Redunda

Slow iPad BackUp Issues

2010-09-05T20:30:00.001+01:00

Steve looks quite smug here doesn’t he ? That’s clearly because he hasn’t had to back up his iPad recently, though.

Backing up an iPad can take literally hours. My own 16gb currently takes around 5 hours to backup via iTunes, and it only has about 5gb of stuff on it, but there are reports out there on the interwebs about even longer times. Compare this to my 32gb iPhone, which is essentially full, which backs up in a few seconds. WTF.

I won’t bore anyone with the details as this article sums the issues up much better than I could.

http://peter.vdhamer.com/2010/08/15/slow-ipad-backup-issue/

The issue has been reported since the device was released and I can’t for the life of me understand why it isn’t making more headlines. Or at least I can, but that’s because I suspect that most people are just stopping the back up as the sync still completes successfully when you do this.

The issue, however is surely going to come to a head when we finally get the iOS upgrade to 4.2. As far as I’m aware a fresh install of a new OS can’t happen on the iPad without a backup being completed. Apple will probably fix this in the new release so it’ll be a catch 22.

About Bloody Time…

2010-08-04T18:00:00.001+01:00

I missed this news a month or so ago, but at last, AT LONG LAST, Google are apparently deigning to allow us to turn off Conversation View in Gmail.

I can’t tell you how much I hate this feature. I can see the advantages in certain situations, but for me the downsides far outweigh the benefits and I’ve lost count of how many times I missed an email because of it being appended to a long list of other emails.

When I want similar emails together I’LL tag them, I’LL move them and I’LL sort them into folders – I don’t wont it done for me.

Gmail really changed things for the better for me as regards email, and the convenience of having everything, mails, contacts, diary etc etc all in one place (even multiple accounts) and always in the cloud so I don’t have to even think about what happens if I want to re-install Windows is a god-send. Google have gradually ticked off all the right boxes as time has gone on, now even multiple signatures on multiple accounts are a doddle) but the CV is surely the last of the biggies to need to become optional.

I should of course have started by saying that Google WILL BE deigning to allow us to turn this off, at some unspecified point in the future, but that is better than the previous complete silence over this issue.

There, and not a mention of Apple.

I will...

2010-08-03T21:17:00.001+01:00

I will write about something other than Apple from now on
I will write about something other than Apple from now on
I will write about something other than Apple from now on
I will write about something other than Apple from now on
I will write about something other than Apple from now on
I will write about something other than Apple from now on
I will write about something other than Apple from now on
I will write about something other than Apple from now on
I will write about something other than Apple from now on
I will write about something other than Apple from now on

More iPhone 4…

2010-08-03T16:20:00.001+01:00

5. Moving from a 3G to the 4, the first thing you notice is that this thing is unbelievably fast. Things that previously seemed to take minutes to happen just happen in an instance. Opening apps or browsing, everything seems to happen exactly as you press the buttons.

6. The screen, with it’s “retina” display is extremely sharp, the sharpest I’ve seen on a phone. You really do leave your expectations of how crisp and bright a phone screen can be when you open this up. Of course not every app can yet take advantage of the high resolution, but apps are gradually updating to iOS4 so that’s only a matter of time and inclination. I hope that not too many developers take the opportunity to ditch their previous releases and bring out new versions, optimised for the new phone, but also optimised for new prices. We’ve seen enough if that in the past, I suppose, but I want to see genuinely new work and ideas going into previously released apps, if I’m going to shell out more cash for them.

7. I simply could not run the Tom Tom app on the 3G. Not just run poorly, I mean not run AT ALL. Not once did the app EVER get a useable GPS signal. On the 4, however, within three or four seconds of launching the app it had locked on, found me and was raring to go. If any one app illustrates the leap forward this phone has made, this is it. It just works brilliantly and totally negates the need to spend £100 on the TomTom iPhone cradle (you, know, the one I did go and spend £100 on recently) I’d better point out here that the Tom Tom cradle DOESN’T support the iPhone4 out of the box – because of the flat back to the new phone, the power engagement button doesn’t get pressed so neither the power nor the internal GPS chip in the cradle work. You can hack this to work (I used a bit of Sugru to do it – brilliant stuff by the way) but also bear in mind that there not a cat in hell’s chance of getting anything but a completely naked iPhone4 into the TT cradle and even then it’s a tight fit.

8. Multi-tasking. There are certain things that will benefit enormously from the ability to stay running in the background. Running sat nav and being able to go to another app without relaunching the sat nav again afterwards is great. It’s a very “Apple” kind of multi-tasking, of course, but I’m not sure I mind that. Given the option between some limits in what will and won’t run at the same time and the phone grinding to a halt at inopportune moments, I think I’d prefer to stick with some limits to the functionality. Mostly the apps seem to get “frozen” rather than genuinley running full-on in the background, but it works fine and the ones that matter seem to work well. It’s difficult to tell, though, whether an app is actually still taking up resources in the background. The closedown process involves double tapping to bring up those apps still running and manually crossing them off the list. It’s clear, however, as you scroll across the list, that some of them can’t actually be running, which is confusing. I’d like a way of closing an app completely there and then that I know I’m finished with, but this doesn’t seem to be possible – if you open it, it goes on the list, whatever.

9. The other really major advance is the camera. At 5mp this is a big jump even from the 3GS, and the quality of the pictures is stunning for a phone camera. Add to that 720p video, which is, whilst not perfect, again exceptional for a phone, and this really does transform how I use the camera. I use Evernote to record virtually anything that I want to keep or remember and previously I couldn’t use the Evernote iPhone app to take pictures of anything at all that Evernote could transcribe to text (EN can take a picture and make it searchable after it’s been through their servers, very handy for quickly clipping something or, as described, taking a photo) The quality of the pics just wasn't clear enough for the translation to text to work, but now, magic. The video looks great on the phone itself and would work well on YouTube, where there are already masses of uploads. Tested has a ..er.. test showing two different videos both shot and edited on iPhone 4 and the results are fantastic.

Which just about sums it up. In every respect other than being a great phone for making calls (you still do that, do you) the new iPhone is top notch and, given the high recycling value of older iPhones (between £150 and £180 for a 3G) it’s pretty much a no-brainer to upgrade. As a phone, the iPhone is still just OK. The drop out issue is real and you’ll need to deal with it somehow, but, that aside, I don’t think this is any better than any other mobile phone. Let’s face it, that’s not all you’re buying it for.

The only caveat here would be if you are are a heavy data user, given that all the carriers have now imposed data limits within the contracts, previously “unlimited”. Whilst I object to this on principle, the truth is that, having checked my data usage with o2 for the 4 months prior to changing contracts, I was only using between 60 and 100mb of data each month anyway, so a 500mb cap won’t be a problem. Within that data I’ve never once felt that I was deliberately slowing my usage (why would I ?) so I’m confident that I can live with 500mb. I do admit, though, that I don’t spend a lot of time away from home with work or whatever, so I probably use a wi-fi connection more than some people will. Just check with your carrier before you commit – deals of up to 1gb are out there if you don’t need to stick to any particular carrier for any reason.

I've Waited Long Enough...

2010-07-27T23:19:00.001+01:00

...but it's time I need to write about the iPhone 4. I've put it off for a number of reasons :

Firstly, I really wanted to wait for a few weeks to get an informed handle on what it's all about and the differences between my old 3G and the sparkly new model. Secondly, the furore surrounding the antenna issues has been really interesting and I have my own experiences of the "grip of death". Finally, I've also been getting to know my new best friend, an iPad, at virtually the same time, so I was interested to see if my iPhone life is any different with an iPad bending my ear about who I'm seeing everyday.

I honestly believed, when I turned up at the o2 shop at 7.20 am that I would be right up there near the front of the queue. Not a chance. There must have been 60 people ahead of me. The sound of the bog standard text received tone was like everyone in the queue having a vuvuzela. The nice lady from Costa did, however, offer to bring out a cappuccino (at the standard rate, of course) which eased the pain, but it was quickly a catch 22 ; clearly with this much demand walking away just wasn't an option, but everyone around me was thinking the same thing- would we stand here for hours and they'd run out just before I reached the sign-up desk ?

Well, the sky didn't fall in, and I made it into the shop after 3 HOURS. I specifically wanted the 32gb, having lived with a 16gb 3G for 18 months and the frustration of either having to always carry my iPod around as well as the phone, or just plain not having enough music in my pocket (how quickly we get spoilt - it's only a matter of a few minutes ago that I had to carry 120 copied CDRs in the car in a wallet the size of a slightly smaller car). After my wait, I got the second to last 32gb phone in their batch and walked away like a dog with two watsits and drove home to start to live the dream.

