The Perfect Stereo
Friday, December 29, 2006
My specifications for the perfect stereo have not nearly been matched by any company. Just buying one with bluetooth and USB plug and play will set me back £280. Thus I have set a task for myself: to build my own. This may take 5 years going by my track record but I see it as a feasible effort. So, what are my aims for this ultimate stereo system?
At the moment I use my PC for all of my music, whether it be listening to last.fm stations or mp3s via the highly flexible and brilliant foobar2000. I don't like having to have my pc on to listen to music, especially as it has a tendency to make fan noise, consume power and all the other failings of my four year old PC (which is standing up remarkably well).
Functions I want:
I am not asking much of myself.
At the moment I use my PC for all of my music, whether it be listening to last.fm stations or mp3s via the highly flexible and brilliant foobar2000. I don't like having to have my pc on to listen to music, especially as it has a tendency to make fan noise, consume power and all the other failings of my four year old PC (which is standing up remarkably well).
Functions I want:
- Wireless connectivity to play internet, last.fm stations and send playback statistics to the last.fm service.
- Wireless or bluetooth connectivity to quickly sync' newly downloaded files from PC to the stereo's harddrive.
- USB Plug and play for mp3 players, etc, built in ipod dock
- Bluetooth connectivity to transfer files to my phone and other devices
- DAB Digital Radio Tuner, Short range FM output
- DVD-Audio, MP3-CD, CD playback and DVD/CD burning capabilities (preferably tray-less for sexiness).
- MP3, FLAC, WAV, OGG, M4A, AC3, WMA, etc.
- A bluetooth remote (possibly using Wii controller)
- Tape deck (yeah I still love that analogue fix)
- Recording functions
- LCD colour display that shows album art, artist image, now playing information and playlist info - essentially what my foobar shows (that's the costly bit and touch screen is only a dream), spectrum analyser.
- 5.1 surround sound compatibility, Bass and Treble control
- 100 GB HDD internal and support for external HDDs
- Phono and digital audio, headphone jack and microphone plugs
- Ideally all running using Foobar2000, but that needs windows et al.
I am not asking much of myself.
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My Top Films of 2006
Friday, December 29, 2006
Here's my top 10 list as best as I can remember. All of these films had 2006 UK release dates, some may have come out in 2005 in the states.
1. The Squid and the Whale
2. The Departed
3. Manderlay
4. Children of Men
5. Brick
6. Capote
7. Marie Antoinette
8. The Prestige
9. Superman Returns
10. Pan's Labyrinth
I'm sure a glaring omission will appear to me as soon as I post this. I am ashamed to say I have not yet seen Little Miss Sunshine or Borat.
1. The Squid and the Whale
2. The Departed
3. Manderlay
4. Children of Men
5. Brick
6. Capote
7. Marie Antoinette
8. The Prestige
9. Superman Returns
10. Pan's Labyrinth
I'm sure a glaring omission will appear to me as soon as I post this. I am ashamed to say I have not yet seen Little Miss Sunshine or Borat.
Labels: Movie
Wii Opera
Friday, December 22, 2006
Ahh, today saw the release of the Wii trial browser powered by Opera; just as I was lamenting the pains of having to use my sisters laptop to check my emails over this holiday season. Even though it is just a trial I am very impressed so far; full support for Gmail and Google Reader AJAX and out of the box Flash support that lets me watch YouTube on the television or load up my Last.fm personal radio station whilst I potter about. Improvements should include tabbed browsing and a box somewhere on the page that says what site or address you are visiting/on for security purposes, but I am sure these are in the works. On pages when the Wii decides it can't cope the page disappears and the main browser page appears in its place without warning - this is my only annoyance so far. I'll hold off on a proper review until the full product is released, however I can say this is a tidy little version to keep us going until then.
The ease and speed with which everything loads on the Wii is also a good point to note, especially after having fallen out with my PSP due to its excessive and ridiculous load times or even my PS2 and Xbox loading times. It makes it very easy just to turn on, play some Wii tennis and then leave, a quick 5 minute game is exactly that, not a quick 5 minute game plus 10 minutes of loading and options screens.
