I even have a half written post where I got bored halfway through and left it sat waiting for further inspiration.  But the trouble is I’m starting to realise that I am beginning to hate, loathe, detest and generally dislike smartphones.  Or perhaps just mobile phones in general.

Last night we went to a party, not an altogether uncommon occurrance, but when we got home I fished my iPhone out my pocket and started tapping away on it.  At this point Sally commented it was nice to see me not constantly messing around with my phone every five minutes as I do at home.  She’s right too, I purposely left my phone in my coat pocket because nobody wants to see someone playing with a phone during a party do they?

But adding fuel to the fire is an opinion piece by PC Pro editor Tim Danton that I have just read, commenting how when in the pub (or any other public place) when someone is left alone for a brief moment the first thing they do is get their phone out and start tapping away.  It’s a great article, and one I wish I could reproduce here, but that would probably attract some unhappy lawyers.

If you people watch any high street in the land you see the same thing, people shuffling along with their eyes glued to the tiny colour screens of their smartphone of choice.  I myself have walked into doors repeatedly at work while replying to e-mail on my BlackBerry, and I bet you have an embarrassing story of equal stupidity.

I’ve written about this modern digitally connected age before in a post entitled The Absurdity of Immediacy, and things seem to be getting worse.  I’m as guilty as anyone else, I wake up in the morning and the first thing I do is take my iPhone out of Airplane mode and check Twitter, then Facebook followed by my e-mail before getting out of bed.  In the evening I’m constantly noodling around while watching TV doing exactly the same thing.  It’s like having a form of smartphone OCD, must check each online service in strict rotation every ten minutes or something bad will happen.  Like I’ll miss a Twitter update where someone ordered a pizza.

Of course I’m a ridiculous hypocrite given how much time I spend on various social networks, news sites, tech blogs and every other online distraction we have.  Even writing this (admittedly slightly angry) piece I’ve had to re-focus my attention no less than three times after opening up browser tabs to look at something else.  Because like many other people I now seem to have the attention span of a goldfish, and will forget something as soon as I have thought I need to check it out.

So in summary then, maybe I don’t dislike smartphones, but perhaps the way they have become a new appendage that is permanently attached to our hands.  I’ll be doing my best to not incessantly check mine for fear of missing what flavour that pizza is.

And in case anyone was wondering, Windows Phone is a very capable (albeit buggy) new operating system that responds well and has a decent selection of apps.  The AMOLED screen is bright and provides a decent resolution that never comes close to the detail of the retina display found on the iPhone.

PC software connectivity via Zune is simple, and individual tracks and albums of music can be dragged directly from the Zune library to the phone, none of the horrible iTunes synchronisation horrors.  And it will sync wirelessly.

Worth getting?  Maybe when the next round of handsets appear or when Microsoft patch away some of the initial round of bugs.  But their lack of interest in providing any such update at the time of this writing for a phone that was released last October is nothing short of criminal.

There you go see, I’ve gotten all cross again at smartphones.  Or maybe just at Microsoft.  Perhaps I’ll go and have a little lie down now.

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First up, this all-in-one Sony VAIO desktop PC.  Just before Christmas I installed the top of the range version of this machine for my boss.  That one was £1,700 worth of the cream of the crop featuring 8Gb of memory, a Blu-ray writer and more bells and whistles than the local pet shop.

This one is a far more terrifying prospect, as it is for my Mum.  This particular model is at the other end of the spectrum, but with the Core i3 chip and a modest but workable 3Gb of RAM I actually rather like it.  Being designed for the person with slightly tighter purse strings means several corners have been cut.  The keyboard and mouse are wired, the screen is bright but nothing like the cream of Sony’s crop, and the fit and finish of the entire unit is a little cheaper.

But for a touch enabled device that will be used for general internet use, iTunes and writing this should fit the bill perfectly.  Most retailers seem to be selling this one for around £800-825 but we found it online from Marks & Spencer for £770.

Next up is this Samsung Omnia running Windows Phone 7.  I bought this as a Christmas present for Sally, and haven’t gotten round to writing a proper post about it yet.  One will be coming in the next couple of weeks.  But initial impressions are very good.  The AMOLED screen is bright and crisp, but lacks the iPhone’s retina display for colour claritry and reproduction.

And finally this is the first time I’ve had to procure a MacBook for work purposes, and I’ve been setting up the 15″ MacBook Pro on the left (my 13″ model is to the right for a size comparison).  Unfortunately I couldn’t update everything in OS X through the work firewall so I simply HAD to bring it home.  No really, I had no other choice.  Ahem.

As with everything Apple this model is absolutely gorgeous, with small enhancements since I bought mine around 18 months ago such as a smaller Magsafe power adapter and now a Core i5 processor.  I’ve set up Boot Camp on it as well so it’s now running the 64-bit version of Windows 7 Home Premium, which seems to perform extremely well.

That’s it for now.  As I mentioned above there will be a proper post about the Windows Phone 7, and I’m working on a couple of probably quite lengthy ones relating to both the Apple and Microsoft digital home eco systems.  Watch this space.

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The primary reason (apart from liking shiny things) is that as I spend my entire working life surrounded by Microsoft products and PC hardware, when I am at home I don’t even want to think about looking at a PC.  So I have replaced almost every bit of PC kit with Apple hardware.

Long time readers will know I have always had a Mac of some description here in the home office, and the original iMac that was used way back in the Red Rant days to record the podcast is still in use.  But I’ve replaced the desktop Windows PC with a 27″ iMac, Dell XPS laptops are out, a 13″ MacBook Pro is in.  Couple that lot with an iPhone 4 and also an iPad (not to mention the new Apple TV) and you get my drift.  The only remaining PCs in the house are a three year old quad core Dell gaming PC, and the main media centre one.

So as a regular worshipper at the Church of Jobs(TM) I was forced to make a pilgrimage to the Apple Store at West Quay, Southampton yesterday morning for a serious repair.

Unfortunately last weekend (while the country was gripped by the latest “big freeze”) I packed my MacBook up and went to visit my Mum, with the aim of fixing my nephews very broken Vista laptop.  Having to deal with Vista again after over a year of Windows 7 joy was bad enough, but the usual spyware outbreak that all teenagers get (thanks to an insistance on using Limewire) was far more unpleasant than I originally thought.

So the laptop had to come home with me (and I was forced to endure a good eight to ten hours of fixing it) and when I got home my bag sort of fell out of the car.  Not exactly a problem usually, but when I opened my MacBook screen later on I was confronted by this.

Ouch.  When you break something it’s always upsetting but on a machine as lovely as this it felt downright heartbreaking.  And as we all know, Apple hardware isn’t exactly cheap, so I knew a repair wasn’t exactly going to be one I could cover with some spare change.

So I made a Genius Bar (don’t even get me started on the ridiculous pomposity of the name) appointment for yesterday morning.

