Showing posts with label iPod. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iPod. Show all posts

Sunday, 17 September 2017

Emerald City Binge


I never binge watch but this weekend has seen me watch seven and a bit episodes of Emerald City, which looks great and has pulled some great characters out of the hat (Toto is an Alsatian and the Tin Man is a Steam Punked Steve Austin) , the Wizard is possibly the least convincing charater but even he is more than passable. I'm surprised NBC have cancelled it but I assume it'll join  the likes of Firefly. I am looking forward to the final episode but it has been a great ride.

The iPod I found turned out to be completely dead and Apple manage to be complete arses again by asking me to make an appointment, it's a bloody shop not a surgery , so I went to CEX who checked it out and said it had been water damaged and was completely wrecked. I was going to hand it in at the Police Station on Westgate road but that has been closed down and replaced by one that only opens 9-5 Monday to Friday, that's progress isn't it.

Today's #AlbumoftheDay #1 was Vampire Weekend's "Contra" which owes a lot to Paul Simon's "Graceland" and Sounth African Jit. It is a great album but at times you think you are listening to Paul Simon.

I then put on Fairport Convention's "Babbacombe Lee" their concept album about John Lee the double murderer who survived several attempts to hang whne the gallows assembly failed to work.

Two excellent albums and now it's time for bed.



Tuesday, 25 June 2013

Woke Up This Mornin'

I'm really tired , but have been posted songs relating to the day or what happened on that day . A friend of mine had lost her Alabama 3 CD which she wanted on her iPod , and I'm still in shock from the death of Jame's Gandolfini , so there can only be one song to day , and it is :


Saturday, 16 March 2013

Bloat



I don't know about you , but it seems to me that a lot of software is written with the prime aim in mind of bringing you device to a halt. Anything that is to do with media , seems to want to grab all the system resources , fill your whole screen , try and sell you anything , while making it as difficult as possible to leave the applicattion.

Many years ago I used musicmatc which had a low footprint , was fast at ripping and burning and was perfect for managing my music. Then Yahoo bought it out and trashed it with malware making it unusable and forcing you to use their iTunes-a-like software , which didnt work either. I was then forced to use Winamp , which is the best of a bad bunch , a resource hungry annoying piece of software.

However even that pales in the face of the latest rubbish that iTunes have given to us. Just in case you didnt realise it was grabbing all your system resources , it fills your screen and thows all sorts of things at you that it thinks you may want. Then all the other bloatware it forces on you Bojour, Quicktime , iPod Helper (I don't have or want a f**king iPod as well as about 20 other programs that you have to unpick from your system. Oh and went you update you have a 43 page terms and conditions document , that no one can read or understand.

It seems to me that everyone thinks that Terms and Conditions need to emulate War and Peace. They dont , the need to be clkear and concise and should fit on a sheet of A4 in at least a 14pt font , with lots of white space so you can easily understand what you are taking on. I recently picked up a brochure from a mobile phone company and the Terms and Conditions took about 5 pages at the end of the catalogue in closely typed difficault to read font. I bet anyone over thirty would not be able to read it and anyone under thirty wouldnytt bother anyway.

Anyway I want a simple suite of small footprint software that does the job , not takes over your machine.

Rant over

Saturday, 15 December 2012

Potatoes Eggs and HMV

The Potato and Egg Shop
It's over ten years since I moved into my current address and at the time I noticed a shop called "The Potato and Egg" shop. I always wanted to visit it just to see what was in there and about a month back when I picked up a hire car I stopped to have a look.

The shop does what it says on the front . It sells potatoes and eggs . Nothing else . Potatoes generally come in 25 Kg bags ranging in price from £9 - £15  , providing excellent quality products and more that reasonabl prices. The lady who runs it tells me she's been doing this for over thirty years.



This may seem a surreal post and hardly related to what I normally write about but we really need to support outr local shops otherise it will just be a Tesco Extra or Sainsburys Local , probably leaching money from the economy by tax avoidance.



Lots of quality Potatoes
The proprietor is an extremely helpful lady and I so prefer this sort of shop to the massive supermarkets.

And it got me thinking , that this shop is successful in providing two basic food staples and has been since the last century . I feel slightly guilty that I havent visited before now and must admit that carting a four stone bag of potatoes home on the bus was not exactly easy , but it does mean I don't have to buty potatoes for two or three months.

