For Pete's Sake

Just so darn useful

I’m a big Mac user at home. In fact the only time these days the only time I use a Windows machine is either when I’m at work or help Cati with stuff on her laptop/PC. However there are few things that I miss when I’m working in Windows but if there is one application I wish I had in Windows is Quicksilver.

Quicksilver (QS) is a now open source project which pretty much will replace finder. Why? Because you can do a heck of a lot with Quicksilver. First and foremost many people use it to launch applications, by invoking Quicksilver you can type the name of the application you wish to launch and, well, launch it. Fair enough you can do this in finder but you can do more. Say you invoke QS and type in iTunes, from there you can actually browse into your library and play a song. You can then browse to another and queue that track to play after the one you’re just playing and so on. Already you’re doing something Apple OSX’s finder wishes it could do. The list of actions you can do is almost endless. You can stack things into a shelf so you can access frequently used stuff not to mention my favourite ability which is finding a file or files, chosing to send them to someone and selecting a contact and watch as QS sends an e-mail without me even needing to open Mail.

It’s intuitive workflow style makes this application what it is and it’s why I love it so much. Things involving several mouse clicks and some hunting a lot quicker. I know there are Windows alternatives but none are as powerful and extensible as Quicksilver. In fact Quicksilver is probably one of the most powerful applications you can get for your Mac and best of all it’s free! It’s a application that I think any Mac user should have because it just makes sense.

If you’re thinking of giving Quicksilver a try have a look at these guides over at Lifehacker:

• A Beginners Guide to Quicksilver
• Advanced Quicksilver Guide
• Top 10 Quicksilver Plugins

Future of online music?

So this past week Spotify launched it’s iPhone & Android application to allow it’s premium members the ability to tap into it’s music library on the go. Almost immediately people were complaining on the iTunes store about the fact that you have to pay to use it. The root cause being that the desktop version of Spotify is free to use. Do they have a point and is Spotify the way forward for online music?

Before the iPhone app I happily used the Spotify desktop application and put up with the ads as really I didn’t see the point in the premium account. At the time the bonus of the premium account was higher bit-rate tracks, no ads and a few other things besides. However once the iPhone application was released I took the plunge. For the price of the premium account (£10/mnth) I now have the ability to stream music on 3G and sync music for offline play. When you consider the cost benefit in terms of what you get it’s a pretty good deal. Consider that in the short time I’ve been a premium member I’ve synced four Kings of Leon albums, one album by Prodigy and another by Kimya Dawson. The cost of this through iTunes, where I buy most of my music, would be £47.85 so I’ve already made a saving. Now I appreciate I don’t “own” these albums. If I don’t renew my subscription come month end I will lose the ability to use the application and those offline playlists. Those who are against paying for Spotify point out that a years subscription costs £120 which is a lot of money for a service whereby in the end, you don’t own any of that music.

However I’ve chosen to look at the flipside. There are many times where I’ve heard a song that I like and thought of downloading an album to listen to more of their stuff or a friend has recommended at artist they think I might like but decided against it in case I don’t like it. Spotify allows me to check these artists out with out paying for that album. Now I appreciate the free desktop version of Spotify allowed me to do this but now if I do like it I don’t have to buy that album straight away. I can listen to it a few times, decide if I want to add it to my collection. On the cost side, if I sync more that 12 songs in a given month then, going by the average cost of a song in iTunes, again I’ve already made a saving. As far as the negative reviews on the iTunes store it’s been no secret that it was going to be a premium member only application. It’s also not the only company to employ this strategy when it comes to iPhone access. Remember the Milk, the online task management website, only allows its Pro members the ability to use its iPhone application.

So is Spotify the way forward for online music? I’d say it was complimentary rather than the way to follow. Spotify frees music lovers from having to buy a CD and wonder whether they’ve made a good choice and if not, live with an album they’ll never listen to again. It allows you, the listener, to be discerning in your choice of what you will actually purchase from your music provider be it iTunes or your local music store. Yes there are limitations to the service for a start there is nowhere near the same amount of music and artists on there as you would find in iTunes. A very good friend of mine has told me that one artist he listens to used to have 5 albums on Spotify but now just has the one. There could be licensing reasons for this decline but it is a bit of a concern.

However at the end of the day this is an amazing piece of software. The quality over 3G in my limited amount of testing is superb and the offline synching when on wi-fi was a breeze. It’s implemented well and is a real alternative for music listeners, the free offline application being a fantastic start point and the iPhone/Android app being there for those who wish to step up to premium. Yes it’s a little costly but when you do some of the math you find out it’s pretty good deal and Spotify isn’t forcing anyone to pay for premium. In some ways though the naysayers do have a point and they could create a free iPhone application to use but then if it wants to grow and increase it’s music library the money has got to come from somewhere and that somewhere I feel is the iPhone application. With it being locked to premium members only I would imagine more and more people will sign up to that service.

Looking back and thinking about last week I found that I’m less active on the Internet than I used to be. I then started to wonder why? Roll back 9 years or so when I was at college I was in chat rooms most of my spare time. In fact, I was an MSN chat room moderator for a while. I was also active in forums, online gaming clans as well as jumping in and getting active in Dubit which was a Habbo Hotel style chat place but was based in Leeds near where I lived. I wrote articles to do with online gaming; I was immersed in the online offerings that the Internet gave. Fast forward to now and other than twitter, my blog and Football Manager Live I’m pretty inactive in most places.