First up I give Apple props for doing a fantastic job of looking after their customers.  I know the staff all look like they are part of a cult (in many ways the staff and us customers are I suppose) with the seasonal matching red t-shirts, but from the moment I got there I was well looked after.  I was 15 minutes early for my appointment, and bang on 9:20 I sat down with my..ahem..Genius.

I was fully expecting to have to leave the machine with them for a few days, given that the entire screen assembly would have to be replaced (at the trouser troubling cost of £280 no less) but they had a replacement part in stock and it could be done by lunchtime.

So we went off and did some Christmas shopping, during the expedition I bought Sally a new Windows Phone, but that’s a story for another blog post.
After a couple of hours I went back to the store just to see how they were getting on and again was treated like royalty.  The machine was already repaired so I just had to wait a few minutes before it reappeared, working perfectly and cleaned to within an inch of its life.  I am always very careful to look after my electronics, but the notebook looked like it had just rolled off the production line again.  Even Sally thought it was a brand new machine.  Sadly, no such luck.

So while Apple hardware is rather expensive, you really can’t fault their service both technically and personally.  And that is why I will keep using them, at least while the bank account will allow.

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If certain web forum trends are to be believed then once every few years people who play videogames a lot (or have done for a long time) usually tend to go through an occasional “why do I do this?” phase.  Of course I’m no expert on this particular subject, or any other for that matter, but every time I read forum posts usually titled “Tired of gaming” or “Gaming apathy” they tend to let in an unmetered tide of responses from people who are either going through a similar experience, or have recently done so.

I’m not going through one of those particular mid-gaming life crisis episodes right now, far from it.  But as well as the “why do I do this?” question I like to hold up a counter point when a game reinforces my primary relaxation hobby (especially as the evenings are too bright at the moment for film and TV watching).  This tends to be a game that I wouldn’t normally have purchased, but have done so either on a whim or it has been reduced in price.  Fable II was at the top of the pile of games I never thought I would want to play, let alone enjoy.  Then I sunk over sixty hours into completing it multiple times.  But the game that has done it for me this time is Splinter Cell Conviction.

I’ve never been a fan of the previous Splinter Cell games.  When I tried them on the original Xbox they seemed a little overcomplicated (or I was just overly simple), but people who liked them really enjoyed them.  I was never really one for stealth action games, and after getting caught one too many times by guards I gave up and went onto something else.
I only bought Conviction really so I could play online co-op with Mr DXEndar, promising that if I was offered the contract I was going for them I would buy it.  I won the contract, and a promise is a promise.  What has happened since I got the game has been nothing short of a revelation for me.

Fans of the original games have voiced concerns over this particular title as the focus of the game has shifted more towards a straightforward third person cover based action shooter (along the lines of Gears of War) and the stealth emphasis has been somewhat toned down.
But in reality you can play the game as either type, you can go in guns blazing, make as much noise as possible and enjoy some very frantic and heated firefights, or you can take the stealthy approach.

I started by playing the game like I do with most action games if I’m perfectly honest, I play on the easiest difficulty level to get through the game and see the story to its conclusion.  Then if I have really enjoyed the experience (and if I’ve paid full price, I want to get the best value for money I possibly can) I will go back and play it again on a higher level, and then play some co-op or multiplayer if it is included.
Looking at the single player campaign first of all, much of the back story went straight over my head but the game moves along at a fast pace and is incredibly slick.  At times it feels very much like an even more stylised (and cliched for that matter) episode of 24.  But one of the ones with action obviously.

But instead of just throwing level after level of “infiltrate base/warehouse/mansion” rinse and repeat ad nauseum gameplay, the action (or lack of it depending on how you are playing) changes up enough that you don’t get bored.  I won’t give away any spoilers here, but every now and then everything changes so you are going through a definite third person shooter, some enforced stealth and an excellent free running sequence.
This is where the revelation happened for me with Conviction.  I enjoyed the single player campaign a lot, I got the game on Friday and started playing straight away before moving into some co-op (more on that in a moment) and then going back and completing the single player story on Sunday.

But after completing the game I took a break for a few minutes and started all over again on the next difficulty level (Normal).  When I did this I completely changed my play style, moving to a far more stealthy approach.  Climbing up drainpipes instead of just hiding behind cover, going for stealth kills and very much biding my time.  I played solidly again all through Monday, completed the game and started yet again on Realistic difficulty!  This is completely unheard of for me to do with a game of this type.  Usually by now I would have moved onto another game from the library, and Mass Effect 2 has been sat waiting for some love.

After an enforced break yesterday I have spent all morning today playing the game through to its completion yet again on Realistic and you know what?  I will gladly play it all over again!
So the single player probably takes around seven or eight hours to play through, and it is broken down into eleven chapters.  But for multiplayer there is a prequel co-op campaign which I would gustimate takes around three to four hours to play through.  I have yet to complete it at the time of writing, but we played for around three hours with the end still some way off.  It doesn’t change up the core mechanics of the game one bit, but as an extra added bonus with new characters and different environments it makes for great fun.

Then there’s the on and offline multiplayer that I haven’t even touched on yet.

So I take my non-existent hat off to the folks at Ubisoft for finally releasing this oft-delayed game, and can happily say they have made a convert out of me.
Next week: Alan Wake.

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Typically for me my own personal life laundry revolves around discs of movies, videogames, software, etc.  The photo above is of my disc storage flight case.  I’ve had this for a few years now and this beast can store 2000 discs.  At one stage this thing was almost full!  I even had way too much time on my hands one year and created a spreadsheet listing the entire contents.  Movies alone ran at over 1,000 discs (and yes they are all legit) and trying to shift this thing required a professional weightlifter to help me drag it across the carpet.

For the last two or three years just after Christmas I have had a life laundry day of sorting all of these discs out, and in previous years I have been pretty ruthless in what I get rid of.  But this year I’ve been the most heartless of all.  While watching one of my unwatched DVDs (Look Around You – Series 2) I have removed pretty much everything I own that I have watched but will never watch again.  I’m almost ashamed to think of how much money I’ve spent on digital media over the last fifteen years but the time had come to get things sorted out.

The net result is I now have less than ten unwatched DVDs that I actually want to view.  The British Heart Foundation will have plenty to pick up tomorrow when they collect their charity bag, and I have one less thing to think about.  It also reminds me of how little I actually use physical disc media any more for day to day watching.  I’ve had a review Blu-ray to watch this week, and it is the first time in quite a while I have actually switched on the Blu-ray player to watch a disc.  So much of my media viewing is now via the HTPC (Home Theatre PC) either on local storage or streamed across the network that I barely ever have to dig a disc out.

The only readily accessible DVD or Blu-ray media that are easily accessible now are either TV box sets or my favourite movies that are frequently watched.  But a post about the death of the disc is for another time.