It's now 5(ish) weeks later, I think I probably know pretty much everything that I'm going to know about the iPhone 4 and all I have to do now is live with it for the next 23 months. So what have I learnt :

1. Don't upgrade to ios4 if you still have a 3G. My 3G was ridiculously slow on the older phone and the limited new features just aren't worth the speed issues.

2. Sorry, now the actual iPhone 4 stuff. This phone looks and feels fantastic. It is easily the sexiest piece of kit I have ever owned and feels completely perfect in your hand. It has HEFT. It looks and feels expensive and reeks of quality, far more so than the previous models. Immediately, therefore, cover it up with any protection you can. I use Zagg invisible shields front and back which means, apparently, that I can now attach my phone to the leading edge of a jet aircraft without any damage risk. I do actually heartily recommend these shields, although I warn you to be careful fitting them - the business side can withstand a bullet, but the sticky side will mark if you breathe too close. Once fitted, however, the covered faces will not mark under almost anything you can subject them to, although I can't bring myself to fit the side pieces that come as part of the kit.

3. The "grip of death" is real. I can attenuate the signal on my phone by a significant amount by holding it across the antenna gap, but I have to say that I have not suffered one jot more with this phone than my previous phone in terms of dropped calls. The signal at my house is lousy and I wouldn't stick with O2 if I didn't get a big discount on my broadband because of the mobile account, but I always knew the o2 signal was crap and as soon as I move about 50 yards away from my actual address the signal is absolutely fine.

4. Get a free bumper. I paid for mine after spending 2 weeks worrying about damaging the edge of my phone when (and it IS when, not if) I drop it. Apple automatically refunded the charge without me even asking, which I thought was cool. I'd prefer it if it was a bit thinner, but, given that I hate cases for these things, the bumper seems to me to be the best compromise. It won't fit in your Apple iPod dock connector, though, and may not fit in anything else you have, although I was lucky with my Brodit car dock.

I've now decided that this is far too long for a single post so, I shall continue anon...soon...

Apologies...

2010-07-24T16:16:00.001+01:00

...for a boring post but I need to test this

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Hue and Cry

2010-06-13T19:51:00.001+01:00

I’ve long been a devotee of Hue and Cry since I first heard “Remote” back in the late 80s. In fact they’ve become something of an obsession. You know the score, you have to have every live recording and “best of…” just for the one new track or remix, that sort of thing.

Anyway, regardless of whether or not you admire the duo (and I know that they polarise opinion for some reason) I would point you in the direction of their blog, where Greg Kane is currently detailing the writing a recording of their forthcoming album, “Hot Wire” in minute detail. This is anorak country, but it’s absolutely fascinating to read, and see and hear, this as it falls out.

The blog is bang on in a number of ways. Firstly because it’s the first I’m aware of that details how a modern band, in the digital, low record company support era, gets an album out there, from inception to release and secondly because the blog itself is beautifully put together, combining Greg’s commentary with great pictures, snippets from his digital “scrapbook” to illustrate what’s happening, and sound to back it all up, in some cases showing us the aural evolution of the music.

As I say, if the knobs on a mixing desk are of no interest to you then you might be tempted to miss this, but don’t. Just one point – I think you have to sign in to view this stuff, please don’t let that put you off, I’ve never received anything I didn’t want to via the site or any spam. This is just a true fan site.

http://hueandcry.ning.com/profiles/blogs/hue-and-cry-album-studio-blog

SSD as a Boot Drive – Worth the Hassle ?

2010-04-06T17:14:00.001+01:00

Getting an SSD and using it as a boot drive was something like an itch that just wouldn’t go away. Initially, of course, there was the prohibitive cost to keep me from scratching, but over time those pennies have gradually dropped off and the tipping point seemed to be fast approaching when just the hit on the bank account wasn't going to be enough to stop me.

Of course, nothing is ever straightforward. When the Kingston SSDNow drives hit “just over” £100 I found myself in the position of not being able to resist. Did I go and slap in an Amazon order for one ? Of course not – I had to go and see the V+ version (as opposed to the V) which is faster…and more expensive. But the tipping point had, as previously mentioned, been reached and I was committed. So here I was was with a

Kingston 64GB SSDNow V+ SATA2 2.5" Upgrade Kit

sitting on my desk. I opted for the 64gb drive as I really didn’t want the hassle of trying to get everything on my boot drive down to 30 or 40gb (although in the end the 40gb would have been fine) and I wanted to leave myself some headroom. It would be awful, I thought, to have a super-fast SSD and then find that I needed to install everything new onto a data drive HDD just because there wasn't enough room. In the end I was really surprised at how little is left for your boot drive once you’ve paired stuff back, but more of that later.

So, in theory, this is REALLY simple. Everybody says so, so it must be true.

1. Reduce existing boot drive/partition to under 64gb

2. Buy expensive but fast boot SSD

3. Put into computer

4. Clone boot drive or partition to new drive

5. Reboot to SSD

6. Voila – superfast new system with SSD boot drive and large HDD for data.

Off I went. I split my existing drive into two partitions and moved all my library files off the boot partition, helped by a great article on the WINDOWS 7 Forums. I then cleaned up my boot drive by deleting some games and larger stuff that would be easier to re-install later than try to move. All this went fine and even with most of my crap on it, the boot drive was only around 35gb. This is easy, I said to myself.

Opened up, added the new drive (why do case manufacturers make accessing ONE side of the case really easy and accessing the OTHER SIDE, so much of a pain ?). Next issue ; I have a standard mainboard and my graphics card is good but not cutting edge by any means (a 9600GT OC) so how come the card is so long (or the mainboard is so short) that the card completely covers 2 of the 4 sata ports ? I managed to squeeze the new connector in the port but I had to leave it touching the plastic edge of the graphics card, which works but I’m not thrilled about it.

So the SSD is in.The BIOS recognises it so I use the Acronis clone software that came win the Kingston pack. This recognises the drive but here I hit the next problem – this time a major issue. The software will not let me select just the partition I need to clone as the boot. Naturally it won’t let me choose the entire drive as this is 640gb, but I run it several times to see if anything changes, but no. This is NOT going to let me do this. I wonder if it needs an even smaller boot partition so I re-boot to windows on the old disk and spend time fiddling around deleting software and running a combination of Windows Disk Manager and Acronis Disk Director so get the C: partition down to around 30gb. I run the clone again. Nothing. Not letting this happen under any circumstances. Annoyingly the Acronis software help is USELESS. “Yes, you can clone just a partition by selecting the partition you want to clone and highlighting it in red”. NO YOU CAN’T (and yes, I am shouting at this point)

You can read this quite quickly, but trust me, this took AGES and lots of messing and repetition trying to find a way to make this cloning work. As part of this process I also tried to use the method outlined here (Cloning your HDD to SSD). This is another great guide, IF YOUR BLOODY SYTEM IMAGE ACTUALLY WORKS !!!. I was beginning to lose my cool. I had, as far as I was concerned, a perfectly good system image but Windows continually failed to restore that image to the new drive. The problem here is that you can’t know before you need a system image, if said image is actually going to work in restoring your computer. I still have no idea why this didn’t work. My only advice here is to make sure you have more than one safe back-up of ALL the stuff you treasure AND a system image. At least that way you’re not knackered if the restore doesn’t work.(Side note : keep a local backup AND use an online service as well (I use Carbonite – highly recommended). You just can’t put all your trust in one back up – wiping one is too easy.

Some three hours after starting this process, I came to the conclusion that I would have to now do what I a) wanted to avoid but b) should have done right from the start – Install Windows 7 from scratch on the new drive. I don’t need to go into the pro’s of a clean install here, but suffice to say that, as long as your backups are all sorted, a clean install on a new drive is the most sensible way to go about switching to a new boot drive. Another, unexpected, advantage of the SDD was that Windows 7 installed in under 15 minutes – I kid you not. It was lightening fast. Getting all your software and settings back is a bit of a pain, but I find that listing all the stuff I MUST put back on immediately and just working through the list takes some of the pain out of the process. Leave the rest of the stuff until you need it. Some of it probably won’t go on for weeks, if at all. Some tips here :

1. Use Googlemail – nothing to back up locally, everything instantly back to normal as soon as you log back on

2. Use Chrome (or Firefox with the relevant extensions) – again, settings, bookmarks instantly back to normally with no real effort

3. Use Lastpass (https://lastpass.com/) for your passwords – Your password vault is stored online (encrypted before it’s sent so only you can ever access it) so there’s no local cache to save and worry about restoring. I’m sure there are other services that do this, but I’ve yet to see one with all the advantages of Lastpass in one place.

