Bumper Sticker Monday (it's the holidays...)

Listening to...

I was recently introduced to the music of Andy MCKee, and have been extolling his musical virtuosity to friends, at every opportunity.

Well, I have again been introduced to another fine guitarist, 0ne Erik Mongrain. Using the miracle that is the interwebnetland, I could track down his latest album, "Fates", on iTunes, buy it and have it playing on my iPod without even having to leave my chair. The whole album is a pleasure to listen to but the stand out track for me is "Airtap!"

Here is a video of him playing this very song on YouTube...

Bumper Sticker Wednesday

Houston Texas toilet...

You have to be confident that this one way glass really is one way if you use this public convenience....

Isn't it...

These sketches in the current series of Armstrong & Miller are such a good parody of the youth of today - I was stood in a queue today and there were two teenage lads behind me talking like this.

More worrying, I am told that they write this way too....

Bumper Sticker Wednesday

Fuel price protests again?...

The price across the UK for unleaded fuel has finally topped the £1 a litre mark. It has been that for diesel for a few weeks now, and in some areas unleaded had already exceeded the £1 mark, but with the price for a barrel of oil reaching $97 unleaded has caught up.

£1 a litre - that's £4.54 a gallon (almost $9.50).

Out of that £1/litre VAT takes 14.9p, duty 50.4p, production and delivery about 31p and the retailer gets about 4p.

Seems like we might be seeing the masses actually rising up again. The latest 'pressure group' Transaction-2007 have announced protests for 15th December 2007. Why do I get the feeling that any attempts by them to blockade refineries will find their way blockaded by the boys in blue?

Hopefully this will remind the UK motorist once again that they are being ripped off at the pumps by this government.

More fuel us eh?.......

Pixelmator 1.1 Kitten

Pixelmator have released 1.1 Kitten and I have downloaded the trial version.

It certainly seems more stable than the previous version I tried recently.

No more spinning beachball or other bugs from what I can see.

Fingers crossed that this will do all the things I expected Photoshop Elements to do on my iMac or could do, until I installed Leopard...

Bumper Sticker Wednesday

Wot no urchins?

Went to a Dickensian style Christmas market yesterday. Not sure what I expected but it was just like the normal market with the stall holders wearing Victorian costumes.

Did I expect to see barefoot street urchins picking a pocket or two? Fagin like characters lurking in the shadows?

Soot blackened young boys with a chimney sweep looking for a flue to clean?

Musical pins

Seems my little map widget has decided that it would move the 'pins' around a bit in the space of a few minutes. One minute it looked like the image above then it was all change!

The image above was taken on the 28th November and as expected the UK has a fair cluster (me, obviously) but some locations have now disappeared and others have taken their place.

Amung new locations are Chaoyang CN, Ulaanbaatar MN, Brasil and Warsaw PL. Compare the current widget locations to the screenshot and you'll see the difference.

Pleasanton in California has the biggest number of visitors (44). I wonder if this map belongs to someone from there?

So, have I got someone else's widget?

Have you got mine? 

If so can I have mine back please?..... 

New Media Douchebags

Having seen this video on YouTube, I have to say the nail has been hit squarely on it's head.





I'll say no more for now....

(Thanks, J)

One...

PPX has existed for a whole month today.

A small milestone but thought it worthy of a small celebration.

Oh, and "Pinch Punch..."

Bumper Sticker Wednesday

UK iPhone sales...

Wonder if the claims, reported by MacWorld UK, that just 26,500 iPhone activations have taken place in the UK since the device launched, are true? If so, this will put sales way below the hundreds of thousands of sales predicted by O2 chief executive, Matthew Key - what sales did he anticipate? 200,000 in two months?

Apple apparently dismissed these reports as "pure speculation".

Well they would, wouldn't they?....


While on this subject MacWorld UK also mentions the deal with T-Mobile in Germany and how unblocked iPhones will be sold -

The phones aren't unlocked at point of purchase - the unique IMEI code is sent to Apple and registered on the company's database, once that's done the device can be unlocked using iTunes.

