Blog – Page 78 – Ian Dick

Preloadr

I mentioned Preloadr a few days ago and finally got round to giving it a proper test. It’s an image manipulation tool which is integrated with the Flickr photo sharing website. Once you have granted access to your Flickr account you can easily select an image via sets or tags for editing.

The options available are extensive for an online only tool. You can crop, rotate and mirror your images and also add text. You can view the images histogram and also alter red, green, blue intensity. Layer support is also available along with the ability to scale and move images within a layer. Finally there are a number of filters including blur and sharpen as well as ‘Auto Contrast’ the results of which you can see below. The more helpful red-eye removal is not currently available but it is an early beta.

The only snag I found was that I couldn’t upload the saved changes back to Flickr which is a bit of a fatal flaw – hopefully this is just a temporary issue. For quick editing on the move away from an editor this was more than adequate though I’d still prefer a USB stick and Irfanview. It did highlight that I don’t pay enough attention to making the most of my snaps – the lightning image after applying the filter was dramatically different. I’ll give the Adobe Lightroom beta a try.

Sky Broadband

A few months after buying Easynet Sky have launched their Sky Broadband package. On the surface the offerings are very cheap compared to competitors and also offer a free wireless Netgear router for all customers.

Look a little deeper though and things aren’t so clear. Firstly the max package is subject to a fair usage policy which if going by UK Online’s FUP will be similar to most other providers.

Secondly is that the broadband will be provisioned through Easynets LLU (Local Loop Unbundled) exchanges. This at the moment covers 28% of the UK but by year end will be over 50% and by end of 2007 over 70%. This is an extremely aggresive expansion over the coming months which will test the capacity of the network and also the quality of support staff. If you don’t connect to an LLU exchange you will use Sky’s Connect package which doesn’t offer as good value as the three packages mentioned above.

Third – you need to pay for a BT phone line which for many will add to the cost.

Fourth – you need to be a Sky Digital customer. If these points don’t cause you an issue then the broadband package is an amazing offer. Great value and the prospect of a fast Video on Demand service linked in with your Sky box. Despite this it’s not enough to tempt me into moving and that’s all down to Easynet/BT.

Six months ago I moved to NTL. That’s the last time I had issues with my broadband connection. Previous to NTL I had a short but unhappy experience with Freedom2Surf’s LLU service provisioned by Easynet. Unreliable, prone to disconnects and difficult to resolve due to problem being passed between Freedom2Surf, Easynet and BT forced my hand into switching to NTL. It will take a lot to convince me to move back although Â£10 a month compared to Â£35 with NTL is a strong argument. At the very least the competition from Sky should make NTL offer a more competitive service. More on the Sky offers can be found in the investor presentation.

Zooomr

EdgeHosted on Zooomr

I love my Edge magazines and the spines of the first few years look so much better than the drab recent ones. Anyway, the real reason for the post was to link to a Zooomr image I had uploaded and activate my Zooomr Pro account. Which I have done. Not tried out much of the Zooomr service yet but will over the next few days and report back. Still, if you want a free photo sharing account that allows for 2 Gig of uploads per month and you have a blog…..

Sign up for a Zooomr account
Upload a photo to Zooomr
Publish a blog post on your site containing the Zooomr image you uploaded
Visit the Proitizer to validate your blog post and get your pro account

And ultimately wax lyrically about how great Zooomr is. Will try some of the features soon although they will be down for a day next week while they ‘perform’ an upgrade… but kudos to Zooomr team for sharing the goodness.

Back to Edge – I do still love the mag, the style, the content (even in this web world where they can be 4-6 weeks behind) and the arrogance. Lovely.

Italy Wins

Italy have just won the 2006 World Cup on penalties. Shame really as I thought France were more deserving and certainly had the better game. Even bigger shame is Zidane – sent off after head butting Materazzi. There was no doubt that he should have been sent off – it was as nasty as I’ve seen throughout the whole world cup…well apart from Rooney ripping Carvalho’s sack apart.

It will take time for Zidane to be remembered for his football skills rather than a crazy moment that overshadowed a world cup final. It was even more poignant as he had guided France through the tournament and you felt there was a bit of a last hoorah as he had announced his retirement before the tournament had begun. Read the wikipedia article for some of his achievements and videos highlighting his skill. It has also been updated to reflect tonight’s events. I still loved the coolness of his penalty though – sheer class.

Sky introduces Remote Record

Sky launched a new feature for Sky+ (and HD) users today – Remote Record. This allows users to set-up Sky+ recordings via:

Text message
Sky by Mobile
Sky.com

Text Message
You first need to register your mobile to your phone. Then you can simply send a text to 61759 in the format Programme title. Channel Number. Day/Month. Time. i.e.