And Theres More
If you live in the West End of Newcastle I would recommend that you check this shop out if you use potatoes or eggs in your cooking . It's open 9 til about 4 all days bar Sunday and longer during the week.



Compare this with HMV , a music shop , who  now dedicate most of their floor space to iPod docks. The one I visited in Harrogate recently had relegated CDs to a far corner, this is a company who have lost their way. The Potato and Egg Shop hasnt !.

Sunday, 2 December 2012

Brennan Again and Again

Brennan JB7
I was flicking through Mojo magazine and saw two adverts for CD ripping players. One is Martin Brennan's retro box, the JB7 , which is now advertising that it can replace your iPod in the house and the other a very classy looking NAIM Unitilite which rips CDs , stores them has a DAB radio, and streams MP3s and internet radio from you web connected router and costs five times as much as the Brennan.

NAIM Unitilite
The problem with the Brennan is that it's an adequate all in one unit, but be honest an iPod or iPad looks classer and can wirelessly connect to a disc server so has effectively unlimited storage space and costs less than the Brennan and can do so much more. The NAIM is an expesive but classy item that does all you want.

Brennan are now advertising Richer Sounds as their sole high street  outlet. Remember Richer Sounds made their name selling last years model very cheaply , not the place you would expect to be looking for cuttting edge technology. By the way most of my sound system is from Richer Sounds and I would reccommend them to anyone , they have an excellent business model and a service second to none.

As I say I have no gripe against Martin Brennan , but his box would have been state of the art twenty years back, but not now.



Friday, 30 November 2012

Ironic



Although Alanis Morrisette got it completely wrong, I'm here in Cromford reading a book about reggae called Bass Culture by Lloyd Bradley and I'm unable to actually go to a record shop and browse for reggae because there are no record shops within 20 miles of here.I know this thatnks to an excellent app called The Vinyl District

Scarthin Books Amazing Shop Sign
Well you could say Scarthin Books has a selection , but it's Naxos Classical and there is a clue in the name of the shop that tells you that it specialises in books. Bakewell has a musical instrument shop that has a few CDs and there's a few charity shops which have second hand CD sections.

The thing is economics and the fact that people's habits mean that record shops have to try harder , and the good ones are still very good.And there's always online if you dont have physical access.

I used to go to record fairs but todays digital age means that I can track down most things on line , and at my age I actually have virtually everything I want musically , but still look forward to new bands and new albums.

I stll love going into RPM or Reflex in Newcastle and hearing something new that I immediately buy. That's how all record shops should be. That's Entertainment I find more relevant than HMV.  HMV don't seem to know what they are selling , giving most of their floor space over to iPod docks.

Anyway this post has wandered a bit but I'm going to read more of Bass Culture and enjoy the rest of my holiday!!

Wednesday, 28 November 2012

50 Years Of Cassette



This Sunday 6Music have a celebration of 50 years of the cassette tape. Check it out here

Casette gave us both convenience and the ability to mess about with songs and sounds. I was a fan of Joe Meek and various experimental artists and spent hours recording to tape , splicing and and making a lot of not very impressive noises , but I enjoyed and learned a lot about the fragility and versatility of the medium.

It's small size meant for the first time you could take your own music with you . Previously the transistor radio was the only portable option.

Cassette was Vinyl's portable , personally recordable counterpart. It's main problem is that , like vinyl, it's a fragile decaying medium. Tape heads got dirty , tapes became unravelled , tangled , twisted . You don't get that with your MP3 player or iPod. However Sony's game changer , the Walkman was a godsend . It meant you could listen to music anywhere , and annoy people anywhere and some Walkmans had radios as well , best of both worlds.

It was briefly superceded by mini disc , another Sony innovation I think , which was eventually overtaken by hard disk players and finally solid state. If 4G becomes ubiquitous we may see the solid state players replaced by stream players , but for that you need a continuous reliable signal, and that is unlikely to happen because there are always places where you are unable to get a signal.

RPM in Newcastle has a stock of vintage music centres , along with cassettes and vinyl to play on them , which is excellent if you have the room and inclination for that.

It's unlikely that I will ever own another cassette player but cassettes certainly provided me with lots of fun , inspiration and convenience in their heyday and ironically the stadard tape length of 90 minutes was almost the same time capacity as a CD.




