Categories
Music Review

Music for Geeks

coulton
JoCo in Concert by Mild Mannnered Photographer

I am probably the last person to blog about Jonathan Coulton. Not that there won’t be more to hear from him, just that I’m so late.

I’ve been a fan of Coulton’s ever since February ’06 when escapepod used one of his songs as an outro song. As soon as I heard “Skullcrusher Mountain” I knew I had found something exciting.

He writes comedic songs for the most part, many of them off-kilter lovesongs. “Skullcrusher Mountain” is a ballad sung by an evil genius in his mointaintop lair to a woman whom he is holding captive. “Codemonkey” is a song of the unrequited love of a programmer for the company secretary.

I went to a concert which he performed in Glasgow last year and it was just great.  He was all on his own but he was clever, accomplished and funny.

Coulton also releases his music under a ccreative commons license which has allowed his fans to go wild on YouTube.

If you like witty songs and haev some time to spare i’d heartily recommend checking him out. (Buy Jonathan Coulton’s Music on iTunes)

Categories
App Review

App Review: Eye Tricks

One of the illusions from Eyetricks

Eye tricks is one of those free apps which I downloaded ages ago and haven’t used much since.

There’s nothing wrong with it but it’s just not that exciting.

It consists of 30 different optical illusions, some animated, some not. The standard is pretty high’ and there are some classics in there, like the “is it a vase or is it 2 faces in profile.

It’s interesting but now that I’ve reviewed it I’ll be deleting it. There’s no real replay value.

Categories
App Review Review

App Review: Flood It!

Me on an advanced level
Me on an advanced level

One of the first really good free puzzle games I found for the iPod was flood-it (free iTunes download).  It’s a simple concept.  Your aim is to make all of the board one colour by changing the colour of one segment.  For example if the first square is green, and the one next to it is red then you make the first square red and the blocks become a whole.  On your next colour change any squares of that colour directly next to your block are added to the whole and it grows and grows.

I may not have explained it very well but it works very well,  It’s also a good one handed “thumb” game.  the only section of the screen you use is the six coloured circles at the bottom, and there’s no real speed. you can play it while walking around, or sitting on the bus and not worry about jostles and other issues.

It was also one of the first games available when I got my new G1 phone, and it’s just as addictive there.  Some people have found it frustrating at higher levels but the easier levels are enough to keep me quiet.

The game is ad supported but there is a premium version available for the iPod for 79p (buy from iTunes), which I bought having spent so much time playing the free version.  The pay-for version allows you to undo a move, upload online scores, retry a board, etc.  Of all of these features I only really find the undo useful and it’s a pity that it doesn’t import the play history form the free version.

If you’re looking for a simple but deep strategy game to while away a couple of minutes (or even a couple of hours, then this comes highly recommend.

Categories
Rant

Rant: Apple Broke My AV Cable

My AV Cable
My AV Cable

A few weeks ago I bought an unofficial AV cable for my iPod Touch (2g) on Ebay.  I used the cable several times and it worked out just fine.

Now I find that – since the update to os3.0 (WHICH I PAID FOR – don’t get me started) – the cable doesn’t work any more.  The video cuts out after a few seconds (the audio continues) but a warning pops up on my iPod saying that it’s not supported.

Very annoying.  I’ve found several mentions of this online but nobody seems to be making a fuss.

I suppose there are 2 options

  1. This was broken accidentally, in which case there might be a fix in the upcoming 3.1 release
  2. This was broken accidentally, in which case it’s another step on Apple’s campaign to shut out third party accessory manufacturers, as seen with the recent iPod Nano headphone debacle

As a reluctant iPod convert I’m trying to love the big Apple, but incidents like this make it much harder.  I’ve considered buying an “official cable” but at over 4 times the price I feel that i’m being forced to buy something I don’t need.

And I’ll be clear that I blame Apple for this, not the guys who sold it to me on ebay.

Categories
General iPod

Ipod Update: I Jailbroke my iPod

Freedom (Image by Dazzie D)
Freedom (Image by Dazzie D)

I love my gadgets but I always want that extra bit of freedom with them.  I unlocked my Wii so that I could play games not supplied by Nintendo and I’ve had a hankering to do the same for my iPod touch.  I don’t like having restrictions on what i can install on something which I own so I took the opportunity of my )S3.0 upgrade to execute the Jailbreak.

