Wish List 2010

Well another few hours and a whole year is behind us.

2009 has been a year of mixed emotions for me. On the upside health, home and working life has been great.

On the downside the credit crunch, needless wars in Eurasia and the appalling behaviour of both our politicians and banking institutions left me feeling more than a little numb.

So with all that out of the way it's time to write my wish list and make a few predictions. Notice i didn't mention resolutions. Don't do them as i always break them anyway.

First my wish list for 2010 (not in any order):

1. Me, my family and friends the best of health and happiness
2. My daughter to pass her driving test
3. All 1,700 workers at Corus to keep their jobs
4. Labour to lose 'big style' at the general election
5. British army out of Iraq and Afghanistan for good (i won't hold my breath)
6. Apple to update my Apple TV with BBC iPlayer, NAS integration with my Sonos, music streaming and a web browser
7. My warm glass of Mulled Wine to remain full (slurp)
8. Apple to bring us the Tablet and not to call it the iSlate
9. Apple to bring ground breaking 4th gen iPhone
10. New internet campaign to stop all X Factor puppets reaching number one

My predictions for 2010 (not in any order)

1. Labour to lose the election
2. Apple to launch a new iPhone (not a difficult one i admit)
3. Apple to launch a new Tablet
4. Apple to launch web streaming subscription services for music, movies, TV shows etc
5. Apple to update Apple TV but not how i'd like it
6. British army bogged down in Afghanistan
7. More nannying from the state and our daily lives interfered with
8. Slow economic recovery 
9. Google to launch own phone, operating system and ecosystem to rival Apple
10. Microsoft to lose even more market share

Happy New Year!!

White Christmas

Well it looks like it's going to happen, well at least here on the borders of North Yorkshire anyway.

A White Xmas is a sure bet now as i can't see this lot shifting. We've had snow on the ground for at least 5 days with severe frosts and minus temperatures stopping it all from thawing. And there's more in its way.

Woke up this morning to a fairly good dusting of snow and drove in a blizzard en-route to Darlington this morning. See pic.

On saying that i have to travel to Tadcaster in the morning for my Xmas feast so hopefully the gritters will be out.

Merry Xmas!!

Sonos Multi Room System

The new gadget arrived this weekend in the form of the Sonos Multi Room Music System.

Having got rid of the bulky and old fashioned looking hi-fi system and virtually all my CD's, although i have kept the vinyl, i was making do with a BOSE SoundDock and my iPhone.

Although the BOSE is a great piece of kit, you are a bit limited in that you need to source your music from your iPod or iPhone. Now i know this is what the SoundDock is designed for but every time my phone rang i had to take it off the dock which defeats the object.

OK so what is a Sonos Music System? Well in short it's a system that allows you to play music from your iTunes/iPhone/iPod music library wirelessly anywhere in the house. It also integrates with streaming music services such as Napster, Last FM and the like. You can also use your iPod or iPhone to control the whole system by downloading their free software controller from the iTunes App Store.

My set up consists of two ZonePlayer S5's. Each ZonePlayer S5 has 5 built-in speakers, 2 tweeters, 2 mid-range drivers and 1 subwoofer. One player plugs into your wireless router, although i'm going to invest in a ZoneBridge which acts a zone network router. This way i can put one ZonePlayer upstairs, the other downstairs. For the more well off i imagine you'd have one in each room.

Set up was simple. Take a ZonePlayer out of the box, plug the provided network cable into the player, the other into your wireless router. Install the Sonos software and run it. The software detects each ZonePlayer and after a couple of steps you have a fully functioning music system.

I have a Mac Book Pro with iTunes installed and the Sonos software immediately picked up my music library and displayed it on an iTunes like interface. During installation you get the option of naming each ZonePlayer. As i currently have one in the living room and the other in the kitchen that is what i've named them.

Within 5 minutes i was playing music and the sound is absolutely mind blowing. It knocks the BOSE into last week in terms of volume and clarity. This is a serious piece of hi-fi make no mistake about it. You can play different tracks on different players controlling the volume independently of the other. You can also group the ZonePlayers so the same song plays on both players and all at a flick of a switch or a press of a button in this case. But the real clincher for me is the ability to stream music from the internet using Napster.

Napster haven't submitted their app to the iTunes store as of yet which means iPhone or iPod owners have to rely on an XP/Vista version of its downloadable software or an online version which can be accessed by both Mac and PC's.

I've been using the Spotify app on my iPhone which is great but at a tenner a month i feel is a little limiting for my needs. Napster on the other hand costs from a fiver, with 5 MP3's thrown in for every month you subscribe, and as i've already mentioned, integrates with the Sonos Music System.

A quick free download of the Sonos controller app from the the App Store means i can now control the ZonePlayers from my iPhone without turning the laptop on. If you have a Napster account you simply enter your account details into the Sonos software and your up and running. Now you can search and play over 8 million tracks as well as access the music you own in your iTunes library. And like iTunes you can create playlists or queue the tracks to play through the Sonos system. Like Sonos, Napster also has thousands of Radio stations which is an added bonus.

All i need now is for Apple to get their own subscription model up and running, which one would assume will use either iTunes or it's newly launched iTunes preview website, and i'm a happy bunny. As long as the price is right of course.

Rage Against The Machine Campaign

Just downloaded a track by Rage Against The Machine or RATM as the acronym goes.

Killing In The Name is an old tune from 1992 but is currently topping the iTunes download charts apparently due a facebook campaign to prevent X Factor winner Joe McElderry from reaching number one.