I find something immensely liberating about lightening the load of at least one aspect of my life.  I’ve gotten to the point now where I don’t need “stuff” to make me happy.  The rampant consumerism I enjoyed so much in my twenties and very early thirties now seems completely immaterial to me.
This doesn’t mean I’m going to abandon my tech loving lifestyle and go and live in the mountains, far from it.  But every once in a while we need to get a little perspective on things, and for me this is as good a place to start as any.

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Dell FAIL Redux
Just recently I wrote a post berating Dell for shipping a Studio Hybrid machine to me with a faulty fan.  Unfortunately the story got worse before it got better!  I received word just before the Easter break that the fan and also the heatsink for the CPU had been replaced and it was on the way back to me.
It was delivered on Tuesday morning when I got back to work (in a laptop box that didn’t fit the machine no less), covered in scratches!

As I discovered machines don’t go back directly to Dell themselves, like many large firms they use a third party repair firm and I obviously got the heavy handed YTS trainee working on mine.  The blue plastic sleeve that the machine sits in looked like it had been dragged along a workbench top, and the actual machine wasn’t immune to a few marks and scrapes.
All very unimpressive for a brand new machine that was repaired when in reality is should have been replaced with a brand new one (and I should have politely requested this during my support call, that’s what you get for being affable perhaps ).

Fortunately Dell customer service and support is actually very good, and they sent me out a replacement sleeve and the machine is installed under the TV and working extremely well (there may well be a full review of it in the near future if I get time).

Twitter
I’ve created a second Twitter account for business and IT related tweets to keep work separate from personal stuff.  The account name is CullenIT if you would like to follow me.  If things come to fruition in the near future that feed should be integrated with the business site.  Speaking of which…

Business
I never blogged it here, but I made a plan a while ago to start building my business when we came back from our holiday.  When I started the business almost three years ago I always intended to go contracting for a few years, and then try to move into consultancy and work with a number of my own clients.

Incredibly the very first day I started to work towards that someone came along and I am very happy to be supporting a local web design firm, Forest Design.  Forest Design is a family run business looking after nearly 200 web sites for local businesses, so if you are in need of some quality web design done by a very nice group of people, tell them I sent you!
This is also pushing me on to getting the business web site finally up and running, although I am wondering whether I should just give up on Joomla and go back to WordPress for the time being.  I know WordPress and its quirks rather well after almost three years of blogging, and the prospect of spending a large amount of time getting Joomla to work the way I want it to doesn’t fill me with enthusiasm.  We shall see.

Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Surround
I picked up one of these sound cards from Creative this week.  I have been using the onboard sound from my standard Dell Inspiron desktop machine ever since I bought it (having sent my ultra l337 X-Fi Elite Pro card to my design genius Anto a few months ago) but stereo sound from a 5.1 speaker setup isn’t exactly great.

This is a USB SoundBlaster designed to add decent sound primarily to notebook PCs, but it works quite happily in my Vista x64 machine.  It contains the all important digital optical output and for £50 I’ve got a mini X-Fi card that sounds great.  I highly recommend it to anyone in need of something slightly better than onboard PC audio.

Buffy
And finally for today, after years of having various people pester me into watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I finally relented over the Easter weekend.  I couldn’t see what the fuss was all about after the first few episodes, but then something clicked and I can’t stop watching it.
We finished watching the first season last night, so only six more seasons and around 130 episodes to go then!

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But that’s not what this post is about, but the abbreviated version of why I stuck with Orange and now the HTC Touch HD rather than defect to O2 and the iPhone is that the Exchange push mail is far better on Windows Mobile. Not that’s its too shabby on the iPhone of course, but I need my phone to compliment my business and not my lifestyle.

This post is about the new free service that Microsoft announced called My Phone, which allows Windows Mobile 6 and above users to synchronize nearly everything that is contained on their phone. Contacts, calendars, tasks, text messages, photos, videos, music and documents to be precise. The service is currently in beta, and the only way in is either to get a beta code or register your interest and hope you get the nod.

Fortunately the nod in question came to me on Saturday morning so I thought I would give my initial impressions here.
After signing in to the My Phone web site you are asked to provide the phone number of the device you will be using. This will then send a text message to the phone containing a link to the My Phone web site to install the application. Not exactly brain crushing stuff so far.

As anyone who has ever installed an application on Windows Mobile will know, it’s not exactly the most exciting thing in the world and My Phone is no exception. A couple of clicks and you’re off. All that’s left to do is enter your Windows Live id and tell it what you want to sync.

Now here is the biggie for me, you cannot sync your contacts, calendars or tasks if your phone is connected to an Exchange server as all of your information is already safely sat on a server back at the office. The My Phone service is designed purely for folks with a single phone that perhaps synchronizes with their home PC.
I configured mine to synchronize all of the other items such as text messages and photos so I could at least test the service properly. It will also back up data that is both on the phone and any storage card you may happen to have connected.

One item of note after you have configured what to sync is it will ask you how often to do so. There is also a very strong warning that if you select the continuous synch that you should only do so if you have an unlimited data plan. I’ve got mine set to sync manually, which I do when I’m either at home or in the office so as to use WiFi rather than my 3G data.

After configuring and synchronizing the phone for the first time it’s off to the My Phone web site where you can administer the service. Microsoft provide you with 200Mb of free space at the moment, which I would expect (hope?) to be ramped up after the service goes live.

I’ve used the service to clear out my text messages and tidy the phone up somewhat, which usually I would do from the handset but I haven’t read the manual yet as it’s not particularly exciting. Perhaps I should take all the user manuals I haven’t read on the plane with me this weekend so I can get some sleep?

It’s incredibly easy to be cynical and say that My Phone is just a pseudo knock off version of Mobile Me, and perhaps it sort of it. But if you are forced to use Windows Mobile and want a way of keeping an online backup your mobile data or frequently change phones and want to be able to synchronize it easily then My Phone is a handy bolt on component for you. Of course right now this is just a beta service and the web site itself looks rather sparse (save for the enormous MSN advertisements). Hopefully when the service launches I would imagine with Windows Mobile 6.5 it will have had a new coat of paint. But for now, it’s a handy service even though I can’t sync my mail data with it.

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A couple of weeks ago I took the plunge and bought a netbook computer.  This new wave of small, ultra ultra portable and perhaps most importantly CHEAP machines seem to be bridging the gap between a high powered smartphone and a full sized laptop.  I must admit that sometimes I do stick my head in the sand a little when it comes to technology trends.  I know that may sound rather daft considering what 90% of this site is about, but while I may always know what’s hot in the world of HDTV and videogames, I don’t really want to know everything about the computing market given that it’s what puts food on the table and toys in the house.

