Tue - October 19, 2004
Choice? What choice?
Sony manufacture the only Connect/ATRAC devices
and are the only company (thus far) to offer downloads in this format from their
online music store.
...Okay, so with that out of the way what choice do we really have, it's simple: Microsoft Windows Media, Real Networks Rhapsody, Sony Connect/ATRAC, Apple iPod/iTunes and the odd other device and proprietary format.
...In the case of Real Networks the number of compatible devices is small, but still larger than the number of devices offered by either Apple or Sony (this may not truly be the case as Sony offers a large number of devices, but they make all of them - you get no choice of device manufacturer).
...You see the choice here is that you, the consumer, can choose to buy pretty much any device you want, but when you make that choice you are also choosing (sometime unknowingly) to adopt a specific encoding and DRM technology and all the baggage that goes with this.... If you buy an Apple iPod you are choosing iTunes, the iTunes Music Store and AAC/FairPlay (AAC is the encoding format, which is actually a bona fide standard, being part of the MPEG-4 standard, as opposed to an industry standard like Windows Media.
...Okay, so with that out of the way what choice do we really have, it's simple: Microsoft Windows Media, Real Networks Rhapsody, Sony Connect/ATRAC, Apple iPod/iTunes and the odd other device and proprietary format.
...In the case of Real Networks the number of compatible devices is small, but still larger than the number of devices offered by either Apple or Sony (this may not truly be the case as Sony offers a large number of devices, but they make all of them - you get no choice of device manufacturer).
...You see the choice here is that you, the consumer, can choose to buy pretty much any device you want, but when you make that choice you are also choosing (sometime unknowingly) to adopt a specific encoding and DRM technology and all the baggage that goes with this.... If you buy an Apple iPod you are choosing iTunes, the iTunes Music Store and AAC/FairPlay (AAC is the encoding format, which is actually a bona fide standard, being part of the MPEG-4 standard, as opposed to an industry standard like Windows Media.
Posted at 01:57 PM Read More
Mon - September 6, 2004
Where does the time go?
I can't believe that it's been almost two months
since my last post.... There's nothing quite like stepping into a nice warm
home (especially given that we tend to keep the log burner going all winter long
- saves the central heating bill somewhat) when the weather outside is chilly.
The days in autumn and winter seem to last longer and I typically feel more
awake and alert (instead of sleepy and lethargic from the
heat).
...For the last several months I've been working on a control system (an industrial-type application) using C# (the client-side is all Windows & .NET with the back-end being Linux & Mono). Due to some problems with the micro-controller we had been using we've now switched to Java (the turn for the worse), but the good news is that we now have a cross-platform application (yes, yes, Mono is cross-platform but the GUI handling still needs to mature - for its faults Swing is fairly mature and supported on pretty much all the platforms that Java runs on) and a scaleable roadmap for the on-going development of the system.
Now I don't really have anything against Java, except that it feels immature compared to C#, which is ironic given that C# is the young upstart of the two. Things like auto-boxing are now being added to Java, but only as a result of them first appearing in C# and becoming killer features. Although important, things like auto-boxing aren't my primary reason for disliking Java. I find some of the missing language features (like enums and stack-hosted structs) to be no-brainers and iteration without foreach is just painful (why so much code to achieve so little). I also really, really miss attributes, especially when coding JavaBeans (I confess to being lazy and not bothering with BeanInfo simply because it is, at the end of the day, redundant code).... Compared to the simplicity of event delegates in C# the Java version is cumbersome, requiring a lot of code to achieve very little. When I first looked at Java, many moons ago, I thought the whole inner classes thing was neat - it was certainly better than the C/C++ alternatives (event handlers, bah!
...You never know I might even get around to posting the pictures from my holiday that I promised way back in June!
...For the last several months I've been working on a control system (an industrial-type application) using C# (the client-side is all Windows & .NET with the back-end being Linux & Mono). Due to some problems with the micro-controller we had been using we've now switched to Java (the turn for the worse), but the good news is that we now have a cross-platform application (yes, yes, Mono is cross-platform but the GUI handling still needs to mature - for its faults Swing is fairly mature and supported on pretty much all the platforms that Java runs on) and a scaleable roadmap for the on-going development of the system.
Now I don't really have anything against Java, except that it feels immature compared to C#, which is ironic given that C# is the young upstart of the two. Things like auto-boxing are now being added to Java, but only as a result of them first appearing in C# and becoming killer features. Although important, things like auto-boxing aren't my primary reason for disliking Java. I find some of the missing language features (like enums and stack-hosted structs) to be no-brainers and iteration without foreach is just painful (why so much code to achieve so little). I also really, really miss attributes, especially when coding JavaBeans (I confess to being lazy and not bothering with BeanInfo simply because it is, at the end of the day, redundant code).... Compared to the simplicity of event delegates in C# the Java version is cumbersome, requiring a lot of code to achieve very little. When I first looked at Java, many moons ago, I thought the whole inner classes thing was neat - it was certainly better than the C/C++ alternatives (event handlers, bah!