Full story

Coffee please...

Now while I am no coffee connoisseur, I enjoy a nice cup of the black stuff (with milk...).

While my usual haunts are Costa or Starbucks (stop booing at the back) I have to admit of late my lattes have been homebrewed.

Ever since I was given a Bialetti stove top espresso maker, coffee from the usual places just doesn't taste as good. I have started to use the pre ground Illy Decaf for my home brew and along with the Aerolatte milk frother I am turning into a veritable Barista!

Of all the gadgety coffee making devices that have cluttered the kitchen the Bialetti is the only one to have been in almost constant use.

If you have never tried one of these give it a go. The 'single shot' version is small enough not to need too much cupboard space and is ideal for just one cup of anything coffee based.

Phurborgsake...

What is it with people who walk around with Bluetooth headsets stuffed into their ears, looking like they have just been assimilated by the Borg?

I am all for using them when driving ( now I have a BT phone, I use one) but I would feel a complete idiot walking around town with one in.

I guess my life is just not hectic enough that I am taking calls every five minutes, so maybe I just don't understand the hassle in reaching into a coat pocket to take the phone out.

Mind you I am usually plugged into my iPod.

Oh dear, am I being a tad hypocritical?........

*I should have posted an image of a BT headset but I'll take any opportunity to post a pic of the lovely Jeri "7of9" Ryan...

iPhone UK reception problems

Noted over on Apple Discussion forums is a thread about UK iPhone users reporting poor reception on their iPhones.

Guess the coverage just for normal service isn't up to the 30% EDGE coverage that O2 currently have in the UK....

Still beats me why Apple went with the one company in the UK with no/low EDGE infrastructure in place....

Addiction?

61%How Addicted to Apple Are You?

Took this test after spotting it on another blog....

Pixelmator

Having discovered that I can no longer use my copy of Adobe Photoshop Elements, now that I have installed Leopard, I have been using ArcSoft Photo Studio 4 which came bundled with a Canon scanner.
This is not a Leopard compatible piece of software but it works fine starting almost immediately when I need it.

Today I read about Pixelmator in this months issue of iCreate and also in the latest MacFormat mag. It seemed to get reasonable reviews with comparisons to Photoshop being mentioned.

Further reading online threw up such praise as "The UI is snappy and seems to retain none of the quirks or bugs from the early days" (arstechnica) and "Total Photoshop Killer" (Crunchgear) to "From what I see here, I can definitely say 'wow'" (TUAW) I thought I would give Pixelmator a spin.

Unfortunately the only thing to really get a spin was the beachball. After downloading and installing the latest release, 1.0.2, and opting for the trial version, I tried to open a small 356KB image. After two attempts to start Pixelmator it finally opened although trying to open the image caused the program to hang with the spinning beachball for a good 30 seconds before anything happened. Trying to use any edit tool would also be very slow to actually 'catch up' with what I was trying to achieve.

In the end I was just waiting for the program to actually do what I wanted it to do. Hardly the "Photoshop Killer"!

While the developers are supposed to be releasing a 'true' Leopard compatible version called Pixelmator 1.1 Kitten, this current version did not like my G5 iMac (1.5GB RAM) so I have now uninstalled it.

Back to the drawing board....

Happy Thanksgiving...

...though of course we celebrate Thanksgiving on the 6th of September!!


A few years ago, an American and a British journalist were discussing Thanksgiving on a British radio program.
The American asked if Thanksgiving was celebrated in the UK.

"Yes," the British journalist replied, "but we celebrate it on the 6th of September."

"Why then?"

"That's when you chaps left."


6 September 1620 – The Pilgrims sail from Plymouth, England, on the Mayflower to settle in North America....

Bumper Sticker Wednesday

Internet nearly 'full'...

Maybe the prospect of actually reading this is not so far away?...




"Consumer and corporate use of the internet could overload the current capacity and lead to brown-outs in two years unless backbone providers invest billions of dollars in new infrastructure, according to a study released Monday."

