My link blog has arrived

One of the features I’ve really been looking forward to in the new version of FeedDemon is Synchronised News Bins, which can be turned into link blogs.  So now that I’m running the beta, I’ve created Andy’s Link Blog :D

I add to it pretty regularly, like most bloggers there is a ton of stuff that I could post to my main blog but isn’t really important enough to warrant spamming you with it.  Having run this for a week already, I have posts in there dating back 3 weeks and it’s a mix of amusement, tech news and game news.  I hope you enjoy it

 

Now this is what I call new marketing

Last week a new marketing company (literally, that’s their tagline) called Crayon launched. Their launch party was in second life, the sort of activity which is growing in popularity but that’s more riding a new trend than defining one. No, the real story is in the details.

Take one company manifesto, and one awesome podsafe artist (who I gain more and more respect for every time I hear what he’s up to), and you end up with a song. Go ahead, flick through the manifesto and then listen to it. Interesting, yes?

I heard the advance play of the song before I heard about any of this, and mentioned it a couple of posts back thinking it was a great song but as usual, I hadn’t listened closely to the lyrics. Listening to it the second time, I was floored by how well he came up with a theme song for the company while still producing a song that stands on its own.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing when, on the latest Accident Hash, CC explained why this new Matthew Ebel track was so special to him and how even he was surprised at the result. Shameless plug - he then followed it up with some of my favourite tracks and no talking at all, so there’s another reason to listen to it.

If this is the sort of new idea that Crayon can come up with, they’re going to blow everybody else out of the water. I’m looking forward to it

 

Boot Camp could be the best mistake Apple ever makes

I read with much interest this week that Apple had released Boot Camp, technology that lets you boot Windows on Intel macs. It’s really nothing more than drivers, as the related firmware update basically implements BIOS compatibility allowing the machine to boot anything from Vista to Linux. I haven’t bought a mac desktop in the past because I play so many games that only run on windows; I always said that if I ever needed a laptop it’d be a mac but I’ve never had a real use for one

This meant that what really piqued my interest was an article on TUAW where one of the writers posted about gaming performance on his mac. I haven’t gone searching for any definite numbers, but in this case running World of Warcraft on the same hardware was magnitudes faster under Windows XP than under OSX. This is embarrassing for both Apple and Blizzard, and may turn out to be one of the biggest mistakes Apple’s ever made.

However I also think it’s one of the best things that could happen for one very important reason: benchmarks. Any cross-platform application, particularly games, will now be benchmarked comparing Windows to OSX. If the game performance is anything like this article, it’ll look really bad for Apple. Personally I blame Blizzard for this as their development team on this game has proven themselves to be fairly stupid; but consumers don’t care if it’s the fault of Apple or the game. It’s just slow.

This will lead to two fantastic developments.

• OSX engineers will start optimising the system in order to make it as fast if not faster than XP for everything, not just fancy UI stuff

• Game developers will be given time to make sure their game runs at full speed under OSX so there are no embarrassments like this one

Of course developers could just not release their games on OSX, but I also believe pressure will start to build for windows games to be released on intel macs. It’s a good time to be a mac fan.

 

bonus tags because I don’t want to overload my categories: apple bootcamp osx

 

iPod is ordered; also I type too much

So I finally did it. I haven’t paid this much for a single piece of technology since my video card almost 18 months ago, and despite some last minute discoveries in reviews (no firewire, and unplugging the headphones no longer pauses, WTF) I went ahead and ordered myself a Black 60gb toy with “Spyder” engraved on the back :D

I’ve slowed down my blogging again, or rather it probably seems that way but in actual fact I have some mammoth posts coming. I’m keeping notes as I buy podsafe music, since that’s not particularly easy being in Australia, and I started writing so much about each artist that I split it into 2 posts. I’m up to 1250 words combined already and I still have quite a few to go! I’m also slowly adding to my list of stuff to buy which doesn’t help, I may have to cut a few artists out to keep the post size sane

 

The iPod rumormill continues, but I no longer care

So as I was doing up my order for a 5g iPod on the Apple store this morning, two posts came through from Think Secret. The first, about the iPod video having a 4-inch screen made me realise that any dissapointment over the recent apple announcements was unwarranted because the original “start of april” rumor for the iPod video hasn’t changed, and still makes perfect sense (Apples 30th birthday).

Then I read the second post, claiming to be details from an industry executive about Apple running out of time to strike a subscription deal for movie downloads.

So the iPod video is coming. That second post is far too detailed to be faked, in my opinion. And despite my earlier thoughts that this was a must-have device, I began to wonder if this was really the device for me - from the subject you know the answer, but here’s my list of pros and cons.

• Pros
• 4-inch screen, which I believe puts it on par with the PSP
• Touch screen interface (only rumored though, still a chance it will be on the side of the device?)
• Sexy and can be used to make friends jealous
• New toy, fun to play with

Not a very long list, is it?

• Cons
• It will either have disgusting battery life, very small storage capacity or be horrendously expensive. Maybe all 3.
  A 60gb iPod with the AppleCare protection plan costs A$700. That’s actually beyond the limits of what I’m willing to pay, but 30gb just seems a little restrictive for the A$150 saving.
   

