Microsoft’s new requirement for a signed boot loader for all official Microsoft endorsed OEM hardware, would seem an affront to Linux enthusiasts and hacking in general. However when you consider the current locked down nature of the consumer hardware market, it doesn’t seem likely to change much with many types of hardware making alternate OS installation and hacking eternally difficult. Driver availability and compatibility with Linux is never guaranteed and Microsoft’s continued dominance of PC software and operating systems will always pose a problem for Linux users. The lesson of course is that you should always buy hardware open to modification on both a hardware and software level, if you don’t then you risk being trapped in a software ecosystem.
Let’s not forget we’re living in a so-called ‘post-pc world’ where Microsoft is no longer the dominant force and the devices provided by their newly emboldened competitors range in their hacker friendliness. While the HP Touchpad was easily hacked to run Ubuntu and Android, Apple locked the iPad down hard to keep you in check, or rather ensure your experience was consistent. Microsoft is not the only software company which wants to lock you into the software platform with encryption and drm by the back door, don’t be fooled make sure you have full control over all the hardware you own.
For the last six years Truck Festival in Oxfordshire has been a fixture in my summer schedules, a mixture of village fête and indie music festival it provided the perfect antidote to the Glastonbury juggernaut and the over commercialised Leeds. More often than not the music line-up hit the sweet spot and with a plethora of small stages with eclectic line-ups all relatively close together the festival go-er was able be musically adventurous without having to engage in never-ending hikes. In short it was a little piece festival heaven open only once a year for just two days.
This year something changed, the organisers decided to increase by nearly half in consequence they lost some of that village fête vibe as this necessitated the stage now being further a part. The line-up itself was still very good but there was no place for the great majority of small local bands and reduced in variety hugely, gone was the rock, metal and anything that might make you jump around a little. The organisers in my opinion committed a quite ridiculous error they increased the capacity and because of this the costs of the event while at the same time reducing the appeal to those who have come to rely on its quirky localism and eclectic line-ups as an escape from the modern globalism.
The result seems was quite simply a financial disaster for the festival having alienated the festival regulars by dramatically changing the make up of the line up and nature of the festival they seem to have banked on attracting an entirely new set of Truckers. This was a grave error in a crowded market with an economy recession, now was not the time to make a profound change to they were offering. With the holding company behind Truck Festival now bankrupt they have put in serious jeopardy the future of their festival, the financial confidence in the festival organisers must now be shattered. They have destroyed the thirteen years hard work that has gone into establishing their festival as one of the best in the country.
Truck Festival will always be remembered for a great friendly atmosphere and great live music moments. This year Edwyn Collin’s performance will go down as one of my favourite live performances and the atmosphere in the tent really made it and last year Future of the Left playing Mclusky was surprising and absolutely outstanding. Other Truckers will have their own great moments and it’s a shame to think that they might well be the end of what was often one of the highlights of the festival summer.
In the beginning there was Amarok and iTunes; Amarok while not intuitive gave you music at your finger tips although the best that can be said for iTunes is that it worked on Windows. Amarok seems to have perished in a rewrite (we will however revisit) and since the day I downloaded it I’ve been looking to move away from iTunes. Finding a suitable replacement has been something of a challenge; some have poor usability, many lack features you’d expect as default and often you’ll find the computing resources they consume quite ridiculous. As music geek and techie music managers are something of a specialist subject and a little bit of a bug bear for me.
I’m going to be running through my various options looking at the plus and minus points of each, here are some brief requirements:
- Supports as many non-drm music formats as possible, most importantly Ogg Vorbis
- Music at my finger tips: is easy to search not only by key word but in a casual way with nice visual lists
- Expands my mind: reminds me what the latest additions to my collection are and gives me some good recommendations
- Easy to use, with clear concise menus and a theme that is based simply on the operating system theme
- Multi-platform, I don’t want to use more than one music manager just because I switch OS (I use Linux and Windows)
- Social networking integration: not only the mandatory Last.fm support but Twitter and Facebook integration
- Extendability, so I can do all the things I don’t know I need yet without changing platforms
- Lastly but not least play music well and support gapless playback
And some of the players I’ll be looking at:
- Rhythmbox (Ubuntu default)
- Songbird (son of Mozilla)
- Media Monkey
- Exaile
- Amarok
- iTunes
- …and more!