...You never know I might even get around to posting the pictures from my holiday that I promised way back in June!
Posted at 04:35 PM Read More
Fri - July 9, 2004
Fri - July 2, 2004
The key to a brighter future?
Back when space exploration was a big deal (late
'70s and early '80s) the world was recovering from a seemingly endless
progression of wars and violence that had been part of the twentieth century
since it had begun: the Boer War, World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam and
the Falklands - not to forget the ongoing African, Asian, Middle East and South
American conflicts.
As a child growing up during this time I saw the world as largely peaceful, as our former aggression turned to competition in leading the race in science and exploration - especially space exploration.
...Now I'm a father I've started looking around the world and despairing at the general state of things (more wars on more continents than I'd even heard of as a child; terrible crimes, greed and violence).
...Perhaps then events such as the recent SpaceShipOne flight, the continuing Ansari X challenge and China's emergence as a space exploring nation will rekindle the competition that we seem to need in order to evolve as a species.
As a child growing up during this time I saw the world as largely peaceful, as our former aggression turned to competition in leading the race in science and exploration - especially space exploration.
...Now I'm a father I've started looking around the world and despairing at the general state of things (more wars on more continents than I'd even heard of as a child; terrible crimes, greed and violence).
...Perhaps then events such as the recent SpaceShipOne flight, the continuing Ansari X challenge and China's emergence as a space exploring nation will rekindle the competition that we seem to need in order to evolve as a species.
Posted at 03:54 PM Read More
Thu - July 1, 2004
Croquet
I'm not going to go into too much detail about it
here, mainly because the web site covers off everything you could possibly want
to know and then some...
What I will say is that you really ought to check this out as Alan Kay, one of the principal figures behind the project, is well-known as both a visionary and a prophet in the computer industry; think Smalltalk, (object-oriented programming), the Dynabook (laptops), GUIs (Xerox Star & Alto), the list goes on and on...
What I will say is that you really ought to check this out as Alan Kay, one of the principal figures behind the project, is well-known as both a visionary and a prophet in the computer industry; think Smalltalk, (object-oriented programming), the Dynabook (laptops), GUIs (Xerox Star & Alto), the list goes on and on...
Posted at 05:21 PM Read More
Wed - June 16, 2004
Frank Muller
I've just this evening finished reading the
latest Stephen Kind Dark Tower book (Volume V - Wolves of the Calla) and got to
the afterword where Stephen King mentioned that this guy called Frank Muller had
been injured in a motorbike accident and that he and some other top-row authors
had set up a fund to help.
...In the afterword of Wolves of Calla Stephen King mentioned that Frank Muller had done a lot of audio recordings of his books, it was then that it struck me - I was listening to a Frank Muller recital of The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub.... I then noticed a recording called The Wavedancer Benefit, which was an evening of recitals by famous authors (King and Grisham, amongst others) in aid of the Wavedancer fund - I've now bought this recording (the first full price recording I've bought from Audible) in order to make a contribution, albeit a small one, to the recovery of a talented artist who I hope, in the future, will be able to delight again with his excellent recitals.
...In the afterword of Wolves of Calla Stephen King mentioned that Frank Muller had done a lot of audio recordings of his books, it was then that it struck me - I was listening to a Frank Muller recital of The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub.... I then noticed a recording called The Wavedancer Benefit, which was an evening of recitals by famous authors (King and Grisham, amongst others) in aid of the Wavedancer fund - I've now bought this recording (the first full price recording I've bought from Audible) in order to make a contribution, albeit a small one, to the recovery of a talented artist who I hope, in the future, will be able to delight again with his excellent recitals.
Posted at 12:41 AM Read More
Tue - June 15, 2004
Oh dear
Okay so it's been a long time coming and there
are some issues with the independent labels having not signed on (who's willing
to bet that the "example of a monopolistic American company trying to dictate
terms" is more like Apple trying not to get taken to the cleaners by cut-throat
wannabe record labels with a puffed-up sense of self-importance) but I'd be very
surprised if these factors have the affect everyone keeps saying they will (keep
in mind that the US iTMS had similar issues when it started but they've pretty
much all been overcome now).
Since everyone else seems so found of making predictions about the imminent death of the iPod and the iTunes Music Store I've decided to add my own totally unfounded prediction (I've deliberately steered clear of including any facts so as to not taint this prediction with any element of reality, thus keeping it inline with the majority of other iPod/Music Store opinion currently touted in the popular press). Anywhere, here's my prediction: the European iTunes operations will out-sell all existing European download services (the entire OD2 cadre, Napster, etc.) within a month of being online.
