Author Archives: stonysleep

Italian Vacation & iPod

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Hi all,

It’s that time of the year again when I like to head off away from everyone in the UK for a bit of peace and quiet in Italy where we have a modest size appartment. We say it’s in Venice, and while technically it is, it’s not the place you’d stay if you were coming to Venice for a holiday. The block of appartments is on a natural island in the Venice lagoon called The Lido or more correctly Lido di Venezia.

It is technically larger than Venice itself and is home to approximately 20,000 people. The region we live in is called Malamocco. It is where the locals of the lido live, and parts of it are very rural. All the others in our block are italians, and while the majority of people speak english it isn’t brilliant, so one day we will need to speak italian decently. Travel to the main part of venice is a 20 minute bike ride/10 minute bus ride/a long walk followed by a half boat ride from the vaporetto station Santa Maria Elisabetta.

Anyway, that’s the background to the place.
On arriving here I’ve been listening to all the songs I’ve put on the ipod i bought in september. I now have about 7 days or 3000 songs on there and having spent a good few hours travelling by taxi, coach, plane, boat and car to get here along with plenty of time hanging around in the airport I’ve had a lot of time to come up with opinions on the ipod.

As you have no doubt realised, I’m a late commer to iPods for a number of reasons:

  1. I always had a scepticism about them
  2. There was something I liked about actually putting a cd in
  3. I never wanted to commit the hard disk space to mp3s
  4. Until recently there was something very irritating about iTunes, and I still secretly pine for Cassady & Greene’s SoundJam to return

I finally gave in when it became impractical to carry 300 cds (well, I used to bring 100 of them with me on holiday) around with me. And the price and size of the iPods just got too tempting to resist and I got the 80Gb 5th gen iPod Video.

As I said, I’ve got quite a lot of my music on there, but I’ve decided there are still a few things I would find really useful in an iPod:

  • Viewing Song/Video Details on the iPod – currently you can only see the song name, artist and album. Other details such as year, genre, bitrate, track number etc are not visible. This is particularly useful for a TV series as the iPod simply orders everything alphabetically. If the name does not contain the episode number you’re stuffed!
  • I’ve been playing with the rating system and gradually rating all my songs on the 1-5 scale. This will no doubt take as long or longer than it will take to import the remainder of my songs. But, it would be nice to view all songs that have not been rated to make this easier
  • It would be good to be able to create playlists and modify ID3 tags of the tracks. The iPod can clearly do that as it can do the ratings. I do not have my mac with me on holiday, and would like to customise some of my smart playlists but cannot do that except through iTunes. If I plug my iPod into the computer I am writing this on it will more than likely wipe the contents of my iPod as it has tracks for my dad’s iPod. On the subject of customising the tags this is useful because CDDB/Gracenote can often get things wrong, especially with the more obscure albums and cover discs which are not often used. I could not find a way to submit a change to gracenote so when I do notice a mistake I have corrected it on iTunes but don’t always spot this
  • I thought of a feature which I would find useful when in shuffle mode: to switch to the album/artist that has come up in shuffle mode
  • Finally, an option to switch on/off the backlight at will and also to make it switch on at the start of each track. This would be particularly useful in shuffle mode.

I’ve also found a glitch which I guess isn’t too much of a glitch, but all the same isn’t quite right in the logic:

If you are playing a song in shuffle mode then browse for that same song through the artist/album/genre/search and choose it from there while the song is playing it will restart it from the beginning. This is not how iTunes works so should not be how the iPod works. It should not affect the songs playing and simply bring the song up as if you chose “now playing”.

Apart from that, I think this iPod is great. I’m going to struggle to fill the 80Gb with music alone at the moment, the battery life is good, and it makes transporting music much easier. I’ve been a latecomer to the iPod but I do like it and know what I want.

To all those who I don’t get a chance to see before the new year: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Internet Exploder 7

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I’ve been a very bad netizen recently and haven’t posted in ages, but I’ve got a goodun today
I had the opportunity to use Internet Explorer 7 on windows the other week thanks to microsoft bundling it with my dad’s laptop
It was slightly reassuring to read that Microsoft like to produce apps that violate whatever HID they must have
I am of course referring to Apple’s Brushed Metal window design in the Finder which I still believe must violate it’s own HID guidlines

Anyway, back to M$ bashing – IE7 – nasty, mostly because of what it does with the menubar
OK, i’ve always hated how in windows the menubar goes with the app and the window – why? Apple’s method of having a static menubar at the top of the screen that doesn’t move makes so much more sense.
IE7 does the most ridiculous thing of all, it moves the menubar below the address bar and makes the address bar part of the window and immovable
Compare with IE6 where you could move the address bar where you wanted and if you liked you could move the menu bar below it, but nobody really did it.

