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Welcome, iPod Touch

iPod TouchLast week I added a new iPod to the family - the iPod Touch. This is not just an iPod in the sense of music, but an iPod in the sense of a truly portable network device with a sexy interface to boot. The iPod is no longer the music player that it was when it was originally released, with music now just playing a much smaller part of the product.

When planning my purchase I was torn between the iPod Touch and the iPhone, the only differentiating factors being the camera and the phone capabilities (and therefore its ubiquitous data connection). At basically the same initial price for both, it didn't make sense for me to go for a mobile phone with an 18 month contract that had a below par camera when I could also go for a free Nokia N95 and its embedded 5 megapixel camera while paying around the same amount of money on a contract. Thanks to my employer I already had a chance to try out Nokia's internet enabled camera and loved its quality and ability to post photos directly to the internet and am looking forward to being able to do that again in the near future.

There's quite a bit of overlap between the iPod Touch and the N95, but the Touch has an interface that's just so much nicer to use than the N95, for mail and web browsing especially. Talking of overlap, at eight gigabytes the device isn't big enough to hold my entire iTunes collection, so I don't think I'll be ditching my 80 gigabyte iPod Classic any time soon.

Despite being very pleased overall with the Touch, there are a few things that I'd really love to see added to the device:

  • Media streaming from other iTunes libraries on the network
  • Wireless syncing with host computer
  • Jabber chat client
  • Video plugins for Safari to allow viewing of RealPlayer content (e.g. from the BBC)
  • Email search in the Mail app (server-side)

Without a cellular data connection, the wifi on the device is very important for those times you want to access the internet when out and about. There are a number of UK companies and organisations starting to provide free wifi in their premises (e.g. Wetherspoons pubs, McDonalds, local libraries and other places) and in public spaces which is great, and the Cloud has dropped their monthly fees for iPod Touch owners to a price that mirrors what you'd pay for a single hour at most wireless hotspots.

It's also amazing how many other venues have wifi available in them thanks to some unknown third party provider. This is a grey area when it comes to the law though, with wifi theft already being punished under the Communications Act 2003 in a number of cases. I say it's a grey area because there is often no easy way of telling if an open wifi hotspot has been intentionally provided free of charge either by a venue or by someone else actively sharing their connection for passers-by.

Posted in , , , at 9:57 PM on Sunday 27 January 2008 | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
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On knowing extraterrestrials

Reading through one of the recent New Scientist issues last week I was amused by a line in a story about SETI and how the search for extraterrestrial intelligence must go on.

The story starts off with a comment that "[w]e live on a planet swamped by life forms yet we don't know how life got going, or where." Despite knowing so little of our own planet, the author later suggests that we know exactly the kind of signals that aliens will send to earth. He mentions the Allen Telescope Array that is "designed to pick up the kind of signal that an alien intelligence is most likely to send out into the universe: for example, a series of prime numbers transmitted in binary on a very narrow spectrum of radio frequencies."

I wonder, how exactly do we know what intelligent beings out there are going to be sending to us, if they do indeed exist, and want to send anything to their distant earthling neighbours?

Posted in at 9:59 PM on Monday 12 February 2007 | Comments (1)
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5 things you didn't know about me

I was tagged by Nick Black a little while back as part of the 5 things you don't know about me meme that's been making its way around the internet. I've been putting it off, but here goes with five things that you may not already know about me:


  1. Let's start with a geographic one. The furthest east I've travelled is Cyprus (33.7 degrees longitude), furthest north is Anchorage (61.1 degrees latitude) and furthest west and south is Hawaii (21.3,-157.8).

  2. I have always instinctively resorted to using the Never Eat Shredded Wheat mnemonic whenever working out which way is east and which way is west.

  3. I have a condition that causes me to sneeze whenever I expose my eyes to the sun. (You may have read about sun sneezing already). It's generally two sneezes, and happens just moments after leaving a building. It's almost guaranteed that it'll happen, even if it's cloudy and there's only a slight hint of sunshine behind the greyness.

  4. I am perhaps the worst footballer ever, and always tried my hardest to avoid it (or anything similar) at school.

  5. On my way into work each day I pass the remains of a section from the Berlin Wall and also two tanks with their barrels pointing across the road.

And now to tag 5 people to do the same: Martin, Victor, Ivan, Adrian and Benjamin

Posted in at 11:52 PM on Thursday 1 February 2007 | Comments (1)
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On this day in 1984: Macintosh announced

23 years ago to the day, Apple Computer, Inc. announced Macintosh. The bold commercial aired during the Superbowl, one of the most widely watched (and therefore expensive) television slots of the year in America. Something new was about to hit the computer industry with a bang.

