Archive for May, 2008
Odd iChat Behaviour
May 29th
A couple of days ago I logged into one of my IM accounts with iChat to test something out when I noticed my main iChat accounts was online…but I clearly wasn’t (yes, I have myself added as a friend on my other account 
) I logged into Adium which was showing this account as offline, but I logged out again just to make sure. I thought maybe iChat had automatically logged in as I fired it up, but in iChat it wasn’t online. I didn’t think anything more of it until yesterday I saw the online status next to my iChat username in Facebook. Again I logged in through Adium to make sure, but this account wasn’t logged in. Strange behaviour and quite frustrating as I hope my contacts didn’t think I was online and ignoring them…especially if they sent me messages. If you did then I apologise but I most certainly wasn’t online. I rarely ever log into IM (once every 3-6 months usually) but I’ll leave my explanations for that for another time 
Anyone else experienced funky behaviour like this from iChat?
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Last.fm Beta
May 21st
I’ve been thinking over the past few weeks how music is such a great motivational tool for me. I have looked at my workflow during times when I don’t have music playing and it’s far less than when I do have music playing – and from studying my ‘creative moments with music’ it’s almost always in the evening after 8pm, with me peaking at around 11pm. I tend not to listen to music quite as much during the earlier part of the day. If I do then it’s pretty much DI.FM Deep House streaming through iTunes or DJ ALA’s Dive Radio mix session podcasts, not a selection of my personally picked music from my music library, which brings me neatly to Last.fm.
I’ve had an account for a couple of years but rarely ever enabled scrobbling via the Lastfm software. Then a few weeks I found out that I could ’scrobble’ using CoverSutra, a full registered program I have had installed on my Mac since buying the MacHeist bundle earlier in the year. It’s far prettier than the Lastfm software, with quite a few nice features including music search, cool album art in a virtual jewel case on your desktop, shortcuts and more.
Today Last.fm Beta launched with a whole new design but is currently only accessible by subscribers. I wasn’t one, but it didn’t take me long to pay up £1.50 for one months subscription just so that I could have a look around this exclusive little club. Beta gets a big thumbs up from me. It feels cleaner, much less cluttered and easier to find what you’re looking for, like wandering through an airy room.
So, back to music that motivates me and perks up my creativeness. At the moment I am going crazy over Tales From The Beach, Incognito’s new album which was released two weeks ago. It’s not often I buy an actual physical CD, but Incognito had me up and out the door in search of this just 5 minutes after hearing short track samples on the HMV website. It wasn’t for a couple of days more that I was able to locate it and paid £11-99 for the privilege from HMV. Usually I’d download my most favourite tracks from iTunes rather than a whole album…but since they didn’t have the album I was forced to buy the CD. Since I have all of Incognito’s work on this format then I didn’t mind keeping up that tradition too much.
When I’m not listening to Incognito (a rarity at the moment) then I listen to Miguel Migs, Jamiroquai, Basement Jaxx, Daft Punk, Royksopp, Groove Armada and Scissor Sisters amongst many many others. Those are the artists that ‘move’ me the most. Take a look through my Last.fm profile and feel free to add me as a friend. It’s fun to see who I have the best music compatibility with 
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Turning web sites into web apps
May 16th
A few days ago I downloaded Fluid which enables you to create Site Specific Browsers (SSBs) to run your favourite web apps as a seperate desktop app for your Mac. I didn’t know such a thing existed until I happened to be looking at Twitter just before sleep a few nights ago and Chris mentioned it. Sometimes it really does pay to be a nightowl
I set up Hahlo (like Chris) in Fluid and it looks great as a desktop application.
If I wasn’t such a big fan of Twitterrific then I’d be using that as my desktop Twitter client. I use Hahlo 3 on my iPod touch, so it’s a very familiar interface not to mention clean and uncluttered – two very important things to me when it comes to desktop apps.
At the moment I haven’t got any other SSBs set up in Fluid, but when sites such as Socialthing! extend their services and sort out the problems with their existing ones then Fluid is going to be absolutely perfect for that.
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Elgato EyeTV
May 15th
Last weekend I was browsing the Apple Store looking for a way of watching/recording TV on my iMac. I found the Elgato EyeTV range which I have heard others talking about over the past 6 months. After asking around for the best model to go for, I ordered the EyeTV for DTT Stick on Monday for £38.95. The features sounded perfect for what I needed, with the extra bonus of being able to access my recordings via Wi-Fi on my iPod touch.
This morning it arrived so once unwrapped I plugged it into my iMac, stood the antenna on the desk, installed the EyeTV software and let it search for channels. After the first scan it turned up 6 channels, all of which were very flaky. I tried moving the antenna in various positions but it didn’t help with the signal at all. I read through the reviews on the Apple store and pretty much everyone said that the antenna supplied is next to useless. They had to either opt for a digital indoor aerial or attach it to their existing roof aerial. We have three Freeview boxes scattered about the house at the moment, two which are connected to the outdoor aerial but the bedroom one is connected to an indoor aerial which has always provided a pretty strong signal. I didn’t expect to have any issues with the EyeTV antenna.
So, since paying someone to clamber all over the roof would be the last restort, I headed to Argos and bought a Digital Amplified Antenna for just £12.99. I did an extensive search through the channels after attaching it and it found around 120 channels with the signal strength being very strong. It’s a great piece of software – and I’m rather liking the TV Guide provided by tvtv which gives me the schedule for the next two weeks. I like being able to plan ahead and used to be a subscriber to DigiGuide when I was a PC user. However, I cancelled my subscription when I switched to the Mac and they (rather rudely) told me that they had no plans to develop the software for Mac.
