Occasional Observations

My iPhone arrived today - and the honeymoon lasted all of around 5 minutes. It's already on the way back, as T-Mobile and Apple sent me a faulty unit.

How very disappointing. I've only been waiting since July for the order ... because my airtime contract expires in mid-November and I wanted to transfer my cellphone number, I had to wait.

What was wrong? Well, something pretty fundamental since the touch-screen interface simply stops working around 5 seconds after it has been switched on. Turn on, swipe to unlock, and then the screen just doesn't respond. Cycling the power allows a few more taps each time before it freezes again.

The staff in my local T-Mo shop were perplexed - after at first finding it hard to believe. I just handed it over and wondered if their fingers would work better than mine. They didn't. But maybe that's it: My fingers need a software upgrade.

Anyway, the bloody thing doesn't work and has been sent back.

Labels: iphone

Our sun room project is taking shape and it's time to lay down the electrical cables before the final layer of concrete goes down for the floor - topped by tiles. It's now or never for running Cat 6 Ethernet to far-flung corners of the room to terminate in flush-mounted floor sockets. I'm wiring up two of the four corners - and will have a third connection inside the living room. The cable for that will go in once we've knocked out the window ... which means three Ethernet cables into a junction box ... or a switch. Time to hit the local hardware store to investigate.

Labels: tech

The Oktoberfest is over - and no time has been wasted in tearing it down. Street sweepers are out, booths and tents are being dismantled already, and in just two weeks the whole event will be gone without a trace.

I couldn't help but smile as I passed yet another steamed-up car parked nearby - with Turin registration plates. In the back were two sleeping bags filled by no doubt badly hung-over Italian tourists. Somehow the Italians do it differently - they prefer to sleep in camper vans and even cars. Six beered-up guys in one camper wagon doesn't sound like fun to me!

Labels: beer

Before the Large Hadron Collider was switched on, many people voiced fears that it would create a black hole that would suck in the entire world - and possible Universe.

Well, not quite. Or at least, not yet. So far it's only swallowed up a few billion dollars from the equity of some large investment banks.

Labels: tech

Honestly, Outlook 2007 is a piece of crap. As soon as I come across a copy of 2003 I'll be downgrading - because 2007 is just too badly broken to be fixed. I keep hoping for a Service Pack but so far, almost 2 years since it was released, that is still to materialize.

It's not just crap, it's obtuse as well. I had major problems this morning so did all the usual things to try and help Outlook 2007 to actually stagger to life: as well as 110-150MB of memory it needs just to run, I tried the Microsoft Office Diagnostics.

What a joke.

Diagnostics ran and reported one problem was identified and fixed. I click the "more info" and find that "Office fixed all the problems that it could find". Details? You Must Be Joking Mate. It fixes this one problem EVERY TIME. Actually, I don't even believe that the tool does anything any more than report a "placebo" problem.

If only - if only there was an alternative that works with Exchange. And don't even WHISPER Lotus Notes, as everyone I know who has to use Notes complains just as much as "we" complain about Exchange.

Labels: Office 2007, rant

Checking real-time flight arrival times at Heathrow today - and noticed a disparity between the info offered by BAA, the airport operator, and BA, the carrier. For a flight landing planned for 2pm, BA was showing a 2.15pm expected arrival time and BAA a 2.11pm arrival until at least 2.25pm, when BA reported that the flight had arrived at 2.16pm.

It's only a matter of minutes but with real-time flight monitoring, I want to know whose real time this is.

Labels: web 2.0

It is a dark and stormy night - which means I'm going to miss the annual Perseid meteor shower - which I blogged about last year. Frustrating as I was even planning to get up around 2am for some bleary-eyed stargazing.

Instead of watching celestial bodies burn up due to the friction as they enter the Earth's atmosphere, I've enjoyed the privilege for few months now of a login to the beta of Spotify's rather fabulous streaming online music service.

To say that Spotify is good would be like saying The Beatles were "quite successful". Spotify is awesome. Fabulous. Comprehensive and delightful. Detailed, content-rich and immensely satisfying. I just can't believe it took me so long to really discover it.

