Steven's random musings on stuff, the world, and more. http://www.maybememories.co.uk Wed, 12 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT en-uk http://www.maybememories.co.uk/?id=576
In other news lately, I've had my first go on the Wii Fit thing. I was a bit skeptical, but it's actually lots of fun, and makes me genuinely sweat and ache. It's quite remarkable how it all works. For those that haven't seen it, it's basically this big-ish plastic slab that you put on the floor and stand on, and it measures your weight and postition on the board incredibly accurately. One problem I have with working in the line of work I'm in, is that I can't use anything like that without wondering how it works. I noticed it comes up as controller 4, however it only actually connects if the game is running, which then got me wondering what sort of negotiations controllers have to do before they're allowed to connect. Anyway... I assume there is quite a lot of sensors in this thing. If you make the teeniest change in balance left or right, forward or back, it picks it up.

So anyway, it first asks for your height and then weighs you, and you then get presented with your BMI score thing. Unsurprisingly I'm still the same weight I was in school, and consequently my BMI thing told me I was underweight (the actual score was 16 ish, for those who care). It then told me I need to build up more muscle mass. Excellent. I assumed it was going to help me with that. So once you're all set up and weighed, you can start playing the games and doing the excercises. There's a couple of sections, yoga, excercises, balance games, and I think a fourth one. The first two are a bit more serious, the latter being a bit more silly but still revolving around your fitness. One of the slightly easier but still fun games is jogging on the spot. You don't use the board for this one, but put the controller in your pocket and start jogging on the spot. It then measures how quickly your leg is moving up and down, and then works out the speed your running at. While all this is happening, on the screen is your Mii, running through a park. There is someone running in front of you setting the pace, and you've got to keep up with her. It's so cute though, and as you're running through this park every now and again you'll see your other Mii characters. This was particularly amusing as my parents were recently added onto it, and my dad's one looks brilliant! As I've done it enough times, I've unlocked the highest level (the longest jog) and I did it last night. It was twelve minutes of jogging on the spot and I was knackered. In a good way though.

There's some other cool games like a skiing slalom where you've got to lean forward to make him go fast, and then left and right to move the guy between the flags. Quite hard, but good once I got the hang of it. There's a little game similar to Dance Dance Revolution where you've got to step on and off the board in time with the music. One where you're having footballs thrown at you and you've got to head them in the goal by leaning towards the direction the ball was thrown at you. They're all quite good. Then the more serious ones are like you do press ups, with your hands on the board so it can measure the changes in weight as you go up and down and stuff. The big surprise for me though was the yoga excercises. I wasn't sure what they'd be like, and thought I wouldn't take them very seriously, but they were actually really good. It's actually made me want to keep doing some on a daily basis just at home. I was quite bad at keeping my breathing right (essentially I was holding my breath too much). There's one quite cool one where you have to lift up one leg and put the foot against your other leg's thigh, and then gently clasp your hands and hold them above your head, and stay balanced like that for about 30 seconds or so. That's a very long time to stand on one leg, especially when you're looking at the screen where it's showing every tiny little wobble in your foot. You then get scored on how stable you were. Anyway, yeah... It's very good. Much better than I had expected!

Now I need to eat.]]> Wed, 12 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://www.maybememories.co.uk/?id=576 http://www.maybememories.co.uk/?id=575
I'm quite excited by this American election thing. I think it's fair to say that the outcome will affect Great Britain... However I've been thinking about this all day, and I can't really work out how. I guess its outcome will largely alter its effect on us. I wonder if it will be the end of our "very special relationship", or whatever it's called. I'm hoping to hear a result before I go to bed, though I understand there is a chance it could go on until the early hours. I've got LBC on, excitedly awaiting news. Something I've just heard on there though has hit a nerve with me slightly... I've just found out that McCain has spent $131 million on his advertising campaign, and Obama has spent $292 million. That's soooo much money. Why are we being told we're running out of money, when that much is being spent on advertising! I'm not saying this election isn't important, of course it is, but in a country with milllions of people without healthcare or even homes, that's so much!