I had to move all my data folders again, but that doesn’t take too long. With Windows 7, Office 2010 (most of the elements) and all my “essential” software (and I’m not being that choosy), my boot disk is still only 20gb, so buying a 64gb drive seems like a great compromise. My “data” disk is a complete 640gb, so I don’t think storage is going to be an issue too soon. The only real concession I’ve had to make is to install Call of Duty MW2 to the data drive and that’s really no big deal.

Was it worth it ? Booting from cold now takes almost exactly 60 seconds, a good 30 seconds less than previously (and this isn’t a slow system). Far more impressive, however, is the responsiveness of the machine with day-to-day applications. Office programmes launch instantly, even first-time after a boot. Web pages load quicker and there’s just an overall improvement in speed. Everything happens quicker and not just a little bit quicker – VERY much quicker. This is a bigger speed upgrade than moving up a big notch in memory was.

Definitely worth the cost and the hassle, but frankly, I would forget trying to clone any drives. I’m sure there are a load of people out there who have cloned the boot drive successfully, but doing clean installs is just about being prepared and having your back Ups handy and up to date. I’d say just bite the bullet and start off afresh with a shiny,new, clean system drive.

RIP - off

2010-03-31T16:45:00.001+01:00

I don’t usually re-post other stuff but the original authors of this encourage everyone to do so and it seems to make a lot of sense.

Budget Planner – Mint.com

Man – What ? Who ?

2010-03-23T16:05:00.001Z

I sometimes seem to have spent large portions of my life explaining bands to people who have literally never heard of whoever it is I’m talking about. My joy was un-abounded when, some years ago, I mentioned the name Gong in a pub and, having spent the previous 15 years without finding ANYONE who had heard of them, I came across a fellow pixie-head with whom I could spend hours discussing the early albums. Clearly I have mixed with the wrong people since wasting my formative years spun out on Camembert Electrique. (Just a quick aside, Gong’s album from last year, 2032, is really pretty good – drops back to the guitar riffing that “older” bands tend to fall into when real inspiration fails, but generally a good listen.)

Man are another of those bands who fall into this “never heard of them” category, which shouldn’t be too surprising, I suppose, given that they never had a hit single, but like many bands, the lack of commercial, main stream success shouldn’t be allowed to mask the fact they produced some of the finest guitar-driven (and largely spliff-driven) rock in the mid-seventies. Coming out of Wales in the late 60’s (there was an MFP version of their first album which is pretty terrible frankly) they went on to feature in the NME quite prominently before punk came and washed so many of those bands away (forgotten, perhaps, but not gone, as they have steadfastly refused to curl up their toes until this very day). To the uninitiated, their run of albums from 1971 to 1976 (Do You Like It Here Now, Be Good To Yourself, Back Into The Future, Slow Motion, Rhinos Winos and Lunatics, The Welsh Connection) sees them at their best, but it’s probably their live albums that sum them up – if you can live with the great songs extended out beyond the 10 minute mark (and sometimes nearer 20) with multiple guitar work then you’ll be in heaven.

It was only in checking some details to write this that I discovered that Micky Jones, probably the only consistent member over the last 40 years, had passed away in early March 2010. A sad loss. If you too are saying “who !” then listen and then go explore.

Keep Taking The Tablets (ouch)

2010-03-04T00:38:00.001Z

I only know one person who has used either a slate PC or a convertible tablet PC in anger – ME. Despite being the coming thing (Apple at least are betting an awful lot on this being the case) most people just haven’t been anywhere near one in real life for any reasonable length of time, i.e. have used one in the wild, at work, day to day, for weeks or months and are therefore qualified to spout on about the pro’s and con’s.

Well I have, and therefore I’m going to (spout on, that is). I used a Motion slate for roughly a year and I was really pleased with it’s ability to tick all the boxes I had wanted it for in the first place. My primary concern was that I visited lots of premises and had lots of informal meetings with field personnel. I wanted to capture what was being said, what actions were being agreed and what I was promising – all the usual stuff. The holy grail for me is the definitive way of capturing all of that stuff, but also of having it in a format where I don’t have to go and (effectively) waste my time capturing the notes afterwards. Life is tough enough without having to increase the workload typing up notes you made earlier.

The slate solves many of these issues. You write on it exactly as you would on a pad of paper (I used OneNote) and therefore you don’t feel like a prat putting a laptop between you and your colleagues and typing in a meeting. It’s just perfectly natural to jot stuff down as you talk and listen. Secondly, the ability to have those notes permanently filed away and able to be sorted, archived, searched or whatever else you want to do to them is just fantastic. A quick aside: OneNote is great as searching handwritten notes so that you can find stuff later, but rubbish at converting the same handwritten text into print – how can this be ?

Apart from all this, the slate acts as normal PC. Mine ran Windows XP and coped perfectly well with pretty much anything I could throw at it from a work environment (after a memory upgrade of course – first thing I do on any and every computer is put as much RAM in them as they will take. It’s the best investment you can make.)

So why did I ditch the slate after 12 months ? The truth is I just got fed up with having to dock the slate to all its peripherals. Once the note taking is over with (and I did use it A LOT for this) you need to use a laptop as a standard laptop and for that you need a screen in the right position, a mouse and a KEYBOARD. anything less just won’t cut it and while docking to all the bits is fine at the end of the day, too often I would need these facilities at certain and several points in a day. That’s when it become wearing to keep lugging round all the extras and connecting them up for a relatively short period before you stuff it all back in the bag. I just got tired of all that, whatever the advantages of the slate in the note-taking respect.

I did try a convertible. this would seem to be the perfect compromise; flatten it and write on it when you need to, whip the screen back up and round to type. Perfect ? Not quite. Tablets then (and I suspect now) are just too thick to make the note-taking bit comfortable. It really makes a significant difference if the machine is too thick when the screen is flattened down to the keyboard as the angle required to view the screen and write on it, changes and you find yourself having to constantly adjust your viewing and writing angle. Given that the whole point here is to help both you and the other people present forget that it’s a machine your using, I’m afraid the point is lost.

So after about 18 months between the two machines I finally decided that these were not the solutions I had been looking for and I went cap in hand to our IT department and asked for an ordinary laptop again. To be honest I still haven’t found the solution. I’m not sure a slate will ever work satisfactorily in a work situation except where the hand-help qualities are the ONLY parts that will be used (and of course outside of work, where the keyboard and mouse can be dispensed with – see my earlier post on the iPad). As for convertibles, when they can be made thin enough I’ll try again. Lenovo have produced a hybrid slate /laptop where the screen detaches and will operate independently as a slate, but then docks back to the main laptop. It even syncs back settings, web pages visited etc to the main machine. This could be the killer style if it does what it promises, but, as with many bits of hardware, the reality will need to live up to the vision (http://news.lenovo.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=1301).

In the meantime, I have started to use, successfully, an Acecad pad that uses an electronic base with ordinary paper pads, plus an electronic pen to digitise whatever you write on it. This can then be downloaded via usb to any PC and the pages stored. This works really well, but as usual the OCR facilities provided are so poor that they can be described as “not working”, so the advantages are limited to storing and filing (although I have sent out my handwritten notes to colleagues rather than type them up).

Perhaps the ideal solution is out there somewhere – just need an ultra-thin convertible laptop with OCR software that can read my handwriting perfectly. Perhaps not.

…and What We Got.

2010-03-03T00:08:00.001Z

After all the hype and speculation, what we actually got was pretty much a big iPod Touch. I also think that’s exactly what we should have expected and probably what most people want (with a couple of notable exceptions which I’ll come on to).

The truth is, the iPad will likely fill a gap that does exist, but perhaps people don’t realise exists in THEIR lives right now – the couch machine.

What the iPad will do will be to provide that sexy bit of kit that you keep next to the sofa and that you reach for in those moments when you’re switched off, relaxing and flitting between the TV, music, reading a book and skimming magazines or the internets. You can do this now, of course – just reach for your laptop, your netbook or your smartphone. The problem is, your smartphone is too small, your laptop takes too much faffing around with to get on (and then it’s too big) and your netbook is too small and you can’t read on it properly. Hence the iPad.

A bit like the iPod, the iPad is likely to slow burn for a while while it catches on. But catch on it will. It will both help and be helped by the coming upsurge in e-book use but I suspect that once you have one of these things in your hands you’ll miss it terribly when it’s not there.

Apple will piss a lot of people off by adding a camera and a microphone later (surely video calls are an essential element of this type of hardware) but early adoptees will shrug that off after a bit of a moan. No Flash will also be an issue to start with as you just can’t get the full internets experience at the moment without it, no matter how processor-intensive it is, but that will disappear as HTML5 takes over the world.

