Apple are now giving away snow leopard to Mobile Me (and iCloud) customers. If you have a MobileMe account and want a free update from earlier versions then login and grab one http://www.me.com/snow-leopard. Its still on the Apple Store US for 29$ and then makes Lion upgrades only £20. More importantly you’ll need the App Store to do the update as a personal user, this means yoou have to have Snow Leopard with all your updates installed.

The Guru formally called Graham

In the last few months I had already thought how apple could better themselves. They have come up with some of the most cutting edge, functional, useful and most important pretty devices in the it world but where do they go next?
Faster processors, more memory, bigger (or smaller) where appropriate but where will the product ideas come from? The iPad was ground breaking and almost single handed created the tablet market and glued us to even more content wherever we are.

I suppose in a way the iPhone 4s and iPad 3, sorry iPad 3rd generation is the answer. Not very far … They can adjust the size, increases the options but the idea was ground-breaking, and regurgitating it isn’t. It couldn’t have come at a worse time for apple as they lost their illustrious leader Steve Jobs. The rumour mill went wild and Internet blogs started blaming the move on Tim Cook as he picked up the can from Jobs. It appeared a new leader took over and the ingenuity of the company disappeared. In truth the release cycle was probably contributed to by Jobs before he passed away as they are set months/years in advance. Think back to Newton, the iPads older brother.

This particular upgrade was on the gfx and comms front. The trouble with that is how many people need the level of detail provided by the screen? How many of us will actually edit videos and pictures on out iPads when we own desktop/laptops, not that many I imagine. I also hail from a publishing background specifically images and although the new iPad makes pictures look BEAUTIFUL to the untrained eye I’m not sure they would notice.

All in keep your iPad 2 until they get a quad core a6, more ram and the inevitable merger or iOS and Mac OS X. I think you might be disappointed in the upgrade. It’s like going for, a 2-2.2L car you will not get what you expected for the money.

The Guru formally called Graham

We talked to Lance Beecheno a Director at SupportPlan to discuss the impact of the 2012 Olympics on IT in general and tip on how to prepare:

Beecheno says: The impact of the Olympics means different things to different people.
Most are excited and some naturally, are concerned at the prospect of 10 million visitors descending upon London.  As 27 out of the 37 Olympic venues are in London, that’s where the major impact will be.

Last year we attended a Government workshop in preparation for the big event and the predicted disruption was startling. Affecting:  transport, speed and connectivity to the Internet, mobile communications not to mention pressure on electrical power demand.

Workers with slow internet connections or those who plan to work from home and live in areas of high usage could very well struggle.

How companies reliant on IT can plan?

Attend a Government course for an initial flavour of what to expect, plan staff travel to avoid commuting at peak times & contact their IT company.

How SupportPlan can help:

SupportPlan alerted every customer on the potential impacts and contingency solutions. Including: Home working, Internet “Fail Over”, temporary ADSL, Mobile email, Cloud support, Server backup & redundancy.

What’s unique about SupportPlan?

SupportPlan specialises in providing day to day and high end support solutions to cross platform creative environments, be they design, media or corporate marketing departments.

With over 20 years experience servicing clients across many sectors, our staffs are highly skilled. They attend monthly courses and care passionately about our clients.

We are truly customer focused. We employ a dedicated Customer Service Manager which is very rare in our field and he ensures that client needs are listened to and met.

SupportPlan doesn’t employ any sales people. Most of our business comes from referrals, highlighting what our customers really think of us.