I waited sometime for [...]]]> The new iPhone is out and looks like an awesome piece of kit but I won’t be getting one.  Putting the ethical and political considerations aside (and there are many to be aware of with Apple’s closed technology too) I still think Android is the way to go.  For me at least.

I waited sometime for Android to mature before taking the leap and when I saw the reviews for the HTC Desire thought it was time to dive in.  And am I impressed!

One of the painful aspects of setting up a new phone can be transferring data but if you already do much of your work and play in the cloud, as I do, Android is built to import contact lists and calendars.  I have to confess at this point that I’m something of a Google pimp, I LOVE Google.  And in case you hadn’t heard Android is built by Google so it’s a natural fit.  The first time I connected to my Gmail account all of my contacts were automatically imported to my phone.  Impressive enough as that is I was even more impressed the first time that I connected to my facebook account.  The mobile numbers of all of my contacts who had set up Facebook mobile were imported too.

One quick word of warning though – all of you facebook connected people out there try to remember to keep your mobile numbers up to date.  Didn’t take me long to spot that one hehe!

Like any modern smart phone, social networking is a big part of it’s reason to exist.  Facebook integration is good but why no inbox/messaging from the default app?  I can still use the web browser to do that as the mobile site is excellent but I can’t message with the built in facebook application.  My other gripe is with Peep the built in twitter application.  In the first 48 hours that I used my phone I was appalled at how quickly the battery drained.  Then I did a quick search and found out that Peep was blamed by other users so I’ve since installed the official Twitter app, which is a much better solution all round.  Unfortunately it’s not possible to uninstall Peep but I’m much happier with the official Twitter app.  Battery life is so much better without Peep running.  Don’t forget that Android is already multi-tasking so apps will run in the background.  I’m presuming that Peep was the best application available at the time my phones Android 2.1 OS was finalised?

Web browsing is a breeze and most sites get converted to suit the mobile format and aspect (it’ll detect shifts from landscape to portrait automatically) very quickly.  A quick tap or pinch will zoom in or out and swipes scroll around.

The camera isn’t bad either, it’s 5 megapixels, has a flash and is reasonably quick too.  The latter is all important if you have kids.  A tap on the screen changes the focus zone and it’s really simple to post your photos to social networks such as facebook, twitter, flickr etc.  That’s with the default photo application although there are plenty of alternatives for people who’d like to experiment more with on phone processing, time lapse, effects etc.  Personally I like to have a reasonable camera on my phone and have had 5 megpixels and a flash for a few years now.  Let’s face it though however many megapixels are available via the image sensor, the optics crammed into a tiny phone device will still be a limiting factor.

Considering the explosive growth of Android and the vast collection of applications already available I’m really happy with my choice.  Android market place is the official home for “approved” apps although you can change the settings for your phone and take a chance on third party apps from anywhere you like if you find something that’s not in Android market yet.

Some of the highlights that I’ve found so far include Google Skymaps.  Just point it at the sky and see a realtime view of the stars (including constellation names) and planets.  Google maps is integrated brilliantly (as you’d expect) including street view.  Google calendar works a treat too.  Wherever I update my calendars they show on my phone too including alarms and email notifications.  Racing game Asphalt runs a treat on the Desire and tilt and touch screen controls are pretty easy to use.  Unfortunately the same can’t be said for some of the other games I’ve found where touch screen controls replace console style D-pads.  Which is a shame as I’d have loved to use the nintendo and sega emulators that I’ve found.  If you have kids DON’T let them see Mole hunt, an incredibly more’ish whack a mole style game.  Not if you want to see your phone again.

More great stuff to come from Google too.  Apparently the US version of Google Talk takes care of voice mail and provides a transcoded (speech to text) summary of messages too.  I’ve not tried it yet but Google Translate, translates speech to text and text to speech.  Sounds like the future to me that.

I’m also prone to RSI and had to learn to use my left hand [...]]]> I’ve always been a bit disappointed by the mouse, no matter how many buttons are added or how you move your fingers to scroll.  It still feels like just having one finger to wave around and select items within a scrolling window.

I’m also prone to RSI and had to learn to use my left hand too about 14 years ago.  That way I can use my right hand until the RSI pain in the wrist kicks in and then rest my right hand by switching to my left, until the RSI kicks in on the left.  Not ideal but workable.  I even tried an evoluent vertical mouse for sometime (probably at least 12 months) until I ended up with an even more painful RSI from constant use of that (all the buttons are on one side so it’s not possible to switch hands).