Here's the elevator pitch: think unlimited access to the entire iTunes library - streaming direct to your PC. Where do you start?

At first, I thought Spotify was just a web radio station. Oh no. That's the front end. I can't share any screenshots thanks to the license agreement - and NO WAY am I going to risk losing access. I can just say that it offers a series of musical genres and dates - you just choose as many, or as few as you want, and press play.

After indulging - actually, over-indulging my desire to hear wall-to-wall 70s funk, I've started exploring further: driven by a need to find out whether Plastic Bertrand's 1978 opus, Ca Plane Pour Moi, would be there? Check. A great start. I challenged Spotify to find The Dead Kennedys' "Too Drunk ..." - check. Colonel Abrams and Trapped? Which version? And how about the whole album while you're at it? Carl Orff's Carmina Burana? Check.

I dug around and finally managed to find a song that Spotify's doesn' have (yet): It's Gonna Happen by the Undertones - of course this IS on YouTube, and so you might argue that this is no better than YouTube's collection of music videos, but I disagree on two counts. First, audio quality. Second, streaming - I've never had even a millisecond's interruption with Spotify, even on a public wi-fi network. And third, I'm listening to It's Gonna Happen right now - but not watching. I noticed that Feargal looked frighteningly young and returned to this post.

The tipping point for Spotify was reading Rolling Stone's story on Kid Rock's worldwide success with the monster hit of the summer, All Summer Long. Despite the irony that Kid Rock is not releasing his tunes to iTunes (All Summer Long is also absent from Spotify), I immediately fired up Spotify on learning that the Kid had mashed TWO previous hits. I thought he'd just augmented Lynryd Skynryd's Sweet Home Alabama - having never consciously heard anything from Warren Zevon. Thanks to Rolling Stone, I learned that Kid Rock mixed it up with Warren's Werewolves Of London - and where to check this out? Yes, Spotify.

Labels: music

Trying to take advantage of the favorable Euro Vs US $ exchange rate, Amazon.de started offering US import CDs at a lower retail than the local market product. An interesting idea - which unfortunately failed to come to reality for the two CDs I ordered. After several weeks' delay I got an apologetic email explaining that the items were "harder to obtain than expected".

Ah well. Nice try.

Labels: ecommerce, globalization

They're known locally as "Erlkönig" cars - after the Goethe poem Der Erlkönig - "Wer reitet so spät durch Nacht und Wind?" (Who rides so late through night and wind?): pre-production prototype models that the auto makers use to test everything from handling through to fuel consumption. And here in Munich, home to BMW, advance first sighting of new models is pretty commonplace - in the past year I've spotted the new 1 Series cabrio, the X6, and now, the new 7-Series.

We spied the new 7er yesterday near Miesbach - without any disguise, but with the badges taped-over. The new design is less chunky than the controversial current model - and it's goodbye to the much-debated "Bangle Butt" that is featured on both the 6-Series and 7-Series right now.

"It's a Mitsubishi!" proclaimed Andrea. "Oh not it's not," said the boys. "OK, it could be a Mercedes," she countered. "Oh no it couldn't," we responded - "the exhaust pipes would be oval.". And so the discussion continued...

At least we agreed on one thing. The car was black.

Labels: petrolhead

I think Skype's blown it with the new version, 4.0, which is currently in beta. I managed about a week with the beta version 4 before heading back to skype.com to download the old, familiar version, which is currently 3.8.

As I did so, up pops a questionnaire window asking why I was downgrading ... listing pretty much all my reasons ... which suggests that I'm not the only one who has been perplexed and irritated by the all-new "shiny" interface.

First of all, I have never wanted a full-screen Skype application. I use it more than anything else for IM - which doesn't need all my monitor's real estate. Even Skype isn't ready for full-screen: user images are tiny and pixelated. And moving between contacts in 4.0 was not intuitive.

Back to the drawing board, folks. The Skype Garage page for 4.0 says "it?s easier to start conversations and keep track of them" - which I dispute. And by the looks of it, 4.0 is not ready for prime time yet.

Labels: skype, tech, VoIP