Have a look for yourself:
Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

There are a plethora of hacks that describe how to do a registry hack to bring the menubar to the top again. The downside of this is that it results in the address bar being at the bottom of any other toolbars you might have below the menubar. Here’s an example of a blog entry which describes how to make the change. Remember Regedit is a dangerous tool and shouldn’t be used lightly

The Youth of the Nation

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The modern day youth has gained a reputation of being a menace
youth crime
Growing up in an age of mobile phones, mp3 players, broadband Internet, Internet banking, and DVDs, & information is at your fingertips.
But with this has come the youth that hangs around outside shops with a group of mates at the weekend stereotypically wearing a hoodie and drinking cheap white lightning

The UK government tried to tackle the most problematic youths by introducing ASBOs (Anti Social Behaviour Orders) in the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act and has updated this several times since then.
ASBOs don’t necessarily just apply to youths, but largely they have been the ones issued with them. Have they worked? Depends on your point of view. The cynics say they haven’t because those issued with them tend to turn it on it’s head and brag to their mates and the ASBO gains a badge of honour status. And then there are those who have found that ASBO’s have sorted a local problem and are therefore huge fans. It’s hard to guage.

That aside, there have been several other schemes to stop youths loitering and causing trouble such as the sound that only young people can hear that is designed to repel troublemakers. It’s supposed to work on the principle that as we get older we lose the ability to hear higher sound frequencies, and this noise is too high a frequency for adults to hear. You can download the sound and see if you can hear it it’s supposed to sound like a mosquito. According to the report it was a large success at the Wyvern Theatre in Swindon.

The theory has again been turned on it’s head with The ringtone that those over 25 can’t hear. My hearing is fairly shoddy anyway because I had surgery on both my ears aged 3 and 10-15 years of loud rock music have taken their toll. I couldn’t hear the mosquito one, but could faintly hear the ringtone – to me it sounds a bit like one of those hearing tests I did when I was at school. See how good your ears are with the mp3 link on the page. Notice that they’ve conveniently missed out the 25-30 age range on the chart though, so they could get a convenient straight line descent with age!

While I was in Boston in September, I was watching a bit of CNN, and they reiterated the story of how the UK has more CCTV cameras than anywhere in the world and supplemented it with a story from Middlesborough. They’ve started a scheme where the camera operators can Speak to the people who they are watching. I don’t know about you, but to me it’s a bit much, and further evidence of the Nanny State that we are increasingly living in. Things like banning Fast Food adverts between children’s programmes don’t do much to change my view on this.

But enough of my side-track, onto the next one which I heard about last week.
New lights make faces and acne shine pink – couldn’t find a bbc story on this so you’ll have to have the trashy tabloid the daily mail as the source!
They did a test of it on radio the other day and they suggested it didn’t work particularly well, but we’ll have to wait and see the results

And of course, a rant about youths wouldn’t be complete without a story about teenage drinking on the rise and the obligatory Child aged nine admitted to hospital unconscious from alcohol. I made a note of this yesterday because it’s going to be shown on tv tomorrow and they’re claiming the figures came from the NHS (so i’m interested in where it came from):

Panorama’s Booze: What Teenagers Need to Know will be broadcast on BBC One on Sunday 19 November at 2215 GMT.

So, we’re using technology to tackle the problem, giving special powers to give out ASBOs, and drinking in teenagers is on the rise.
I was no model youth, and was underage drinking when I was a teenager. But I wasn’t being told I was acting antisocially, wasn’t drinking until I was hauled into an ambulance (though I came pretty close while I was at subway city at university). Is it all the teenager’s fault, or should the ASBO go to the parents to sort their child out? I dunno, but it always strikes me that those who get into this sort of mess are given an unfair start which they never make up for. Just my 2¢ worth plus a lot of links to keep you busy

Membership

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Back in February when I was using WordPress 1.5.2 all sorts of security holes started opening up to the point where I had to require membership for comments – I was getting all sorts of spam posts which drove me mad
With WordPress 2 and some plugins like akismet and spamkarma I’m pretty happy that I no longer need to require this anymore

Also, it’s been a little quiet here, particularly since MacHeadCase started her course. I know my friend Sham wants to comment without having to sign up. Plus, I think I’m losing out on a lot of readers who would otherwise comment but for the registration.