Netbooks are big business now, and I quite often want to break out a machine to look something up quickly online but don’t want to fire up the laptop, and the iPod Touch screen doesn’t always cut it.
I turned to the PC Pro A-List, which is always my first port of call when it comes to chosing new technology.  I’ve been reading PC Pro ever since my first job in IT and it is by far my favourite non-internet based source of IT information.  Whenever I pick a PC, hard drive, router or whatever it is I need to purchase, that’s where I look.  It just so happens that the Samsung NC10 is currently at the top of their list, so that’s what I bought.

The NC10 is a typically slick piece of Samsung hardware.  It’s glossy, well made, feels good and is very well priced.  I now realise that in recent times I have become something of a Samsung whore, with two 24″ monitors and a 37″ LCD TV adorning the office.
The NC10 comes equipped with 1Gb RAM, a 160Gb hard drive and all the usual extras such as multiple USB ports, a webcam, b/g wireless yadda yadda.  Now one of the key reasons for buying this is that I wanted to try out Windows 7 on it.  Vista is way too pudgy for these machines, and most of them right now either come preloaded with Linux or Windows XP Home.

Microsoft have been making a lot of noise about how Windows 7 is leaner and faster than its predecessor, and they are keen for it to be the OS of choice for netbook consumers (and let’s be honest, bundling an operating system that is coming up on eight years old probably wasn’t high on the list of wants for the Redmond concern).  Anyone who has loaded Vista onto new hardware with only 1Gb RAM knows that it’s hardly nippy, so being able to run multiple applications on a machine that costs the same amount of money as a 32Gb iPod Touch seems like the dreams of a madman.

First things first, the NC10 does indeed come with Windows XP Home SP3, and a few bundled applications.  Restore, application and driver CDs are included but as there is no optical drive in the unit then you’ll be needing a USB DVD drive if the need ever arose to restore the system.  Even then, you would only need this in the event of a catrastrophic failure as Samsung have included a machine imaging tool that will backup the machine to a secure partition.  System Restore can’t get you out of a fix?  Then just reboot the machine into recovery mode and restore.  Simple.

I went through the usual setup process for XP, patched it up to its eyeballs, installed a few applications and then imaged it, knowing I would rather hack off any of my appendages than use it again.  I took a complete system image using Acronis True Image 11.  Acronis’ suite of products have been my weapon of choice for machine imaging for several years now.  Ghost may have been the first popular machine imaging tool, but I switched to Acronis as it’s just so straightforward and easy to use.  Seriously, everyone who buys a PC should get a copy of this to go with it.

So to the business of installing Windows 7.  You can install it from a USB DVD drive, but where’s the fun in that?  It’s way faster to do it via a USB thumb drive and you get extra geek points for doing so.  For information on how to prepare a USB stick to install Windows 7 check out THIS VIDEO over at Technet Edge which gives step by step details.

Installation for Windows 7 took around twenty minutes, and to my amazement all of the internal hardware was found with one exception: the LAN driver.  The wireless adapter was detected without any problems, and before setup was completed 7 performed a search for wireless networks automatically so it was all set when it booted to the desktop for the first time.

I won’t talk about my impressions of Windows 7 here, I have already done that in THIS POST.  Suffice to say I am very impressed by how it runs on the NC10.  I loaded it up with the usual applications I use on a daily basis (Office 2007, Firefox, Twhirl, Live Messenger) and it will happily run multiple applications simultaneously without complaining.

It will also run the Windows Aero interface, and all of the new visualisation techniques that Windows 7 uses work perfectly.  It even passed the notoriously difficult “Spousal Acceptance Factor” test.
One thing of note though is the keyboard does take a while to get used to.  Typing on it is fine, it’s a nice and responsive keyboard but the positionment of some of the keys can lead to intense frustration.  Having been using the machine for nearly a fortnight I still keep finding myself missing the right hand Shift key.  I know, practise makes perfect.  It’s not as if I’m going to be writing anything substantial on the NC10, at least not until I become more used to the keyboard layout.  If I were to write this post on it I probably would have put it through the window by now.

Something else to point out to anyone who wants to install Windows 7 on the NC10 is that you will need to install the function key drivers that control the display brightness.  By default when you are unplugged the screen brightness will be at its lowest setting.  This is fine in situations where you have artificial light, but if you are sat in a bright room on a sunny day you are going to have problems.  Fortunately, the XP driver that comes with the NC10 works perfectly under Windows 7.  All you have to do is be able to get the drivers from the CD to the netbook.  I copied mine onto a NAS but any of the usual methods will work just fine (share the CD drive in another machine, USB CD drive, copy to USB stick, etc).  I did try getting the drivers from the Samsung web site but with no joy, so it’s worth being aware that you may need to do some fancy file copying.

Before I finish up I have to give bonus points to the screen, which won’t be to everyones taste at only 10.2 inches but what do you expect for around £285 (+ the VAT if you pay it)?  The screen is beautifully clear, far clearer than many business laptops I have used just recently.  Of course it helps that Samsung makes an awful lot of display products but that doesn’t always mean you’re going to get something special.

It’s easy to see why people are raving over these netbooks.  They’re relatively cheap, and give you the functionality of a decent laptop but they won’t weigh you down.  The NC10 is a fantastic machine and well worth a look if you are looking to join the ever swelling ranks of netbook owners.

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A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about the work/life balance and trying to leave the wonderful world of IT behind me of an evening and do something more productive.  Like watch TV.

So far I would have to say it has gone…fairly well.  As with starting any new project or plan, you do really well for the first couple of days and then gradually slip back into your old ways.  My plan was to continue working when getting home from work at three o’clock until around five and at that point the computers stay off until tomorrow.  Last week I did this pretty well, but the downside is that I don’t always come straight home after work.  Personal commitments and life in general dictate that stuff will happen and will need to be dealt with after work, which meant that after getting home I would spend some time working in the evening because I wasn’t able to do so that afternoon.

I also hadn’t planned for the fact that things don’t always go to plan with computers, and when the SBS 2003 server decided to keel over when I tried to reboot it last Friday night I was left with the unfortunate reality that I would have to go and sort it out.  So last Saturday morning came and we had to get up relatively early to drive over to the office and get that back up and running again.  Not really a problem as we were going to visit my folks anyway, but I could have done without waking up and jumping straight into the shower and heading out the door.  Silver lining?  I charge double at the weekend.

Then there was Windows 7.  I have already posted my thoughts on it here on the site, and have spent a lot of time this week getting to know it.  Then there’s the obligatory accountants work and continuing on with my plans to grow the business when we return from our holiday in the middle of March.
But this weekend is earmarked as “serious downtime”.  No computers, no Windows 7 and no business talk.  The rest of this evening belongs to Xbox Live and the next two days are for some sleep recovery and other general fun.

My final word for the week, something I heard on the radio yesterday morning.  It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.
Have great weekends everybody!

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So it’s probably best to describe Windows 7 as being like Windows 98 Second Edition.  Take an OS that was less than popular, fix a load of its problems, give it a new coat of paint, tune it all up and send it on its way.  As I remarked on my Twitter feed after first few moments with 7, it’s Vista with a new hat.  But it’s a nice hat.