• I like the interface and control locations for my 4g iPod. Scratch that, I love them. It works so well I don’t want to buy something that isn’t an iPod. The tactile feed back from the buttons is something that will not happen on a touch screen device, and a dynamic scroll wheel just sounds silly to me. Apple is good at making complex interfaces easy, but still…
   

• This device sounds like it is designed to play video, with music as a secondary option. If I am at home, I watch movies on my 24″ monitor. If I had the opportunity to watch videos on a 4-inch screen, I’d own a PSP by now.
  I want an iPod for music, and anything extra is just for show - yes I will probably watch video clips on my iPod for fun, but not enough to make me buy a device designed for video.
   

• Apple is renowned for releasing substandard products in their first revision, turning the early adopters into beta testers.
   

• I don’t want to download movies by subscription. One of the best rants on why buying your content through a model that isn’t guaranteed to be permanant comes from Dave Slusher a couple of months ago, and is the main reason I decided to start avoiding the iTunes music store unless absolutely necessary.
   

• Last, but most importantly - any video deal they make won’t include Australia. I can almost guarantee this. If you have iTunes installed, go to the music store and change your location (down the bottom of the front page) to Australia. Now click on tv shows… OH WAIT, YOU CAN’T. We only get music videos

As you can see, it just isn’t worth the wait for me. I didn’t buy a PSP because I couldn’t see any time when I would want to watch a movie on a screen that small; trying to do stuff like reading while commuting just makes me carsick.

The “holy crap this is a fantastic toy” bug has worn off, I’ve looked at this with the reasoning I apply to all new technology purchases over $50, and I’ve decided it would be a waste of money. I’m getting my black 60g 5g iPod, and it’s going to have “Spyder” engraved on the back

 

It’s a 5g iPod for me!

Well the event is over, and from reports around the web there are some cool products but I can’t hide my dissapointment at the lack of a widescreen video iPod. Looks like I’m not alone either.

I guess it wouldn’t make sense to introduce it so soon after the 5g model, but it was nice to dream for a while eh

That certainly settles what I’m going to buy, 60gb iPod video here I come!

edit:
here’s a very good post about why the announcements today sucked.
http://www.tuaw.com/2006/03/01/in-defense-of-the-apple-rumor-mongering/

 

The problem with an iPod that breaks at the wrong time

By the title, you probably think this is referring to something I was using the iPod for. In fact, I’m referring to the new iPod rumors

my iPod stopped working 2 weeks ago (I really need to blog more) and after some investigation I determined it was a hardware failure - holding it up to my ear I could hear the drive spin up, then it clicked, went silent and tried spinning up again. My first concern was some photos that I hadn’t backed up - through some freakish stroke of luck turning it face down fixed it just long enough for me to copy those off.

I contacted an apple store to get it fixed, but it was out of warranty - my sister won it in a competition last year, and I bought it off her (40gb 4g model for the price of a 6gb mini… :D) but according to the serial number the iPod had been purchased about 6-8 months before my sister received it

Now buying a new iPod doesn’t worry me because I got this one fairly cheap, and my data was backed up. Then Think Secret dropped the bomb about a new video iPod with touch screen and everything… and I had a dillema.

Do I agree with everyone else that a touch screen iPod will suck, and buy a video iPod now in case they stop selling them when this new model comes out? Or do I trust Apple’s fantastic designers, try to fix this one and stick with it until the rumoured announcement in April? And what about the crazy price they quoted in the rumor? I can fork out for a 60gb 5g iPod + extra year warranty, but a full screen video model would not only cost more it’d have less storage capacity.

My concern over the decision ceased that night, after I’d started researching where to buy replacement hard drives - the damn thing starts working intermittently. I restored it, thumped it on the bed a few times and it’s un-stuck whatever the problem was and has been working ok ever since (I am treating it extremely gently though ;)).

Today I read that the announcement will be next week, so while this iPod could now probably last until April, it looks like I’ll be buying something at the start of March. I’m looking forward to not worrying about my iPod failing, and since this one lacks some of the cooler features found in the iPod photo and later it’ll be a fantastic new toy either way.

I just hope Apple don’t stop selling the current video iPod, as I have a sneaking suspicion I’ll still want one of those.

 

A good reason to not hate google

I was listening to today’s Daily Source Code when Adam played a comment (starts at 11 minutes) by a guy calling himself Rubber Head. He had a very interesting point of view on all this Google Bashing over censorship in the chinese version.

Look at the clothes you wear, and how many of those are made in Chinese sweat shops. Is supporting the chinese censorship laws really that much worse? Look at who owns one of the biggest oil companies in the world. If we’re all going to bash Google, we should be looking at our own lives and how we’re supporting the communist regime we claim to hate so much. Even your furniture may come from China.

Either we strip all chinese products from our lives, or we support google. To do anything in between is hypocritical.

 

Adam goes on to talk about another comment where it is revealed that anyone who understands english can get everything they need anyway as the censorship only really applies on chinese web pages; furthermore english is taught in schools all over China. So bashing google over censorship is a moot point and just an example of people who have an inner hatred of google (or more likely, shadow projection).