Since everyone else seems so found of making predictions about the imminent death of the iPod and the iTunes Music Store I've decided to add my own totally unfounded prediction (I've deliberately steered clear of including any facts so as to not taint this prediction with any element of reality, thus keeping it inline with the majority of other iPod/Music Store opinion currently touted in the popular press). Anywhere, here's my prediction: the European iTunes operations will out-sell all existing European download services (the entire OD2 cadre, Napster, etc.) within a month of being online.
Posted at 01:10 PM Read More
Mon - June 14, 2004
There's nothing like a holiday
Even though we were camping (although we weren't
exactly slumming it as we borrowed Caroline's parent's trailer tent, which
includes a fridge and microwave) and the facilities were much more basic than at
home it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience that, in hindsight, I didn't
really want to end.... I think that the reason we all enjoy our holidays so
much, regardless of what we do and where we go, is because of how much simpler
our lives become all of a sudden.
Look at it this way: at home you worry about getting to work on time and the work you've got to do. At work you worry about getting home on time and the housework you've got to do.
...No work worries; no housework worries (okay, maybe there is some housework but you tend not to worry about it and just get on and do it).
...The upshot of all of this is that I've promised myself I'm going to adopt a more holiday-like approach at home and work. Rather than worry about everything I'm just going to carry on, content in the knowledge that whenever I go away I end up doing all the things I need to do I just don't worry about them anywhere near as much...
Look at it this way: at home you worry about getting to work on time and the work you've got to do. At work you worry about getting home on time and the housework you've got to do.
...No work worries; no housework worries (okay, maybe there is some housework but you tend not to worry about it and just get on and do it).
...The upshot of all of this is that I've promised myself I'm going to adopt a more holiday-like approach at home and work. Rather than worry about everything I'm just going to carry on, content in the knowledge that whenever I go away I end up doing all the things I need to do I just don't worry about them anywhere near as much...
Posted at 09:12 PM Read More
Fri - June 11, 2004
Jet-powered PDA
This makes me think of V.I.N.C.E.N.T. from
Disney's The Black Hole...
Posted at 01:22 PM Read More
Mon - May 10, 2004
You think you've got it tough?
The next time you feel hard done by trying to
wade through life's daily dose of bureaucracy, spare a thought for the people
who have to put up with this.
Posted at 10:22 AM Read More
Wed - April 14, 2004
Mind the gap!
I've not been posting to this 'blog that much,
which is partly down to not having time and partly down to posting on my
LiveJournal too much.
...I intend to change this and start doing software development again (I've been doing pretty much 100% support for the last month or so).
So, hopefully I'll start posting a bit more to this site and I'll get the time to post some (hopefully) interesting stuff about the software development I'm doing and some other facets of my life (photography, for instance)...
...I intend to change this and start doing software development again (I've been doing pretty much 100% support for the last month or so).
So, hopefully I'll start posting a bit more to this site and I'll get the time to post some (hopefully) interesting stuff about the software development I'm doing and some other facets of my life (photography, for instance)...
Posted at 02:56 PM Read More
Thu - January 15, 2004
Two mind are better than one
The thing that I've discovered while doing this
is how incredibly difficult it is to get a balance between usefulness and chaff
- without spending all of my time writing web
pages.
Hopefully I've managed to achieve a reasonable balance, but if I have it's because of the time I've spent (about 10x as much as I intended) and because I regularly ask other people to look at what I'm doing.
...Whenever I've been working as part of a development team, I've always asked the guys I'm working with to review what I'm working on. Partly this is to catch those really stupid mistakes that everyone else sees straight-off, but are totally elusive to you despite you having spent the last 18 hours try to find them.
...So getting back to the web site; it's been invaluable to me to get people's view and opinion on whatever it is I'm working on - and I definitely feel that this is as appropriate to a web site as it is to a software product. So, if you happen to drop by the Symcar website anytime soon please don't hold back any comments you might have - they could be invaluable to me getting it right!
Hopefully I've managed to achieve a reasonable balance, but if I have it's because of the time I've spent (about 10x as much as I intended) and because I regularly ask other people to look at what I'm doing.
...Whenever I've been working as part of a development team, I've always asked the guys I'm working with to review what I'm working on. Partly this is to catch those really stupid mistakes that everyone else sees straight-off, but are totally elusive to you despite you having spent the last 18 hours try to find them.
...So getting back to the web site; it's been invaluable to me to get people's view and opinion on whatever it is I'm working on - and I definitely feel that this is as appropriate to a web site as it is to a software product. So, if you happen to drop by the Symcar website anytime soon please don't hold back any comments you might have - they could be invaluable to me getting it right!
Posted at 05:39 PM Read More
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Published On: Oct 26, 2005 10:13 AM
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Published On: Oct 26, 2005 10:13 AM