Sunday, 9 September 2012

Do We Still Have Two Ears? Dre Says We Do!



Well at least Dr Dre thinks so , thouagh iPod Dock manufacturersseem to be going for a big ingle speakers . Music doesnt mater you would think.

I rememebr mono listening to singles on a Dansette , the coming of stereo my mums radiogram then my unit with two wired speakers that I could place anywhere. Then we had the short lived quadrophonic phase. The only one I ever saw was an accountant who bought a system and all he had to play was a couple of MFP albums !  Like spending ten grand on a home cinema system and only having The Blair Witch Project to demonstrate it in!!

I think it was Virgin who promoted quadrophonic as music for people with "four ears" . Pink Floyd had a device called the Azimuth Co-Ordinator which was a joystick device for controlling to position of sound within a four speaker system.

We now have 7.1 Home Cinema Systems for film , but music seems to be lucky to get stereo , when 5.1 mixes give the listener incredibly detailed sound . The first King Crimson album "Court of The Crimson King" sound phenomenal , enabling the listener to [ick out individual sounds while still enjoying the immersion of the whole experience.

Anyway while Apple were pushing white tiny in ear headphones , Dr Dre went the other way , with full on logoed headsets allowing the users to display their affiliation , and how much they have spent. Dr Dre has not released an album in ten years but his mentoring of the likes of 50 Cent and his very expensive exclusive Beats headphones are expanding musical and appreciation and his huge bank balance.

I won't be buying a pair but it is one of the music things that I do do approve of, far better than the enormous plague of single speaker iPod docks !

Oh I've just noticed this is my 100th post this year , I was wondering if I would make it . Although this was helped by my "Post A Day In May" thing.

Friday, 4 May 2012

Record Shops On The Rise In Worcester

I've just spent a rainy day in Worcester , despite a laborious trek to the wrong Park and Ride (but which took me where I wanted) . Amazed to see that HMV were selling umbrellas , yes I know it's raining but a record shop should not be selling umbrellas (as well as iPod docs , Mars bars etc etc).


Anyway wandering further I did a double take when I saw this place:
Rise Records In Worcester


Todays Purchases from Rise
Rise Records has been going for about a year and has a great stock of music on CD and vinyl as well as memorabillia and printed stuff such as books and magazines. The staff are friendly and knowledgeable , and they had obviously been involved in National Record Store Day jusging by the posters and vinyl artifacts.

My own purchase are on the right, the new Santigold album plus a Phil Manzanera disc as well as a Chess collection.

Absolutely excellent to see a thriving record shop free of X-Factor dross , and doing well as places like HMV lose their way in a desperate attempt to gain a few pennies to sell anything that might make anther penny or two.

Wednesday, 2 May 2012

Second Hand Plan - HMV , Poundland and Magpies



Many moons ago Music Magpie started buying CDs and DVDs from people , I wasnt sure exactly where this was going. Then That's Entertainment appeared on the high street , selling the second hand stuff to people as a proper record shop.

The thing is you can pick up a Robbie Williams , All Saints , Sugababes , Take That back catalogue for under a tenner second hand. The reason I'm posting this is that I've noticed Poundland are now selling second hand CDs for a pound , so I'm wondering if there is a connection.

Then yesterday I was in HMV in Stratford and noticed that HMV now have a second hand section where they sell stuff for £2 a throw. This was in addition to the Orange concession , the Apple / iPod Dock and DVD player display , T-Shirt section etc. They are so losing their identity .




The biggest irony is that despite selling CDs they don't sell anything you can play a CD on , well maybe their Blu-Ray and DVD players .....

Think Neil Innes Recycled Vinyl Blues is appropriate :

Tuesday, 17 January 2012

Apple Corps

I was quite surprised to see that the most tagged thing on my blog is the word Apple. A lot of people are under the impression that I am anti Apple , because I don't own any Apple products . Never had or wanted an iPod or and iPhone but was tempted by an iPad. My own website integrates with iTunes so thats the nearest I get to endorsing Apple.

Apple are great at appropriating other people's ideas , and produce some of the most desirable products on the market . so desireable that people oftemn don't even know why they want an Apple product , they just do , which is great for Apple.

The other thing to remember is that Apple was the label set up by the Beatles to distribute their records and anyone else they signed, resulting in some minor litigation between the two.  So another case of Apple nicking someone elses idea , they couldn't even come up with an original name (Steve Job's Apple as opposed to the Beatles' Apple).