MacWorld.co.uk

V v T

So Vodafone has sued T-Mobile over the recent deal between Apple and T-Mobile to sell the iPhone exclusively on the T-Mobile network.

Some might see this as just another legal battle.

Is it about the right to buy an unlocked iPhone to use, without it being crippled at the first software update, on the carrier of the buyers choice?

In Europe they have laws about companies using restrictive practices.

Hard as it is to say this, I applaud the French for standing up to Apple and demanding that they also sell unlocked iPhones.

Though how many they will sell when Apple inflates the price to double the price paid for one on the Orange network I'm not sure.

And how will Apple get around updating iPhones on the Orange network? Are they going to say to owners of non-Orange iPhones that they will not get updates?

How many iPhones did Apple estimate were sold with the intention of unlocking? 250,000?

Maybe Apple has underestimated the market in Europe.

And why has it taken so long for the iPhone to appear in Canada? Hardly a world away from the US but they have not had any indication as to when Apple will launch the iPhone there.

And I do realise that the networks are doing this for one reason and it's not standing up for their customers - but for once maybe the customers might just benefit if they want to buy an unlocked iPhone to use on the network of their choice.

update:
So T-Mobile have now offered to sell unlocked iPhones for.......

...€999!!!!

Come on T-Mobile - you could have at least rounded it up to €1000.

€999 equates to $1465 or £714 (at current rates). That's crazy money for a phone.

Even for the iPhone....

And maybe one of these...

...just in case global whining warming means that sea levels do rise...

Seasight Cubo 135

Want one...

I want one of these....

Volkner Performance

Somedays...

...I wonder why I bother to get out of bed.


Things that have gripped my shit today...

Old people driving slowly, then indicating left, taking the right turn lane, then turning left...

Taxi driver who decided that he had right of way at the roundabout when I was actually already negotiating the roundabout...

Old man driving car, doing U turn with windows steamed up, so he could not see out...

Arrogant twat trying to pull out into my path then giving me the finger...

PPX...

iPod touch Jailbreak

Spent a few hours today jailbreaking my iPod touch. All in all a fairly easy process and I have now installed Google Maps, Notes, Mail and Weather. I may install Apollo or MobileChat yet but we'll see...

Last week I signed up to "The Cloud" on their £3.99 a month rate for iPod touch users. Have had the chance to use their service a couple of times now - my iPod touch is recognised right away and joins without having to login. Will I stay on this package? I'll give it a few months to see how much real use I get out of it first - at least I am not tied into a 12 or 18 month contract.

Some will probably say just get an iPhone but I'm not prepared to be tied into an 18 month contract and fork out £630 for the pleasure.

20/11/07
Gave up with the attempts to get Apollo or MobileChat to work - they installed OK but after I would log into my AIM account the program would just close and take me back to the springboard. Guess I'll stick with Meebo for now...

A Victor Meldrew* moment...

I had arranged to meet someone for a quick coffee today and on the way I stopped to get some cash from an ATM. There was a queue at the external machine so I nipped into the bank to use the ATM inside. There was this man paying in cheques one at a time into the machine and just as I thought he had finished, he'd start with another one.
The clock was ticking and my coffee time was getting nearer. I gave up, sensing this guy was going to be some time and went back out to the external ATM, only to be beaten to it by a little old lady.
She was dithering about trying to get her card in and follow the instructions on screen and still the clock ticked away. My patience was beginning to fray and I could feel myself muttering under my breath.

As my patience was about to snap I looked over my shoulder and saw Death walking towards me - it was the Grim Reaper, clad all in black with no face and carrying a scythe.
I thought he had come for me - he walked on by and into the bank. Was he making a deposit or withdrawal? Had he come for the 'cheque man'? WTF was going on?

Then it clicked - it's Children in Need day today and I suddenly noticed others dressed in various costumes. Good job the little old lady was so engrossed in trying to get her money from the ATM otherwise, if she had looked up, it might have been time to practice my knowledge of First Aid!.........