A friend has bought me 1000 wii points to buy some games on the Virtual Console, I think I'll be getting bomberman 93 at some point when I get a few more controllers but until then i'll wait to see what else comes out. I can't wait for Mario Kart 64.
The ease and speed with which everything loads on the Wii is also a good point to note, especially after having fallen out with my PSP due to its excessive and ridiculous load times or even my PS2 and Xbox loading times. It makes it very easy just to turn on, play some Wii tennis and then leave, a quick 5 minute game is exactly that, not a quick 5 minute game plus 10 minutes of loading and options screens.
A friend has bought me 1000 wii points to buy some games on the Virtual Console, I think I'll be getting bomberman 93 at some point when I get a few more controllers but until then i'll wait to see what else comes out. I can't wait for Mario Kart 64.
Labels: Wii
Adventures of a Rotting Celeriac
Monday, December 18, 2006
As a good healthy student I purchased myself a rounded, tasty and nutritious Celeriac from Tesco (for those not in the know, this is the base of Celery, the thing we use to do all those kiddy dye experiments). In my halls of residence I have a three shelf cupboard and place fresh veg' on the top and in the middle. These shelves are above my level of sight. Following a week or so I bought some onions, pasta, veg' etc. which began to obscure the turnip like vegetable from view. Come today and I reached to the back to fetch one of the onions needed to make a Con Carne mix, alas it looked wet and a little rotten on one side. No worries, I shall get another onion - this too, despite being fresher, showed the same symptoms. Upon closer inspection I now noticed a yellowy celeriac smegma covering the base of the shelf and dripping down to the lower levels. This brown, gooey yuck reeked of a celery that had traveled the world of Hades and returned via the slums of vegetable purgatory, where all the unwanted Brussel Sprouts are tormented.
Now I grew distressed - this seeping atrocity had infiltrated my pasta reserves, the parsnips, the onions, the malt loaf, the apples, the potatoes and most importantly the dry noodles. These noodles now escaped their packaging; as liquid brought them to life they splayed across the bottom shelf as if worms escaping an apocalypse. It was at this point I rediscovered my gag reflex. The offending Celeriac itself, instead of being a firm and solid spherical object more closely resembled a spongy and disgusting sea creature of the nether world.
It is beyond me how it could have reached that condition, now that everything has been removed it all stinks to a point that is unbearable. Yet I had been happily using the cupboard for many days before without noticing the slightest of problems. Maybe those onions were absorbing the smell, who knows. Anyway, I must dash as I am to play Scattergories.
May the horrors of the Celeriac be now known to you. Have a pleasant evening.
Now I grew distressed - this seeping atrocity had infiltrated my pasta reserves, the parsnips, the onions, the malt loaf, the apples, the potatoes and most importantly the dry noodles. These noodles now escaped their packaging; as liquid brought them to life they splayed across the bottom shelf as if worms escaping an apocalypse. It was at this point I rediscovered my gag reflex. The offending Celeriac itself, instead of being a firm and solid spherical object more closely resembled a spongy and disgusting sea creature of the nether world.
It is beyond me how it could have reached that condition, now that everything has been removed it all stinks to a point that is unbearable. Yet I had been happily using the cupboard for many days before without noticing the slightest of problems. Maybe those onions were absorbing the smell, who knows. Anyway, I must dash as I am to play Scattergories.
May the horrors of the Celeriac be now known to you. Have a pleasant evening.
Artist Images
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Here's a collection of artist images collected from last.fm:
Artist Images (1890)
A new Foobar design in the works
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Terrestrial has updated his track info mod component to allow quick and easy image rotations, upon my request and within an hour of making that request which is quite astonishing. Anyway, these new found super powers enable us to create sexy image reflections which fade out using a simple transparent to black (or whatever colour) PNG overlay.