I grew up using Macs in school and at home (between them including the Macintosh Plus, SE, LCIII, Classic, Color Classic, Performa 5200, a Mac clone and finally the iMac G3) but then switched to Windows PCs during my A-levels (programming in Visual Basic on a Mac wasn't really an option) and through university, where it was only really practical to have a PC because of the programmes I needed to use.

I was so happy to stop using a PC and go back to using a Mac in 2005, and am having a hard time trying to convince myself that I don't want a nice new MacBook.

via: Wired

Posted in at 9:05 PM on Monday 22 January 2007 | Comments (0)
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It comes but once in a lifetime

I realised the other day when celebrating a colleague's birthday that my birthday this year is something that only happens once in a lifetime. I turn 24 today, on the 24th of August.

24 Candles

Posted in at 12:43 PM on Thursday 24 August 2006 | Comments (3)
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Google Spam Recipes
google-spam-recipes.png

Whilst trying to retrieve an email that I'd accidentally managed to banish to my Spam folder in Gmail I noticed something that made me grin. In place of their web clips they offer up Spam Recipes. Talking of Spam, I also tried to watch a Monty Python movie today. This is, until I realised my Australian flatmate's Xbox only plays Australian DVDs (and a few random Region 2 ones, for some reason). No Monty Python for me today, but somehow it lets me play Ghostbusters 2.

Posted in at 9:13 PM on Tuesday 16 May 2006 | Comments (4)
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CeBIT

This weekend I am travelling up to Hannover to visit the CeBIT - the biggest technology show in the world. Despite the couple of open source conferences I've been to in the past months (OSCMS and FOSDEM), I've not been to a technology expo for a long time. The last one I went to must have been over ten years ago, when I managed to convince my parents to take me to a MacExpo when we were visiting London at one point.

I'm really looking forward to seeing all the new gadgets - and hoping I don't come back having bought anything I don't need. What I'm not looking forward to is the seven hour train ride through the night to get there, leaving here (Stuttgart) at 3am.

Posted in at 1:06 AM on Friday 10 March 2006 | Comments (1)
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Cross country skiing and the aftereffects

Despite the tiredness which had ensued from a mixture of jetlag and a lack of sleep on Tuesday (after chatting to other Drupalers and drinking open source beer until the early hours of the morning) I couldn't resist going skiing with everyone on Wednesday night. being tired, I didn't want to risk downhill skiing and thought (rather foolishly) that cross country skiing would be an interesting and easier way out.

I skied a few times when I was younger but hadn't been on the piste for about eight or nine years since then, and I figured that corss country would be an easier version of the downhill skiing I'd done in the past. I was told that cross country skis are different in that they don't really have edges, though I didn't quite understand what they meant until I stepped into my skis and then promptly fell over. A few wobbles and near-falls later, I was on my way, with able guides to help me and tell me the way I should be doing it.

It didn't take too long to get going at a relative pace (at times), and it took a suprisingly long amount of time for me to fall flat on my face when I went out of control on a downhill section. Luckily it only happened once, and didn't hurt too much. By the end of it all, I was shattered but had a great time, and wasn't aching at all.

The next morning I woke up feeling refreshed and raring to go to the first session of the day. A session or two later I'd started to seize up and ache rather a lot, and it's not got any better since. Ah well, a few days of aching for a fun night of skiing sounds like a fair trade off, right?

Posted in at 8:48 PM on Friday 10 February 2006 | Comments (0)
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A bit of an update

It has been almost three months since I last posted to my blog, so I think a bit of an update is in order. I'll hopefully get back into blogging on here from now on as well...

Last thing I wrote about was my laptop dieing on me during the middle of my dissertation. I struggled along with just university resources, which were mostly ample, though not as flexible as having my laptop would have been. When I discovered that I could get insurance money back for a the cost of fixing the machine (almost as much as replacing it) I decided to make the bold move I've been wanting to do for quite some time - going back to using a Mac. I've had my shiny new iBook now for over two months and I'm loving it.

So, back to the dissertation - I got the work finished, even if it wasn't everything that I had hoped to do. Despite that I still came away with a good grade for the project and for the course in general. My degree certificate came through in the mail last week but I have to wait until next September for the graduation ceremony. It'll be good to go back and see everyone again and catch up on what people have been up to for the year.

With education over, I had a couple of options open to me as to what to do with myself. During the summer I was contacted by an organisation in Stuttgart, Germany who were interested in my skills and interests in the area of GIS and web development. After flying out for a conference and an interview - as well as a visit to the Volksfest beer festival - I was offered the job.