24. Sky 1. 02/07. 21:00.

You will get a confirmation message if the details are correct. If they aren’t you will get a text message with four options that are the nearest match to your request. Select which option and the recording is added. If you are unsure of the time send Programme title to the above number and again you will get a text returned with a list of the next available programs. All very smart but the text request will cost 25p plus normal text charges. I can also see problems in entering the program titles correctly. Still, there are easier ways to use this service.

Sky by Mobile
Sky by Mobile has been around for a while allowing you to get news and video’s via your mobile. From today you can also set Sky+ recordings. For this to work you need a compatible handset, to have linked your Sky box to your mobile and then download a java app to your phone. Once downloaded, installed and run it is very easy to view the full Sky tv guide, select programs to record and also search for a program by keying in a title and letting the app find it for you. Key for me is that this service is free – you only pay for the data you’ve downloaded as per your normal service provider charges. It also doesn’t download much data meaning this is by far the cheapest way of remotely using your Sky box. Another reason for looking at T-Mobiles great web surfing deals.

Sky.com
Not available yet (August is the rumour) but hopefully this will be the easiest way of remote recording. Login to Sky.com, browse the channel list and select a program to record it. Sounds simple and hopefully the interface will be quick and easy to use.

Nice to see these features being added. Always handy in case you forget to set a recording.

Sky HD – 1 Month Update

It’s been four weeks since Sky HD was installed – here are my thoughts so far.

Sports
The World Cup in HD looks amazing. I was really impressed with most of the BBC coverage. A couple of the games earlier in the tournament seemed to be of lower bit rate which made the picture look slightly blurred as it moved. Apart from that I have no complaints with the BBC – just a shame ITV showed their HD games on Telewest only as when you swapped to an ITV game you got a pixelly unfocussed mess that rammed home the benefits of HD. Looking forward to Premiership and Ryder Cup.

Wimbledon has also been great. Centre and No 1 courts were displayed in HD and the difference was massive. I saw no blurring of the ball as reported elsewhere but I think some of these issues are down to poor quality tv’s rather than the broadcast itself. One point to note – the BBC suffered from a dead pixel. Well I found it quite funny – wonder if they’ll get a refund on their equipment or did they buy it from a firm that only offers returns for more than five dead pixels?

Movies
HD films + Dolby Digital 5.1 sound = better than upscaled DVD experience. Spiderman 2 and Sin City looked vastly superior to the non upscaled DVD versions and still better even when the DVD was upscaled. The only issue is that some broadcasts are using Dolby Pro Logic II which just isn’t as good as Dolby Digital. Oddly second or third broadcasts of the films (Spiderman for example) did have Dolby Digital unlike their original screenings.

Despite that if you like movies and you’ve got an HD Ready TV then it’s a no brainer – Sky HD really is that good. Will have to wait and see if they are as good as HD-DVD/Blu-Ray although I would have through the new hi-def disks will be better again (less compression I imagine).

Programming
Lack of content is the main issue. Sky One are broadcasting HD repeats through the night which shows just how good the programs will look – the only problem is I’ve seen most of them already. BBC HD is a trial service with repeats and Nat Geog and Discovery aren’t showing much new. The main issue is that many of the US import series have ended and so we’re waiting for them to start. Also there are still few programs shot in HD, especially in the UK which is a situation that will only improve.

Be interesting to see what ITV and Channels 4 & 5 do (if anything) over the coming months with regards HD. However for most channels I’m getting a better image than my Freeview box could offer so I’m still pleased – just need a bit more in HD.

Technology
Sky HD’s achilles heel is the hardware itself. Firstly 160Gb is small when recording HD content. 140 Gb is being reserved by Sky for a future download service – would be nice to have option to use it depending on whether you sign up for the service. Secondly Sky has problems with reliability and glitches. According to the Sunday Herald around 30% of users have had hardware problems. More worrying are reports that TV’s are being damaged by the Sky hardware, most prone being Pioneer models when the HDMI port is used. I’ve had a couple of box freezes but thankfully no missed recordings…yet. Firmware updates will sort out the latter but failing and damaging hardware is a far bigger issue that would only be fixed by repair/recall. Hopefully it won’t end up that way.

Overall I’m really chuffed with Sky HD. The Sky+ functionality is superb (should have got it ages ago) and the picture from HD channels is amazing. However I wouldn’t recommend getting it without looking at what is being broadcast first to avoid any disappointment. Sport and movie fans though will love it.

Nintendo DS Lite

Last year when Sony and Nintendo brought our new handhelds I plumped for the PSP. The system had games I wanted to play (Wipeout Pure, Ridge Racer and in the future Pro Evo and GTA), looked to have great multimedia potential and the hardware looked great. In particular the hardware design in comparison to the DS was night and day. The DS was like a relic from the 90’s – clumsy, flip screen and the touch screen concept just didn’t click with me. No media playing ability either – just games.