It’s coming : you’ll want one. Even if you don’t know it yet.

What I Actually WANT from Apple

2010-01-25T11:30:00.001Z

I was all set to write about the Apple Tablet that everyone is presuming will be announced on Wednesday (27th Jan, 2010 – and NOT announcing it would be the biggest shock of all) when I read Jason Bradbury’s post on the little thing.

Jason so sums up my thought on this that I thought I’d save myself the bother. This what Jason writes :

I find the majority of articles discussing the shape of Apple’s ‘latest creation’, frustrating. What bugs me is their collective lack of commitment and their constant need to apologise for being part of the hype around what will be the world’s first, full-colour digital e-reader. Let me place my neck squarely on the block and predict the most important dimension of the next Wednesday’s launch: it will change publishing, forever. Yep, it’s a multi-touch tablet that will play music and movies and apps and propose an initially frustrating on-screen keyboard solution, which will ultimately prove blissfully easy to use – but the real news, the point that needs making, is that the device, which will certainly not be called iSlate, will lead to a complete overhaul of how most of us read.

This quantum shift in the way we read newspapers, magazines and books won’t happen overnight – just as the music industry didn’t embrace iTunes’ seminal solution to the problem of making money from digital pop - but it will always be perceived as the beginning of reading, post printing press.

I have it on good authority that several major UK newspapers have been approached to format their publications for ‘a tablet device’. And as an author with my own book available in digital format, I can tell you that publishers and authors know that a move to the next phase of publishing is long overdue. But my main reason for focussing on the e-reader part of the new tablet equation, is that as a race of word hungry wretches, we’re all crying out for someone with Apple’s clout to push us to the next and inevitable rung on the reading ladder. Whether we realise it or not, the option to download any book, any newspaper or magazine from any year, month or day, in full colour, in an instant, is as inevitable as the death of the combustion engine.

So there it is. If I had a reputation to stake, I’d stake it firmly in this camp so I wait to see what actually comes out of Wednesday’s announcement.

Oh and £350 would be nice…

Technorati Tags: Apple,iSlate,iPad,Jason Bradbury

IPDL – A Little Treasure

2010-01-04T18:22:00.001Z

A lot of the best stuff available on the iPlayer is put out in Podcast format these days, especially the radio side of things. For those bits that are not done this way, however, I discovered a fantastic little programme called IPDL (iPlayer downloader) that circumvents the laborious task of recording programmes in real time.

Just navigate to the page for the programme, and copy the identifier tag in the page address. Launch IPDL

Technorati Tags: BBC,iPlayer,Software

, add the tag and click “download”. Job done and much much faster that real time.

This also captures video, although the quality won’t scale up to your living room TV, but it’s certainly OK for an iPod etc. Great bit of software, although I understand that the BBC keep trying to break the hack and the developer has to re-write fairly frequently, so we may need to keep pace with some updates.

With the recent launch of iPlayer on Freesat and a planned rollout to Freeview as well, I suppose this sort of app won’t be needed eventually, but for the time being it’s a useful little gem.

Update : 17.3.10
The BBC apparently made some changes that block 3rd party app from using the iPlayer site. This DOESN'T ap[pear to have messed up IPDL. Although I did have to mess about with a missing file to get it to work, this doesn't appear to be related to anything at the BBC end.

Desert Island Downloads

2009-12-13T22:47:00.001Z

It’s a cold December evening and I was bored, OK. So, in preparation for the time when they run out of celebrities and they they have to dredge the barrel down to the people who’s main successes in life have been “ enjoying themselves a bit” and “getting 3 children to their teenage years without stabbing old ladies for crack money”, I decided to think about my music choices for Desert Island Discs (how quaint that sounds nowadays).

I have often wondered how on earth anyone distills a lifetime’s love of music down to 8 tracks, so I decided to start by listing ALL tracks that were important to me. Not just stuff I really like, you understand, but those tracks that I know I would scream out for, the ones that I just can’t imagine never hearing again, the ones I could slap other people for not caring about enough. iTunes makes this much easier, by the way, if you have digitised everything you own.

The Rules :

1. I had to own it. If someone else gave it to me or I downloaded it, borrowed it and never gave it back etc. then, clearly, I don’t love it enough to include it.

2. I had to REALLY love the music – sentimental attachments on their own are not enough.

3. The scourge of all those “vote for your favourite No,1 of all time” charts where some dingbat with the attention span of a haddock votes for last week’s – nothing under 6 months old. even if I like it, it’s too early to tell.

4. Be ruthless – if there’s the slightest hesitation, it’s out.

Eight tracks is clearly nonsense. My interest was in what size the first cut would be. Wait for it…

264

Seems perfectly reasonable to me. I know I could knock a handful off for various reasons, but 8 – forget it. I think that just about scuppers me and Kirsty ever cosying up a la Morrissey (that and a lack of any discernable talent, of course), but I can dream.

Technorati Tags: Desert Island Discs,Radio 4,Kirsty Young,itunes

Out With The Old…

2009-12-10T16:52:00.001Z

Someone important at publishing house Simon & Shuster has decided to release e-books some months after the hardback versions come out and before the paperbacks. This is apparently in an effort to protect profit on the lucrative hardback versions and resist downward pressure on selling prices as the e-book market starts to grow.

Have these people learnt NOTHING from the digitisation of the music industry ? Whilst I understand the desire to protect margins (and let’s face it the music industry still hasn’t figured it out properly yet) it seems to be statin’ the bleedin’ obvious to say that this cannot work. What this will help to promote is piracy as people struggle to understand why they can’t buy the same book online as they can go into their local bookstore to buy.

To protect margins, why not just tier the pricing at a similar level to the hardback/paperback model. The earlier you buy the book, the more you pay and when the price drops to the paperback level, drop the price for the e-book. Personally, I don’t care what the delivery method is, paper or digits. I know some people will argue that e-books should be cheaper than their physical cousins, but I do see an argument for the tiered system here. I certainly see a better argument for that than trying to force an old business model onto a new delivery medium.

Technorati Tags: e-books,Simon & Shuster,kindle,Amazon

Shameless Plugging and Nepotism

2009-12-04T14:22:00.001Z

Any reticence I may feel about mentioning a project from a family member is far outweighed by the feeling that I can’t NOT mention this fantastic music.

As a leading Hammond organ specialist in the jazz field, Paul Flush has been in great demand across the European jazz scene, not only pursuing his own projects, but as a session player on crossover work such as Marc Moulin’s Top Secret.

If this track (Besame Mucho from the Ménage Artois album by Paul Flush, Charles Loos and Luc Vanden Bosch) hits your spot, you can find much of Paul’s more recent work at

Hammondjazz.org

From that point on, please buy generously.

You’d think they could get this right, wouldn’t you ?

2009-11-20T15:26:00.001Z

I mean, it’s only several gazillion dollars of development money and their key product for the next couple of years, but you’d imagine that those clever people at Microsoft, having delivered their best OS for a long time (probably ever) would be able to integrate their own OS with their own Office software.

However, you’d be wrong. Office 2003 does not recognise Windows Live Mail (OK so its not STRICTLY part of W7 but near enough to moan about) as a legitimate email client. This means that those, normally, helpful buttons on the tool bars that allow you to kick start an email directly from the Office application DON’T WORK.

There is a fix for this, as it’s a recognised problem, but the fix involves adding entries to the registry. I am stupid enough not to be overly worried about this, despite warning of impending crashed, blue screens, terrorist attacks etc if you so much as look at a registry entry, but let’s face it, most people are not going to attempt this. The fact that this was my wife’s laptop also helped me feel better about it. It’s only a question of opening the Registry, finding an entry and making sure that you type the lines exactly as the Knowledge base entry says, but I can’t blame anyone for not wanting to risk it.

This strikes me as one of those bugs that probably never get sorted, but let’s hope not.

A Windows 7 Annoyance

2009-10-29T16:16:00.002Z

As you’ll know if you’ve followed any of my other posts on the topic of Windows 7, I’m a fan. There has been little to annoy during the whole Beta / RC / Actual release process, with the exception of one thing (two if you count the poor support process from McAfee, but that has ultimately led to me saving £30 a year by moving to free anti-virus software, so I’m going to ignore it).

I couldn’t get my HP scanner to install under W7. This then reminded me that HP was the worst offender I came across when I upgraded to Vista as well. Now, I know you can blame Microsoft for this if you want to, but we’re talking about the most widely used OS in the world, for goodness sake.