Joe, showing maturity beyond his tender years, isn't that bothered and was quoted as saying "people will buy whatever they want". Cowell and Cole on the other hand are being a bit juvenile by playing the old PC card and accusing the campaign as bullying, stupid and cynical.

I like Cowell and find him refreshingly honest but lets face it he has made a lot of money off X Factor and has a vested interest in getting Joe to number one. Perhaps complacency has set in when one assumes the winning single should automatically go to the top of the singles charts.

There's a growing trend amongst people to move against the status quo and this campaign is evidence of that.

These days if you think Governments are using climate change to stitch us up with tax hikes then your a climate sceptic, if you don't agree with the war in Afghanistan your a Taliban sympathiser and if your not happy with policy on immigration your a racist.

Perhaps it hasn't occurred to Cowell that the X Factor has become part of that machinery and some people are raging against it.

Microsoft We Can't Hear You

But we can see that your new CEO Steve Ballmer is a prat.

While Apple and Google are creating all the buzz, where are Microsoft?

This is the company that, in my opinion, stifled almost two generations of 'new technology'. Shafting Amstrad will go down as one of its many success stories and convincing every King and Queen around the world that Microsoft was the solution to all of their problems. Cough!!

Taking almost two decades of pain and forcing the vast majority (not me) to use its proprietary software, the world is finally coming out of the dark ages and having some fun.

And what are Microsoft doing about it? Not a lot. But Ballmer has promised his blind faithful to invest in more Developers Developers Developers.

Enjoy!!

iPhone Wins Gadget Show's Gadget Of The Decade

Probably old news but the Gadget show has just announced the iPhone as Gadget Of The Decade in the mobile category. Oh and the iPod also won the music gadget of the decade.

Not really that much of a surprise but what really amazed me was how many phones there have been over the last 10 years. The speed at which this technology moves is frightening.

Apple have certainly got a challenge on their hands maintaining top position, what with Google's new Nexus One prototype already in the hands of Google staff for evaluation.

Having said that, i think the phone that will eventually eclipse the iPhone will be the one that is 'well connected', as opposed to an iPhone clone.

By that i mean a lot of phone companies are just discovering that it's the ecosystem surrounding the iPhone which makes it so successful. The app store, film purchase and rental, TV shows, YouTube integration and very soon streaming, are the things that keep the iPhone top of the crop.

Oh i almost forgot to mention music. Yeah the iPhones good at that too.

O2 Fighting Back Thanks To Tesco

When i discovered Tesco was to distribute the iPhone 3G & 3GS through the O2 network i thought here we go, price war on.

However, when Orange announced their iPhone tariffs would be the same as O2 the thoughts "uncompetitve, monopoly, bad for consumers' sprang to mind.

Now the news is out that Tesco Mobile will not only undercut current monthly tariffs by up to a third, but also offer 12mth contracts as opposed to the standard 18 or 24 mth offerings of O2 and Orange.

There is a caveat. The upfront charges for the iPhone on a 12mth contract are higher than O2 and Orange at £222. Also the 600 minute call package you get with O2 will be half that. Tesco's unlimited calling tariff will set you back £60 per month with a 24 mth contract.

Still it's good news for those on a budget and indirectly gets O2 back in the frame as i predict a mass exodus away from O2 over to Orange's much larger network coverage.

With Vodafone coming onboard and then T-Mobile in 2010, which will eventually merge with Orange to create a super huge network, i'll predict that the iPhone will be the UK's number one selling phone in 2010.

As they say at Tesco "every little helps".

Unlocking My iPhone

Well it's almost 18mths since i did what i always said i'd never do...take out a phone contract.

Unfortunately a once little known Silicon Valley technology company called Apple, decided to reinvent the smartphone and i broke off with every principle in my pathetic and mortal body.

However, that's all about to come to an end on the 4th January.

If you were one of those people who queued around the corner of your local O2 or Car Phone Warehouse 18 mths ago, then you, like me, can now start the process of legally unlocking your iPhone F.O.C.

Thanks to Google and a bit of keyword research i stumbled across the official unlocking webpage (see above link) of O2 buried deep in the archives and well out the way of the public eye.

The official O2 line is: 'Your iPhone can be unlocked at anytime free of charge. If you unlock your handset and place a non-O2 sim into it, you will still have to honour the remainder of the minimum term on your contract.'

Sounds fair enough to me and given the impending Xmas holidays, i better fill the form out now. That way they should have the wheels in motion come the 4th of January.

On the subject of iPhone and O2, i have enjoyed pretty much glitch free 3G coverage in my area but have had mixed reactions from various people using the service.

How has your experience with O2 and the iPhone been and will you be changing providers now Apple have opened the phone to Orange, Vodafone and eventually T-Mobile?

Back To The Stoneage

So we now know anybody earning over £20,000 per annum is going to get hammered.

The Neoliberalists who have sold us all down the river are now revealing the next phase of their plans to send 99% of the UK population back to the stoneage by stealing our hard earned cash through super taxation.

And all the while ensuring their Oligarch paymasters stay super rich.

The people haven't woken up yet to what's going on, partly because the irresponsible and lazy media are just repeating the lies bandied about by these Shysters, and wallpaper TV like X Factor is doing a fantastic job of zombifying the public.

The real impact of what these thieves have done hasn't hit the public purse yet but soon after the election it will. When it happens people will start to wake up but will it be too late?

Apparently the Chinese, Russia and India don't plan to fall into the same trap as post communist countries like Latvia and the Ukraine have.