So yes, Windows 7 is a maintenance release but one that has been tweaked to be less demanding on its hardware than Vista.  Microsoft are very keen for it to be loaded onto Netbooks, which currently come loaded with Windows XP Home rather than the rather bloated Vista.  Think of Windows 7 as being the person at the end of one of those makeover TV shows, and at the start they were Vista.  They’re still the same person, just a bit leaner with more confidence and better clothes.

Vista is a bit of curious beast (and I will stop harping on about it in a moment), and garnered an expression I like to call the “Vista Sneer”(TM and (C) me) which is when someone tells me “I’ve bought a new machine….and it’s got Vista on it”, at which point they screw up their face.  Then after using it for a while they wonder what all the moaning was about.  Vista is not great, not by possibly the longest chalk, but I’d still take it over XP any day.

But to Windows 7 then, the one and only beta release has just been made available to the public after a somewhat rocky start that took Microsoft’s servers down for a day, before it reappeared and became available to everyone until the end of January (as opposed to the 2.5 million users that had been originally planned).

Microsoft promise that build 7000 that has been made available to all and sundry is feature complete, and will work until the 1st of August.  By then the Release Candidate will be out and the mooted September release will be just around the corner.

Microsoft has been rather aggressive with its product releases over the last couple of years, with new desktop and server operating systems.  Combine that with Exchange, SQL and a plethora of other products that being in the business I have to know about, it has been a very interesting but also at times mind blowing experience that can zap any form of enthusiasm that remained for yet another new product.

So going into testing Windows 7 I will admit I wasn’t exactly jumping for joy at the prospect, but am pleased to say that I rather like it.
Installation is pretty much identical to Vista, you answer a couple of questions regarding where to install it and in which language and that’s that.

When I first started using 7 it reminded me somewhat of how Mac OS X has evolved over the years. I bought my first Mac several years ago when OS X was first launched.  It was a dual boot system with OS 9 still installed, and many applications hadn’t been updated so the compatibility mode for 9 would fire up every time I ran an older application.  With subsequent revisions to OS X and two more pieces of Apple hardware later we currently have Leopard (and soon Snow Leopard) that have evolved the core OS to the rock solid version we now have, complete with numerous handy features.  Every time there is a new version of OS X I have several “oh that’s good” or “that’s really clever, and very handy” moments that remind me what a great operating system Apple has.

The first thing you notice about Windows 7 is the Vista desktop has been given a suitably Apple-esque makeover.  The old style taskbar and quick launch bar have been amalgamated to make it more like the OS X dock (see above).  You run an application and it appears as an icon rather than a rather dull slab tile that truncates its name.  Move your mouse over the applications icon when it is running and it will change colour (according to Microsoft it picks out the primary RGB colour from the apps icon).

If it is an application which has multiple instances (such as Internet Explorer having many tabs open), each of the instances will pop up as a preview, and moving the mouse pointer over the individual items will bring them into focus on the main desktop (as shown above).  Simple idea, genuine real world use.

These icons also bring new right-click functionality with what Microsoft call Jump Lists.  Run Windows Messenger and right-click on the icon and you can change your online status.  Media Player lets you stop, pause, skip, etc (this is shown above).  Simple, but handy.

I’m not going to drone on in-depth about each of the new features in Windows 7 (OMFG! NEW CALCULATOR!!!111, oh and WordPad and Paint have the Ribbon interface from Office 2007. Oh and also you can have wallpaper slideshows, I like that).  But those of you who are interested in everything that is new I have a couple of links for you.  The first is this Wikipedia page which gives a broad overview of what has changed.

The second one is a superb post entitled “The Bumper List of Windows 7 Secrets” from Tim Sneath.  This lists 30 features of 7 that you probably won’t know about.  My particular favourite is the Black Box Recorder which allows users to record themselves recreating their problem, which will then create a slideshow that the techie can look at.  How many times have you (if you are a techie, naturally) been to visit a users machine with a problem and can’t recreate it?  Then as soon as you walk away…you get the idea.

Wrapping this one up, I like Windows 7 an awful lot.  After three hours of using it at work on Tuesday I switched back to my Vista laptop.  It already felt old, and I wanted my new taskbar back.  Moving over to XP makes it seem even more archaic.
Performance wise it is far better with hardware than Vista.  The whole OS has been tightened up and I tested it on a 64-bit Pentium 4 dual core with 8Gb RAM (like the clappers), a brand new Core 2 box with 2Gb RAM (32-bit, also extremely fast), and finally on a 512mb VM which was also no slouch.

My next test is going to be installing it on a machine that I would never put Vista anywhere near, which is pretty much anything with less than 2Gb of RAM on board.

I spend around eight hours a day looking at a Microsoft operating system, whether it be using, fixing or installing.  When I’m at home I tend to spend as much time as I can in front of OS X primarily because it’s a great OS and also because it’s something different to look at.  Windows 7 has done something that I thought to be rather impossible at this stage, which is to make using a PC for my own entertainment genuinely fun.    From the last few days I can see that with Windows 7 Microsoft have done a decent job of taking away some of the frustrations of Vista and delivered a more home user friendly operating system.  If you have a spare machine or one fast enough to run a decent VM, it’s well worth checking out.  It hasn’t crashed on me either.  Yet.

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My own product placement dislikes aside, yes the long delayed social networking/shoppers paradise/sexual predator hangout does finally go live later on today.  I have been playing…hold on that isn’t really the right word is it?  I’m loathed to use the new catch all videogame buzz-word “experience”, but needs must.  I have been experiencing (somewhere an angel just lost its wings) the joys of Home for the last couple of weeks since being sent a beta invite.

In it’s unfinished public beta (or server stress test as I like to think of it) form the service has held up pretty well, with the added bonus that large amounts of the product placement and branding opportunities have been nowhere to be seen.  Walk around the shopping mall and there are plenty of “coming soon” type hoardings over the windows.
It its most crude form, Home is still very entertaining.  You begin by creating your avatar, which can look disturbingly lifelike.  Make a choice from a rather limited selection of clothing (don’t worry, you can soon buy some Diesel products with real money for your fake person!) and begin a tutorial, starting off in your own Home appartment.  This overlooks a Monaco style riviera, and graphically it looks extremely attractive.

From here you can get the lift down to the Home Square, wander round, look at some advertisements for PlayStation properties, watch one of the video walls dotted around and then find some real folks and sit down for a game of checkers.  Head into the bowling alley, play some pool or bowling once again with other people, perhaps even hop on to an arcade cabinet and play one of the games there.

All joking aside about all this branding and marketing, if you ignore all of that stuff, Home is an entertaining place to spend some time.  I can’t really see myself wanting to get parties together and play games and all that jazz but that is predonimantly because most of my friends are on Xbox Live.  What I’m really interested in is to see how the service develops and what benefits it gives to PS3 owners.