In the team of six I work with four people have iPhones , one has a Blackberry and I have an Android device , I wonder how long before I just go with the flow and get one , but then again the new Samsung Galazy looks very nice!!

Monday, 7 November 2011

An Orange Widget

This is a very short post to check out widget creation , and see if I can sell the odd iPhone. I do find it amazing how Apple products are spreading  every where , every music player has an iPod dock and according to "Q" magazine without Steve Jobs we would have no music!!

Though this is at a time where Orange have just produced an excellent Muppets based Goldspot advert to promote Orange Wednesdays film nights!!

Saturday, 5 November 2011

Steve Jobs - Fur Q

Q's Idiot Side Bar
I know I shouldnt have done it but I did. It was "Q" it had U2 on the cover , but it had "Achtung Baby" covered by the likes of Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode and Patti Smith , it was worth the risk right?

Well the album is generally exceelent if not exactly what expected , so that was a win.

However I then flicked through the nagazine ad came across this article titled "5 Ways Steve Jobs Changed Music" ,  Err let me stop you there , Steve Jobs / Apple have nothing to do with music , unless you count things like Garageband . Jobs was an OK guy and a master of marketing. He never produced or supported music unless it's ultimate aim was to make money for Apple.

1: He Made Music Truly Mobile: Did he well we've had portable radios since the late fifties , the walkman allowed you to take any music anywhere , mini disc and CD and micro HD drives increased that , then Apple jumped on the bandwaogon with a better looking product that still uses a non standard format for everything it touches!!


2: He Invented The Shuffle: Pardon CDs did random play , even with the 10 disc jukebox in your card . The iPod Shuffle was a masterstroke of marketing . It's hold 250 tracks that it can play in any order and you havent a clue what you are listening to and Apple marketed this as a desirable attribbute . Pure genius.

3: He Revived The Singles Market: Well only when downloads started being counted , adn I reckon Amazon and a lot of others did the same thing at the same time . Again a good marketing move.

4: He Changed The Retail Landscape: Er Amazon did that way before Jobs was properly up and running. Allowing peole to cherry pick albums , well I've been doing that from ripped CDs for years. Again nothing new and was pleased when Pink Floyd won the case to sell albums as albums!!

5: He Made Your Favourite Bands Go Digital: No he didnt , and Q still manage a cheap stab at AC/DC . Bands go digital because there is a market , End of discussion.

So basically a rubbish article about an OK guy , a marketing genius who got lucky and was in the right place and the right time.



Wednesday, 23 February 2011

This Integration



I always thought cars were for driving or getting  from A to B, so the important selling point was how good they were to drive. Apparently not . Increasingly it seems that is not so. They're advertising integrated iPod docks , integrated Blue Tooth , integrated Sat Nave.

While all of these things can enhance the driving experience , they hardly integral to it. What use is bluetooth if the brakes dont work? What use is Sat Nav if the steering is rubbish?

More and more required functionality is being replaced marketed must haves.

I have an old car and could fit all those if I wanted , but I choose to be me , and keep the car for what it is intended!!

Monday, 17 January 2011

Apple and Yahoo Encourage Stealing!!





A couple of months back my Yahoo Answers account was stopped because I'd transgressed their rules. They were unspecific , but said linking to my website forum was the problem. The part of the forum was the part which detailed the legal , loss leader MP3s that you can download for nothing , ie truly and legally free. I had also complained about the number of posters who advised using peer to peer services to download copyrighted music without paying for it , ie stealing . Yahoo still give space to these people while I have been permanently banned.

I was also thinking about the rise of the iPod and iPhone as the music player of choice for lots of people . It used to be that you would tape , or get an MP3 of an album and if you liked it , you would then purchase the said album. However now , because the album is on your music player of choice , there is no pressure to pay for the music. So that means that the artists lose out , while loads of kids grow up believing you dont have to pay for stuff. I don't know what the answer is , and the music industry is very resilient , but it is a very worrying trend.

Sunday, 7 November 2010

Sony Capitulation


This post really came about because Mojo carries advertisements for the Brennan Jukebox system , which enables you to have "all your CDs that you never play" in a single box that can be held in one hand , so really it's a sophisticates MP3 hard disc player m, excelpt with graphic or video capability. The Brennan website is here and I thinks it's a worthy but flawed system falling between the stools of convenience and minimalism. The photography and the site are certainly both enticing.