*Victor Meldrew

Griffin Evolve

It's here!

The Griffin Evolve Wireless Speaker System for iPod arrived today.

As this is a US version I had to rummage around to find a suitable lead to connect the AC to the power adaptor - in the end I used the power lead off my PC as a temporary make-do.
It's typical - I had a box full of old leads which I know had at least three of the 3 pin IEC 'kettle' style leads in. I threw them all out a while back. I expected Griffin to perhaps use the "Telefunken" figure 8 style of socket on the power adaptor...... wrong!

The unit is very easy to set up and after a recommended four hour initial charge time for the speakers they were soon being carried around the house to try out. The volume from the unit is not wall shakingly loud but maintains a clear sound even at it's loudest setting. Bass is not too heavy (which is my preference) and with various genres of music the Evolve seems to perform very well.

The unit shipped without an included dock adaptor for the iPod touch but, with a spare set of black dock masking films from a JBL On Stage in my oddments box, the Apple universal dock adaptor supplied with the touch will do until Griffin starts to ship their own adaptors for the touch.

The RF remote works well through several walls and the speaker (in mono mode) was still clear even at 80-100 feet from the base station. As my rear garden is 80 odd feet long the range of the Evolve is more than adequate.

Overall I am very pleased with the Evolve - I envisage getting a lot of use out of it and would certainly say if you want a wireless speaker system for your iPod for use all around the home/garden then the Evolve may fill your requirements.

Nice one Griffin...

(Thanks, C&J)

London Olympic logo

Can't look at the logo for the 2012 London Olympics now without thinking of this version...

Someone mentioned something about Lisa Simpson...

Bumper Sticker Wednesday

Gadget clothes

OK, enough is enough.

Will you please stop producing bloody hoodies for iPods. It is pathetic. And people who buy them are pathetic too. It is an MP3 player not a chuffin' doll.

If you want to buy dolls clothes, GET A DOLL!!!

What is worse is the company producing these iPod 'cases' is British. We may have invented computers, the interwebnetland and even been responsible for some of Apple's best designs but why, oh why, did some "entrepreneur" think that a line of clothing for the iPod was a good idea?

Amongst all the great innovations that the UK has given the world this is not one of the best.
I hate them.

Loathe them...

Beard Papa

A while back I discovered a sweet treat in the shape of the Vanilla Cream Puffs, from a Japanese chain of pastry stores called "Beard Papa". This was while I was in San Francisco - there was a store just round the corner from my hotel.

Then, while in Singapore I introduced my wife to them and she was hooked as well. There was an outlet near our hotel.

Now it seems there has been a Beard Papa in London for almost a year - on Oxford Street.

Now I have an excuse to travel into London!

Beard Papa UK

(Thanks J)

iPhone arrives in UK

Called by my local O2 store this evening for the launch of the Apple iPhone and to get my hands on one to at least try it out.
Out of the 30 or so people in the line there were a good number of Japanese teenagers. Were they hoping to get their hands on the iPhone before they flew home?

Almost everyone headed for the tills without even bothering to play with the half dozen iPhones set out for trying. They seemed to have made their minds up to actually buy the iPhone.

Noted that in the Carphone Warehouse store the display models were all 4GB capacity iPhones. Has Apple shipped all the discontinued 4GB'rs to the UK (and Europe) for use as display models?....

Not going to get one - impressed as I am with it now I have held one in the flesh the capacity at 8GB is too small, the tariff too expensive and lack of 3G makes it too slow.

BBC Reviews iPhone....

I will wait for the iPhone 2...

iPod touch

I wavered, then I gave in, but I am finding the touch has been used quite a bit since I got it.
It is great in the car - I use it with the Griffin iTrip Auto and a ProClip mount (originally for the 4G iPod) and find the touch is just a lot easier to use while driving.