Also on the subject of consumerism, there was an usual Tweet from Major Nelson a couple of days ago to an NPR article talking to Martin Lindstron, the author of a book entitled “Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy”.  The book details how companies are marketing their products direct to our subconscious and our own responses to them.  The radio shows segment is available online and lasts for about half an hour.  It makes for interesting listening, and can be found HERE.

I’m very interested in this kind of thing, I try and avoid the trappings of rampant consumerism, but having just worked out that I have spent over £400 in the last two months alone on videogames I’m clearly not as immune as I thought.  It would appear a games rental service will be the answer for me in the new year.

Finally for today, at this time of year I always get the urge to start playing Animal Crossing again on the Gamecube.  I don’t know why, but Christmas just seems like the right fit for Nintendo’s charming (but never sickly) game.  I remember saying on Red Rant (RIP) a long time back that I would buy another Wii when the new Animal Crossing was released.  Sadly as the new version is essentially the same game again, but with the option to visit the city, I’ll stick with the original thanks.

My town is currently under a large amount of snow, fairly lights adorn the trees and I have waded through everyone saying “Where have you been for the last 11 months? We were really concerned”.  It may be a host of scripted routines, but there is something just so appealing about this game that I can’t stop playing it.  Even though I have Fable II, Resistance 2, Prince of Persia and Tomb Raider Underworld sat unplayed on the shelf.  At least Nintendo saved me some money so I don’t have to buy another Wii.

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Quantum of Solace
We went to see Bond 22 last Friday night and I have to say, not really that impressed.  Martin Campbell has resurrected Bond twice with Goldeneye and Casino Royale, and I really wish he had directed the first proper direct Bond sequel because tonally this is all over the place.

The general consenus across the internet is “good, but not as good as Casino Royale”.  That’s pretty much how I would describe it.  Daniel Craig is superb once again as Bond, and he does the best he can here with what he has to work with.  But the story is dull, the villain about as scary as an episode of Scooby Doo and the action is very frustrating.  Casino took a leaf out of the Bourne films portfolio by making the action more intense and realistic.  Here director Marc Forster (who has never directed an action flick before) has gone for the MTV generatic fast cut approach and it just left me thinking “WTF is going on? Stop moving the damn camera”.  As such the opening Aston Martin chase which is absolutely stunning leaves you breathless for all the wrong reasons, and a boat chase later on in the movie does more of the same.

Then when it gets to the final action sequence it turns into a more traditional action movie which is incredibly well put together by the usual Bond effects crew led by Chris Corbould.  Oh and the title song is bloody terrible too.

If this were just another generic action movie it would be fine.  If it were a Bourne movie it would be fine.  But this is a Bond movie, and while the series has of course had to move with the times, Quantum of Solace left me more stirred than shaken.  That’ll earn me ten points from the “most cliched things to say in a Bond movie review” squad.
I really want to see Quantum of Solace again at home, on Blu-ray with the sound cranked up, because the quality of the picture and sound at our refitted multiplex was absolutely terrible.  Even Sally who pays no heed to such things generally said “The sound at home is much better than that”.  I was so proud.

Xbox Returns
My original launch Xbox 360 finally returned from Germany last Friday, and I actually got the same console back!  The repair sheet in the box confirmed that the motherboard was faulty and had been replaced.  I was rather glad to get that back in one piece, and I think they replace the casing as well as it was covered in factory fit stickers and it was notably cleaner than when it left.

I have to say I was very impressed wth Xbox support.  Unlike their courier of choice, UPS who were an absolute nightmare.

Microsoft’s turn around for repairing the 360 was less than a day.  It then spent three days waiting for UPS to pick it up, and it took me nearly a week to get someone to pick the damn thing up in the first place.
One thing I have noticed after testing it, the Elite is WAY quieter than the original machines.

Freesat PVR
Still no official launch date but the Freesat PVR will very shortly be in the shops, and there is a ton of information (including videos) over at Join Freesat.  I particularly like the feature when you select to record a programme on BBC1, if it is also on BBC HD (not much chance of that, Spooks, Stephen Fry, Top Gear in HD? Nah, no chance) you will be told so and asked if you want to record the SD or HD version.

Spousal acceptance factor?  Still not biting, and I just bought her cashmere too

Software Mountain
Microsoft’s quarterly Action Pack has dropped at work but I’m still waiting impatiently for mine to arrive at home.  There is an absolute ton of new software this time around including Small Business Server 2008, Essential Business Server and SQL Server 2008.  More new stuff to learn, and I have the relevant hardware finally to get down to it.

Finally, it’s cold.  I’m in the midst of rebuilding most of my computers, have dropped Earl, The Office, Heroes, Californication and a couple of other shows from the weekly watch (will wait for the DVD box sets at the end of the season), have a ton of games to play and not a lot of time to do so.  Still, soon be Christmas.

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After months of waiting it is finally official!  Join Freesat has today announced that Freesat+ (aka the Humax PVR Freesat box) will launch in mid-November, and here it is!

Those all important specs:

320Gb Hard Disk (200 hours of SD, 80 hours of HD recording)
Dual Freesat tuners (watch one channel, record another, or record two simultaneously)
8 day EPG

As well as (taken directly from Join Freesat):
• Series recording – to automatically record all the episodes of your favourite shows
• Radio recording – never miss your favourite radio shows by recording individual shows, or even series record
• Live pause and instant rewind – in case you need to answer the phone or replay that crucial scene
• Schedule tracking – so recordings start and finish on time, even when broadcasters change their schedule
• Split recordings – to record two-part programmes that may have a break in the middle for a news bulletin, such as films

The cost? RRP is £299, expect that to be discounted slightly by online retailers.  An official release date is still awaited, but it’s just a few short weeks away now.

In other news, if anyone wants to buy my regular Humax HD decoder after I’ve secured my PVR, give me a shout

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At the end of March my original launch Xbox 360 decided to shuffle off this mortal coil (in a post entitled Will Ferrel Broke My Xbox), and since then it has been sat up in the loft while I muttered and moaned before upgrading to the Elite and its 120Gb HDMI goodness.

I’ve been having a bit of a life laundry cleansing sort of day today, and whilst doing that I grabbed the original 360 from its hiding place upstairs and brought it down here to give it another test.  Sure enough, the thing powered up first time so I set about trying to recover my account information onto it as the hard drive was wiped when I upgraded to the Elite.

I connected the box to the internet and hey presto Xbox Live told me there was an update for the console, this started to download and then the screen went blocky and started flashing.  Still broken I thought, and switched it off again.  Then when I turned it back on, this wonderful sight met my eyes.