On a slightly more amusing note, but still related, was the news the other day about Sarah Palin's wardrobe. She's apparently spent $150,000 on clothes in the last few months or something. Stolen this from another site I found:

For instance, drag a beige Valentino jacket and find out that this $2,500 jacket is a typical teacher’s monthly salary and the entire winter heating costs for two Midwestern families.

A pair of $450 Cole Haan boots costs three times as much as a family of four pays for a week’s groceries in Homer, Ark.

And that Louis Vuitton 865 bag? It could have bought 30 police officer uniforms.

Most amazing: that $22,800 spent on two weeks of campaign trail makeup? Gosh, that money would have paid for 224 mammograms, 651 flu shots or 13.9 years of Lipitor for one person.

Sigh.

The other thing which I was thinking about is how the Americans seem so keen on their democracy. For some reason no one in England can be bothered. Though that pretty much sums up our attitude to everything I think. I will confess for those who don't know, I have never voted. I have considered whether or not I will vote in the future, and I might... But I might not. As far as I can tell, there's two problems here. One is the public, the other is our politicians. Firstly the politicians. We essentially have a choice of two parties, both who are led by people who largely seem to come across as idiots. Whether this is because of something they've said or done, or simply just how the media has decided to portray them on a given day. Either way, neither really fill me with confidence in their ability to run the country. They're just constantly coming across as media figures all the time. I'm reminded of a while back where there had been some pictures published of them each with their wives on holiday. Holiday in England it should be noted, as the popular thing at the time was to cut down on unnessesary flying. So they both had hoidays in England so they could be seen to be green. The following day all the newspapers had pictures of them both out with their wives. The papers then all picked apart their outfit choices for their holidays. Their outfits?! Who cares that Gordy had trousers and a jacket on, while Dave went for the more casual look that his wife had picked out. What's that got to do with anything? Then I found out that both of these photos weren't even real photos... Both sides had organised a photo shoot of themselves enjoying their holiday in England with their wives and outfits. Really, what has that got to do with running our country? Sigh, again.

So... that's largely why I don't vote. I don't know who is worth voting for, and until that gets sorted out, I'd say there's a fair chance I shall continue to abstain. I read that Simon Cowell's genius has been working again, and he plans on making a TV show with the aim of inspiring the great British public to care about politics. Presumably to try and get a bigger voter turn out (I know, I know), and I believe to try and generate the same excitement and interests that the American's seem to have already. While reading an interview with Cowell about this, I found out something interesting, which I quite liked. Simon Cowell has never voted.

Anyway, this really was meant to be brief, I need to get on with stuff. It's now 1:30am, have just found out Obama's just won some big state but I've already forgotten which. Am going to keep listening!]]> Wed, 05 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://www.maybememories.co.uk/?id=575 http://www.maybememories.co.uk/?id=574
Last weekend Daniel, James and I set sail towards Kingston and went to see High School Musical 3. We went for an 11pm showing. Not too surprisingly when we got there we literally were the only people there! Thankfully we were saved minutes before the adverts finished, as a group of three girls came in. As they were girls, it did little to make us feel less loserish. But I don't care. It was brilliant! It was everything it needed to be, the only thing I hadn't expected was the way they set all the characters up so that there could very easily be a fourth one. The good news though is that Sharpay would be in the fourth, if there was indeed one made. She's my favourite, so that was good.

It's got bloody cold lately, and I don't like it. I seem to get cold much easier than most, which is unfortunate. James and I went for a walk around Kingston this evening as it's late night shopping day, and it felt quite wintery in a good way. I quite like Kingston, I didn't really appreciate it enough when at uni. Oh well, at least it's getting used now! Tonight was quite nice as it was quite cold and dark, but there was a reasonable number of shoppers around still, and the whole place felt quite pleasant. Hard to explain really...

Oh the other thing I was going to write about, was my dreams this morning. As many will know, I have very weird dreams, and on the whole I quite like the crazy stuff my head comes up with. I was thinking the other day that I hadn't had any interesting dreams lately, particularly lucid dreams. Pleasingly this morning I woke up early, and then drifted back to sleep again. The perfect situation for lucid dreaming. Unfortunately I did not get any lucid dreams, but I did however have many hours of weird dreams going through my head, half waking up several times throughout them. My favourite this morning was one dream where I was at school, in a PE lesson... Except I wasn't actually at school, the building I was in was work! I remember it so clearly, and the layout of the "school" was exactly how work is, with only one addition of a cupboard next to where my desk is. In this cupboard was a large number of tennis rackets, which people were taking on their way outside to begin the PE lesson. None of this seemed at all strange at the time. Funny how dreams work...

