Come on over to my NEW place!

Come on over to my new place!

We have drinks and nibbles and naked twister!

OK, we don't but the blog has moved :-)

Find me here now:

http://www.steveintheukok.co.uk

Hurry up! Your missing all the fun!

Turn off the TV and support your podcasters!

I have made the decision finally to something that has been hovering around for a few months now.

I am going to give up TV.

OK, that sounds like a big thing and to be honest I won't give it up entirely.

I am however tired of chasing TV in a way I have never had to do in the past and it has become both frustrating and boring at the same time.

I have found myself just drifting away from all the shows I used to watch. Many of them were just boring rehashes of past shows that I do not need to see over and over again.

Others are 30 minute shows extended to 60 minutes with re-cap's before and after every ad break so I end up being told the same things over and over with very little new content. I have stopped watching those and any I do watch I now fast forward, though as they annoy me, they are destined for the bin too.

I have issues with shows that pretend to be new, some have new in the title, some have new in the description, you watch them and you have seen them before, so they are NOT new. Why do the tv companies lie to me, what they think I will have forgotten?

Also the ones that truly are new either aren't marked as new or get lost in the sea of shows saying they are new but are not, so they get missed.

I will watch the things I can find that are obviously new and interest me but those are becoming harder and harder to find.

All in all, its just too much hard work on my part, when it should be the tv companies doing the hard work and I have just had my fill of that. So they lost me.

On a more positive note, what I am doing is listening to more podcasts at a time when I see more and more podcasters stop producing their shows and that really saddens me.

If anyone has heard of me, it's probably due to my mentions on various podcast shows. I am not out to seek the limelight, in fact if I wanted that I would have just kept doing my own show, which I did for four years.

No, what I have been seeking to do is to talk to the podcasters, show interest and a little bit of love so that they feel that what they are doing is worth something to someone out there, which all of them are, even if we don't say it.

The trouble is, by not saying anything we are loosing them.

Please, make it part of your day to send a commment or something to your favourite podcaster, make them know, without a doubt, that you are there and what they are doing interests you, communicate with them.

Please!

Barcode Birthday, think of the candles!

That says SteveINtheUKok in Barcode (Code 128 to be exact)

Ooooh! It's been a while since I last posted hasn't it and it was such an angry one, well I have been sitting in a darkened room with a damp sponge on my head to keep me calm :-)

Well today is the 57th birthday of the barcode, so someone remind me in three years :-)

What is with the weird birthday reminders we seem to get a lot of these days?

It's anything for a party isn't it, which come to think of it, is not a bad idea, someone turn on the music!

Until the next time, bit of an empty post today, but there will be more, now I am back in the mood!

P.S. Does a barcode birthday cake come with lots of thick and thin candles? LOL

After the explosion...comes the blast!

Well, after all that Apple rumour fest I am thoroughly disappointed.

Great news for potential iPod Nano users.

Yet once again us iPod Touch users are punched hard in the stomach and expected to like it.

No, no! No mam!

I am now tired of this and yes I have heard the rumours about camera issues and I don't care.

The iPod touch should have come with a camera, there is no reason for it not to have one, none at all and no reason will excuse Apple for this.

If there was a manufacturing problem, again that is no reason not to launch the product, they launch plenty products with an advance shipment date.

And wait for one moment, how come the new iPod Touch update is free, I thought Californian law forbid that? OK its A 0.01 release, and maybe that is legal.

But I am in the UK, Europe. I am sold the product by Apple UK, not Apple in California, I live in the UK not California, I am billed by Apple in Luxembourg for iTunes NOT Cali-fucking-fornia, so why I am being ruled by Californian laws here? I would like the European Union to investigate that one for me please!

An FM radio, really. Well ok the US has fucked up their transition to digital for radio, but so have we Europeans. The US wins for TV digital transition (We in the UK started first and we wont finish till 2012/13 crap!), we introduced DAB which is low quality streaming over the air. Again, crap. But FM is being turned off in a few years here so not really that exciting news for us. FM is a dead technology, so not something I really want.

No new AppleTV which is now so overdue for an update it's laughable, where the fuck do you buy those 40Gb drives from Apple, the local recycling yard? Support it or kill it. Make up your fucking mind!

No iPad, but that was hardly a surprise, though I do see hints of it.

More focus on gaming, which I absolutely expected. This is their next market to eat up.

Here is what I would like to see:

A camera in the Touch, sooner rather than later otherwise your just going to totally piss off everyone that just bought a Touch. Not that you care.

Dump the classic next time around, we don't really need it if you can squeeze 128Gb into a Touch.

Drop the AppleTV as it is and re-launch. IT should be a new unit with an upgraded processor and graphics chip. Slightly more memory. Bigger hard drive, base would start at 120Gb. It would also have apps. It would work in conjunction with the iPhone and Touch initially and then have its own contollers. It would be a media player, movie rental device and a gaming machine!