This week I’ve switched to a Wacom bamboo pen and touch so can use either hand to use it as a large desktop track pad.

It took two or three days of imaginary mouse grabbing as despite using a laptop away from the desk I’ve always had a mouse at the desk.  It’s become second nature now though so who knows, maybe the RSI’s have gone for a while?  Here’s hoping

I can’t remember what biscuits we were given at Mountain studios in Montreux, Switzerland but I’m assuming they were pretty good as that’s where we went.  The biscuits and the live room were pretty [...]]]> When we visited studios to choose where to record the third album we rated them according to the biscuits they gave us.

I can’t remember what biscuits we were given at Mountain studios in Montreux, Switzerland but I’m assuming they were pretty good as that’s where we went.  The biscuits and the live room were pretty good actually.  We were looking for a large live room for a large band to perform and record live in and that had become difficult to find by the mid-eighties.  Musicians tended to record separately, rather than as a band as technical audio separation was considered more important than live music feel.  So live recording was quite rare.  Mountain studios was built next to an enormous room that was used for the Montreux Jazz festival and it was perfect.  Also alongside beautiful Lake Geneva and far from UK distractions so that’s where we were booked into for a month, I think it was almost the whole of May 1984.

We’d spent over twelve months promoting the second album so it’d been a huge relief to stop and take time out then get back to writing new material.  At the time it seemed like record companies expected artists to churn out a new album every year and then spend the time between promoting the last one.  Tours, TV, radio, press then “hey when’s the new album going to be ready?”  Often schedules, artwork, distribution, all of it planned before the material was even written.

So we took sometime out.  A few months writing and then demoing new songs at Outlaw Studios in Birmingham.  Followed by weeks of auditions looking for the right band to realise those songs in the studio and then weeks of rehearsal in preparation.  Things were looking great though, we had the legendary Tom Dowd producing (although I don’t think this would be his favourite session somehow) and had put together an incredible band including Crusher Green (ex James Brown session man) on drums, Vincent Crane on piano, Trevor Burton on bass (who was uncredited on the first release of the album) and plenty of other great players, Nick Gatfield, Jimmy Paterson, Bob Noble and John Edwards. Plus of course Kevin Rowland, Helen O’Hara (Bevington) and myself who had become the nucleus of the band by late ‘83- early ‘84 after drummer Seb Shelton had left.  We’d taken no shortcuts putting the band together and had literally spent weeks auditioning new players until we found a band that we were totally comfortable with.  We’d block booked Phil Savages, Outlaw Studios in Birmingham for the auditions, then rehearsals and had always demoed material at Phil’s studio too.

What could go wrong?

It was a disaster.  A fraught and frustrating month and nothing that we recorded was right, nowhere near as good as it had sounded in the small Birmingham studio during auditions and later rehearsals.  Just one track worked out.  At the end of the month we only had ONE finished studio track that we were happy with.  “Listen to this”.  It’s probably my favourite track off the album and possesses a raw power and energy that could only have been captured live.  Following our month in Montreux we headed back to the UK where we began auditioning once more to find a band that could record the rest of the album.  Weeks of auditions back in Birmingham followed by weeks of rehearsals and hunting for a new studio.  Another awesome band then managed to record another (yes just the one) track for the album.  Originally titled “The Waltz”.  But that’s another story.

Hell of an album though when it was eventually finished.  I’m rightly proud for the small part I played in it’s production.  It took three full line ups with a few great players falling by the wayside in between too.  I wouldn’t like to guess how many studios we visited either and by the time it was being finished I left Kevin & Helen to it.  I thought I had limitless patience and dedication but it was too much for me and by the end it had left a huge dent in my enthusiasm for music.  Final mixing and later changes were taken care of by Kevin and Pete Schwier in the U.S.

Listen to some of Don’t Stand me Down at Last.fm

And here’s Open Graph.  There are privacy issues to be sure but most of these can be taken care of by locking down your Facebook account.  My main concern would be that Facebook [...]]]> For so long commentators and bloggers have been speculating on the rise of facebook not to mention it’s profitability and walled garden mentality.