Anyway, I really must get on with some work. It's going to be a late one I think.]]> Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://www.maybememories.co.uk/?id=574 http://www.maybememories.co.uk/?id=573
At 4:30, Anthony and I both got out of bed, a bit bleary eyed. As the most awake of the two of us, I phoned Hayley to get an idea of how long they'd be. "We're just on the A322", she says. "Bloody hell, we've only just got out of bed!" comes my reply. So Anthony and I do our best to wake up quickly, throw some clothes on, and they soon arrive. We arrive in good time at the channel tunnel, and head for France.

France was fairly unexciting, we made good pace without wanting to speed (80 mph limit there), and soon we were heading for Belgium. I was expecting something like a big toll road with lots of booths, passport checks and stuff... I'd forgotten everyone is friends now in Europe, and there was little more than a blue sign with a ring of stars with Belgium written in it. We soon then learnt that Belgium's motorways aren't much of a pleasure to drive on. They're extremely boring, and all have a really awful surface, with some horrible noises coming from the cars a couple of times because of it. We were stuck on them for several hours though, so we just got on with it. In Belgium, we hit our first problem, where Matt almost decided to turn back and go home.

Matt's headlight had been smashed. It seemed like a nut (of nut and bolt, not from a tree) had been flicked up at his car, and smashed the glass, and broken the bulb. This wouldn't have been a huge problem in England, but in France you are required by law to keep spare bulbs in the car at all times. Matt didn't have any... The awkward bit is that it wouldn't have mattered as the glass was smashed anyway, but we weren't really sure what to do. There was also a concern that he wouldn't be allowed on the ring with it. He almost left to head back home, but pleasingly he decided to stay with us. We put duct tape over it, and the pair of cars kept going.

Eventually we were treated to another blue sign with stars, and we were in Germany. As soon we'd passed that sign, the roads immediately became amazingly smooth. Even their narrow single lane (but not one way) roads in the mountains were amazingly smooth and quiet.

Once we found the hotel, we went out for a walk in the little town we were in. Where we were staying was in the Eifel mountains. I've never been to Germany before, so I don't know what it's like on the whole, but I was very impressed with the bit I saw. It was so lovely!



That night we went to a nearby town and had a dinner that was really nice, far too big, and exceptionally cheap (€54 for the five of us, including drinks). Sometime that evening it became apparent that Anthony's car had developed a problem too. His back drivers side wheel made a knocking sound on every rotation. There was speculation that it might be a wheel bearing going, but whatever it was it didn't sound good, especially the day before it was going to be subject to 28 fast miles of "Green Hell".

The next morning we woke early, and were treated to a gigantic breakfast, and then headed off to The Ring. This was where I think we all got a bit annoyed and the general good spirits of the weekend began to subside. The ring was closed, because it was too misty. Visibilty was simply too low. We ended up waiting for ages, as more and more cars turned up. The concern here was that because Matt's light was out, we didn't really think it was wise him driving through France after dark, which we estimated to be about 6:30, so we agreed he should leave by 12:30pm. There was a lot of debate over what to do, as 12:30 crept ever closer, and the track was still shut. Towards 12 we heard an estimation of it being open in 30 to 60 minutes, however it could be longer if the mist returns. The suspense was building, and I think our optimism was fading. Matt's determination however wasn't, and was considering pushing back his leaving time and chancing the dark and the French police. Eventually to everyone's delight at about 12:35pm a siren noise was heard and the ring was announced to be open! He was off in a flash! Amazingly within about 30 seconds he had got on. We took a picture, of the last time we may ever see Matt and Hayley. Pleasingly though, they both returned alive! He seemed happy, we were happy, and we sent him off, fleeing for the border before dark!