Let the iPod and iPhone work like the Nintendo DS, portable games that talk to the AppleTV's games. Maybe let their motion sensors control on-screen action. Basically replace the Wii.

I do want an iPad but I want a full computer with no drives, just USB sockets and an on-screen keyboard. Upgraded touch compatible Front Row. Comes with a stand. Use it on the move, go home and use your plug in or ideally wireless apple keyboard and mighty mouse and you have a reasonable though not top of the range home computer.

I guess I want a lot.

Just do me one favour stop kicking the iPod Touch users in the nuts with upgrades at a price and crappy feature upgrades, as you yourselves said, they are the biggest growing market for iPods, so why treat them like shit?

I'm getting the same feelings I did when things started to slide at Microsoft and I personally am getting pissed off.

Oh and don't try the iTunes 9 Genius DJ Mixer, its totally crap. The playlists are better, the mixer just picks a song at random and generates a playlist from it, not exactly rocket science! Bit see thru that one! Like changing the colour of the box of washing powder and calling it NEW AND IMPROVED! I think not.

So angry today, so angry arent I, ooooh, just had to let it all out!

LOL

Oh yes, and Dear Beatles, make your fucking mind up, are you digital or arent you because I am so fucking sick and tired of hearing your going to someone or other I just don't fucking care any more! It was 50 fucking years ago! GET OVER YOURSELVES (and McCartneys greed in my opinion!) Otherwise all your target market.......will be dead before they get to buy these things!

Not having a good day!

Bad Day.

iPod has gone phut and died.

This is a disaster for me as I like to listen to podcasts and have done for years now, always had an iPod, lots of music that will only play on an iPod too.

I am not working at the moment and there is no way I can stretch to a new one.

So that really hampers my ability to listen to podcasts.

So I am putting a plea out to anyone that has anything spare, and I know that isnt many of you right now.

I have some iPods on my Amazon Wishlist, if anyone can help me out, I will return the favour later on when I can.

Amazon Wish List - http://tinyurl.com/kpe6gm

But not holding out much hope for that one! But if you don't ask! :-)

I'd be happy to sell you an internet radio station for the price of an iPod, get in touch if that interests you.

Failing that I am well and truly stuffed.

Bit sadzies, hasn't been a good month or two.

I have home insurance but the excess would pay for the iPod so not much point claiming there. Just push my premiums up next year.

I'll let you know if my knight gets here or if I sell a kidney :-)

Go to the light!

Big changed in Europe this week with the sales of old incandescent light bulbs being banned.

From Tuesday 1st September 2009 it will be illegal to sell opaque or pearl incandescent light bulbs, you will for a while still be able to purchase the clear ones, the candle ones, etc until they are phased out in a year or two.

There are a lot of people moaning about being forced to change but just look at the facts.

These new compact fluorescents last so much longer, often up to 8-10 years. That is a fact as I have had them since they came out, back then they were a lot more expensive.

Now you often get them for free from your local electricity company or at least for only a pound ($1-2) from most shops. Unless your unlucky or stupid enough to pay more!

Now the main point, who the hell would want to purchase a light that cost them so much to run?

I estimated that an average family would spend somewhere around £24.52 ($60) on lighting a year.

And if they simply switched their bulbs, a quick plug and go, they would pay only £4.50 ($10) a year!

I'm not a professor of mathematics but even if my figures are a bit out these are massive savings.

Not only to your pocket but to all that waste, all that coal and gas and oil that will be burned to fuel these idiots.

So get off your fat asses and change those bulbs now.

It will help all of us and you will save lots of money too.

You would literally have to be mad not to!



(Sure there are a VERY few people that are sensitive to the flickering, very few and those people will still be able to buy the old bulbs, that is a medical condition, so no issues there from me. As a medical product in a niche market of course the price will go up, but then that is to be expected)

I just get tired of those that try and play the King Canute role, the tide is coming in folks, get boots or get wet feet!

How Apple can continue to beat Microsoft

Apple is getting near to the point where Microsoft started to fail and here is my take on it.

Microsoft was everyone's favourite company, cast your mind back I know it was a while ago! :-)

They innovated but most importantly they listened.

They listened to the people that bought their software, they listened to all the new things they wanted, all the changes their users thought needed to be made.

And they made that software and they made those changes, until....

....someone said, hey wait, we can make money by making it difficult.

And that was the end.

They realised that by making their software less intuitive, less responsive, less useable you would need to employ a Microsoft Certified Engineer.

And they could charge to train those engineers.

And they could charge for supporting companies, and they could charge for so many things.

And they forgot all about the user.

They forgot where their actual revenue stemmed from......the user.

And that was indeed the end.

Another company rose up and listened to their users.

That company was Apple.

So Apple, do you keep listening, with Snow Leopard you continue to add and update by listening to your users.

Sure sometimes you have to make a decision on something and some people won't like it but if you seriously cockup and eventually change then thats ok, we are all human.

Only never stop listening or you will become the next Microsoft.....for sure!