beneath the silence
Don’t worry, I’ve not forgotten about you. There’s just nothing new here at the moment because I’m working on a couple of little projects. Hopefully more soon…
Welcome to Catch
a story of coffee, music and football
you’re not getting it out of my hands
While the online order I made on the 5th still didn’t expect to ship until the 28th, the news came across the interweb that Apple stores had a supply of iPod touches, so thanks to Si for having a day off and the effort to nip up to Southampton in the morning, I now have my hands all over the little touchscreen box of fun.
And it’s as simple as this, you’re never getting it off me. It’s incredibly thin yet both fits perfectly in my hand and doesn’t feel in any way fragile. The touchscreen also feels really intuitive to use and yes, it attracts fingerprints like moths to a light bulb. Yes, the web browser might be a little bit clumsy, especially while navigating but it’s a useful tool to have. Videos look excellent (as long as you’ve converted them correctly) and I really like having access to the artwork when listening to music. Even the typing seems to work well.
My only gripe is that it takes several moves to pause music or change the volume which can get annoying when someone walks into the office at work, the only option is to let the music continue to play. Scratch that, double click the home buttons brings up the volume and play controls without unlocking the device, problem sorted.
Is it worth it? Well I’ve just put my original 3G iPod into it’s box for the first time (other than moving to/from uni) in nearly 4 years, that answer your question?
the choices
Right now I there’s a goldmine of news stories to write/rant about, so I’m going to keep a bit of free time and only write a paragraph on each.
First, this EU / Microsoft anti-trust case. Sure if they’ve fixed it so that their own servers run better with Windows than other manufacturers then sure, fine them, but to go after them because they bundle media player with Windows is stupid. Apple bundle iTunes and Quicktime with OSX and even linux distributions come with a set of media players. You can choose not to use them you know! For heavens sake, XP can’t even play dvd’s without a third party driver.
Second, “I’m queueing to get money out of ‘Troubled’ Northern Rock just because everyone else is” is not a reasoned argument. Does the man in front of you know more than the Boss of the bank? No, he’s just as clueless as to why he needs to be there as you are. It makes me wonder whether anyone in this country actually listens to anyone but the media who see it as their job to create as much of a panic out of every story as possible just to get viewers/readers/sales. Anyway, it’s your pensions that you should be worrying about!
Thirdly, PC Worlds latest advert that claims Norton Anti-virus will protect you from ‘identity theft’. True, but the time of keyloggers stealing your passwords finished when your bank starting insisting that you only type 3 characters or only use your mouse and that was a couple of years ago. You’re far more likely to fall for a phishing email or to have your card cloned at a cashpoint or garage than you are to need an identity theft preventing anti-virus system. Plus why pay £25 when you can get a perfectly decent setup for free? (It’s what I use) Do the math, and never give out your password and pin in full or you will get no sympathy from me.
a new coffee heaven
This lunchtime I was sat in Bournemouth gardens with a sandwich and a new Starbucks Double Mocha Macchiato, my new most favourite type of unnecessary coffee. White chocolate and coffee at the bottom, froth in the middle and chocolate sauce at the top, it’s a drink and pudding rolled into one. The only problem being that the chocolate sauce gets stuck in the lid of the takeaway cup, but there’s nothing wrong with licking the chocolate out of the lid is there?
not quite the end of the summer
The summer holidays might have finished and the nights are drawing in, but that doesn’t stop those of us who are brave (or possibly stupid) enough from still heading down the beach of an evening. Yes we usually turn up with only half an hour of daylight remaining and when it’s just at the point that it’s starting to get chilly but that didn’t stop us playing Frisbee until it got so dark we couldn’t see it any more and then later in the week attempting to have a bbq on the one part of the beach not lit from the prom. It must have been weird for the few people walking past to hear a guitar and a harmonica echoing from the darkness.
But while there’s still a little warmth in the air and not a cloud in the sky, how better to spend an evening with a little food, a little improvised music and a view that stretches from the flashing buoys on the horizon to the houses on the other side of the bay to the nearly unspoilt view of the stars. If only I had the photo to put with this post, but I don’t want to risk my camera down the beach when we’re playing sport.
touch
Ok, so I’ve been waiting for this for a while and it looks like I’m going to be waiting a little bit longer to get my hands on one, but apple have finally announced the touch screen ipod. After the iPhone was released I had worried that it’s worldwide release would be apple’s priority but thankfully I was wrong.
But why do I care? The world has had mobile digital music for a couple of years now and it’s getting a bit stagnant, horribly generic mp3 players are two a penny and while there have been a couple of attempts to create a portable video player there’s not been anything that has captured the imagination. The whole scene needed a bit of a prod and this is it. I firmly believe that this one device will change the world in the same way that the original couple of iPods did.
Firstly the addition of the wireless web browsing capability from the iPhone is exciting while not being all that useful at the moment. I can imagine lots of situations when I’d love to use the facility while also knowing that free wireless isn’t something you come across every day, not around here anyway. Secondly the wireless iTunes store and the linkup with Starbucks is again not without it’s holes and limitations but it’s a big step forwards. Many people expected the Microsoft Zune to be the fist device to put it’s wireless chip to a more productive use than sharing songs (should two Zune users ever meet) and I’m sure that it will, but until then (and I’m not ignoring mobile efforts from the likes of nokia) apple will be there, worldwide, first.
Sure it’s not got a proper widescreen display and sure and 16Gb is going to mean that some artists are going to have to be chopped from my iTunes library if I’m going to fit any episodes of Futurama on it to watch on the train, but I realise that it’s always going to be a compromise between storage space, screen size and battery life. I also know that it’s impossible to put a hard drive inside because it would take up far too much of that tiny battery, you should see what happens when you try to sync my 3g iPod when it’s not attached to the mains.
Which means my order is in (ok, I’ve ordered two but one is for Si) and the wait is on, lets just hope it’s not too long.