Toms View of the World

Yes, I’m giving into pressure (yes Dave and Dave, I’m talking about you) and writing a post about the current weather here in Cardiff…

When I got up this morning, and faced with the prospect of scraping snow off the car and driving in treacherous, slippery conditions on ungritted local roads (yes, they only gritted the main roads - the less used local roads weren’t gritted) - I decided that I just couldn’t be bothered with it all, and donned my decent boots and walked in. Very pleasant it was too, footpaths through snow covered parks, pristine and white before the schoolkids get to it and throw it at each other…

On arriving at work, it became clear they’d not bothered gritting the carpark, making me even more glad I hadn’t battled the traffic…

Now if I can muster the enthusiasm to walk in when it isn’t less hassle than driving, I might make some progress on that graph over on the right…

Much has been said recently about Microsoft’s new OS - Windows Vista, however why is it so expensive over here in the UK - in the USA (from Amazon.com) the upgrade edition to Vista Home Premium is $153 with free shipping (around £78 at todays exchange rate, but they won’t ship it to the UK) however to buy the same package over here from Amazon’s UK site, costs £135 (Amazon.co.uk) an astonishing £57 more for exactly the same thing.

Why is Vista Upgrade around 75% more expensive in the UK than in the US? Microsoft wonder why people pirate their OS’s - with this kind of pricing imbalance, I’m not surprised.

I know if I shopped around, I could probably find that upgrade package cheaper in the UK - but not by much… and major retail stores are pretty much charging “dollar for pound” conversions - a well known computer retail chain in the UK is selling the package for £150!