I accepted, and just a few weeks later I came out to start in the role as a Software Engineer to develop and implement geographically oriented tools in a mostly open source environment.

Posted in , at 8:19 PM on Monday 14 November 2005 | Comments (0)
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Computer problems

A few weeks back, my computer decided to stop working for me. Whilst this was extremely inconveniencing for working on my dissertation, I luckily didn't lose any key work and was able to continue relatively unhindered.

Email, on the other hand, is another matter. I'm living out of a webmail service and don't have access to any emails prior to the computer breaking. If you emailed me and haven't heard back, this is likely to be the reason - other than just generally being busy at the moment as well.

Drop me a line if you have been waiting for an email back and hadn't heard anything from me for a while...

Posted in at 11:26 PM on Monday 22 August 2005 | Comments (0)
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Karran family tree

A month or so ago there was a big family reunion for the members of the Karran family from around the world. It was held over on the western side of Canada so I wasn't able to make it, but I hear everyone had a great time.

Maureen Karran left a message to let people know that they are trying to compile a family tree for the whole family (of which there seem to be many links missing at present, as noted from the trees available over on the karran.info website), so if you are a Karran or part of a Karran family, let Maureen know by dropping a line to her at mekarran at telus dot net.

Posted in at 11:29 AM on Monday 22 August 2005 | Comments (1)
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Sun sneezing questions

As I start to think about what I'm going to put on the sun sneezing part of the website, I began to think it may be a good idea to ask for the input of people who may actually use it. The main part of the site will be a sort of central register of sun sneezers that you can leave your details in (as few or as many as you wish) and in return you are given an electronic certificate of sun-sneeziness with a profile you can link to.

I know that there are a lot of people who have expressed an interest in it, so at the same time I'd like to be able to find out a little more about how sun sneezing habits change between people and places, if at all. This is where you come in... If there are any fitting questions that you think may be good to ask of people for their profile, I'll be more than grateful if you could let me know and I'll add them to my list. If you would like to leave any suggestions, please leave a comment at the bottom of this post or send me a quick email to dan at karran dot net.

Finally, apologies to all those people who have emailed me already to express their interest. I'll get back to you all when I have a better idea of launch timings.

Posted in at 2:09 PM on Saturday 14 May 2005 | Comments (27)
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20 questions

Last month I was happily playing with a little electronic game of 20 questions that a friend of mine had. Basically you think up an object and after 20 questions with yes, no or maybe answers it will make a guess at the object you're thinking of. Most of the time it was right and the times that it wasn't quite there, it was pretty close. Whilst at the time it was a bit of fun, I didn't really appreciate the amount of time and effort had been put into teaching this machine what it knows. Apparently it started learning back in 1988 by adding to it's neural network memory. Since then it has had the most popular objects and inferences burned into a chip for use in this cheap toy. The toy itself can't learn but the game you can play on the 20q website is still teaching itself for every game that is played. I just tried it out and it guessed first time.

(via Boing Boing)

Posted in at 6:04 PM on Wednesday 11 May 2005 | Comments (0)
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Repetition

If I was a contestant on BBC Radio 4's Just a Minute panel game I don't think I would last anywhere near that long.

Recently I've noticed that I say and write certain things far too many times within a short space of one another. In fact one of my lecturers highlighted it in an assignment lately, noting an 'irritating repetition' of phrases within a paragraph. Usually I'll check things through to make sure I don't have too many bits like that but sometimes I do forget, or simply don't notice because when reading your own work there is a tendancy to skim-read and avoid important mistakes. When posting to my blog I am often too keen to get the post published, neglecting that checking phase.

On that note: sorry to people who have noticed I use words like 'interesting' too often (and those linked pages are just the ones with the offending word in the title). I'll try and make sure I don't write too repetitively in the future.

Posted in at 1:34 PM on Friday 15 April 2005 | Comments (0)
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Transparent Screens - an interesting concept

Transparent Screens - alexlopOver the past few days there have been a load of pictures being posted to Flickr, a popular photo sharing website, about 'transparent screens'.

The idea is that you take a photo of your computer screen which has a background on it of the area behind the screen. Take this photo, for example. The person who took the photo has taken a photo of their desk with a lavalamp on it, set that photo as their desktop and then taken a photo of the two combined.

I think it's pretty clever - especially with some of the others where there are cats sitting behind the monitor with tails sticking out. They have to be perfectly aligned for it all to work.

Posted in , at 11:01 PM on Friday 25 March 2005 | Comments (0)
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