Figured out that even though the ability to write notes was removed, if I create a new contact in my Address Book (I named it "Touch Notes") and synced my address book, I now have the ability to add notes to my touch by looking up "Touch Notes" and editing the 'Notes' section. It's a workaround until Apple decides to add Notes to the iPod touch.

I am still trying to decide whether to take out the £3.99 monthly subscription to the wi-fi service provided by The Cloud.

And tomorrow sees the launch of the Apple iPhone - wonder if we'll see the queues they had in the US?

update: MacWorld reports that 2 people have started the queue outside the Regent Street Apple Store. If they are standing side by side is that still a queue?
Link to story

Bumper Sticker Wednesday

Lacie d2 Quadra 500GB

With Time Machine being part and parcel of Leopard and my existing Lacie hard drive having insufficient space to allow me to use Time Machine, I asked for an early Xmas present, and I picked up a 500GB d2 hard drive today.

I had a problem with the original 160GB Lacie P2 'Design By Porsche' a few months ago. It died on me.
As it was out of it's warranty I got a new enclosure to see if the power management had died (I'd tested the AC power supply by now). It had - the drive mounted and I was able to access the contents. It has been used since although it doesn't go go onto standby as it did previously.

So, fill your boots Time Machine...

Walk a mile...

While trying to find the origins of the "life is like an ashtray, it is full of little doubts", I searched for the quote by Billy Connolly as I seem to recall him using it.
I didn't find that specific quote but a few others did pop up. I quite like this one -

Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes. After that, who cares? ...He's a mile away and you've got his shoes.

Life is like an ashtray...

...it is full of little doubts.

Not sure about life, but the streets are slowing filling up with discarded cigarette butts. Is it my imagination or are smokers so ignorant that they can't be arsed to take their fag ends to the nearest bin?

I am only too happy to be able to sit in a pub or restaurant and enjoy a meal without second hand smoke drifting over from an adjoining table - but now you have to wade through a veritable snowdrift of discarded dog ends outside these places.

Wear trousers with turn-ups and you could be taking some home!

It's all very good forcing smokers outside to light up and shorten their life-spans but how about ensuring that the place they have to stand outside supplies them with a suitable bin to stub out their tobacco product of choice?

I spotted some boards recently attached to lamp posts/sign posts in my local town to encourage gum chewers to stick their used gum to. It even added an element of fun by featuring a target on the boards. Maybe the same needs to be done for smokers?

...and relax

The issues with my external hard drive seem to have been resolved. No further kernel panics and 10.5 seems to be stable now.

Things I am not too keen on? The 3D mirror effect on the Dock is one, but that can be 'turned off' if I feel the need.

All I have to do is to open the Terminal and type this -

defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES; killall Dock

To restore the 3D dock change YES to NO.

I tried the Screen Sharing in iChat today with someone in Canada (someone I know I hasten to add) and we had data transfer error messages at both attempts - guess the distance didn't help...

10.5 Panic...

I have been seeing this a few times today - installing 10.5 seemed to go smoothly enough and nothing appears to have been lost in the process but with my iTunes library backed up on an external hard drive there seems to be a problem.

Every time I tried to load the library it would induce a kernel panic. Five times in fact. I have stopped trying to load the iTunes library for now and there hasn't been a repeat.

Add to this the fact that Photoshop Elements 2 is now borked - "An unexpected and unrecoverable problem has occured because of a program error. Photoshop will now exit"...

I am beginning to wonder if the fluff and glitter of Leopard is worth it...

update: I moved the external HD to another USB port and it seems to have stopped that particular kernel panic. I now have back my iTunes library. Wonder what tomorrow will bring...

10.5 Leopard

Called in my 'local' Apple Store this afternoon on the way back from the airport and picked up 10.5 Leopard.
Just making sure I have backed everything up before I install it.

Fingers crossed for a trouble free move from Tigger......


update: Think I have saved all I need to and the install is under way as I type (on my trusty G3 iBook) - the G5 iMac is the one getting the 'makeover'.

Fireworks

So, here we are approaching the 5th of November and it gets dark around about 6.30pm but the village idiots insist on waiting until 10pm to set off fireworks.