Last week I picked up a DS Lite. I had an itch to play something fresh and new, Shakeel was raving about it and at just Â£99 it sounded a bargain. After a week of use I can only say I wish I had bought a DS sooner although in retrospect the Lite is such a better design/platform it’s a blessing in disguise that I only got one now.

I picked up a white one as I was warned the black one was a grease and fingerprint magnet. Even with the white you can still see the marks. However it looks great – very Apple esque and smaller/neater than the original. More importantly the screen brightness has been much improved and is as good if not better than the PSP. However this was bought for one reason – the games. It also shows that Nintendo still understand the games market better than anyone else.

Mario Kart DS is sublime on the DS. So many tracks that are known and loved with some originals thrown in as well. It’s also the best Mario Kart I’ve played since the SNES original – a real credit to the developers. The online mode is amazing – select from continental, worldwide or friends list to play online with up to three others. Every game so far has been lag free and when you think of who you may be playing with round the world on such a small hand held…fantastic achievement by Nintendo.

Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training highlights the unique nature of DS games. Using the touch pad or your voice you play a series of small mind games daily that help stimulate and work the brain. I’m loving this right now and while the actual science behind it maybe questionable it’s so enjoyable that I want to play it each day. This games also highlights one other aspect – how Nintendo get people to play that aren’t your typical gamers. My mother is loving this more than me – I’ve created a game addict. I may have to purchase another DS so I can get a shot.

There are plenty of others games available but these two alone have shown what a great platform this is. In some ways it’s a shame that Nintendo didn’t launch with the DS Lite against the PSP. They would have captured even more sales although it is trouncing the PSP at the moment so it’s not that big a deal. I do wonder about Nintendo designers though. Compare American SNES with Japanese/Euro SNES. There has been so many other bad examples through their history although the Wii doesn’t look like being one of them.

Back to the DS Lite – it’s great fun…and that’s really what games should be about, no? Highly recommended to everyone, not just hardcore gamers.

Sports Saturday

Philips HD TV – Â£1600
Sky HD Box – Â£300
Sky Monthly Subscription – Â£52
Watching England get knocked out of the World Cup again on penalties, Terry and Beckham shedding tears and Andy Murray winning magestically all in high definition – priceless

What an amazing day of sport. First Andy Murray. Great performance especially as Roddick was serving so well. Still think it’s too early to be thinking of semi’s or final’s but that performance today was one of the best sport moments of the year so far. As for England they didn’t play well when they had eleven men, they had the better of the game after Rooney was sent off, the substitutions were frankly bizarre (take off wide man and put on Crouch, aka gigantaur, with no one left to cross it?) and to be honest the England team performance throughout the world cup did not merit a semi final place. Bye.

Looking forward to Murray in the 4th round now. Just how far can he go? I hoped that the comments on his website would be a bit more positive after the nasty stuff left over the last week but the one copied below shows that despite a really good post match interview some people just never let up.

If you werenâ€™t such an unbelievably lucky hitter and hoper, so incredibly dull and such a nasty piece of work, it would be easy to look past the fact that youâ€™re so dam ugly.

I thought Mr Burns was a cartoon character. I didnâ€™t realise he was real and had offspring.

So sad.

Ego’s

The reason I hardly ever post on internet forums are other people’s ego’s. A quick wander through avforums highlights this – a massive amount of people who think they know everything and who are willing to force their view on the world, sometimes too forcefully, sometimes inaccurately. At the same time I really appreciate reading other peoples views and opinions as they can be more helpful than magazine reviews which I still suspect can be bought for a price.

This can happen on blogs too. Take a trip over to Binary Bonsai and you’ll see a messy rant between the owner and Paul Thurrott over Vista and some images. Nasty and over the top – for a guy to rant about theft in respect of a Vista screenshot and then to see some windows fanboys jump on the bandwagon highlights some of the issues I see in forums. Ego’s.

I just wish that people who post frequently and strongly would think about their response if they were speaking to the person in a room or in a group of like minded others – would they be that rude? Would they rant? Maybe they would but I really do doubt it. Maybe forums and commenting systems need a ego setting that checks for ranting, highlights the issues and doesn’t allow you to post for 30 minutes….a cooling off ego system.

Pseudonyms

Today I was called….

“the guy that brings in all the CD’s”
“the guy that shouts at her all the time?”
“the guy that knows about computers”
“the guy that has ‘turned on by technology’ on his website!”
“the guy that has more gadgets than I will ever allow you to own!”
“I don’t care how many X-Box’s that guy has, I’m not buying you one!”
“If you like that guys CD’s so much why don’t you feckin well move in with him?”

and those were just the things I know about. I’d hate to think how long the list would be if I overhead a few other conversations today. Still, as the quote said it’s better to be talked about than not talked about. I think.