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  Facebook is getting upset with Apple. The new update going to Apple iphones and ipads this autumn will bring in new privacy features. Apple has been using privacy as a key differentiator of it's smartphones for some time. It has told the FBI that it can't hack it's own encryption. It says that it's imessage service is end to end encrypted. It has biometric access to devices via touch id or face id. This is in contrast to Google's Android where you do a deal with Google that for free services your data is used to deliver advertising. Facebook adopts the same model. Your data is provided to advertisers. The Facebook app on smartphones tracks you. So if you have been searching the web for a new pair of trousers you suddenly find that Facebook is sending you deals for trousers on your feed. Tracking means that Facebook can tell advertisers what you are interested in. Its creepy and amazing simultaneously.  With IOS 14 for the iphone each app will ask you if you want

  Sometimes an idea just hits you. I was scrolling through Ebay for no particular reason. With most browsing the aimlessness causes you to head off into various unexpected rabbit holes. On this day it became a list of Apple MacBooks . MacBooks are expensive. Although the word expensive is based on the sort of PCs most people buy. A premium Windows based laptop can easily cost the same as a Mac. Nevertheless most potential purchasers reach for a credit agreement or look at their bank balance before laying out cash for an Apple. Apple is a consumer brand. Ebay is the destination for bargain hunters. A bargain being a low price for the highest specification possible. Matching the aspiration of high quality and low price being the buyer's challenge. The other challenge is avoiding those offers that are too good to be true, scams and counterfeits.  What I saw was a reduced price MacBook. The previous week I had spotted it at £249. This week it was well below £200. The Mac was close to

Microsoft Office comes in several flavours. You can still buy a license for one PC . However, Microsoft would like you to buy a subscription.  The single PC license still exits. It lets you use the Office applications on one PC. That's it. If your PC ends it's life so does your license. This is how many people used Office applications at home. They bought a copy of Office, usually at a discount, when they bought a PC. It got to the point where retailers just added in the cost and people assumed that Office applications were part of Windows. That was both good and bad. If consumers kept their PC for 5 years they never paid Microsoft any more cash. They also didn't get any enhancements from later versions. Suddenly they might get an Excel spreadsheet or a Word file with gibberish in the middle. A sign that a later version inserted a new type of data.  A single PC license would cost quite a bit but it lasted for years. Students got lower prices that hooked them in to Office ap