Then Anthony went for a lap, with myself and Malcom (Hayley's Dad) as passengers. This was the first time we'd both see the track. It was the most strange thing I've ever seen. It really does feel like it's never going to end! The only thing which helped slightly was every kilometer there was a sign saying how far in you were. I did my best to inform Anthony of any cars of bikes going to overtake, but could tell this wasn't an easy track to negotiate. It was however lots of fun! Because we could, when his lap came to an end we didn't return to the car park, but went straight back to the queue to go round again. We very quickly each got out, and I took the drivers seat. I was *very* nervous. I glanced at the clock... I knew you're not meant to time your lap, but I looked. Half past the hour. Remembered. I then had to move forward to approach the barrier. I stalled the car. Bollocks. Calm. Restarted the engine, got to the barrier, the barrier went up, and I was off! What followed was truly without any doubt the most intense driving I have ever done. I've done track driving before, but only when I've been the only one on the road. Having to keep an eye out for all other traffic, as well as lining up racing lines corners where appropriate, and then moving right, indicating right, and letting them pass, was a lot more to do! Jeremy Clarkson said when he did it, that he's "never felt so alive", and I sort of get what he means. It wasn't the fastest I've ever driven (barely passed 80mph), but it was just corner after corner after corner. By the end I was sweating a hell of a lot! I'm not someone who sweats easily, even on our hottest summer days. When we were approaching the queue to get off the track, I actually asked Anthony if the heated seats were on as my back was sweating so much! They weren't of course, and the blowers were on at their lowest setting with cold air outside. Madness. Anyway... I had done it! I had however completely forgotten to check the time again, so I have no idea how long I took.

Some observations... Anthony's car is fast, but it really can't cope with a track. I've driven it on a track before and felt it was alright, but a little too slow, but on that track (generally considered to be the most demanding in the world) it simply didn't have enough power. I was mostly in 3rd and 4th gear between 50mph and 80mph, and on the rare few straights it just never felt like it wasn't accelerating enough despite keeping the revs up around 4,000 and higher. The other thing which became apparent as soon as I hit the first corner, was his brakes were knackered. Remember the car hadn't had any rest after Anthony's lap. I've heard them mention brakes fading on Top Gear, but never really experienced it myself. They were useless! I had to push really hard to get any effect from them. This didn't stop me though! :D

Another amusing obversation came from Hayley's Dad, who had now had a very quiet 30 minutes! He finally spoke up once we were coming off the track.

"I can tell the difference between your driving styles", he said. "Oh yeah? Who's better?", asked Anthony. I quickly interrupted with saying it wasn't about who's better... But the reply came, "Well, I can tell who owns the car... He was a lot more gentle with it"! I hope I wasn't too hard on the poor car. It is only a Ford. :( I since heard from Hayley that he also said I was braking much harder than Anthony too. The thing is, I sort of went out all guns blazing, trying to remember everything I'd learnt about driving fast. Fast down the straights, revs high, then brake hard, brake harder, gear change, look through corner, off brakes, on gas, look through corner, turn in to corner, gas, gas, straighten steering to leave corner, power, power, power. This was of course all intermixed with the mayhem of, "There's a yellow car behind us! Mind the bike! Aaah!". I'm pleased to say the car suffered no damage at all, and we then parked it back in the car park, opened the bonnet, and let the brakes rest (after I failed to park it in gear because I'm an idiot). The brakes were sooo hot. The heat coming off each wheel was about the same as what was coming off the engine (which for the record had never gone over its normal operating temperature). Oh, the other slightly amusing thing... In those two laps (approx 28 miles), Anthony and I had used half the tank of fuel. Half the tank!

Because the car was a bit cooked, we hung around for a bit longer, and met some English people that we made friends with. Mini drivers from up North. Eventually, by about 3:30 we decided we should head off to Calais and see if we'd be able to meet up with Matt and Hayley again. The knocking sound from the wheel was still there, and to my ear no worse which was good. So off we set, back through the endless miles of of Belgium's rough motorways. Annoyingly we went back a different way, and were in Belgium for even longer on the way back. We did stop for food on the way back (as we'd not eaten all day), and the service station food was surpsiingly good. Anthony had spaghetti bolognaise, and myself and Malcom had burgers and chips. All the food was freshly cooked, and tasty. For a service station, this seemed quite good. Very cheap again.