So, as of now you no longer need to register to comment on any of my posts
Of course all current members will retain their membership, and you can continue to use your username and password as normal and it’s always appreciated if you do decide to join
If however, things return to spam city I will have no hesitation in switching the members only option back on

Three Criminals, Two hanged, and the other 40 years in Jail

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Guy Fawkes
Guido Fawkes, or Guy Fawkes as he is more commonly known tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament on November 5th 1605. He was the explosives expert of the gang in the gunpowder plot. He was caught “red-handed” before he could set the explosions off & arrested. After being tortured into revealing the names of his co-conspiritors he was hung drawn and quartered along with the rest of his gang – as was the style for anyone tried as a traitor. He was trying to kill the King James I (or VI of Scotland) who was to address the joint houses of Parliament (Commons and Lords). The aims of the gang are thought to be comparable to those of modern day terrorists. They also had religious motives – James I was Protestant while the gang was Catholic.
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein – sentenced by the Iraq Special Tribunal to death by hanging on November 5th 2006 for crimes against humanity. An infamous dictator who rules Iraq with an iron fist and used chemical weapons on Kurdish separatists in the Iran-Iraq war. It may never be known what other crimes he committed due to lack of evidence and willingness of witnesses to testify.
Dhiren Barot
Dhiren Barot aka Abu Musa al-Hindi – born in India in 1971 to a hindu family. Moved to the UK in 1973 and attended Kingsbury High School in North London. but after leaving he converted to Islam in 1991. From 1995 onwards he lived the life of a terrorist, participating in campaigns in Kashmir, wrote a book about it in 1999 and served as an Al-Quaeda agent. The list of what he has plotted seems never-ending, and today on 7th November 2006 he was sentenced to life imprisonment (which must be a minimum of 40 years).

Queen’s Road ALM

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Tonight was the first match for our new 5-a-side football team named as per the title of this blog
For the past 6 months we’ve been trying to recruit a team of some sort spurred on by my mates Ravi and Sham
We started off playing at our local park on Queen’s Road after advertising on gumtree.com. Back in March when we first started having a kick around on sunday afternoon we were initially looking at 11 a side. We nearly had enough at the beginning, but over the weeks numbers dropped. I lost interest for a long while. We all kept in touch using a mailing list from coollist.com

Then, interest was kickstarted when Ravi decided a 5-a-side league team was the way forward. We joined topcorner’s Thursday night league. We play every thursday for the next 6 weeks, have a month off, then play the final 4 matches in Jan & Feb.

For the moment, I’m going to be playing in goal, though that isn’t necessarily going to continue for the whole tournament. It’s the first time i’ve played 5-a-side and the first time i’ve played in goal. So, while we lost our first match there were a lot of positives to come out.
We had a horrible start, 2-0 down within the first few minutes (partly my fault for giving away a penalty for leaving the area), but we did get back to 2-1, and then come half time it was 4-2 to our opposition. We ended the game losing 8-2 – but when you consider this was our first match with a cobbled together team that hadn’t been playing together very long (some of the players hadn’t joined us for practice in months), I think we won’t be out of our league.

I made some good saves, though also made some howlers (there has to be some given the score). I particularly liked the one I caught between my knees when I was indecisive whether to catch or stop with my feet and ended up doing neither (but still managed to keep it out!). Am definitely looking forward to the match next week. It’s fun, a good workout, and if we put in some effort we could still do reasonably well in the league.

On the downside, I think we’ve conceded the biggest loss so far and look likely to go bottom of the table following today’s match

Onto our team name though – it has a rather amusing story. At the time of filling out the form, Ravi wrote the first thing that came into his head:
Sham’s Terrorists
This apparently didn’t go down very well with the league operators, and when it came to finding out some more details they told us we’d have to change it. So, we duly did. Ravi is a Queen’s Park Rangers fan, and the park we practice at is on Queen’s Road. So we were going to be Queen’s Road Rangers. But, we decided to have a bit of a joke at the league. Jonathan, who’s in the squad works for the ALG (though it’s just been renamed the London Council) so we got that in there. Then we decided to do a bit of a twist and changed it from Association of Local Government (ALG) to ALM. It was agreed down the pub and it stuck.

The league were happy with the new name, and we get to have a bit of a laugh at their political correctness.