My latest design efforts see a scalable version of this with top left artist images. The artwork itself acts as a Play or Pause button, unless the cover art does not exist, in such a case the button action calls up a Custom Run script Cover Downloader which uses Amazon to find album art images and save them to the audio file directory. Similarly, when artist images do not exist a custom run GetArtistImg script that I created downloads the image and saves it as %artist%.jpg etc.
I'm always adding functions and tweaking it so it's not quite done yet, but here are some screenshots:
Labels: Foobar
Wii Wii Wii all the way home
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
On September 15th Nintendo announced the European launch date and price, a short while after the American and Japanese launch information was unveiled. And so, come December 8th the Great British Wii launch occurred amongst quivers of reduced stocks and pre-orders not being satisfied. The biggest problems seemed to occur at Play.com where their 10,000 orders were met with a paltry 700 units. Many people, friends included, are now not receiving theirs until after Christmas. I also ordered from Play but I was lucky enough to place my order within an hour of the price announcement aforementioned and Play.com putting up the product for pre-order. Indeed, my Wii arrived by post on launch day, although I could not pick it up until Saturday. This also coincided with a Chinese exam and the last day of term, suffice to say my brain didn't know what to do - torn between the trials of revision and nerves and tribulations of a child's Christmas eve syndrome. I have now had the Wii for four days and feel I am versed enough to give out my overall impressions thus far.
First impressions: this thing is tiny. Even the Wii-mote and nunchuck are deceptively small. They also feel surprisingly sturdy and there is a definite air of quality about their production. Holding the device is comfortable and enjoyable, pointing is incredibly easy and as precise as I had expected, even after reading some reports that this was not the case. The inner speaker is also excellent, despite quarrels about its quality, I just love hearing the sound of hitting a tennis ball or the thwack as I hit the ball out of the park. Turning on, the Wii-mote was sync'd correctly and it worked right out of the box, as did the automatic CD feed. The blue light only comes on when inputting a disc or turning the Wii on; I'm not sure if this is meant to be the case, I'm not bothered.
I could be a hand model
I could be a hand model
Connecting the Wii online proved a significant hassle. No Ethernet port lead me to the setup of my old wireless router which I am not currently using in my halls of residence. This itself came with hassles which I wont go into, but suffice to say it took more than an hour to get this PC back up and running. In attempts thereafter to connect the Wii it connected smoothly and downloaded the Wii updates. However when it came to downloading the license agreement for the Shop channel, etc. I received the Wii error code: 220602, associated with DNS propagation issues. Reading discussions online suggested a couple of solutions, my Wii is already next to the router, on channel 11 and had of course been previously connected. Firstly I tried removing encryption from my connection, this did not resolve the problem. Eventually the problem was fixed by some quirky DNS switching solution: opening the manual configuration of DNS addresses for my net connection I swapped the first DNS around with my second (find these out via run CMD > ipconfig/all). This worked and once again I was a happy bunny.
With my order I of course received Wii Sports and I also purchased Zelda: Twilight Princess. To be honest, I haven't played Zelda too much - I have picked up the dog, and fired the eagle at the monkey before catching two fish for the cat to steal but I am still relatively young to the game. My 7 hours clocked up thus far (total play time is shown on the Wii message board along side daily achievements which are interesting to look back on) have mainly been spent playing Wii Sports. I took first to the Tennis, Golf and Bowling which became instant favourites, now I have practiced a little more with Boxing and Baseball I am also enjoying these. My tennis rating is currently sitting pretty at 940, sub-pro whilst my top bowling score is 181. My Fitness age is 28 and I have yet to get that secret 91 pin instant strike.
My expectations for the product were exceptionally high due to hype and all the videos on YouTube, etc. I was positive nothing could live up to them, yet having played for more than 7 hours it most definitely has. Now all I need is a second controller, some Wii shop credit and another multiplayer game or two; it's going to be hard waiting for Mario, Metroid, Trauma Centre and Smash Brothers. Oh how it all costs money and we British are screwed by our 17.5% VAT.