YES!  The Red Ring of Death!  This is what I wanted when the console originally went the way of the Dodo, so I could get a free repair from Microsoft.  For some bizarre reason my console was registered but not to my Live profile so I had to phone them up.  One free phone call and about ten minutes later (the very helpful Chinese lady I spoke to was new to the job) I had a free repair all booked in and I await a UPS driver sometime next week to pick up the machine and whisk it away.

Most people who send their machines in for repair report that they don’t get their original one back, and they tend to be the new model machines with HDMI output and the decent chipset.  In some ways I hope I get this one back, it holds a special place in my heart that has nothing to do with the games or the technology.  Whatever happens, I’ll be getting a second working 360 and if its a new chipset one, it may as well help to line my pockets with a few extra pounds.

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There has been a steady update of new channels since I bought the Humax box, with the regional ITV stations being added around a fortnight after I wrote my original review.  Channel 5 is still noticable by its absence, but it is still expected by the end of the year.

Humax PVR
Yes the Holy Grail for Freesast enthusiasts is finally going to be released by Humax in November!  It now goes under the branding of Freesat+ and it will be officially launched at the What Hi-Fi Sound And Vision show taking place at London’s ExCel venue from October 31st-November 2nd.  I’m going to see Quantum of Solace on the Friday and my ever troublemaking father is celebrating his 60th birthday on the Sunday, but I may have to make the effort to head up to London and check the show out on the Saturday.

Naturally details are totally non-existent at this stage, but the prospect of finally being able to see the machine in the silicon is extremely tempting.  Plus there is a whole host of other stuff going on, naturally.

Join Freesat
I stumbled across Join Freesat earlier today, which appears to be the official Freesat news blog.  There is a ton of great information on here, and should be a no-brainer RSS feed to add to your reader of choice.

One article that is of particular note is this one, which gives gives a few interesting tidbits including that 100,000 sales have now been achieved (but doesn’t give any indication as to what percentage has been SD/HD or integrated units).  The paragraph that caught my eye was this one:

The introduction of Freesat+ (their words, not ours!), a digital television recorder (DTR or HDR), due for release by Humax in November (confirmed).

An increased number of manufacturers, including some leading brands whom are already in discussions with Freesat, plus a larger supply chain.

Freesat are also continuing with it’s plan to offer 200 channels by early 2009, with channels being added to the EPG every week or two. Channel Five is said to be just a few weeks away, with an exclusive Freesat channel (presumed RTE, not official) expected by the end of the year.

New manufacturers, a dedicated Freesat channel and note that the original “200 channels by the end of 2008″ has now moved slightly to “early 2009″.  It is also announced elsewhere on the site that Panasonic will also be adding the integrated Freesat tuner into its LCD TVs.  This is a smart move, the plasma sets are gorgeous but your average high street consumer is still looking at the cheaper LCD alternative.

Freesat is gaining momentum, I hope it continues to do so.

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But before I go, a little housekeeping:

Iron Man Blu-ray
The UK release date for Iron Man on DVD and Blu-ray is the 27th of October, a whole month after the US date of the 30th September.  Blu-ray owners who simply can’t wait can import the US disc as it is region free (thanks Paramount!), and many online stores have already received their shipments and have broken the official release date.  So I particularly happy that my copy arrived yesterday from Movietyme.  Two discs, a ton of extras (all in HD) including some extremely comprehensive documentaries.  The movie is pure demo disc material, it looks beautiful and has a fantastic Dolby TrueHD soundtrack.  Every movie fan should own this fantastic movie.

Podcast
There will be a new Red Rant podcast coming this week.  It’s a recommendations ‘cast with myself, Dave, Tom, Jem and Dan Ponting.  You know where it is by now.  I was in a filthy mood when we recorded it, so it’s probably not the best.

Rollerball
I had one final movie to review, but I haven’t got the time to do so.  Suffice to say, the movie is the remake, not the original.  It’s not terrible, but it’s hardly…well, Iron Man.  Sort of blows, looks quite nice on Blu-ray.  That’s about all I can say about it.

Business Blog
I do still plan to start a second IT based blog on my company web site, but right now that’s the least of my concerns.

Please keep me in your RSS reader or however you access the site.  When things improve, I will return.  Until that time comes, au revoir.

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Whereas the reality is that all of that went out of the window this week as I saught to complete Metal Gear Solid 4.  The game that I was expecting to hate has turned out to be one of the best games I have ever played, and a completely unexpected bonus.  I finally completed Act 5 late on Thursday evening, and couldn’t face the final fourty five minute cut scene, so went to bed and watched it after work on Friday.

I have mentioned this before, but I feel it is worth reiterating that anybody who likes tactical action games but is put off by the moniker should really consider giving this a try.  If you want a really engrossing story (which is surprisingly easy to understand even if you have never played the previous games), great characters, a lot of silliness and some incredible action, give it a try.  It’s easy to see why this game was delayed so many times while Hideo Kojima obsessed over it.  An incredible achievement.
I really wanted to get the game completed before this week, as Thursday sees the downloadable Ratchet & Clank: Quest For Booty on PSN.  I loved Future: Tools of Destruction last year, and can’t wait for this three hour installment.  These days I need to devote all my attention to a single game, I can’t jump between titles like I used to.  Must be getting old.

Earlier this week I also picked up a new PC which may well be the bargain of the year.  £299 for a quad core Dell Inspiron 530 Q6600 courtesy of Tesco Direct.  I had a voucher code that knocked off another 15%, and for the money I can’t complain about a single thing with it.

The machine comes with 2Gb RAM, Vista Home Premium (32Bit), a 300Gb hard drive, DVD writer and a keyboard and mouse.  The full spec can be found HERE.  I added an extra 2Gb RAM for £30 and an Nvidia 8800GT (a mid-range card and around £120).  Home Premium had to go, so I wiped the machine and installed the 64-bit version of Vista Business and I’m ecstatic with the results.  Having had a regular dual core P4 box for the last few years, this Quad Core 2 chip goes like the clappers, and gaming performance in the only two games I play (Half-Life 2 and The Sims 2) is just what I wanted.

Best part?  It’s quiet.  Extremely quiet.  But it has reopened my old obsession with The Sims 2.  Once I start I just can’t stop with that game.  Now that everything zooms in and out without any hint of stutter I’m finding minutes vanishing into hours, and that has been compounded by the discovery of the Elite Sim Builders web site.  As the name suggests, a group of people who build the most incredible custom houses for the game and many of them are nothing short of staggering.  Anybody who plays the game should do themselves a favour and check the site out.  I’m currently playing around with a multi-level extra swanky bachelor pad which must have taken hours to design.  Truly incredible.

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I can’t help thinking that the same will inevitably be said of Freesat at some point in the future.  It’s a great idea that up to now has been executed with neolithic incompetence.  Ropey dialogue lifted from Beverly Hills Cop 2 aside, Freesat hasn’t exactly had the most exciting of launches.  I almost feel like I should be putting quotes around launches as well.