Admittedly my requirements are quite strenuous but as a techie / music geek I feel I have to represent here, too many people settle on iTunes because it comes with their portable player or Windows Media Player because it comes with their OS. I’m here to take you out of that sheltered world.
I’ve had an Orange mobile for what seems like an age and they have been good to me. However the time is right to move on, their current tariff structure just doesn’t provide value for money and coupled with a complete lack of choice of handset if you have a low spend, there was no compelling argument to stay in terms of value for money.
My use of my mobile phone is relatively low and for the amount I spent you can very little in terms of a handset upgrade on Orange. Very few of the handsets are even available if you spend less than £25. Even fewer of the handsets available under £25 have decent internet browsing or good apps for any relevant social networking sites. It’s quite clear that with Orange if you aren’t prepared to pony up serious money for your handset and the service they provide, then they aren’t really interested in your business.
The one thing Orange does have compared to the other networks, is their coverage. Their network is superb, in around seven years of use I found one spot in the entire United Kingdom that didn’t have any voice and text reception. Using the other networks can be ridiculously frustrating when you’ve got used to the almost blanket coverage of the Orange network but they sold out their one advantage by sharing their network with 3 and others it means we can dial into the Orange network without paying a premium. Since they have lost their major advantage in terms of sell-able value they only have their image and customer services to trade on.
So why then if you phone up to ask them to upgrade your phone; does ‘the system’ prevent them for rushing the requested gadget direct to their customer post-haste? The retention of customers should surely by Orange’s number one priority, but when I found myself in a position where I wanted to upgrade my phone and tariff Orange told me I had to wait two weeks. Of course I could commit to the new tariff right away but I’d have to phone back for the phone. That was the final straw, I knew at that point I had to go elsewhere. I could cope with paying a little more for the robustness of Orange but if they’re going to screw their customer over with petty rules; then I’m afraid we’re done.
Despite the great deal Orange gave me and the superb service they provided on their network, Orange lost the deal because of their lack of flexibility in their tariffs and poor choice in their low value handsets. If the cost of an Orange tariff makes sense to you they offer a great range of top end phones and fairly reasonable tariffs. If you aren’t prepared to stump up, look elsewhere.
Short: I’ve not used the full fat version of WordPress in anger for a number of years so this is probably old news, but words can’t express how swish the automatic upgrade function is.
The original netbook format put forward by ASUS eeePC series and mimicked by so many others has ‘just enough’ RAM, disk space, and processor for your ideal 2nd computer. The form factor means you can take it pretty much everywhere you go and it sits nicely on lap your as you watch television. The openness of the software and hardware means you can install whatever application or even OS youwant. It’s a marriage of perfect compromises but for some reason I just can’t fathom, divorce is on the cards.
Back to waitressing I'm afraid
Over the last year we have seen netbooks become corrupted into small laptops. The manufacturers have decided they need hard drives rather than flash drives, more RAM, bigger screens and the installed OS has moved from mainly Linux to for the most part Windows XP. Very few of these changes are ones that the consumer might make but instead seem to be driven by OEMs so used to sucking up Microsoft and Intel’s garbage that they forgot how to innovate.
Added that to instead of taking advantages of the economy of scale created by the popularity of the netbook prices are going up and for very little tangible benefit. If they could significantly increase the battery life to give me say a whole week’s worth of battery life without much worry, I’d stump up the new asking prices but this and most other features just haven’t made it into the current set of models.
Many of these new features seem to have been devolved out to so called ‘Smartbooks’. These devices are an attempt to ‘bridge the gap between smart phone and netbook’, who knew there was one?
Neatly tying into carrier's data network
A smart phone is a highly specced laptop, a netbook a ‘just enough’ laptop. The Smartbook product soon to be pushed onto consumers is a highly controlled software platform on the Netbook form factor. Building on the opportunities provided by Netbook plus 3G modem and the success of the closed platform iPhone, this is an attempt to resell the Netbook concept but with shiny apps and an expensive mobile data contract.
When looking at all these shiny new toys, remember what drew you to the Netbook form factor in first place; cheap, small and just enough. Ask yourself if this new generation of Smartbooks are actually what you need or whether a more open platform would be preferable.