I called HP UK support and they were polite but could only suggest that the Vista software SHOULD work in W7. After much playing about with compatibility modes I did eventually get it to run (I should add that I’m talking about the actual software here; W7 does come with drivers for HP scanners that enable it to work with “acquire” functions in Word etc) but I’m pretty tech savvy – many people would simply have to give up on this.

There is no indication on the HP site about when a native W7 software version will be released and their Support didn’t know either, so a lot of people who take the plunge with W7 will be sitting with scanners that don’t work properly for some time. I seem to remember that with Vista this took several weeks. How long have we had the RC for ?

Not good enough, HP.

Growing Old Gracefully – The Zombies, Baby Blu, Liverpool, 25.10.09

2009-10-28T19:50:00.001Z

It just looked like a good gig. It wasn’t that I’d been a huge fan all these years, waiting expectantly for The Zombies to get back out there, it just looked like it would be a good night out. In fairness, I WAS a huge Argent fan, but few people remember them with any particular fondness and rarely beyond “God gave Rock and Roll To You” which was, in any case, a much bigger hit for (gulp, holds back tears of annoyance) Kiss some years after the original. Argent’s “In Deep” is one of my favourite albums ever and it’s amazing how many of Colin Blunstone’s hits you remember once hey are thrust in front of you.

So on came CB and Rod Argent, to no fanfare and launched straight into two very simple, piano and vocal, (new, it turned out) songs. This was a brave move, I thought, especially for CB : nowhere to hide if the old vocal chords haven’t quite survived the passage of time unscathed. But forget all that, the voice was immaculate and the two songs both affecting and catchy. Whatever these people had that made them successful was clearly still there.

From then on the gig just got better. Playing a combination of CB’s solo hits, a pretty large selection from the Zombies “Odyssey and Oracle”, probably the slowest burning multi-million copy selling album ever, and chucking in Argent’s aforementioned “GGRARTY” and “Hold Your Head Up”, it was just bliss. Not perfect mind you, there were some bum notes chucked in just to remind everyone that these were real musicians actually playing live, but overall the quality of the playing, the vocal and the harmonies were fantastic. There was no-one who wasn’t singing along with the Argent hits and we left the gig reminded that age has nothing to do with anyone’s ability to stand up and perform great songs and completely take an audience with them.

Sorry it’s not from the gig, but this is worth 6 minutes of anyone’s time…

Custom Earpieces

2009-10-27T16:45:00.003Z

I have wanted to try some custom earpieces for sooooo long and the opportunity finally arose. A birthday with nothing else I could think of approached, or nothing else, at least that didn’t cost a heart-stopping amount of cash that we don’t actually have.

I’m a bit spoilt when it comes to headphones. Many years ago I invested the (then) ridiculous sum of £250 in a pair of Sennheisers. These were absolutely spectacular, of course, but suddenly you are ruined for anything else. Try a pair of cheap ‘phones (in-ear, over-ear, it makes no difference) and you just can’t help but make the comparison. Add to that the way that less expensive ‘phones tend to move about, especially the in-ear types, and suddenly you’re on the receiving end of a very disappointing experience.

When the iPod came into my life, clearly I needed a pair of ‘phones that were portable. Sound notwithstanding, I just can’t bring myself to wear BIG ‘phones out in public, so I bought a pair of Shure in-ears, the E4C’s. These were eventually replaced by Shure (another story, but a big thumbs up to Shure for honouring their 2 year warranty, even right at the death) with a pair of 310’s. These sound great (they cost around £140 but you can shop around on the nets for the best price) but despite coming with a range of earpieces the best fit for me was the yellow foam type, the ones where you squash the foam first, stick it in your ear and then it expands and “seals” the ear canal. This works OK but they still pull out at the slightest provocation.

Which brings me to the custom earpieces. I saw an ad with a company called Hi-Fi Headphones for custom made earpieces but ones that fit a range of ready-made ‘phones. At around £90 these seemed reasonable (admittedly by comparison to other custom-made earpieces) so in I plunged.

The procedure was straightforward.

Pay !
Get a voucher for a visit to a local Audiologist
Visit audiologist. They spray foam into your ear which moulds to your ear canal and the outer bit. Only takes a couple of minutes to go off and that’s it.
Wait about 2 weeks and the postman delivers a nice little leatherette pouch with two clear plastic earpieces. The Shure’s push into these and the whole thing pushes into your ear.

But…there was to be a disappointment. The promise was a secure fit, great sound isolation and great sound reproduction, due to the fit and the way that the sound is directed into the ear canal. The reality, however, was that the right ear felt uncomfortably loose, the actual ‘phones themselves didn’t seem to fit particularly well into the earpieces, looking like they were made for something with a 90 degree angle, and the quality of the sound was really poor. I put this down to the fit, and the slightest movement of my jaw altered the bass response of the sound considerably. All in all £90 had bought me a worse fit and worse sound quality than the £1.25 foam ear pads.

Not happy.

Anyway, a call to Hi-Fi Headphones and a subsequent call to ACS, who actually make the custom bits, resulted in a second appointment to have my ear impressions taken. On the second visit it became clear that the consultant either wasn’t used to the process specifically for audio earpieces or wasn’t aware that that was the purpose of the first visit. This time round I was made to bite down to open up the ear canal and the 2nd set of impressions was obviously longer in the ear canal on the right hand side.

When the new earpieces arrived the difference was huge. As I said, the shape of the earpieces was better and the fit was now snug on both sides. Sound isolation and quality was world’s better and now there was no change to the sound quality or bass response no matter how much you jiggle your head around or even pull on the cable.

Now that they’ve been made correctly, I can’t recommend these enough. They sound great and are MUCH more comfortable that ANY other in-ear buds that I’ve tried – and I’ve tried lots of them ! They also fit a pretty wide range of ‘phones, so if the worst happens and you need to replace your ‘phones (or upgrade or course) then you aren’t wasting your £90.

Just When You Least Expect It...SERVICE !

2009-09-17T15:23:00.004+01:00

I've owned a Pure Highway DAB radio (goes in the car and outputs DAB to your radio via FM transmitter if you don't have an aux in) since they came out about 18 months ago.
My unit developed a fault and I contacted Pure. I didn't realise that the warranty was 2 years so I was chuffed when they said the repair would be free but they even topped that in the end. After having the unit for just 2 days Mr. Postman delivered a brand new, in the box, Highway gratis. As if that wasn't enough, when I asked them to return my mag-mount aerial that I'd sent in with the faulty unit, they have sent a brand new one of these as well - and I didn't even buy that from them !! Credit it where it's due - fantastic customer service from Pure.
While I think of it, there are a number of reviews of the Highway that criticise the DAB reception. While I accept that this has to be right, even with the included window strip aerial, all I'd say would be to invest in a mag mount aerial right from the start - the difference is huge and with it, this is a great way to get DAB in your car. If the government proceed with their plans to switch to DAB alone for radio in the future then clearly all cars will have to have DAB by default, but we're some years off that and the majority of car manufacturers still don't offer DAB built in even as an option.

One step forward...

2009-09-16T17:27:00.005+01:00

Well, I did say I wanted Apple to introduce a bigger iPod. That's great, I can now get a 160gb iPod Classic. Oh, wait a minute, I already HAVE a 160gb iPod Classic.
Where's the 240gb ? Where's the 500gb ? I don't CARE if its a bit thicker, it's still tiny and it still fits in my pocket and in my car so it's not a problem.
One step forward, two steps back. Actually in this case that should be one step back and one step forward - same result though, iPods not getting any bigger.

Wither Capacity ?

2009-08-21T20:33:00.007+01:00

The 160gb iPod Classic is a triumph of form and purpose. It's not as sexy as the iPod touch but the combination of ALL THAT MUSIC (even at high bit-rates) in a small package that works in my pocket, in my car and around the house, is a sheer joy.

I used to carry nearly 200 CDs in the car ! Not the originals, of course - hard drive failure isn't the only way to lose stuff.

I'm really disappointed that devices like, and including, the iPod seem to be moving away from the larger capacities. I already can't get my whole iTunes library on my iPod and the prospect of going down to 120gb if this one fails, horrifies me.

All the indications are that in the short term at least, capacities will be kept small until flash memory prices fall to manageable levels , but that could take 2 years.

Apple, can we not get a 240gb until the flash catches up ?