At the moment I am recording Futurama on SKY Three, courtesy of EyeTV. The recording process is extremely simple – bring up the tvtv guide, click the red dot next to the programme listing. Done. My next purchase will be Roxio Toast 9 Titanium so I can burn my ‘creations’ to DVD and watch on my TV (unless anyone knows of a cheaper alternative, haha!). Currently we don’t record any TV shows via any other hardware. We have a VCR but we never got around to tuning that in so we can record…and to be honest it seems old skool buying VHS tapes anymore. We never got into DVD recorders but I have looked at set-top boxes with built-in hard drives as an easier alternative – and of course AppleTV which is on my to-buy list for later in the year. One of the cheapest HD recorders I’ve seen is an 80GB for around £85. Since I have near 200GB left on my iMac then a £38-95 device sounded much more fun to play with.
If you’re looking for a TV recording solution then I would recommend the Elgato EyeTV, but would also suggest you look into purchasing an alternative to the supplied antenna. I just wish I’d bought this earlier as I could have recorded the new series of Family Guy on BBC Three which started airing a few weeks back.
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The new WWW = Web Without Wasps
May 8th
Now that Spring has finally sprung wonderfully in my part of the world this week, I am looking forward to spending more time in the garden with my PowerBook to do some gentle work during the day, then moving to the home office which will be cooler in the evenings. One of the problems that comes with nice weather, for me, is my phobia – wasps. Over the past couple of years there seems to be an increase in these bothersome insects which means my garden time is severely reduced as they chase me into the house.
This week we have bought a new gazebo for the garden which has netting all around it meaning I can sit inside and stick my tongue out at the wasps and work peacefully without having to run indoors every 2 minutes. However, there is sometimes a downside as they can lurk around the entrance near the zip, waiting for me to come out (seriously, this isn’t just me being paranoid, haha). This is where my new purchase will come in. Enter the Waspinator.
One of my Twitter friends pointed me in the direction of it yesterday so I promptly bought one, costing just £9.95. As you can see from these photos, it mimics an enemy nest so they leave the area for somewhere safer. No traps, no poison, just fooling the wasp into thinking enemies are nearby, leaving me in peace to enjoy my day. Last year we bought a portable insect killer (the Wasp Sunbed I liked to call it) which means the insect would be drawn to the blue light and meet a sizzling end. However, I was always quite put off by the fact that you would see the dead insect and worse still have to clean it out. Plus, wasps give off a scent when they’re dying which means other wasps could come and investigate and I’d have a load more to contend with. We don’t want that.
I’m really looking forward to this arriving so I can sit in the garden, outside of the safety of the gazebo netting, get a tan, work on my PowerBook/browse the net without being disturbed. I’ll also be able to hang it beside the window in the bedroom, home office or kitchen so I can let fresh air into the house without worrying that I’m going to come face to face with my fear. I’ll let you know how I get on with it when it arrives and see if it really does do what it says on the box
Image courtesy of Waspinator
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Brightkite Invites
May 6th
Thesedays there doesn’t seem to be a week that goes by without some new social network site being launched with an invite only while in private beta. One I’ve been hearing whispered around the web for a week or two is Brightkite.
What is Brightkite?
Location-based social networking. Discover who visits your favorite places. Join the community in real time.
Location-based social networking. Discover who visits your favorite places. Join the community in real time.
Track your friends
See where your friends are and what they’re up to, in real time.
Meet people around you
Meet real world friends. Reveal your location, befriend, and chat with people around you.
Meet real world friends. Reveal your location, befriend, and chat with people around you.
I have got just 0 invites for Brightkite left. To grab it, leave a comment and I’ll send it to the e-mail address you have posted with.
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May 5th
Of the gadgets and technology that excite me so much, game consoles have never been amongst them. I do remember buying a Sega MegaDrive many years ago and spending hours playing my favourite games, Super Hang-On and Wipe Out, but it wasn’t long before I became bored and sold it on. When I got my PC the only games I’d play were things like After Dark Games which challenged the brain and London Racer – again a driving game because I’m so damn good at it…and in reality aswell
When the Nintendo Wii was released I eyed it up for a bit. The attractive thing about the Wii is the physical element of it because at the same time as having fun you’re getting a workout, which is no bad thing for someone like me who works from home!! Being able to play tennis and ten-pin bowling with Wii Sport tempted me for a bit, then I just forgot about it as I do with all other gaming consoles. I have looked, on occasion, to see whether the price has been reduced from £179…but it never has.
Then a few weeks back Mario Kart for the Wii was released in Europe and many of my Twitter friends were talking about it…and challenging eachother with a game using their friend code. Once MKW was released elsewhere last week then I’ve seen the MK tweets triple. Twitter is tempting me to buy a Nintendo Wii and Mario Kart because of the interaction with others, wherever they are in the world. That’s gotta be fun.
It’s funny because if Apple released something I was interested in tomorrow with a £200 price-tag then I’d have no hesitation in buying it. Why? Because if it was something I wanted then I know with Apple I will get so much use out of it. There isn’t a single thing I’ve bought in the past few years, by Apple, that hasn’t been used to death. I am hesitating over the Wii because like I said I’ve never been big into gaming and I’d hate to spend that much money on something that may end up collecting dust. But at the same time it may be something I use a lot. I guess I’ll never know until I bite the bullet and buy one.
I’m going to wait until WWDC08 has passed in June before making any firm decision on buying a Wii, then of course the following month is my Birthday so any money would go towards the purchase. I don’t know what Apple have planned for that and I suppose nobody else does, apart from this 3G iPhone we keep hearing so much about. I’m not in line for one of those…well, unless o2 let existing customers make the switch seamlessly to the iPhone without having to enter a new contract…and if it was £20 a month then fair enough, but, we all know that won’t happen
Anyone else out there with a Wii who previously wasn’t much into gaming but bought one anyway?
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