blogitech from Chris Maddern

I was relatively disappointed with the overall improvements provided in iTunes 8.1; it is still the least responsible piece of software that I use on a daily basis even on a machine with 8GB of RAM. It looks nothing like a native Windows application and in my opinion, not in a positive ‘cool’ way. Also, have you ever watched someone who doesn’t know how to use iTunes try to learn… it’s a truly hilarious experience and you realise how many unintuitive elements there are to even the most simplistic use of iTunes that we’ve learnt to overlook.

iTunes 8.1 did however bring a new (and in my opinion brilliant) feature to it’s repertoire; iTunes DJ.

iTunes DJ is designed to be used for parties where pretty much everybody (perhaps unrealistically) has an iPod Touch or iPhone. The system works as follows:

• You set up iTunes DJ with the (subset of) the library that you want your guests to be able to select from
• Set up the speakers you want it to play through (e.g. pushing to an Apple TV or Airport Express aswell)
• Start an iTunes DJ session and set it to allow any user to connect and make recommendations.

continue reading…

Apparently Not :(

Rumour has it that iTunes 8.1 is going to be released in the next few hours. The new version of safari is actually a pretty slick Windows appliction; heck, it uses native UI elements which is a start!

So, while it’s not a new major version, do you think that there is any chance they may finally fix that buggy, slow mis-fit of a UI with something that may accidentally follow one Aero UI guideline?

Chris

When the latest build of Windows 7 (7048) leaked it came as a package of files, not an image. Fine I thought. So I decided to pop it on a bootable USB key and take advantage of *even* faster installation times.

It’s not that easy.

After an hour of trying to find a method that doesn’t involve me having a bootable floppy lying around on my desk (in 2009!!) I gave up and just burnt it to disk, licking the wounds of time that this had already cost me.

I’ve now found a way of doing so will write up a guide and make it the first in a new tab on my blog, ingeniously entitled ‘tutorials’. It’s not hard, but not obvious and in my opinion should be an option when formatting any drive with a single partition on it!!

Chris

I’ve seen a few occasions now where commenting on a wordpress blog entry results in this message being displayed:

Comentariul tau se afla sub moderare!

I assumed my language settings must be wrong or something but browsing the web there seems to be a fused confused instances of this happening!

Is there a bug in Wordpress? :(

Chris

I figured this must be posible; I wanted to listen to the audio part of a video podcast (Wine Library TV) while my iPhone was locked in my pocket.

I came across this by accident; if you:

• Play the video
• Lock the iPhone (or iPod touch I’d imagine)
• Wake up the iPhone
• Double Press ‘Home’
• Use the controls to play the video

The video will play but because the device is locked, the video won’t display and the screen will turn off. Now you can listen to the audio part of a video podcast with the iPhone in your pocket and the video not playing.

Chris

This comes at a time that the GBP is losing ground against the USD at a rate not seen for quite a while and is causing manufacturing distributors to see rises in cost against selling prices of up to 10%.

It’s not certain how large price rises will be, but HPs confirmed and many other manufacturers (rumoured to include DELL) are planning this rise.

So.. if you’re looking for a new term deal. Sooner rather than later may be a good idea.