And here’s Open Graph.  There are privacy issues to be sure but most of these can be taken care of by locking down your Facebook account.  My main concern would be that Facebook privacy options should default to private rather than open.  So that less technically minded users are protected from the start.  Facebook would much rather we shared as much information as possible though as that’s what adds value to their enormous network of users.

What I love about Open Graph though is that it’s a two way street.  Users can easily “single click” a “like” or “recommend” button on any site and as long as they’re logged in to Facebook they can share their link automatically or even comment on it easily too.  There are a fair few features already available at launch time.

I was really pleased to see the term “like” appear as a replacement for “become a fan” and in this context it makes more sense still.  It’s easy enough to change the verb from “like” to “recommend” within the developer settings if that’s more suitable too.

Here’s the facebook developer link to several social plugins that are already available – http://developers.facebook.com/plugins

I had started to wonder if the ever growing sub-set of the web that was Facebook (and certainly Social Networking as a phenomenon) would soon BE the web for many people.

Rather than making websites redundant Open Graph has added value.  For now at any rate.  Can’t wait to see what happens next hehe!

Previously pages and posts used links like – http://technotik.co.uk/?p=6 but now we have  http://technotik.co.uk/2010/04/15/thank-you-internet/

Setting up in Wordpress was a doddle as always but it’s the first time I’ve had to enable mod_rewrite on an [...]]]> Changed the site to use much more friendly looking links and more importantly SEO friendly using Wordpress built in Permalink settings.

Previously pages and posts used links like – http://technotik.co.uk/?p=6 but now we have  http://technotik.co.uk/2010/04/15/thank-you-internet/

Setting up in Wordpress was a doddle as always but it’s the first time I’ve had to enable mod_rewrite on an Ubuntu server to get that working.  All the more easy to do thanks to this site (amongst others) http://www.ghacks.net/2009/12/05/enable-mod_rewrite-in-a-ubuntu-server/ so thank you GHacks and thank you Internet

Not all networks suit the same content though.

Like a lot of people I’ve used the official twitter facebook application on occasion to post tweets to facebook.  It’s [...]]]> Not always a good idea but it can be a real time saver and a great way to reach different networks without multiple logins, duplicate posting or re-editing content.

Not all networks suit the same content though.

Like a lot of people I’ve used the official twitter facebook application on occasion to post tweets to facebook.  It’s a fairly easy solution to get status updates and tweets in sync but it’s important not to forget to engage with the audience.  It’s not just a one way conversation any more.  It seems obvious but it’s all too easily forgotten, social networking is social by definition.

Using the old retweet syntax (RT ….) on twitter means that your tweet will show up on your facebook status via the application so will that make sense?

Building active facebook pages can be much more useful than just building a personal account and here the solutions to automate posting seem a little more restricted.  I’ve used Social RSS and NetworkedBlogs facebook applications to send a website RSS feed to a facebook page.  Social RSS seems to work the most seamlessly and unintrusively of the two although to use it beyond a trial period you need to pay a subscription.  Or you’ll see the speed of posts slow right down until it seems almost intermittent.  Social RSS does also have the option of a box on the front page too though, not just a tab.  Which is a great way to link to previous web articles.

I’m still not sure about NetworkedBlogs.  It seems OK but the hoops that you’ll need to get through to set it up and manual refreshing of content make me wonder if I’m saving any time at all.

My favourite solution for juggling multiple accounts is still Hootsuite and in the few weeks that I’ve been using it I’ve been really impressed by new features, ease and speed of use.  It’s easy to modify each post to suit each social network from one place and you can monitor the networks up to a point too.  One new feature just this week implements automated RSS feed posting.  Not so detailed a post as the other two solutions but it’s fast and it’s free.  If only it didn’t use Hootsuite’s ow.ly URL shortening service which pops up a Hootsuite toolbar when a user clicks on the link.  Apart from that it gets my vote.

Ultimately it all comes down to time though doesn’t it.  Ideally each social network should be approached according to it’s target audience and it’s own technical or defacto protocols.  But if it’s a simple one or two liner with a link you can probably share it across them all.

Like most young kids I didn’t give my hearing a great deal of thought as I was growing up. I loved music, particularly LOUD music and when I played [...]]]> That’s not a technical term used by audiologists funnily enough but it’s a fact. Added to which it’s quite frustrating to realise that it’s largely self inflicted.