To end this, here's a picture of Sonic enjoying this new toy:
With my order I of course received Wii Sports and I also purchased Zelda: Twilight Princess. To be honest, I haven't played Zelda too much - I have picked up the dog, and fired the eagle at the monkey before catching two fish for the cat to steal but I am still relatively young to the game. My 7 hours clocked up thus far (total play time is shown on the Wii message board along side daily achievements which are interesting to look back on) have mainly been spent playing Wii Sports. I took first to the Tennis, Golf and Bowling which became instant favourites, now I have practiced a little more with Boxing and Baseball I am also enjoying these. My tennis rating is currently sitting pretty at 940, sub-pro whilst my top bowling score is 181. My Fitness age is 28 and I have yet to get that secret 91 pin instant strike.
My expectations for the product were exceptionally high due to hype and all the videos on YouTube, etc. I was positive nothing could live up to them, yet having played for more than 7 hours it most definitely has. Now all I need is a second controller, some Wii shop credit and another multiplayer game or two; it's going to be hard waiting for Mario, Metroid, Trauma Centre and Smash Brothers. Oh how it all costs money and we British are screwed by our 17.5% VAT.
To end this, here's a picture of Sonic enjoying this new toy:
Redmoon, Public "Made for Ads" terminals
Monday, December 04, 2006
In a number of public places including a cinema multiplex in Cambridge and Leicester shopping centre (UK) I have come across terminals touting, "Free Public Internet Access" or "Free Internet Zone", these are owned by operator Red Moon Interactive (that I do not hasten to link to). At first sight you may think "fantastic, I can check my mail amidst my hectic Christmas shopping spree" or something just as similar. Approaching the terminal you will be presented with a list of categories, "Automotive", "Computers", "Clothes" etc. and a search box. I wanted to check the release date for a couple of video games not out yet so I typed in my queries and hit go on the touch sensitive screen.
Red Moon states on its page,
"Redmoon Interactive provide free Internet access in Shopping Centres and high footfall locations across the UK through our network of interactive touch screen terminals. Using our service your customers can search the Web or check their Email free of charge without leaving the comfort of your premises."
My results soon appeared, alas I recognise this page structure, it's a "Made for Ads" or "MFA" site. All of the search results, which claim to be genuine, were irrelevant cost-per-click ads that somehow matched a keyword. Attempting to generalize my search in hopes of obtaining some form of relevance brought no luck and only the most general of terms such as "video game" brought any relevance whatsoever. Heading back to the main page I clicked the various categories, a new list of ads pertaining to a specific category appeared in a different colour. Every single link on the terminal took you to an ad, in order that you may find any content you had to click an ad. There is no address bar to confirm the page you are on or to enter a new page. This makes the terminal a potential security risk and rife for phishing scandals that attack the non-savvy Internet users likely to use this "service". Even the email links lead to ads for online email providers.
From my web sleuthing it appears the ads are provided by Overture which is now Yahoo! Search Marketing , and they state: "The move opens up the opportunity for advertisers to reach a more localised audience in the run-up to the launch of Overture's geo-targeted searches. For example, consumers may use the terminals to search for specific services in their local area while out and about. [...] Overture's sponsored links will be returned whenever a user conducts a search via the front screen on any INFO-NET terminal. (2003)"
I wonder, do Yahoo advertisers know that their ads are being used in such a way? Would they wish to be associated with such a company? Do they want people to view their sites in a public place where online purchases are risky and unlikely? Obviously ads for shops within the mall will have some relevance and may lead the shopper to their store, however the advertisers themselves will not see goals or direct purchases online and the value of such ads can never be accurately determined remotely by the advertiser. As for those ads that need web based returns, whether it be click-throughs or sales, any hope of achieving these through such a service is highly unlikely.