It was relatively painless.  I used the software supplied by the DEV team and it was straightforward.  The part that took me the longest was finding the downloaded formware which i’d bought from Apple.  Once that was located it was plain sialing, apart from the complicated set of keypresses to reset the iPod (there’s a walkthrough in the software).

So what can i do now that I couldn’t before?  Not a whole lot, as of yet.  I have a new “app store” called Cydia and I have a nice bookshelf background to my home screen.  Few of the applications I’ve found so far are that exciting apart from MxTube, a YouTube video downloader which is coming in handy.

I’ll be investigating the possibilities and will keep you all (I’m talking to you Google-bot, my one and only reader) up to date.

Categories
General iPod

Ipod Update: Upgrade to OS3.0

So I caved in and bought the iPod firmware upgrade to version 3.0. £5.99 is an annoying price but not altogether ridiculous.  I had several motivators:

  1. I tried to download an application this morning and was greeted with this error:

    This application requires theiPhone 3.0 Software Update
    This application requires theiPhone 3.0 Software Update
  2. I read this morning that there is an ultra simple jailbreak using the new firmware (more on this later)
  3. I like the look of several of the new features such as:
  • iPod-wide search
  • multiplayer gaming
  • cut/paste
  • scrubbing for my mp3 audiobook files

I also think that i have at least one extra screen of application space – to be filled up with all sorts of lovely iPod apps.

Categories
Blogging Personal

Challenge: 100 Posts in 100 days

Hitting the Target: Image by OgiMogi
Hitting the Target: Image by OgiMogi

Okay, so if I really want to kick-start this blogging thing again (I have been blogging since April 2003 but I’ve been very sporadic) do this I need to set myself a target.

My target is 100 posts in 100 days (could you tell from the title?)  I might miss the odd day but I’ll aim to back-fill those days.  It’s quite a challenge but I’m planning on taking some good advice and getting ahead in my posts so that I can have a bit of slack in the system.

To see how I do, wwatch this space . . .

Categories
Film Review

Film Review: Terminator Salvation

Terminator Salvation Logo
Terminator Salvation Logo

I was fairly law abiding growing up so the first 15 rated film I saw in the cinema was Terminator 2. That was 18 years ago now and there have only been two terminator films since then. Terminator 3 didn’t really make the grade although it wasn’t awful.

I was much more optimistic about this latest installment given its casting of Christian Bale as John Connor. I’ve been a fan of his for quite some time. Remembering his performances in American Psycho, The Machinist amd the 2 latest Batman movies.
What I hadn’t realised before I went was that it was directed by McG who I principally know as the director of the Charlies Angels films.

My overall impression was that it was a very loud film.  Lots of the sound effects were similar to those in the first Transformers film and it was a constant aural assault.  What I hadn’t expected was the number of  “Jump” moments, where I got frights.  There were wuite a few scenes wehre something unexpected happened and I jumped – not something i usually enjoy but it worked here.

I think it’s a film worth seeing.  Not as good as 2 but better than 3.

Categories
Review

Something New is Coming

G1
G1

Well technically it arrived last week.  My phone contract came to an end and I called up to see what my options are.  I’ve had a qwerty keyboard on my past 2 phones and really like it so I’ve plumped for a T-Mobile G1.  I’m not sure what I think of it so far.  I’m enjoying geting used to it but I feel that it’s still in “beta” – not quite finished. Anyway, we’ll see what happens

Categories
Autohotkey

Autohotkey: Paste Plain Text

AutoHotkey Logo
AutoHotkey Logo

I discovered AutoHotkey a few months ago and i’ve become a huge fan.  Some parts of my jobs involve large numbers or repetitive keypresses or advance search and replaces and this tool helps me to cut down a huge amount on these.

At its simplest it’s a windows-wide macro ssystem, so you can replay recorded motions but it can be much more complex and can do far more.  I’m hoping to write a series of posts on this subject but, for now, here’s one small sample

This script will take formatted text (from work, webpages, etc, and paste it as plain text, something that I find very useful day by day: 

Msgbox 0, Instructions, press win-v for a plain text paste
#v:: ;capture win-v keypress
clipboard = %clipboard% ;clear any formatting from the clipboard
send, {CTRLDOWN}v{CTRLUP} ;send normal paste command
return ;end the function

You can download a compiled version of this script so that you don’t have to have AutoHotkey installed.