using dBase III Plus, I’ve used many a database. Starting with the xBase family of databases (Clipper, FoxPro and others), then on to a mainframe hierarchical database I’d prefer not to name, then onto SQL.

For those who have not heard the term “xBase“, “xBase is the generic term for all programming languages that derive from the original dBASE (Ashton-Tate) programming language and database formats” according to this article in Wikipedia

One database I’ve worked with since version 1.0 was Microsoft Access. It is such an easy to use database it can be addictive in itself. I’ve often had to rewrite applications using Access as a database to use SQL Server. Otherwise Access is a good database management tool.

FileMaker is supposed to be the easiest database to use, but I haven’t had an opportunity to try it.

Then there are the big boys, the “SQL” Servers. Confusingly, only one is called “SQL Server”, and that is Microsoft SQL Server. The others are MySQL, Sybase SQL Anywhere, Oracle, PostgreSQl and DB2 (of course this is far from a complete list).

Naturally a database is preferable to a spreadsheet when the number of rows is more than 65k, or relationships are required.

Figures and charts, the things which warm the hearts of accountants and managers, these are the things in which Excel excels.

Excel is Microsoft’s spreadsheet, and users of other spreadsheets like Lotus 123 may well disagree that Excel is good.

To expand on my last blog entry, which had definitions of what spreadsheets and databases are and what they do, I’ll concentrate on spreadsheets.

Currently the top-selling commercial spreadsheet is Microsoft Excel. There are other spreadsheets available, like the aforementioned Lotus, or Calc, which is the spreadsheet program in the free OpenOffice.org office suite.

Although some of my first experience with computers revolved around databases, the first time I saw a spreadsheet I was really impressed at what it could do. Spreadsheets are easy to set up. It doesn’t take much to have a spreadsheet up and running to track or calculate small amounts of data. Often I use a spreadsheet just for tabular information which is going to be formatted and printed.

I’ve been trying to think of some rules of thumb as to when you should use a spreadsheet instead of a database. While researching this question I came across a very interesting article online called “Spreadsheet Addiction“, in which it is claimed that the overuse of spreadsheets is a major problem. It makes for interesting reading…

What is a spreadsheet and what is a database and what’s the difference? When would you use a database, and when would you use a spreadsheet? These are perplexing questions to the uninitiated.

One way to find out is to go on a general database course, then an Excel course. In the absence of that I’ll trying to explain the best I can…

The definition of a database from WhatIs.com is “A database is a collection of information that is organized so that it can easily be accessed, managed, and updated. In one view, databases can be classified according to types of content: bibliographic, full-text, numeric, and images.”

The Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing has a fairly good definition of a database:
“One or more large structured sets of persistent data, usually associated with software to update and query the data. A simple database might be a single file containing many records, each of which contains the same set of fields where each field is a certain fixed width. A database is one component of a database management system.”

The main point is that a database stores data, and software is required to retrieve the data from a database. Microsoft Access 2007 is a database.

The Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing also has a fairly good definition of a spreadsheet:
“A type of application program which manipulates numerical and string data in rows and columns of cells. The value in a cell can be calculated from a formula which can involve other cells. A value is recalculated automatically whenever a value on which it depends changes. Different cells may be displayed with different formats.”

Another simpler definition, from TekMom is “A spreadsheet is a document which helps you organize data in rows and columns of cells.”

So a spreadsheet contains data in columns and rows, as well as formulas which manipulate that data.

That’s right, I haven’t finished with the new Mobile Computing Platform yet, specifically software for this platform. The platform is available on the Apple iPod Touch, iPhone and iPhone 3G.

I was trying to find a reference to most of the Apple iPhone App store applications being priced around $9.99. Instead I came across the following interesting information. Developers cannot charge more than $999 for a single application, and the maximum size of a single application is 2GB (see Mobile Magazine.com). I’m trying to imagine an application which would run on the iPhone and cost $999, it would have to be a very specialized vertical market application.

According to Techcrunch.com, when “iPhone App Store launched last Friday” (Friday July 11, 2008) “along with the new 3G iPhone, free apps made up 24 percent of the 552 apps available“. The article is bemoaning the low availability of free (or freeware) applications, but that isn’t a bad percentage, considering that the majority of the applications seem to be priced at or below $9.99.

If you had to look at a website selling mobile applications for Windows Mobile or Palm, the prices would be generally higher, as these are more mature platforms. In the case of Palm, which is unfortunately in decline, a number of shareware (not free) applications have simply been discontinued.

Development for Palm devices has been in the doldrums for several years now. The success of the Palm Centro smartphone is relatively small in comparison with Palm’s previous market domination. Developers who could rewrote their software for Windows Mobile and other platforms. Developers of development software had a harder time, some of them closing shop altogether.

Now the Apple iPhone/Touch has become a platform worth targeting for mobile applications. With 6 million first generation and 1 million 3G iPhones shipped it is already a customer base to be reckoned with.

There is a catch though. Although the iPhone SDK (Software Developer’s Kit) costs $99 a year, there is another cost. The SDK requires an Intel Mac running Mac OS X Leopard. For software developers who have been focusing on Palm and Windows Mobile development, this almost certainly means buying new hardware. Fortunately with Boot Camp (included with Apple Inc.’s Mac OS X v10.5) developer’s can dual boot their Mac’s into Windows XP or Vista, which makes it more of a multi-purpose development machine. Parallels Desktop for Mac allows running of Windows XP or Vista in a window on a Mac.

There are a couple of companies which have announced software for the iPhone. They already have their software running on numerous other mobile platforms.

This weekend I upgraded, or rather, replaced my current wireless-G (802.11b/g) router. The old router was acting up, the wireless would suddenly drop even though the status light showed that it was supposed to be on. To get it working again I had to turn it off and then on again. Also, one of the wired Ethernet ports was giving intermittent trouble, sometimes just not working. I’d had the router for a little over two years, and had bought it to replace an old (802.11b) router. The router was asking to be replaced or at least trashed.

Since networking really isn’t my specialty, I spoke to an acquaintance at work to find out more about hubs and printer servers. I had to start with a solid wireless router though, and he recommended that I get a Linksys router (no model was mentioned). He probably meant the predecessor to the Linksys WRT54G2 Wireless Router that was on special at a local retail chain. After reading up about it - several user and expert reviews, mainly positive, I purchased the router. It was easy to setup, with a step-by-step installation. It is also faster than my previous wireless-G router, this through a wired Ethernet connection. My next challenge - which would have to wait until another weekend, is to add a print server.

Dell has a new line of notebooks, the Dell Studio. The line fits between the budget Dell Inspiron line of laptops and the high-end Dell XPS. It first caught my eye in a catalog with cool designs and a range of colors. The Studio line offers more personalization options (colors and graphic imprints) than Dell’s other laptops That is important in a laptop (I guess!). The specifications aren’t bad either.

The Dell Studio comes with two screen sizes – the Dell Studio 15 with 15.4 inch screens, and the Dell Studio 17 with 17 inch screens. I’ll concentrate on the more portable Studio 15. which weighs in at 6 pounds plus.

The Studio line features Intel Core 2 Duo Processors up to 2.5GHz, with a maximum of 4 GB of RAM, and hard drives with capacities up to 320GB. A biometric fingerprint reader appears to be standard. The Studio has a slot-loading optical drive and an Express Card slot that doubles as a holder for a small media remote. It also has a built-in 2.0 Megapixel webcam. The optical drive can be upgraded to a Blu-Ray drive, and the notebook has HDMI output to connect to a HDTV.

The Operating System is a choice of either Windows Vista Home Premium or Vista Ultimate Edition (I guess you can’t have it all).