The dog is hard of hearing these days so tends to sleep through the annual re-enactment of the artillery barrage on the Somme, which is a blessing.

I have come to hate fireworks. And I hate the twats who let them off.

Sooner the sale of fireworks to the general public is stopped the better......

Griffin Evolve Wireless System

I was quite impressed with the Griffin Evolve when I saw it at MacWorld in January this year. The concept of the wireless cube speakers was different enough from the run of the mill speaker systems being churned out for the Apple iPod to make me think that I might actually find it useful.
The ability to just use one of the speakers with both left and right channel streamed in mono was also unique (AFAIK).
Well Griffin have at last launched this system and hopefully within the next couple of weeks I should get my hands on one.

With a good exchange rate (for me at least) it seems like a good time to get one.

Griffin Evolve

Wallet haters unite.

Something I wouldn't be without now is my Jimi - "the wallet for people who hate wallets".

I was introduced to this 'front pocket wallet' a couple of years ago and have used one ever since.

It has withstood daily use and I think I can actually carry a couple of cards more than it is meant to. The 'hinge' has stood constant flexing and looks like it will continue to do so for some time.

http://www.thejimi.com/

For forks sake....

I spotted this on another blog.
For some reason it made me chuckle.... ;o)

MacDeadExpo?

Last year some felt I was being unfair for voicing my disappointment at the lack of any real iPod related content at the MacExpo at Olympia in London. While I use Macs I doubt if I would really attend a Mac related event if it didn't have something to do with iPods. I said then I was pretty unimpressed and I doubted if I’d bother going again.

Well, with the news that MacExpo was being re-branded as MacLiveExpo, I thought I would take the day off and venture into the capital to see if the iPod landscape had improved in the intervening twelve months.

With the event being hailed as "The most Important Mac Event of the season" and that if you wanted to be "...rocking at home with the latest iPod accessories, look no further than MacLive Expo", I hoped that maybe a few more companies would attend to display their latest products. Or even their existing product range. We've had a whole new iPod range released since the last Apple special event and the forthcoming iPhone is due to be launched in the UK on November 9th. That must surely be a good omen for accessories?

I was in for an even bigger let down that last year. The hall seemed strangely roomy and it soon dawned that Apple had stayed away from the event, pulling out at what seemed to be the last minute (other 'big names' failed to show as well - Adobe and Filemaker). Bearing in mind that Leopard was released on the Friday of the Expo, 26 November, the absence of Apple was somewhat odd - at least to this Mac user.

And this year iPod accessories/products were represented by just a handful of companies - even fewer than last year? This was definitely not somewhere to come if you hoped to be "rocking at home with the latest iPod accessories".

I suspect the upcoming What Hi-Fi/Stuff show will feature more iPod related accessories as more and more audio companies build the iPod (and other DAPs) into their product line. The iPod has gone from a 'gimmicky' device to something which even audiophile 'snobs' might have to accept has a place in the hi-fi furniture.

So, once again, MacLiveExpo failed to impress me and, I suspect, others too. I am sure that many visitors got something from the event and I hope those who decided to travel any distance were not disappointed.

Is the future of this London event under threat? I hope not, as with figures of 25,000 visitors for the 2005 event show it is obviously drawing people from somewhere, but when Apple doesn't even bother to appear I have to think that something will give. Would I be better travelling to Paris for a better show?

It was such a non-event even Greenpeace failed to show up.....

The final picnic...

The other week while driving into town I passed a hearse with a wicker basket coffin in the back. End your life as the contents of a big picnic hamper...

"Trick or treat". Or should that be "Stand and Deliver"?

Oh yes - it's Halloween again.
Time for all the gangs of doorstep muggers to come out and greet you with "Trick or treat!!!"

Fail to cough up and you find your car vandalised or someone has attempted to make an omelette on your front door.

This year our dog is a bit too old to tie out front so it's off out for the evening. Maybe a nice meal. Few beers.