21st Venice Marathon

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As some of you know I’ve been to Venice a fair number of times (at least 25 times) and our family has an apartment there (it’s not in the main venice area, it’s in malamocco on the venice lido)
We were just chatting yesterday and someone mentioned that the Venice Marathon was happening
Venice

I hadn’t heard of it before and my first reaction was “how can you have a marathon race in Venice”? The answer is that the marathon starts 20+ miles inland in a town called Stra. The route goes along the Brenta canal through the Veneto province. It goes through various towns/villages and the city of Mestre on the mainland. The final point before crossing into Venice is the Park of San Giuliano. It is the last 2-3km which are along the cobbled/paved footpaths and bridges of the Venice canals. There are 14 bridges to cross along the trail which goes along the Giudecca Canal and turns past the Santa Maria della Salute Church. There is a pontoon bridge to cross the grande canal (all the main bridges are either inappropriate or the route to get to them would be far too narrow for a marathon). Once on the other side, it then goes past the edge of St Marks square, the Doge’s palace, before finally arriving at the finish line Riva dei Sette Martiri

It sounds like quite an interesting marathon, though part of me found it really interesting if the whole thing could be staged in the Venice canal streets. There must be 26 miles of canals, and it would be completely unique. I don’t think it would be allowed though because of health and safety, but would certainly attract a different type of athlete. The paving stones would have to be sorted out to prevent injury to even make it possible to propose such an idea. I dunno, it amused me for a while as to all the changes that would have to be done to accommodate such a unique course
But, if they can shut all the main streets of monaco to host the grand prix why not the same for the venice marathon?

ICC Champions Trophy

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fireworks after the opening match of the icc champions trophy
Today was the first real day of what is probably the third most important competition in this year’s cricketing calendar
Which you rate as the most important probably depends on who you support.
If you support Australia or England then the Ashes happening this December/January is the competition to watch – that’s every two years but is the longest running rivalry in the game.
For everyone else, the most important is the competition that follows that which is the ICC Cricket World Cup, which happens every four years.

So, the Champions trophy (every 2 years) is sort of a mini worldcup. The preliminary qualifying rounds (otherwise known as how to get rid of Bangladesh and Zimbabwe from the main competition) finished last week with the West Indies and Sri Lanka comprehensively going through.
Today was the opening match between the hosts, India and England. It appears that the trend for the pitches seems to be those with a bit in it for the bowlers with uneven bounce at the start. This was not to england’s liking as they were skittled out for 125.
It all looked over and certainly wasn’t enough, but India struggled a little to knock off the runs, losing 6 wickets in their chase. The master himself, Sachin Tendulker, reckoned that 175 would’ve made for a competitive target.
This is very unusual for the subcontinent, which generally produces one day pitches where 280+ is possible
There’s practically a match every day for the next 2 weeks, so will be dipping into cricinfo every day to follow the latest

Coke iTunes offer

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I remember this from ages ago that it was coming to the UK but saw it for the first time today
Really mundanely in the canteen at lunch I was hastily buying some lunch I noticed the offer on a bottle of Diet Coke
I’ve never bought a song on iTMS and since I now own an iPod & was in need of some liquid refreshment thought i’d give it a shot

So, I now have a barely legible Song Code to claim my free song – it appears that every bottle redeems a song as opposed to one of the US offers where it was only selected ones.
Here is the outside of the label lazily taken with my 1 megapixel mobile phone camera (so the quality is rubbish):
Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

What to buy will be a difficult one as it’s only one song. Would have to be something that I would want to have on my iPod.
I notice in the small print it says 1 code=1 song
but also says Offer limited to 5 free songs per person
Meaning if I do find myself buying more bottles of diet coke to redeem songs I can only get five
Also, being DRM’d AAC I will be pretty stuck with it on digital media

Time for a bit of iTunes browsing I think

Homeward Bound

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It’s 8am EST on Saturday in the New York Amtrak station and am beginning my return trip

By the time I get back it will be 8am GMT on Sunday after a 3 and a half hour train ride to Boston, a transit, checking in time, and flight back to London Heathrow. Add on the 5 hour time difference and you get to about 7am. An hour’s journey home and I won’t know whether it’s morning or night

It’s been a great 10 days which seem to have been non-stop. Think i need a nice beach holiday to recover from it.

The wedding went well, Boston was good fun and New York was great – Empire State Building, Central Park, China Town, Broadway, Times Square, Museum of Modern Art, and everything else that I can’t remember at the moment.

Couldn’t resist a stop to the Apple Store on 5th Avenue, and am now the owner of a shiny new 80Gb iPod Video (but shhhh! Don’t tell customs – they need to believe I had it before I went out) and a nifty app called Popcorn 2 so I can convert some DVDs easily into H.264 (mpeg4). Oh, and I’ll prob convert some of my huge music Video collection too so i can view it on the iPod

Thought I’d make one post on the blog while I had a few minutes to kill in the departure lounge.

Speak to you all tomorrow (I think!) or later on in the week