Apple and Record Companies Do Battle Again

2009-08-11T19:27:00.004+01:00

Both Apple and the major record companies have announced plans to try to boost "whole" album sales by including packages of cover art, lyrics, various info and even videos (all the stuff you might get with a physical CD) if you buy a complete album online rather than single tracks.
As someone old enough to remember the joys of sitting with my new vinyl albums and devouring the sleeve contents as I listened to the music, I actually welcome this (unless they try to add a price premium, of course) but I'm nervous about the execution.
Do I want to sit at my PC and look at the covers and read the lyrics ? I don't think so.
Do I want to sit and listen to the music and see these things in my lap with an Apple tablet ? Quite possibly.

Annoying though it sometimes is, Apple probably have it right again.

Toddla T

2009-07-22T19:49:00.009+01:00

I can't believe it's taken me so long to get round to another post. I have bugger all else to do (OK not strictly true but its a good line) but If its any consolation I do have a raft of new music that's come out recemtly that I REALLY like.
First up is the debut (I think) album from Toddla T - DJ, re-mixer and lots of other typically 00's skills. Toddla is from Sheffield, although there are so many collaborators on the album that you's be hard pressed to work that out, despite this being full of back street vernacular and home-farm beats. Being as ancient as I am this record almost makes me feel guilty listening to it, its so YOUNG, but it also so infectious that you just can't stop yourself liking it. Think "The Streets" first album with even more enegy and a cracking sense of humour chucked in. The other thing that draws you in is that its choc full of hooks - have a listen to "Better" with (what I presume to be) it's sampled electric piano, it's the stuff that's nicked, copied, bent and crowbarred into these tracks is what gives it a fantastic sense of vibrancy. And I haven't been able to say that about a record for some time.

Sony Not Rich Enough Shocker...

2009-07-01T11:24:00.003+01:00

Sony has apparently conceded that uptake of Blu-Ray has not been as good as it had hoped at this stage. Does this come as a surprise to anyone ? Leaving aside the fact that we're in a recession, it's hardly surprising :

1. The leap to BluRay in terms of perceivable quality just isn't big enough. Moving from VHS to DVD was a huge uplift on the quality of the image (and in terms of ease of use, storage etc) and many, if not most, people were happy to run two systems side by side - DVD to watch films and VHS to record TV. Much better picture, easier to use. No brainer.
2. Move from DVD to BluRay. Unless you have a Full HD 1080p TV it's just not a big enough leap in picture quality for most people to bother. With the right equipment Blu-Ray and surround sound is a great experience, but most people don't have the right equipment and we're still a fair way off the right equipment being in the "mass market" price range. Full HD TV's are only just becoming the norm and the price differential is only now becoming small enough to tempt the average buyer. Blu-Ray players are still not that much under £200 and very few people are likely to switch until they need to. All in one player/surround packages that feature Blu-Ray are few and far between and still pricey by comparison with DVD-based models.

All of this is gradually changing, of course. Prices are falling and the availablity of kit will improve, but I think it will still be some time before Blu-Ray captures the market in anything like the way that DVD did. This might not even happen, of course, if downloading starts to take off. No more trips to Blockbuster, just log-on, download and watch.

Jeff Beck - Manchester Apollo 27th June 2009

2009-06-29T14:44:00.010+01:00

Imagine what it must be like to be Jeff Beck. You stroll casually on to the stage. You are effortlessly brilliant for an hour and a half. You stroll off again. Job done.

I had a good idea of what to expect on Saturday from the recent "Live at Ronnie Scott's" that was shown on the Beeb a couple of times, but it was still shocking just how great a guitar player Jeff Beck is. There are times when you are watching him play and you just can't work out how he's doing it. Getting sounds out of a Strat sometimes unlike anything else I've heard and always with a power and a feel that is rare, even amongst those musicians at the top of their game.

Beck's strength has always been his ability to mix power with the lightest of touches and there were plenty of instances of the way he can make an electric guitar sound genuinely beautiful. "'Cause We've Ended As Lovers" is one of my favourite tracks (from "Blow By Blow") and it was riveting to watch and listen to the real emotion that Beck gets out of his instrument.
One interesting aside. Until the band were leaving the stage, Beck said NOTHING from the start to the end of the gig. I suppose we get used to artists bantering between tracks but I found this quite disconcerting. Better nothing than a load of drivel, of course, but you'd imagine that after 40 years or whatever it is of live performances he'd have come up with some sort of strategy to get around this.

Apple Remote App and AppleTV

2009-06-26T16:58:00.007+01:00

I invested in an AppleTV last year when I made the momentous decision to digitise almost 30 years worth of Vinyl and CD's. I'll post seperately about that move but I was just thinking the other day that it would be great if the Remote app for the iPhone, that controls the AppleTV (and your computer iTunes library if you want it to) would allow you to turn the ATV off and on as well.

Inevitably I wasn't the only person thinking this as I found this topic on several forums, but there was hope as Remote was due to be updated for the 3.0 software release. Quicker than I expected, the update came along and included even more functionality for controlling the devices, adding a lot more control for video and effectively removing the need for the (frankly rubbish small white) ATV remote altogether - except that is to switch the damn machine on and off.

Playing about with it, though, has revealed that you CAN operate the ATV solely from the iPhone, or at least you can for audio. If you fire up Remote on the iPhone and go to the audio section the libraries and the controls are all available and the music plays - without the ATV coming out of standby, or at least without the white light appearing on the front of the unit. The great thing here is that that means, provided you have speakers attached to the ATV directly (I use a B&W Zeppelin) you don't need to go anywhere near your TV. This has been one of the only drawbacks to the ATV system and was stopping it being just about perfect for streaming your music from your PC (which is often based somewhere like an office/study/cupboard rather than your lounge) to somewhere that you might actually WANT to sit and listen to music.

When you've finished listening, just turn off the app and your ATV is still in standby.

Brilliant.

Kevin Who ?

2009-06-25T14:33:00.007+01:00

I came across a reminder the other day that three of Kevin Ayers peak-period albums had been remastered and re-issued recently (March, to be precise) said albums being "The Confessions of Dr.Dream and Other Stories", "Yes, We have no Mananas" and "Sweet Deceiver". As often happens (more often than my in-house bank manager would like) I realised that "Mananas" was an album that I once owned but had NOT re-purchased when I started to buy back all the records that I foolishly sold in the early 80's to pay for food and rent, having spent most of my grant on buying them in the first place.

I toyed with Amazon for the CD but decided that I'd only rip it to iTunes anyway (at 320k, of course - is there any other bit-rate worth having ?) so a quick visit to 7 Digital later I was listening to it with the memories flooding back.

By Ayers standards, it's a full-on POP album, with little of the more left-field stuff that his previous six (solo) albums threw in to greater or lesser degrees. It's funny to think that this move came right at the same time as punk was starting to emerge ("Mananas" was released in June 1976) and I'm sure its not this album for which Ayers has become such a cult influence on many musicians since his heyday. It is nonetheless a fine album with some great tunes and not lacking Ayers' ability to make a rather silly lyric sound as if it's YOU missing the point if you actually do think its silly.

It's not, however, the place to start if you haven't caught up with Kevin Ayers previously, or if he passed you by somewhat fleetingly first time round. Best of's... aside (and Banana Productions "The Best of Kevin Ayers" brings everything you need neatly together with no dross) listen to any of his first 3 albums and then to his crowning glory "The Confessions of Doctor Dream and Other Stories". I say leave this alone for a while only because it's probably the one with the highest concentration of slightly wierder sounds on it in a sustained chunk and you'll be used to that by the time you get to it if you start with the others. It also contains the magnificent "Everybody's Sometime and Some People's All The Time Blues" which is, remarkably, left off the "Best of..." album with no justification that I can think of.

Ayers is under-rated to a massive degree, and never achieved the commercial success that he could have done, partly I suppose because of the avante-guard influences that shine through at times (let's not forget that Ayers' credentials in this include Soft Machine and work with Gong's Daevid Allen) and partly because of a tendency to bail out and bugger off to the sun whenever commercial success beckoned (and a famed tendency to stage fright can't have helped).

I suppose this is one of the reasons I like him so much - he DIDN'T go for the money or the fame. It WAS really about the music and that shines through everything he does. Unlike many of his contemporaries his 2007 "comeback" album "The Unfairground" is genuinely good - more laid back (EVEN more laid back, some would say) perhaps, but it's still Ayers through and through and not one of those "return to form...ah but hang on, not quite" affairs we get so used to.

Start here

but keep going ...

No Thrashing

2009-06-15T14:07:00.013+01:00

I listen to a lot of thrash metal. I spend hours listening to Slipknot, Rise Against and many more bands who deploy that guitar sound that feels like being hit with a hammer every chord and where playing it as fast as possible apparently differentiates you from your peers (an illusion, I might add, although I'm sure they wouldn't take any notice of me).