Eventually we made it back to the tunnel, and unfortunately by a matter of minutes had missed Matt and Hayley, who were on an earlier train. We made it home anyway, at about 11pm. It had been a very long two days, but an incredibly happy two days, and despite some minor problems with both cars, it ended very well for all of us. :-)]]> Wed, 15 Oct 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://www.maybememories.co.uk/?id=573 http://www.maybememories.co.uk/?id=572
We shall be departing from Woking at 5am Saturday morning, where I shall be at the helm of a Ford Mondeo (the fast one!). Alongside me will be Matt in his Ka, both heading for the channel tunnel. From there I believe Anthony is taking over driving responsibilities through France, with a planned stop in Belgium with a possible driver change again (Hayley or Malcom I assume). Anyway, we'll then go on from Belgium, passing through Holland, and then arriving in Germany. We've got some rooms booked in some sort of guest house thing in a town called Rodder. Rodder's entire population is 270. That's incredibly small. I've seen pictures of the place. It looks really lovely. I think Anthony is then going off to find a derestricted autobahn to see how fast his car goes. His aim is to hit 140mph (just to say he's legally driven twice the legal UK national speed limit), though it wouldn't surprise me if he keeps going on past 150mph. Fingers crossed he doesn't burst a tyre... I think during this time myself, Hayley and Matt are going off for a walk around Rodder to look at flowers or something. Then we shall find food (ordered by either pointing at a picture or shouting English slowly), and settle down for an early night.

Sunday is then death trap day. I think we're arriving at the ring as early as possible. Although I will joke about dying... There is a very real safety concern here. The ring is policed very well (both by staff and the actual police, I believe). It is officially a normal public road, so overtaking can only happen on the left, and only where it is safe to do so. My biggest concern isn't death or serious injury though, my biggest concern is actually breaking a car. Particularly if it's Anthonys we break as we almost certainly wouldn't all fit into Matt's Ka, with all our stuff. We're not worried about a bump of graze, or even a bent wheel, but if it's not driveable, we are about 600 miles from England, and our parents at the time will be on the west coast of America. So yes... This is a bit dangerous. Fortunately I think we're all fairly sensible, and I gather Ring ettiquete is maintained. Everyone's there for the same reason: to have a lot of fun in their cars. There is a proper list of what to do if you witness a crash actually. I will try to learn this, but I believe the first person stops, and alerts traffic behind them to the incident (by waving a hi-visibility jacket or something), the second has to phone The Ring's emergency phone number, and the third has to do first aid on the wounded. There is also people situated around the ring (I hope quite often) who will wave yellow flags (which I believe means no overtaking, but I'm not sure if there's a speed limit in force at that point as well). They will also obviously radio back to the starting line for an ambulance and whatever.

Then once The Ring closes, we've got to drive our slightly more worn in cars back out of Germany, through Holland, right across Belgium, and through France, back to ol' Blighty, where we will all be very tired, I'm sure.

Truthfully, I'm not that worried about death, but I am worried about a mangled Mondeo which isn't even able to crab home. Wish me luck!]]> Mon, 06 Oct 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://www.maybememories.co.uk/?id=572 http://www.maybememories.co.uk/?id=571
Rob and Anthony stayed here for the night, and this morning I made Rob a cup of coffee, but wasn't really paying attention and put a tea bag and coffee in. He spotted this and corrected the situation. I apologised, but he said it was fine and that he sometimes drinks tea and coffee together like that... He said that he would call it 'toffee', but the name was taken by an 'inferior product'. Oh Rob, he's a bit funny at times.

On Friday I had a test drive in a Honda Civic. While I've got some issues pertaining to money to overcome at the moment, I think I would like one. It definitely felt happier to accelerate than my current car does. It also has little lights that light up as you approach the rev limiter, and those have a counterpart set of lights that tell you how 'eco' you're currently being. Give it a few months... We'll see.]]> Sun, 28 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://www.maybememories.co.uk/?id=571 http://www.maybememories.co.uk/?id=570
]]> Fri, 26 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://www.maybememories.co.uk/?id=570 http://www.maybememories.co.uk/?id=569
In other news, my iPhone app seems to be doing alright! It's a little bit exciting. My next venture will by an iPhone version of the old game Simon. Once again though I've pretty much got to work out how to do everything by myself. I need more time to sit and get into it. It sounds like I may have a lot more spare time quite soon, but we'll see about that.