Take Facebook, yes I’m on there but I visit it perhaps daily for one or two days then not again for a week or so. Or MySpace, created an account, haven’t used it for probably well over a year. I can say this about many forums, websites and even chat itself (both IRC and MSN) – they interest me less and less. If I was to analyse the cause or a reason I would say that when I was at college I had moved to yet another new town and all the friends I made at college lived elsewhere. I didn’t drive so I could only communicate with them online or via phone and it was more convenient to do it by chat etc as I had the PC in my room. It was heavily used when I got together with Cati for obvious reasons. Now however I live with Cati, I know many people in the city I live in and if I want to visit friends who live further afield I drive. Not only that I prefer a phone call if I want to catch up. Yes I know I could use Skype (and I do when I parents are in France as it’s cheaper) but not everyone I know is on there and I get free minutes on my mobile.

I still use the Internet a lot but as last week showed I can easily go without. There are people I know who are constantly online and updating their status or chatting. I’m not saying that it’s a bad thing because as far as I know I don’t think any of them are massive addicts. However at the same time it brings up the current discussions that we as a race are becoming less social beings. The advent of online communications means that we send each other messages on Facebook than say call; or send an e-mail than write a letter, an art they say, is dying. Some would say that this isn’t a bad thing I mean an e-mail gets there instantly and, as long as your recipients net connection is up they receive it. Normal mail is at the mercy of us mere humans prone to losing the odd letter and such. At the same time though I really enjoy the more personal feel of a letter and they say you can learn a lot about a person from their handwriting – maybe that’s why people prefer e-mail ;) Similar arguments can be said for forums, chat clients and so on.

Their replacement of what were normal human interactions have good and bad points. It makes keeping in touch over vast distances easy, convenient and cheap. At the same time however they are pulling us away from doing what is natural and that is interacting, socialising and well, being human. I’m not trying to say the Internet is bad or that anyone should stop using it to keep in touch, far from it. What I am saying is perhaps find a balance write a letter sometime instead of an e-mail or meet up with a friend in person rather than wait till they come on MSN. Like most things in life it’s good in moderation but when taken to excess it becomes detrimental.

Are you an Internet addict or is there no such thing? Or all in all am I just talking twaddle?

Read this the other day and thought to myself ‘I totally relate to this!’ Possibly not so much addicted to the Internet but technology. I find it hard these days to not have technology around me but even more so we as a society are finding this harder. Ignoring the fact that to read this you’re using a computer of some description be it laptop or PC most people have a mobile phone. According to statistics 1.5 billion texts were sent each week in the UK last year which when divded by population (60,943,912) works out to 24 texts per person. I’d like to think I’m a light texter and generally call people if I want to say anything of length. My wife on the other hand texts quite a lot and considering she doesn’t use predictive text (as she finds it awkward) she’s pretty damn quick! How many times have you felt lost when your mobile is out of charge and you frantically try and find a way of charging and then receive a barrage of texts that you missed for the brief time you were incommunicado?

Some people would say the continued use of technology in our daily lives is a good thing. It makes life easier making what used to be tough tasks easier and less stressful. Communication like e-mail and SMS messaging has made the world a smaller place allowing for news and information to be spread around the world with alarming ease. On the flip side however you only need to google ‘texting thumb’ to read about peoples issues from excessive texting. Who can forget scare stories of mobile phones causing headaches and the paranoia surrounding long term damage caused by mobile phone use. There’s a post a made back in Feburary about a girl developing Playstation Palmer Hidradentis and I’m sure there’s a plethora of other technology based ailments to join the classic RSI injuries.

So is technology bad for  you? Like any addicition it only is if done to excess. I routinely have evenings away from my Mac and just chill with a good movie. When I’m holiday I like to be out and about and only use my laptop for blogging that days events, browse my pictures and maybe, depending on net access, send an e-mail. I can quite happily go incommunicado for a weekend and not come out the other side craving a text or sending an e-mail. I do know of people who panic if they have no access to e-mail and plan their holiday around the availability of mobile phone coverage. To those people I’d say slow down, un-plug and check out what you’re missing. The world won’t end if you don’t get your daily dose of spam e-mail.

Well, anyone who is actually still reading this or has it bookmarked may be, especially when the last post was back in August. Anyway, I’m still at my current job, despite the odd misgiving here and there. At times it’s not that bad, others.. well let’s just say I have bad thoughts. Either way it’s employment and I should be grateful for that. So that’s work summed up, short and sweet really.

Life in general is going pretty well despite the odd worry but then they’re nothing more that what everyone else probably worries about. It gets me down and recently it’s got me down more than it usually does. The other thing that keeps bugging me lately is I have this feeling that things are just passing me by. I don’t know if they are or why I have this feeling but even as I sit here now I just thinking I could or should be doing something more. Fact is I probably could, I even started writing my part of a story I’m doing with Legionary, hopefully I’ll write more soon. Cat is doing well in her job though right now she’s worrying and stressing about her dancing exam which is approaching far too quickly! Our holiday to Iceland is booked for next year, just a case now of saving the money and damn it’s expensive but there you go, what in this life isn’t?! Still it’ll be worth it and I really can’t wait to go. On another life note, my birthday is approaching again, I tell you it must be improving its ninja skills as it really did sneak up on me this year.

One cool thing though that happened recently was my attendance, along with my good friend Carl, to the NHL ice hockey game in London. The atmosphere and venue (The O2) were superb and the game wasn’t half-bad either. It’s certainly got me buzzing and really excited now about attending the NFL London game for which the tickets turned up the other week. I also managed to get my hands on the Halo 3 Legendary Edition. It’s a seriously cool special edition and, in my opinion, worth it.

Sports wise it’s an up and down start for my teams. The Steelers are doing well in the NFL with their defence really looking the business this season. United have only just started to get in to gear and as far as the Penguins go; such a stark contrast to last season. I won’t mention anything about the Pirates’ baseball season as, apart from the odd surprise win there’s nothing to talk about.

So there you go, 3 months zipped up.