I do this, you understand, not willingly, but by default, as I have two teenage sons (and a third who will no doubt get round to this eventually) who's choice of music I cannot fail to appreciate as the mere presence of a door does little or nothing to reduce the volume of buzz-saw guitar that spills out into my world from theirs. Now, I do, occasionally, get them to turn it down if it creeps up to the point where I actually cannot hear the TV or my own music, but in general I'm pretty relaxed and I think I can remember enough of my own formative years to know that too much interference will only make them hate me more than they already do (in those periods where they hate me, you understand, not ALL the time).

So I grin and bear it.

In fairness, despite the predilection for music that, in my view, borders just a little too close on what I would have termed "heavy metal" in my youth and that I vehemently disliked (and indeed do dislike even now), generally their tastes are quite eclectic. Without any prompting from me beyond being exposed to it almost daily as they grew up and having a free hand with my CD's, they also like quite a lot of stuff that I do (which I realise is both unnatural and probably unhealthy) but a couple of new things have come along recently that are definitely sitting in the "can't I skip this" iPod category in the car.

Eg White's "The Adventure Man" is a new album from a man who was in The Eg and Alice, about whom all I remembered was the name. They managed to have a couple of smallish hits in the early 90s (small for then, I suppose - equivalent sales now would probably have given them a 16 week run at number one) but most recently he has been the go-to writer/producer for people like Will Young (Leave Right Now) and has enjoyed huge success co-writing with people like Adele (Chasing Pavements) and Duffy (Warwick Avenue).

If that doesn't put you off, as you'd expect his own album is full of catchy hooks and smart, tuneful songs that get into your head and won't go way. No buzz-saws here, thankfully and all the better for it, but this is, dare I say it, in similar territory to James Blunt, but without the annoying bits and seeming to reflect a more considered and less mawkish personality altogether. It's a safe bet, I think, that if you liked the Adele and Duffy tracks, you'll like this album.

In a similar vein, the Lightning Seeds have released their first album for some years, Four Winds. Everyone should have a copy of "Like You Do", their "best of" compilation and I think a lot of people with just a casual Lightning Seeds acquaintance would be pleasantly surprised just how much of that collection is rock solid pop gold (copyright Smooth FM). Take the trouble to listen a bit harder and you'll also discover just how glorious the production and the arrangements are behind the great tunes and why Terry Hall is so underrated as a lyricist.

The new album is an altogether more muted affair but Ian Broudie has lost none of his ability to cobble together a great melody. As with the Eg White record, this is about subtlety rather than thrills, but its an engaging listen and available for a fiver on 7 Digital

Still More on Windows 7

2009-06-09T21:48:00.006+01:00

It's been a little while since I was singing the praises of my shiny new install of Windows 7, so what's been happening in the meantime ?

All has not run entirely smoothly, I must admit, but I'd also better follow that up very quickly by saying that problems have NOT actually been the fault (directly, at least) of W7, rather being a combination of the new OS being TOO new and of me being a bit of a prat. I'll explain.

I thought Carbonite (fantastic on-line backup service, reaonably priced at around £25 a year, www.carbonite.com) was installed and working, but realised that actually the interface would not come up under W7. I uninstalled Carbonite to re-install - big mistake as it then wouldn't re-install. I went for an on-line chat with their support rep (I'm convinced that someone has actaully found a way of passing the Turing test and that you usually just get a programme on the other end of those - how often do they completely ignore what you're actually asking them ?) only to get the end result, what a shocker, that W7 isn't supported yet.

What I struggled to understand is that Carbonite definitley worked when I did a clean W7 install (via dual boot, if you were paying attention) so I re-did my dual boot partition and did the whole thing over again. Voila, clean install of W7 and a working copy of Carbonite.

Ah, so I'll be clever, I thought. I'll continue on and install EVERYTHING on my new W7 and then I'll delete the old Vista partition and I'll be left with a clean install on W7 with all my stuff on it.

WRONG. You can't delete a system partition, or at least I couldn't delete a system partition, despite using 3 (count 'em) different partition management programs. To cap it off, in the process of trying to mess about with shrinking partitions I ended up with no booting OS at all at one point and me shrieking madly and diving for the recovery disks. This managed to get me a working OS again, but I thought enough was enough - I reformatted the drive completely and clean-installed AGAIN.

So far so good - everything either works or I've got an easy fix and I'm happy with the whole end result. The only issues encountered were :

1. I had used the new McAfee TPS beta as it's the only thing they currently have that supports W7. This was working, but my system ground to a halt on two occassions, to the point where, without actually crashing, it needed to be rebooted. This was reminiscent of the old memory leak problems we used to get with IE and earlier versions of Windows. After the second time I decided that TPS was the most likely cause (being a beta and all that) so I took it off and switched to AVG (the free version) which actually states that it's W7 compatible. And it is ! So much so, in fact that I may not renew my McAfee subscription when its due, evn when they do get round to making it work.

2. As I knew would happen, StereoMix disappeared. I was going to use the software fix for this I found earlier, but I was reminded in a blog somewhere that the easiest fix for this is simply to run a short 3.5m kack to jack lead from the sound OUT on the soundcard, to the line IN on the same card. I used a splitter to take the OUT to my speakers at the same time and this works a treat. Recoring of any sound on the PC and £17 saved. Result.

I think those were the only issues that arose. all I have to worry about now is re-doing it all when W7 actually gets released. Oh, and how much Microsoft will charge for the thing - let's hope they take a lead from Apple and charge next to nothing (or £29 I think it is), to drive people to upgrade.

iPhone 3.0

2009-06-09T21:20:00.011+01:00

So we are finally getting the 3.0 update for iPhones on June 17th. About time too.

Although there are apparently c. 100 updates, I suppose the key ones for most users will be Cut & Paste (handy), the native voice memo thing (plenty of apps out there already that do this), Universal Spotlight search (uhm...) and film/TV downloads direct to the phone (yawn). No great shakes then although the SDK changes will hopefully open up all sorts of new and improved possibilities. Making the most of those, however, will be a somewhat limited affair unless you also upgrade to the iPhone 3Gs, with its increased processing power, better battery life and bigger memory -oh, no, sorry, you won't be able to do that because, like me, you'll still be in your original 3G contract and it will cost you some ludicrous amount of money to upgrade the phone before the contract ends.

As I write it looks as if there will effectively be NO concession to existing iPhone users to swap over to the new hardware - you'll have to buy out all of your remaining contract AND pay out for the new phone AND sign up for a new contract which will still be in place when the iPhone 4G gets released next summer.

Just as well the new hardware isn't that much better I suppose.

Glenn Tilbrook - Telford's Warehouse, Chester : 18.5.09

2009-05-19T11:51:00.006+01:00

As my completely useless picture shows, I went to see Glenn Tilbrook last night in Chester.

I was pleasantly surprised at how small the venue was. The main room was no bigger than 20ft across and there can't have been more than 150 people there, but there was no sense of this being a disappointment in any way, somehow it felt right and, naturally enough, very intimate. Glenn was playing just for us and it was great.

Having seen him before with The Fluffers (and once before completely solo) this really hammered home how much better he is without the band. I suppose it's locked in with the size of the gig but listening to him play all those songs with just an acoustic guitar brings out how great a songwriter he is, better than with the support of the other musicians.

Clearly, the old Squeeze hits went down well, but the audience was well versed in the stuff from his 3, much under-rated, solo albums. "The Incomplete..." is up there among my favourite albums of all time and was well represented. Plenty of Squeeze to keep people bobbing and a couple of interesting covers : "The Shape I'm In" and McCartney's "I Will".

Even though I've been a big fan for a along time, I still found myself marvelling at how great the songs are as well as his delivery - one of the great, top-end voices of the last 30 years. when all the production is stripped away and it's just one person with a guitar and a voice, that's when the strength and the structure of the songs has got to be there - and it is.

Top night. I should also say that Telford's Warehouse is a great venue - it's essentially a really nice pub with a perfromance area. The atmosphere was terrific and it's a real pub. The beer was good and the menu looked appetising, if a little on the pricey side, which I suppose will be less important if the quality matched the prices.

Little Feat - Liverpool Academy

2009-05-12T16:32:00.008+01:00

I saw Little Feat on Saturday night. The gig clearly wasn't a sell out, which I thought was a shame, but I have to say that the extra room was very welcome.

I have to admit to having had somewhat lower expectations than I might otherwise have done. I was lucky enough to see LF at Newcastle City Hall in (I think - age is an annoying companion at times) 1976. What's certain was they were on a double bill with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, who were supporting their first album.