Like most young kids I didn’t give my hearing a great deal of thought as I was growing up. I loved music, particularly LOUD music and when I played my guitar I sat right in front of the amplifier (about a foot away) and turned it up full. Riding motorcycles there was no advice around to wear ear plugs although fortunately these days the volume inside a helmet on a motorcycle is recognised as very dangerous to hearing. I doubt I would have heeded the advice if it had been available anyway.

Similarly wearing headphones I wasn’t careful about volume and loved my music loud.  On stage as a guitarist through the 80’s I couldn’t get the monitors loud enough. Competing with a drum kit on a live stage the volume can get to unbelievable levels.

One morning after years of aural abuse I woke up to hear a street cleaning truck outside my window. It was there for what seemed like ages so I went to the window and couldn’t see a thing. I looked all around the house before I realised the noise was in my head. It’s still there most days and although I would really like it to go away I’m lucky that I cope pretty well. It rarely stops me from sleeping and I only really begrudge the fact that it makes my hearing even worse.

I also have quite severe high frequency hearing loss. I’m not deaf but quite hard of hearing and need hearing aids to hear the average conversation or to cope with listening in noisy environments. The technology is amazing but nowhere near as effective as a decent healthy pair of ears!

When [...]]]> I’ve never been a fan of windows.  Despite each successive version’s improvements & people telling me “it’s stable and doesn’t lock up or crash anymore”, experience proves that it’s flakier than what I consider to be more professional alternatives – Gnu/Linux (I mostly use Ubuntu) and over the last 6-7 years increasingly Apple’s OS X.

When I bought an Acer Aspire netbook it came pre-loaded with Windows 7 Starter which isn’t bad in the circumstances.  It’s not a powerful computer but copes pretty well with anything I’d expect of it.  I was quite annoyed at the sheer volume of trialware (free to try and then you’d have to pay more later) placed on it by Microsoft and Acer.  It took me an age of remove/restart cycles to get rid of it all and install better free alternatives.  Windows updates every time you start absolutely do my head in though.  Virus checker updates and regular windows updates are re-assuring but so time consuming.  And I won’t use a computer while the virus checker is off and updating.

I gave Windows 7 a good go but as I’d always intended I installed Ubuntu.  The new Ubuntu netbook remix in fact and installation was effortless and reasonably quick.  Every time I install it gets quicker and easier.  Hardware detection was faultless and it was ready to use in no time.  Just a couple of configuration changes.  In particular to get the trackpad to scroll using the right edge.  I haven’t had time to try any of the multi-touch fixes I’ve come across but will soon.  Right edge scrolling isn’t so bad and now my netbook is secure and fast again.

Bye Bye Windows 7 Starter

Here’s the new desktop below showing the main new addition – Google Chrome which I use for all Google apps, Gmail, Documents, Calendar, Wave etc.  For everything else it’s Firefox with the Noscript extension and Adblock.  An extra layer of security from the brilliant Noscript and the ability to speed things up a bit by switching ad’s off with Adblock.

Ubuntu Netbook Remix desktop

As this is my mobile system I’ve hardly had to add any software.  To be honest I just need a decent browser and have been impressed by Chrome and Firefox.  Everything I need to access is in the cloud and most of that at Google – I love Google haha!  They maybe a little evil these days but I forgive them as they make my life a lot easier.  And they DO give back to the free & open source community unlike some other large software corp’s out there

We have a brilliant team together and this year we’ve also formally changed our name and become an Arts festival, including Literary events and more [...]]]> I’ve been involved with the Bridgnorth Music and Arts Festival for the past four years now and for 2010, with the festival in it’s fifth year I’m more involved than ever.

We have a brilliant team together and this year we’ve also formally changed our name and become an Arts festival, including Literary events and more Arts events than ever.  My involvement started out with running an acoustic/unplugged event down on the Quayside next to the River Severn.  Superb backdrop to what’s been a great afternoon of music for the last four years.

Now I’m also running the festival website http://bridgnorthmusicfest.com/, twitter account http://twitter.com/bnorthfestival, Facebook pages http://www.facebook.com/bridgnorthfestival plus a fair bit more.  I’m dragging everyone kicking and screaming into the 2010’s despite struggling to get some even using email not so long ago.  It’s really paying dividends now though, we’ve made some brilliant contacts via social media and our reach is spreading all the time.

We’re open, inclusive and more diverse than ever.  If you’re interested get in touch and get involved.