My experience with the access points, a rough 20 minute test exploring different avenues of search, as I waited for a film screening, concluded that this is a commercial venture (albeit a clever one) that I could and would not classify as a service. Finding what I wanted proved impossible and knowing that each click would generate a tiny profit for Red Moon with little to no return for the advertiser, as a web advertiser myself, was infuriating. If you add to the mix the non-savvy users that will ignorantly click on all links in frustrated hopes of finding something of importance you get a highly profitable business that further devalues online advertising. Indeed, the less of a service Red Moon provides the more users will return to the search index or "results" to try another site, thusly building a tidy pile of coppers through cost-per-click ads.
If you are looking to install these terminals please take note of this. The inadequacies of the Red Moon terminal to provide a service to its users will be directly proportional to its profits - the longer it takes to find information, the more ads are clicked, the more money is made. Red Moon, as an anonymous provider, has no reputation to maintain with its users; it is those that host the kiosks that will ultimately be faced with the disgruntled surfers and declining respect of its patrons. Once more, the security of this service is questionable.
Red Moon states on its page,
"Redmoon Interactive provide free Internet access in Shopping Centres and high footfall locations across the UK through our network of interactive touch screen terminals. Using our service your customers can search the Web or check their Email free of charge without leaving the comfort of your premises."
My results soon appeared, alas I recognise this page structure, it's a "Made for Ads" or "MFA" site. All of the search results, which claim to be genuine, were irrelevant cost-per-click ads that somehow matched a keyword. Attempting to generalize my search in hopes of obtaining some form of relevance brought no luck and only the most general of terms such as "video game" brought any relevance whatsoever. Heading back to the main page I clicked the various categories, a new list of ads pertaining to a specific category appeared in a different colour. Every single link on the terminal took you to an ad, in order that you may find any content you had to click an ad. There is no address bar to confirm the page you are on or to enter a new page. This makes the terminal a potential security risk and rife for phishing scandals that attack the non-savvy Internet users likely to use this "service". Even the email links lead to ads for online email providers.
From my web sleuthing it appears the ads are provided by Overture which is now Yahoo! Search Marketing , and they state: "The move opens up the opportunity for advertisers to reach a more localised audience in the run-up to the launch of Overture's geo-targeted searches. For example, consumers may use the terminals to search for specific services in their local area while out and about. [...] Overture's sponsored links will be returned whenever a user conducts a search via the front screen on any INFO-NET terminal. (2003)"
I wonder, do Yahoo advertisers know that their ads are being used in such a way? Would they wish to be associated with such a company? Do they want people to view their sites in a public place where online purchases are risky and unlikely? Obviously ads for shops within the mall will have some relevance and may lead the shopper to their store, however the advertisers themselves will not see goals or direct purchases online and the value of such ads can never be accurately determined remotely by the advertiser. As for those ads that need web based returns, whether it be click-throughs or sales, any hope of achieving these through such a service is highly unlikely.
My experience with the access points, a rough 20 minute test exploring different avenues of search, as I waited for a film screening, concluded that this is a commercial venture (albeit a clever one) that I could and would not classify as a service. Finding what I wanted proved impossible and knowing that each click would generate a tiny profit for Red Moon with little to no return for the advertiser, as a web advertiser myself, was infuriating. If you add to the mix the non-savvy users that will ignorantly click on all links in frustrated hopes of finding something of importance you get a highly profitable business that further devalues online advertising. Indeed, the less of a service Red Moon provides the more users will return to the search index or "results" to try another site, thusly building a tidy pile of coppers through cost-per-click ads.
If you are looking to install these terminals please take note of this. The inadequacies of the Red Moon terminal to provide a service to its users will be directly proportional to its profits - the longer it takes to find information, the more ads are clicked, the more money is made. Red Moon, as an anonymous provider, has no reputation to maintain with its users; it is those that host the kiosks that will ultimately be faced with the disgruntled surfers and declining respect of its patrons. Once more, the security of this service is questionable.