LF played last and were fantastic. Even to my 16 year-old sensibilities they were just marvellous (this was JUST pre-punk, of course) and I was making the transition from my early prog phase to stuff like this via Zappa.

Even at that point Lowell George was less of a central figure than you expected him to be, but I have to admit that he still hung over the gig, 33 years later. Not in what was played but in what wasn't played. I'm sure it must irk the remaining members that people still hanker on about Lowell George all this time after his passing, but all the reasons why we were told that George was disatisfied with the band were in evidence on Saturday night.

While I was longing for them to just play some of the great songs straight, they insisted on mixing songs together and jamming for a LONG time in the middle of others. Now I have nothing against a bit of noodling at gigs and they are still great musicians, but you could sense the audience desperate for them to just give us the songs to sing along to.

They played Willin' fairly early on, which made me emotional even without Lowell, but then stopped dead to make a comment about this being "the sing-a-long bit" and then proceded to seague into another song without even coming back to Willin'.

I enjoyed the night out, but it could have been so much better.

Here's classic Little Feat to make up for it.

More Windows 7 - One Week Later

2009-05-12T16:24:00.003+01:00

One week in and I have to say that I'm just not really seeing what the fuss is about.

I'd say that, overall, there's a noticeable speed difference. Things d just seem to happen that little bit quicker and moving files, between folders, directories or even between devices is definitley quicker. Considerably so.

That aside, though, now that the "newness" of the interface isn't a factor, the whole thing is settling down to be pretty much just an updated version of Vista. I'm sure I'm doing a zillion Microsoft programmers a huge disservice here, but this isn't the major new OS that some people were expecting.

What it is, is the OS that Vista should have been. It's as if they kept working on Vista even though they had released it and the end result is now Windows 7.

Recommended.

Windows 7 RC - Two days In - Part 2

2009-05-07T11:46:00.008+01:00

So, an upgrade install of W7 - what happened :

Install took AGES. Definitely longer that upgrades for previous OSs and although I didn't time it it must have taken about 75 minutes. I have a fair amount of media stuff on my PC, including an iTunes library around 170gb but I can't get my head round how this affects the install (if, indeed, it did). It was, however, completely hands-off, not even any choosing of time zones etc., so at least you could run it and go and do something else. Not that I did that, mind you !

I think I've now run nearly all my existing software and the issues I've come across are ;

1. iTunes - won't let me use the middle mouse to scroll. Big deal, I hear you shouting, but an annoyance. Perhaps this will right itself when a new iTunes version comes along (which is never far away, let's face it) and needs installing.

2. McAfee VirusScan - works perfectly, despite not working at all with the clean install. Presumably this means it's something to do with the installer rather than the programme itself (I seem to remember issues with McAfee on the move to Vista as well)

3. Similarly, HP scanner software runs fine, despite problems with the clean install.

4. "Stereomix" IS now available as a sound recorder option. This was the one I couldn't fathom, but I'm not arguing.

5. The only bit of software that I've had a real problem with has been "Virtual Pool 3 DL" which ran fine but would not hold on to any saved game info (it does this normally in the background when you quit). Even a reinstall wouldn't solve this until I noticed that the uninstaller wasn't clearing out the Program Files folder properly. I deleted this manually and then asked W7 to tell me which compatability version was best for this software. It said XP so I re-installed using that mode and it works fine now. I realise this won't bother most people as I think there are only about 40 people in the UK who seem to have this game, but all information is important (apparently).

These niggles aside, everything else has worked fine so far. I do have a few more things that I haven't tried to run yet, so I'll update later.

I'll also post in a few days on how W7 actually is to use day to day, but I think its best that I let my initial thoughts settle down a bit. 48 hours in, I have to say that W7 doesn't seems that much different to Vista (about which I do not, I should add, share a lot of other people's frustrations) but I'd prefer to wait to see what really grabs me before I witter on about it.

Windows 7 RC - Two days In - Part 1

2009-05-07T10:58:00.007+01:00

I was very careful. I set up a dual boot with my existing Vista and added W7 so that I could have a play and install my most used software to make absolutely sure it runs OK.

However, this took just a few hours before I was happy to run the W7 install as an upgrade to Vista. The clean install took just over 15 minutes to go on - so quick, in fact, that I was sure something must have gone wrong. I'm sure that when I clean-installed Vista last time this took the standard 45mins.

Regardless, everything seemed to be fine and successive software installs all ran fine. Not running iTunes successfully would have been an absolute deal breaker for me, but I'd read that pretty much any software that works on Vista will work on W7 and so it seems to be.

The only issues I came across with the clean install were :

1. McAfee VirusScan wouldn't work at all - a previous google had pointed me to a beta that McAfee have that will run on W7, so a quick download and all was well. (more on this later)

2. My HP scanner software wouldn't install, citing an "incompatible OS". The fix for this was to right click the installer and choose Vista SP1 from the Compatability list. As simple as that.

3. The only other issue was that the option to record from "stereomix" was not available in the recording devices. I use this quite a lot to record stuff from BBC radio etc, where I want to transfer to my iPod to listen to later - the iPlayer is fine but you're still tethered pretty much to your PC. In Vista this option is merely disabled and can be turned on by right-clicking in the recorder properties to enable disabled and/or disconnected devices, but in W7 this is completely gone. More googling and I jumped on the conspiracy bandwagon that Microsoft and the RIAA (or whatever it is) are clearly colluding to stop anyone recording anything from their PCs. I also found a great piece of software that gets round the problem by setting up an independent sound driver on your system and effectively adds back the "stereomix" ability (I have completely lost this link but will add back when I find it again). The software isn't fee, but if you use this facility a lot then I think its worth the $17. There may well be other free stuff out there that achieves this - the moral of the post is "it's solveable".

I was so impressed by how quickly and easily this all happened that I took the plunge and went on to do the Upgrade install almost immediately. The only issue I can see with this is that it will force me to do a clean install when I buy the actual shipped version (although I understand from Google that even this may be hackable) but, given that this doesn't need to be until June 2010, I think I'll either be ready for a "clean out" install by then, or even ready for new hardware.

I'll risk it.

Next Post - the upgrade install throws up some interesting stuff, and living with W7.

I cried...

2009-04-28T11:04:00.003+01:00

From this month's Viz. (click to see larger version - and read it all)

What the iPhone 3G ACTUALLY needs

2009-04-28T10:35:00.003+01:00

I'm looking forwards to the iPhone 3.0 release as much as the next man, but ignoring all the hype over the "100 plus" new features, can we please see two things put right that REALLY need to be addressed.

1. The iPhone just isn't loud enough. The ringer is among the quietest that I've had on any phone and to compound this further the positioning of the speaker means that it is SO easy to block and mute completely. I've even see a little plastic device out on the web that clips on to the bottom to try to stop you blocking the speaker port, but this is clearly impractical as you'd need to remove it every 5 minutes to dock the phone etc. The solution may be in either software or hardware (and there's surely another model coming along this summer) but this needs addressing.

2. Why can't we customise the alert sounds ? Want to add a custom ring tone - no problem. Want to change the sound your iPhone makes when a text comes in - OK, just jailbreak your phone and download 8 bits of software and bingo ! ALL of the built-in alert tones are TOO SHORT. Add to this problem 1. and you need to keep the thing right next to your ear constantly (upside down, of course so you don't block the speaker) to have any chance of picking up a text.

Yes, I want cut & paste. Yes, MMS would be nice (although I haven't had the need to send one in almost a year) but PLEASE sort out the real basics as well.

Sir Clement Freud : 1924 - 2009

2009-04-22T09:45:00.005+01:00

I read of Clement Freud's demise last week with great sadness. One of my happiest childhood memories (from the 70's, if I must give my age away) was the 12.30pm Radio 4 comedy slot and Just A Minute in particular.

Despite the fact that I could have stayed at school for lunch, my Mum insisted on dragging me home (a 15 minute walk each way) for something home made ; being a good northern family we had our main meal at lunchtime and called it dinner. The plus to this was Radio 4 every day and often the classic line up on Just A Minute of Freud, Derek Nimmo, Peter Jones and Kenneth Williams. Sadly, I think Clement Freud was the last of that group to pass away. My actual memories of it are somewhat sketchy but I know I was enthralled by their wit and comic invention.

It's all the better, therefore that my own children, and in particluar my 10 year old, now love this programme in its Sunday lunchtime slot, 30 odd years later. The personalities may have changed but the skill and quick wit required are still there in abundance.

May it (and ISIHAC) go on forever. Alas Clement won't be, and I know he had many other facets to his life for which he will be remembered, but this particluar part has crossed over with my life - it has been richer for it and will be a little sadder without him.