Mac or PC like PS3 or Xbox 360?

Browsing in Bath on Monday sparked off the conversation of “What’s next?” for the next big upgrade. I have a PS3, Xbox 360, oldish gaming PC, netbook, iPad and iPhone. Consoles are easy to upgrade, there isn’t that much choice or diversity and apart from mini-upgrades for a few additional perks, upgrades are from one generation to the next. That leaves me with my shabby gaming PC, iPad and netbook. I’m not upgrading just yet as there’s some improvements waiting to happen: Adding accessories: I keep meaning to get that bluetooth wireless headset to replace my Razer wired headset. Forward planning: Keep items charged so I don’t have to get entangled in power cables. Hack a little more: The next Ikea trip is for a angled or pullout shelf to resolve my mouse/keyboard issues. Eventually though, I have to upgrade. To what? This brings me back to the Apple store I was dragged into.

Chris managed to convince me that thinking about a Mac Air as a replacement for the iPad, netbook and desktop PC is the best option and I can’t quibble about cost as it would work out the same in cost and is a better alternative than upgrading all three individually.  I am starting to feel like I’m half-bionic with all the screens and wires that surround me constantly and reducing to one portable item has great appeal. He recommends the 11″ screen; I currently have an 11″ netbook and the screen frustrates me greatly. The text is either so small I can’t read it or all I see are banners and titles and have to scroll constantly with the added issues of popup boxes that cannot move being off-screen leaving me stuck not able to even see the accept/decline buttons at the bottom. The 13″ would be more my style, but I’m not sure. If I could afford the 17″ MacBook Pro, I’d be in heaven, quadcore processor, good size screen and all the power and a bit more on top. However, that’s not going to happen. So we’re back to gaming PC + iPad vs Mac Air.

Playing around with tech I do not own and spending time over a coffee discussing what’s available at the moment and how it would suit my gaming habits made me think about the stuff I don’t usually think about; when is a good time to start thinking about the next big upgrade? If I choose a Mac will I be able to shift my PC games over easily or are there still a lot of games that are PC only; i.e. will I end up having to get a gaming PC anyway? If I get a MacAir will copyright issues hit me when I can’t keep the DVD in the drive as there is no drive? I could mount a virtual drive, but do I want the added complexity of that? What happens to my substantial Steam library? Steam now supports cross-platform PC/Mac gaming, but I’ve never really checked if this applies retrospectively and to how many games it really does apply.

Is the Mac or PC issue the same as the Xbox 360 or PS3 issue, which ends up at you have to have both or you’ll miss out on some very cool content. I can’t imagine not playing Gears or Halo and I love the Uncharted series enough that I bought a PS3 especially for it. Is there any PC only games that I love that much? I think Mac or PC is still a valid choice, nothing significant on a Mac is not either iOS or PC based that I can of and think the fact that I can emulate Windows on a Mac if I do get stuck without a Mac version, makes it a moot point. I wanted my next big upgrade to be a build-at-home-project state of the art gaming PC, now, I think a Mac Air would be a better investment of time and money, but I’m still not sure.

I think it’s great to browse and talk about tech even when you’re not actively shopping; it makes me think about hardware when usually, the only time I think about hardware is when it’s broken or a new hot item is featured in tech news. I don’t think there’s any exclusivity any more when it comes to PC vs Mac; you either love the diversity and flexibility of a PC which you can customize or you love the reliability, simplicity and exquisite design that Apple brings to their products. I’m not a tinkerer and the way the pieces fit together is greatly appealing to me when it comes to Apple products and if I’m comparing Apple laptop to gaming PC, price really doesn’t factor into it; despite my initial first objection that Apple is expensive. I’m not a PC gamer, but I do some PC gaming; for that, I think a Mac will work out just fine.

Net connection issues

We have a 100MB net connection that today is running erratically; fine one second at 60MB and then dropping to 0.1MB the next, which doesn’t make for reliable anything. In this day and age of on-line gaming, its really bugging me. I don’t mind not being online as I mind the messages. Whatever I seem to try and play, if there is an offline gaming option at all, its drenched in “you’re not connected, your score will not be recorded” type of messages. I know I’m offline! It’s bugging me already and if I didn’t know, one message to inform me would suffice. I cannot play a game if every three seconds my game is paused and a big popup appears to tell me that I’m no longer connected to X-box Live. I know! And right now I don’t care! I care about the incoming wave that keeps blowing me up because I can’t play when the game pauses constantly.

We got a new car yesterday. After 20 weeks of having received funding and just waiting for it to be built and delivered, it’s been a very pleasant upgrade to the old car. I’m in receipt of high rate of the mobility component of DLA, which we’re using to participate in the Motability scheme. The first Motability car was amazing and without the scheme, we wouldn’t have had a car, ours broke down irreperable 2 weeks prior to receiving the new car and we did not have the finances to purchase one ourselves. It was however, a bit too small for baby, stroller, 2-4 adults and a manual wheelchair. So we were upgraded, thanks to an amazing grant and received a brand new Renault van that will comfortably take my electric wheelchair, the baby, her stuff, my stuff as well as 4 adults. Woohoo! Good thing too as it was a crisp sunny winter’s day, perfect to take her for a spin and with no net connection, I really didn’t have any temptation to stay in.

Virgin says the issues should be fixed by Sunday, so a weekend without decent connectivity which is making me realise how much we rely on our connection and technology in general. They really tried to make the van perfect for us. There’s attachments for a baby seat, a specially fitted seatbelt for the little one’s stroller to be strapped in and bonus on bonus, they added a bluetooth built-in headset and speakers in the back. At home, nothing works. We sat down for breakfast and no tech news from twit.tv to start the day,  it’s continuously buffering. We watched a documentary on alien invasion over dinner, how desperate can one get. I’m ecstatic that at least its perked up enough for me to stream some music for a grumpy baby via Spotify as my music is all cloud based and write some text for the blog. As long as it’s fixed by boxing day, I’m okay with it. Please be okay by Sunday though, I really miss my life.

PS Trying to add an image, but like last night, my net connection will not allow it and neither will my always dodgy because I live on Salisbury plain 3G connection and so, images of new car to follow…

Help my 360 isn’t working!

And that’s before installing the new Dashboard. It was working fine yesterday, turned it on this morning and blue screen. (It is rather unfortunate that my TV has a bright blue screen whenever nothing is displayed on that channel). We’ve tried all the usual quick fixes: checked connections, checked cables and then started swapping – two TV’s and 2 Xbox’s (one from the Iron Age, but still in working order) allows for quite a few options and we’re in luck, my Xbox works just fine on the dining room TV. It does leave me with the enigma of why my Xbox 360 is not working. The TV works, the 360 works, the cable works, yet the 360 connected to this TV doesn’t work. Puzzling.

EDIT: We’ve managed to get it working by unplugging the Venom Twin Charging Cradle. I’ve had the cradle for as long as I’ve had my Xbox and the last few months its a been a bit dodgy; first it would only accept one controller (the second red light would just flash and second controller wouldn’t charge), then the back charging port failed completely and then the front started working sporadically, so something’s up there. I have no idea how this links in to my issue, but since we’ve unplugged it’ 360, HDMI cable and TV are working in perfect harmony.

Aside: Dining Room is still a work in progress having lived here less than a month with no furniture that fits in it. Pictured above, complete with no curtains/blind for that window just yet. The idea is to replace the white Ikea Antonius storage units with a standing desk in a dark stained wood (unit height needed 106 cm which is turning out to be very difficult to source) as the new dining room table (an early Christmas present) is Cherry wood.