I think a poster on the AV Forums hit the nail on the head perfectly when he said on the day of the Freesat launch, if this had been a Sky product there would have been an enormous marketing campaign, extolling the virtues of the new system and why it was so great and revolutionary.  There would have been an assault on the senses that you usually associate with blockbuster Hollywood movies beating you into submission until you bought that product.  What we got with Freesat was a few Freeview looking boxes being nervously showed on BBC Breakfast News.  For a one off payment you could have free to air HD programming and nobody really knew about it.

Marketing aside, I have been keeping a very interested eye on Freesat for quite some time.  As I have stated elsewhere on the blog, I cancelled my Sky subscription a few years back as the pay channels never really warranted spending £18 a month on a basic package.  Obviously things have changed since then, but even when Sky HD launched I wasn’t tempted.  Then when Freesat came along and said “If you have an existing Sky dish that’s fine, you can just plug out box in and off you go and you can get BBC HD” I was hooked .  So just what exactly do you get with Freesat?

Not as much as you get with current Freeview or Sky for that matter.  Sky tend to keep things a little quiet but you can watch it without paying a subscription and get the Freeview content and more already.  So Freesat is essentially a Sky box but minus some of the Sky channels but with the inclusion of a couple of freebie HD channels?  Pretty much.

I have been holding on until Humax released their PVR version of the FOXSAT HD digibox, but word is coming from various corners of the net saying it could be the end of the year, if not sometime in 2009 before that eventually hits out shores and I’ve had the money for the box sat waiting since launch.  So today whilst out snapping pictures for 12 of 12 I caved and bought the Humax HD box from Argos.

First up, the box is small.  A lot smaller than I was expecting too, I was half expecting some kind of full sized DVD deck that would require me to re-jig the AV cabinet but it sits quite happily atop the Pioneer DVD player.

Bonus points go to Humax as well because they provide SCART, component and HDMI cables in the box which is a welcome bonus.
Setting the box up is incredibly simple, just connect the satellite feed, plug it in and off you go.  The only thing I didn’t do was connect the box to the ethernet network as there really is no need right now.  Anybody who has ever set up a Freeview box will get the general idea.  I took a number of photos of the setup which are all on Flickr.

A quick scan of the Freesat channels found around 70 combined TV and radio stations.  You also have the option to do a manual scan and find everything that is available on the Astra satellites.  This came back with around 500 channels!  Needless to say, I factory reset and rescanned for the Freesat channels.

There are a few quirks here too which caught me out, so hopefully this information will be of use to someone.  After putting in my postcode prior to searching for the services it came back with BBC1 London, and ITV Central.  I scanned again, same thing.  It turns out that not all regional services from the BBC and ITV are available on Freesat yet.  The official line from Freesat is:

Not all the regional variants of BBC and ITV services are currently available. This is due to technical constraints associated with co-existence on the satellite platform, so freesat has adopted a phased service launch.

Twenty BBC and ITV regional services were available at launch, and the remaining regional services have been priortised for launch by the end of July 2008.

If you are in an area with a regional service that is not available yet, your temporary default is BBC London and ITV Central West. When your region becomes available, it will automatically become your default.

Also, ITV HD isn’t actually a channel in its own right yet.  Currently the way to view an ITV programme which is being shown in HD is to press the red button and select to watch it in HD.  That caught me out as I was wondering why it wasn’t appearing in the EPG.

Anyone who has ever used Sky will be very familiar with the channel numbering system, starting at 101 for BBC One.  Channel switching is nice and fast and while the Humax remote control feels decidedly cheap the interface is crisp and clean.  Navigating the menus to configure the box itself is very responsive and the large, colourful icons make the whole process simplicity itself for all but the most ardent technophobe.

So to BBC HD, there may be limited programmes available at present but what is on there looks very nice indeed.  The box itself can only output up to 1080i, but this is hardly an issue as all HD programmes are either shown in 720p or 1080i.  We tested it this evening watching Coldplay at the BBC and will give the new show Bonekickers a try later on.  There was no sign of the oft mentioned lip sync issue with the Humax box (apparently fixed completely in the latest firmware that I downloaded during setup).  It’s all very simple and straightforward.

The cost?  £150 for the box (the SD versions are much cheaper) and £80 for a dish and installation if required.  Initial impressions from me are very good, it just works!
The channel line-up is a little lacklustre at present but we’re happy to have some extra music channels as the Freeview selection is extremely limited.  With allegedally 200 channels by the end of the year the service is gradually picking up steam.

I just hope it doesn’t run out of puff before getting to the station!

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It’s made all the worse when you are on your own (my boss is on holiday in his native Australia at the moment) and EVERYTHING collapses in a smouldering heap.  That happened today with someone telling me that everything was down, phones, PCs AND the most important thing of all, the internet.  Fortunately my current paymasters aren’t that fussed about e-mail, whereas some places I have worked in if you take away their e-mail they will start forming a lynch mob within moments of the “Disconnected from Microsoft Exchange Server” pop-up.

Being a seasoned (ie old) veteran of these sorts of things unless you are really unlucky it is usually something simple and straightforward and the analytical mind leaps straight to the initial diagnosis.  I’ve even managed to cultivate a smile and a calming word when someone asks “How long will it be down for?”.  A few years ago I would have entered Hulk mode (a nickname I was christened with by a former colleague).

I’ve been watching a lot of training videos recently and only yesterday was going through Exchange disaster recovery.  The instructor kept repeating his mantra of “Keep calm, don’t panic” and those are some wise words.  Some of my colleagues from other sections came straight down with offers to help which was very kind of them, but as a call centre company can’t function very well without any telephones they went into full on headless chicken mode spouting “telephones, must be phones, call the maintenance company”.  Easier said than done when you have no telephones and more chance of winning a weekend with Girls Aloud in a hot tub than getting a mobile phone signal.

As it turned out it wasn’t the phone system at fault, I knew something was amiss with our main router (made by Sonicwall, a company I first encountered with Merlin and I must say I’m extremely impressed with their products).  Inter-network connectivity was fine, but couldn’t ping the router.  For those techies out there who read this and are intrigued by the answer, it was all down to someone trying to be helpful!  Upstairs in the building someone had disloged the power cable to a six port ethernet hub, powered it back on and then saw another loose cable and plugged it in to the hub.

Sadly the other end of the cable was already connected to the hub, creating a network loop then flooded the LAN with traffic and causing the poor Sonicwall to collapse in a heap.  I did the old favourite of disconnecting everything to the router, powering it back up, cheering when it started to PING again and then reconnected each device one by one until the culprit was found.  Hey presto, one working network, computers, analogue and IP phones and *phew*, yes the internet was fine again.

Now if only City Link had actually delivered my Blu-ray player today like they said they would and it would have been a good end to a trying work day.  At least I got to drive my Audi home

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Coming Tuesday.  Hopefully.

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