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Music industry still don’t get it.

The manager of rock band U2 has urged internet service providers (ISPs) to help end illegal music downloads, according to The Hollywood Reporter. -via BBC News

We should really make the life and times of the music industry into a book, specifically that of fiction. They still don’t seem to understand that there getting wrong, at every turn. I buy all my music, and have for the most part stopped buying mainstream popular stuff in favour of the small indie labels and bands, because its alot better.

I believe whole heartedly in supporting the artist, but getting ISPs to gang up on their users, so the Music industry can make even more money, the MPAA are already on record saying they have over exaggerated there figures. There will always be a market for music, so why does the RIAA and BPI hang fast to the old ways, even now.

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iPhone – A couple of days in.

iPhoneSo I have a nice new unhacked iPhone. My first impressions are all somewhat good, so I though’t I would run done some of the things the press have been knocking the ye olde iPhone down with.

EDGE

Whoa! The iPhone is only 2.5G phone, run! Well in all honesty the EDGE coverage is poor although I can get it most places where I go, it ain’t to slow and even out of EDGE areas webpages load pretty damn fast. Its not youtube fast but it gets the job done.

Camera

2 Megapixels is that all? Well this is something that has bothered me, but not for the reason you may be thinking of. I have yet to use a camera on any phone, if I want to take a picture I have a dedicated camera for it. Though ‘cameraphones’ are getting much better there are still no match to a good quality dedicated camera

Price

This point I actually agree with and I think like our American cousins, we will get shafted for at least £100 come January, but do you know what I don’t really care. It would be nice if there was a Pay-As-You-Go option but then I can’t see anyway for o2 to make money.

The rest of the package is spot on, iPod and Phone work perfectly (not that I call many people) I am looking forward to the SDK, but may hack apptap on there before too long.

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I am in the Post Office, aren’t I?

Post OfficeOur story starts late one afternoon, the hero of our story has package a number of wonderful eBay items and they are ready to be posted.

The items are loaded into the car, and off we go. Arriving at the Post Office, our hero see’s theres a long queue so finds the end and joins it. Slowly, but surely the queue gets shorter and soon they are at the counter.

Our heroes eyes meet that of the Post Office worker only to be met with the reply ‘You want to post all those’, our hero clearly confused by the remark stands back and takes a deep breath. You can clearly see the fear running through the workers face, he’s see this all too often.

After completing a 360 sweep of the area, our hero remarks “I am in the Post Office, aren’t I?”

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Northern Music Online v2 – Launched

Northern Music Online v2What does many hours of toil get you?

I pretty damn good ecommerce website, thats what.

After discovering a UK based company producing one of the best ecommerce software solutions, it isnt free but it knocks oscommerce into a corner for what I needed, that and the community didn’t like my suggestions and deleted them. cause me to shift to Tradingeye, a heavily standards based cart software that has to be said is excellent and produces nice code to work with.
Checkout Northern Music Online Now!

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Lets rename the UK – Its a Good Idea Trust Me

Union Jack The United KingdomIt is a constant frustration of mine that there is no established international way of putting the UK. Its simple if you live the the USA, France, Germany, because the country cannot be split it to different parts.

You would think this isn’t a big problem and its all about preserving the cultural identity each of us have in the UK. The problem is that whenever you try to buy or submit a form online, it takes 5mins instead of 2mins, just because you have to search for what system the website is using.

The different ways of putting countries in a list:

  • England
  • Great Britain
  • United Kingdom
  • UK
  • Britain

There aren’t that many, but when there is a list box, a couple of hundred countries long its get really really, tedious. Leading you to only one sane solution, if you ever meet the designer of the website (yes thats specifically aimed at the guys & gals who design the CollegeBoard site) tell them the importance of considering there cousins across the pond, and then proceed to batter them over the head with a world atlas. Until they submit to changing their forms to us UK.

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Apple isn’t all that bad after all…

Apple LogoHaving had some issues with iTunes over the last week, nothing downloading from the store to be specific. I just got an email from a nice person at iTunes Store support, saying the problem was fixed and I got 5 Free credits to boot. My lucks in, maybe I should do a lottery this week.

The move to VMware fusion just hasn’t happened, since the new Parallels update dropped earlier this wee, I have been impressed with the increased speed and the integration with exposé a feature which windows desperately needs and not just an alt+TAB varient like that of Vista.

In other news, CommonApp.org should get a medal for being impossible to understand if your an international applicant (like I am) there’s a lot they could learn from the new UCAS website, also good help documents would make it easier for people such as my self who haven’t got a clue.

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I’m jumping ship – VMware Fusion

VMwareI just installed VMware fusion on my Macbook; Parallels they crept up behind you. Don’t get me wrong I love parallels and its incarnations, but VMware has a smaller feature set and its fast.

I have been running Fedora 7 through VMware, with it emulating to cores thats right you can virtulise stuff on multiple cores. It screams. I had a little trouble getting the resolutions right (this is because Fedora isn’t a supported OS) but a bit of googling (who knew this was now a verb) and I got it going.

I now have a fully operational Death Star, for use with my many future Ruby on Rails Projects. I am really looking forward to seeing what Parallels comes up with in there next version, all it really needs is more performance and I will have a dilemma which to use?

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BTs Top Ten Causes For Slowness

I have been experiencing some heavy packet shaping by my usually pretty good ISP BT, when I emailed them to ask what was with the excessive packet shaping I got this reply.

If there is an EMI then the connection may drop or you may experience slow browsing. Please make sure that the modem is not placed near any of the following electro magnetic devices such as:

1. Halogen desk lamps near the modem or telephone line, especially those with dimmers.
2. Any electrical dimmer switch.
3. Electronic devices, such as stereo speakers, PC speakers, televisions, monitors, microwave ovens, etc.
4. Routing the telephone line parallel to an AC power cord for more than a few inches.
5. Electronic insect electrocution devices (bug zappers).
6. Low quality 900MHz cordless telephones.
7. Any other emitter of high frequency electromagnetic radiation.
8. Should not be placed above the computer tower.
9. Should not be placed directly on a carpeted floor.

How does carpet create an EMI, or for that matter any of them really effect speed of my connection.

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Trixbox Pro Released

TrixboxToday marks the release of Trixbox Pro, a more business orientated version of my favorite VOIP system asterisk. Fonality are doing some clever stuff with Pro and its great that I can use it without paying mega money (in fact not a penny)

It looks exactly what I have been looking for, Asterisk based, but stupidly simple to manage, and no editing the conf files manually. I just want something that doesn’t take forever to learn and make work. I am running Trixbox CE at the moment and its one update away from reinstall so it looks like a perfect opportunity to change to Trixbox Pro.

I will have a review posted as soon as I get Trixbox Pro Installed and running.

Trixbox CE – Community Edition

Trixbox Pro

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BBC Clogging the Tubes

Senior executives, including BT Retail’s Ian Livingston, The Carphone Warehouse boss Charles Dunstone and Tiscali UK’s chief Mary Turner have held informal talks amid growing anger over the BBC’s hitching a ‘free ride’ with its new iPlayer system for downloading TV programmes over the web. Link

Oh no the ISPs don’t like there bandwidth being actually used. Call me stupid but we pay the ISPs for bandwidth, so why should the BBC have to pay, the ISPs already get the money from the consumer least they could do is put the money back in and invest it and give us more speed.