Woe betide my broken Motorola V220 (and all mobiles)
Monday, December 04, 2006
At one and a half years I figured my phone could last at least double that and I wouldn't have to fork out for a snazzy new gizmo for quite a while. I'm not particularly enthusiastic towards mobile phones, yes I am fascinated by their all-in-one capabilities and ongoing improvements (as, after all, I am an electronic engineer) and I would love to have a 7 mega pixel camera, built in digital radio, 4gb hdd, javascript enabled internet, bluetooth and all those other perks but one simple fact remains; I do not use my phone as a telephone enough to warrant a monthly paid contract agreement. Thus I am left with the low end pay as you go options and all the shitty fallouts, or the one off cost of £300 for something high spec.
Because everything is geared towards contracts and the technology is moving along so fast it seems nothing is built to last, this rules out my second option - a £300 price tag is not a worthy investment if it wont last me 2 years, that and I am liable to lose it and phone insurance is a scam. My previous two phones both died a miserable screen-fading Nokia death before their time and all the other in-betweens have had atrocious battery problems; I have yet to lose a phone and I don't drop them - they just are not built to last. And so onto my Motorola story; having abandoned the faulty screened Nokia product lines I ventured towards a new manufacturer, Motorola paying a lowly £40 for the V220 model. I viewed this purchase as an intermediary until high specification models became affordable and I planned for it to last 3 years. Come Saturday afternoon, a windy but relatively warm winter's day in Leicester, my fully charged un-dropped never bashed phone with already defunct camera is sitting quietly in my pocket. Oh, my phone is on vibrate-then-ring, set to loud - I have a missed call that I somehow missed while waiting expectantly for the phone to go off (this happens often). Unlocking the clam I am presented with this:
Because everything is geared towards contracts and the technology is moving along so fast it seems nothing is built to last, this rules out my second option - a £300 price tag is not a worthy investment if it wont last me 2 years, that and I am liable to lose it and phone insurance is a scam. My previous two phones both died a miserable screen-fading Nokia death before their time and all the other in-betweens have had atrocious battery problems; I have yet to lose a phone and I don't drop them - they just are not built to last. And so onto my Motorola story; having abandoned the faulty screened Nokia product lines I ventured towards a new manufacturer, Motorola paying a lowly £40 for the V220 model. I viewed this purchase as an intermediary until high specification models became affordable and I planned for it to last 3 years. Come Saturday afternoon, a windy but relatively warm winter's day in Leicester, my fully charged un-dropped never bashed phone with already defunct camera is sitting quietly in my pocket. Oh, my phone is on vibrate-then-ring, set to loud - I have a missed call that I somehow missed while waiting expectantly for the phone to go off (this happens often). Unlocking the clam I am presented with this:
Pretty colours. My first instinct is to reset, remove battery and SIM, replace and restart. The error continues and this confirms my fears: c'est cassé! All the functions of the phone still seem to work, I can ring people (if I know their number) and change the ring volume, etc, I just cannot see what I am doing. My first guess as to the cause was faulty software - a nasty bug that I could fix if only I could get to that "reset to factory settings" option somehow (why isn't there a button inside to do that?). However I am now thinking it may be due to wear and tear on the clam's hinge which would explain why the camera went first. Ultimately I plan to open this all up and take a look inside, my sister has the same phone that she doesn't use so I can raid it for spare parts, etc.
Considering I have just finished a safety critical systems course where required failure rates are 1 in 100,000 years, this persistent failure of phones within 24 months when no mistreatment has occurred irritates and annoys me to no end. The irony is that I was for a short time over the summer an "honourable Motorolan", i.e. an employee of theirs (somewhat). I guess now I shall move on to Sony Ericsson and then another manufacturer when that model unavoidably fails.
Considering I have just finished a safety critical systems course where required failure rates are 1 in 100,000 years, this persistent failure of phones within 24 months when no mistreatment has occurred irritates and annoys me to no end. The irony is that I was for a short time over the summer an "honourable Motorolan", i.e. an employee of theirs (somewhat). I guess now I shall move on to Sony Ericsson and then another manufacturer when that model unavoidably fails.