I decided to track the box down , but all Amazon gave me were Sony MP3 (I assume) jukeboxes . The thing that then struck is that most Sony Music Players these days have an iPod dock . iPod is Apple not Sony and it's proprietary (ie not standard). In fact the iPod dock is becoming ubiquitous , with televisions , CD players , cars all having a slot for the damn things. So have Sony given in and have Apple won? It sure looks that way!!

Tuesday, 16 March 2010

iPod or Handbag?





Just been thinking, an iPod (and virtually any Apple product) is , for a woman the same as a new handbag.

Think about it, woman buys a new handbag, she then has to buy:
  • New shoes to go with the handbag
  • Dress or skirt to go with the shoes
  • Blouse or top to go with frock
  • Coat to go with the outfit
  • Earings and other peripheral jewelery to finish it off
  • But the list can be endless
A friend of mine bought an iPod recently and then had to purchase:
  • A PC to organise the itunes stuff
  • Broadband to connect the internet
  • Another friend upgraded his iPod and found he had to upgrade his dock even though all the connections were the same!!
  • Then there's the radio add ons that cost a fortune - most other players have radios built in!
  • But the list can be endless




Friday, 12 March 2010

Is It i?






Is it just me? It seems Apple and their cohorts think that by sticking an iPod dock and i- infront of the name you have a cool product. This is from a company that couldn't even come up with an original name (The Beatles Apple Corps was well established when Jobs & co came along) , and nicked their orginal GUI computer interface ideas from Xerox!

Take the iPig and iPanda , both the sort of thing you'd find in a cheap electronics shop and normally wouldnt give a second glance to , but because you can connect your i-thing to it then you'll happily shell out £50 or so to be ripped off, It'll probably last as long as a Christmas Turkey , but and least you can eat the turkey.

And another thing , why is everyone so impressed that the shuffle facilty can chuck up some music they like every now and then. You put the music in there , it just has an algorithm that will do that every so often . It's not alchemy!!

I'm just wondering how long nefore we get the iPhone Shuffle with no screen that rings random numbers , after all that was their philosophy with music , "Life Is Random" - Right On!!

What else could we have?

  • i-wedge Use your iPhone to steady that dodgy restuarant table , or keep the door open!
  • i-tile Use it as a stylish kitchen or bathroom tile
  • i-plectrum Use it as an oversized plectrum to play some serious rock riffs
  • i-hi Insert it in your shoes to give you added height
  • i-pod Case for small green vegetables - oh sorry that's been taken
The list is endless but you saw it here first

Sunday, 29 November 2009

How Free Is Free?

In today's Sunday Times was a voucher for 5 Live Blur songs from iTunes , a follow up to the free CD last week in the same newspaper. This is all well and good , but it turns out the songs are DRm'd and can't be converted from iTunes format , and hence can only be played on a PC if you install iTunes , and on an Apple Mobile device such as an iPhone or iPod.




In my opinion that's very restrictive . I do have iTunes (which is free , incidentally) , but would have to spend at least £50 on a portable device to play them (iShuffle) , which I'm not prepared to do. Given that Blur and their record label supply the music , probably paid for by The Sunday Times how come Apple can stick their oar in and dictate how you listen to the damned stuff. Anyway here's some Apple product if you like that kind of thing!!



Tuesday, 20 October 2009

Apple, The Devil and Bloatware

Supposedly The Devil tempted Adam and Eve with an Apple . Now Apple are trying the same withe rest of the human race with theie iProducts.

I recently downloaded iTunes Version 9.0 for the PC , 88 Mb big. What the hell is the reason for that. It plays music and video's and allows you to buy stuff from their store (it their proprietary format of course).

The irony being that physically in the iPod Nano and Shuffle you have some of the smallest music players possible , however you need the afformentioned bloatware to pre load the damned things. Apple arent the only culprits , though , almost anyone with a market presence seem to think that size will impress . NO!! Functionality impresses , though I can't see Microsoft and Apple and the rest going for efficiency while they can make money without providing an efficient product with a relatively small footprint. Meanwhile we can watch Apple's latest product in their (simulated) advertisement soundtracked by "She Got Me Dancing" by Tommy Sparks , available here :