Oh I really need to get on with work!]]> Thu, 25 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://www.maybememories.co.uk/?id=569 http://www.maybememories.co.uk/?id=568
The main thing I've been getting obsessed/pissed off with lately has been the ongoing nightmare (and pocket emptying!) process that has been becomming an iPhone developer. One of the things that appealed to me about the new iPhone as well as the price, was the release of an official SDK. That's a software development kit, incase you're not sad enough to know. An SDK lets losers like me write software for their shiney new phone, and also have it distributable to all other iPhone and iPod Touch owners. I decided to give it a go. One application that I wanted but couldn't find was something that gave me traffic reports for UK roads. I found this sort of thing for the London Underground, but nothing for roads. So I decided I'd have a go at making one. How hard can it be? At the exact moment when I made the decision to begin, my life started to change for the worst.

I spent ages working out how to use the development tools Apple give you. I spent ages on this, programming in a language I've never done before, in an environment which forces you to do a MVC thing which I've never properly done before, and without much in the way of documentation. I soldiered on. Hours, days, weeks passed by, and eventually I had managed it. It loads data from the highways agency, displays a scrollable list of traffic reports, and then you can touch one to get more info. Fantastic.

Then I needed to work out how to get it onto my phone... Turns out I can't do that until I sign up with Apple as a developer, and that costs $99. I debated it for ages, and eventually decided to go for it. I thought I'd sell the app for £0.50, and see if I could make my money back. Great plan. I'll speed up a bit now, as it's getting boring.

I sign up, something went wrong. I phone apple. I am delighted with Apple for having an 0800 number on their website, and an English call center with a delightfully well spoken woman for me to talk to. The problem gets resolved, I can now go ahead and pay. I pay, and nothing seems to happen. I phone Apple again, this time not on a free number, and I get an American who didn't understand my problem. Eventually he understood and explained that I need to wait up to 24 hours. No problem. So I get the email with my activation code... It doesn't work. I then find out that Apple's phone support is only available 5 days a week, 9-5. Very annoying. I had to leave it a day as I had work commitments. When I did get through, they explained the problem. It was an issue identifying me as I'd changed my address, and they wanted me to send a scan of my drivers license or passport to prove who I am. It turned out they didn't want a proof of my address though, they only wanted photo ID. I nervously asked what use this was to them as they don't know what I look like anyway. The woman politely said she didn't know, and I was happy enough with that as an answer. Sent the email, and eventually could sign up. It's now been about a week since I initially decided to start all this.

So then I waste aaages trying to work out Apple's crazy system for getting apps onto one's phone. I shan't say too much as I think I'm contractually obliged to say nothing. But I shall say I had a lot of trouble, the instructions weren't clear, the phone support wouldn't help me anymore, and I was completely on my own with trial and error. Eventually I got the app on my own phone. Couldn't have been happier. Well no, I could. The goal was to sell my app for money... So I go back through the stuff, this time with a thing I can't talk about to be able to distribute it. The documentation was too sparse. This didn't work at all. I was getting sooo angry at Apple, at times considering trying to get my money back and giving up on this whole idea. I actually found the answer to my problem on one of Apple's public forums. Unusual since the whole process is NDA'd, but handy none-the-less. So finally, I was ready to go! No....

No, it still didn't work. I could distribute it for free, but I apparently didn't have a contact to sell it. This was the first time I'd seen a mention of a contract. Again there's no help, I'm clicking about for ages and find the bit to get one of these contracts. They're now asking me for information I simply don't know, and the whole time they're assuming I'm a company and want the name of my receptionist, finance person and all sorts. I've also got to work out how to deal with UK income tax, I needed some international bank number thing. I'm just so fed up with it all now. I really don't know what to do... I'm extremely tempted now to just give up, I'll give the app away for free. I really can't be bothered jumping through all of Apple's hoops. It's too complicated, with not enough help. I'm really unsure of the income tax implications of me selling this app too, and I frankly can't be bothered to learn about it.

I guess if I give it away for free, I'll have to accept I paid £59 just to have my patience tested. On the plus side, I don't really object to free software, and it would be a nice thing to get my name out on the internet for future programming job interviews and to mention on my CV.

*sigh* I apologise if that was too long. I just have been getting *really* angry with this all lately. Worst of all is I've had my Mac laptop completely hang twice now, because of the development stuff they gave us.


*phew* Anyway... Other stuff I've not written about lately:
- Work's been fun, interesting, stressfull, and enjoyable. The usual.
- I went to a safari park, pictures on Facebook
- I got a new exhaust
- We got a coffee table and dining table for the house
- I stayed up all night talking, ending with a McDonalds at 8am
- I've been thinking a lot about certain people, and in particular my interaction with them
- I found a new 24 hour Asda by accident, and I don't know where it was
- I decided my traction control in my car does do something
- I have a weekend in Germany booked in October. There's a fair chance I'll die on this little holiday

I'm sure there's more. I need to go and do some work now. I'll try to update this more often. I actually quite enjoyed writing this one again. The love of blogging is back!]]> Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://www.maybememories.co.uk/?id=568 http://www.maybememories.co.uk/?id=567
It's quite amusing in a way, in that I find it very apparent that it's been made by a computer company, and not a phone company. It is a truly fantastic little device, loaded with crap. As well as the normal GSM module, it's also got the obligatory camera, an accelerometer to detect movement, a GPS module so it knows where it is, a light sensor so it can adjust the screen's brightness, and a "proximity sensor" so it knows when it's next to your head when on a phone call, so it turns off the screen to save battery and stop accidental cheek button presses. Interestingly this is all powered by a 620 MHz ARM CPU, which has been underclocked to 412 MHz. I wonder why they did that. Maybe to keep battery life longer and/or reduce heat output.

Anyway yeah, its clearly been made by a computer company, not a phone company. All the software works brilliantly. I have had software crashes, but it is still all very young, and as someone who writes software I feel I empathise slightly with it. (MS Windows after 20 years though really is a lost cause). All the integration though is lovely. Web apps behave exactly as they should, all the applications open each other where they should etc. The web browser is brilliant. Double tapping anywhere zooms that particular thing to fit the width of the screen. This is lovely for pages where there's adverts along the side with an article down the middle. Double tap the article and it zooms into the middle so the adverts are out of site and the text is now a readable size. It also then adds a teeny bit of resistance to horizontal scrolling. This means when you scroll down the article, the phone doesn't have a tendency to slide sideways a bit, as inevitably there's no way your finger will ever scroll entirely straight down without going to the side a bit. These are the sort of little brilliant things that Apple do to make it behave like a human would want it to work.

However then there's the bad things which I feel Nokia or Siemens just wouldn't have done... I don't understand why you can't clear your list of missed calls. You can, but only if you also delete your entire call history. That seems odd, especially as they're presented as two separate lists. If the phone is "asleep", and you miss a call, there's no indication on the screen or phone that suggests I've missed a call. This means every time I walk back to the phone from being away I feel I should just press the button to make the screen come on to see if I've missed something. This has two unfortunate effects of wasting battery, and making me look like I just like making it come on all the time. A final thing I wish was improved but wasn't a show stopper was the Bluetooth. Bluetooth has always been a guilty pleasure of mine. I've always found it quite exciting, when really it quite frankly has limited use. Anyway the phone can't do any OBEX stuff, so you can't send or receive files to other phones or a computer. Bit annoying, but I imagine knowing Apple they were just trying to keep you away from having any sense of a file system. Perhaps they could have engineered a pseudo file system of sorts, but I think they prefer everything being accessed only through the phone's interface. That is pictures are in the 'Photos' section, and songs and videos are in the 'iPod' section.

With all that said, it doesn't feel like the phone ability was an afterthought to a little computer that Apple made. It definitely feels like a phone, just made by a computer company.

One final gripe I have with it, is that the 'Contacts' screen is slow. When you select it, the list appears instantly, but you can't scroll or touch anything for a few seconds. This is a problem that loads of people seem to have noticed, and I have no doubt it will be fixed in a future firmware update. I have also read that there's evidence of a new firmware already having been developed and currently being tested.

Anyway yes, it's lovely. I'm pleased with the purchase.]]> Wed, 30 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://www.maybememories.co.uk/?id=567