Work While Drunk

The time is rapidly approaching for me to get a new phone. Not because I simply want one, but because I will actually need one. My current Sony Ericsson W800i is becoming a pain to use. A common problem on Sony Ericsson’s is the joystick becoming unresponsive - and for a menu driven phone that renders it useless. The same thing happened with the K700i I had before it.

Before I go any further I should probably point out that I, unlike most UK phone owners, have to actually buy my own phones. I’m on a sim-only contract with Virgin, which is very good value for money, but with the limitation of not being packaged with a phone. So I have to buy my own, either fully unlocked or Virgin locked from Virgin themselves. It sounds like a bit of a mixed deal - its not. The amount of money I save equates to about £200+ a year, and at the end of it I can get any phone I can lay my hands on, without having to go through all the hassle of threatening to leave my mobile provider to get a half decent phone out of them.

I originally got the Sony Ericsson W800i to use as a music player and phone. I liked the idea of my music being interrupted by an incoming call, something that goes frequently unanswered when I’m walking and listening to my music on a separate MP3 player. Not only that but being able to take the call wearing the same earphones and only having one device to charge sounded great. And it would have been, if the W800i (Sony Ericsson’s first walkman phone admittedly) was as good as it should perhaps have been. The music playback functionality was basic, the audio quality was poor and the cabling was a nightmare. That last one could have been solved by the use of a Bluetooth stereo headset - but that’s more expense, and another thing to charge.

So I soon moved back to having a separate music device. This was originally a Cowon iAudio X5L (best I’ve ever owned, but a little large and dated) which served me very well until it was stolen, and is now a Samsung YP-Z5 (fantastic but with one flaw - there’s no ‘off’ button).

So, what to get next?

Well, the Apple iPhone is out straight away, as I intend to stay with Virgin as a mobile provider, it’s a rather large device (which I don’t like), its technologically a bit behind the times for such a premium priced phone (no 3G, GPS, poor camera - I’m sure those will be fixed in future revisions) and of course it’s really very expensive.

I don’t want another Sony Ericsson. They haven’t fixed the issue with the joystick. A few of their latest models have a new design of joystick - but I’m hearing of people having problems with the new joystick design too, and I’ve seen other alarming build quality issues. So I think I’ll give Sony Ericsson a miss.

The Nokia N series are nice, but bulky and the better phones seem to suffer from battery issues. I like the N95, N81 and N82 for features, but they’re all so very chunky, and everyone I know who owns one of those loves it except for the constant need to charge the phone when you use any of their extended features such as GPS, gaming, camera’s, video playback, etc. Also, they aren’t at all cheap.

I thought I’d decided on the Nokia E51. It’s a tad shy on features, and its business orientated (not really an issue for me), but its slim, has most of the features I want and most reviews are very favourable. Its often called a ‘workhorse’ of a phone - which appeals. The flaws from my perspective are the slightly small screen, lack of GPS (which is a frivolous need on my part) and a poor camera (but I have 2 great digital cameras after all). But hey, I can buy one off the shelf for under £200, which is a reasonable price in my book.

Here’s the thing. I was all set to buy the E51, just waiting for the price to drop as the availability ramped up, and I came across the Nokia E66 - codename ‘Dora’. Although there’s no official information, there are some pre-release details. This is the successor to the E65 (in the same way to the E51 being the successor to the E50). The focus of the E65/66 series over the E50/51 series is that they have a larger screen, are sliders and have slightly better features - i.e they are the premium phone of the two. So the E66 reportedly has GPS, a better camera (although auto-focus is ultimately the issue with the E51) and allows for 3G video calls. Now, I don’t *need* any of these features now, but frankly I’d like them. The phone will probably cost in the region of £250, so for about £50 more it looks to me to be a better investment. Of course it’s not out yet and thus not reviewed either.

So, that’s what I’m now aiming to get - assuming I can hold out long enough with the W800i. If I can’t I’ll get the E51, which will do the job for me, but I’ll always be wishing I’d have held out for the E66. I always seem to make thins so hard for myself.

Microsoft should be ashamed of themselves for Windows Vista

I’ve been using Windows Vista for about 4 months now, on my home desktop. Unfortunately, it’s not proving an easy ride. As a frequent early adopter, I’m used to teething problems in hardware and software, but my experience so far is that its just simply poor. It’s a horrible user experience, brings little real benefit over Windows XP right now. Windows is (or should be) all about the interface, usability and accessibility – and it fails on all 3.

Not to be completely negative…

OK, that sounds pretty harsh, and to be fair Windows vista does have some goodness in it. The new look is, largely, quite nice – but perhaps too much of an attempt to visually retaliate against OSX – which many consider to be too much form over function itself. The security is (reportedly) much improved – and I can say it certainly appears to a user that it’s very much a focus with this Operating System. Plus I’m sure there are a number of behind-the-scenes technological improvements. The setup process is undoubtedly much simpler now.

… but it’s not good.

However it doesn’t take long to get frustrated with Vista. The control panel is now like an ant’s nest of interconnected menus. Some things, like networking, are spread across multiple screens of options, within different sections. The control panel is the first call of anyone wanting to setup the OS experience to suit them, so it should be simple to use. Instead it’s actually quite daunting. Of particular note is the much discussed UAC – an awful ‘necessary security’ experience you soon get used to dealing with. I also got completely bemused by the disk manager when trying to create my partitions, and I’m still not convinced its right. I don’t mind if Microsoft has changed something in their OS for the better, so long as the process tells me why (if I want to know) and explains the new process – but it never does, and this makes the user experience learning curve mighty steep.

Inelegant transitions: blackouts

This has always been an inelegance with Windows, but with Vista’s UAC, its now becoming annoying. Whenever the UAC appears or you start a setup application, the screen goes black first, then low-contrast, and pops up a normal contrast window until you make a choice, then it all goes back to normal, via a fade-in. When setting up all my apps when I first installed Windows Vista, I was seeing this effect a few times a minute. It started to make me feel a bit queasy, and I was worried I was going to have an epileptic fit (I’m not epileptic, fortunately for me).

Inelegant Transitions: things don’t stay put

Some games and applications that I use just don’t support my screens preferred resolution, or for some inexplicable reason decide to try and set it again (and thus this has the same effect as changing it). This often causes the blackouts I just described, but is somewhat more understandable (still poor however), but it also has another side effect. Undocked sidebar items and desktop icons, that might have appeared outside of the screen get (perhaps sensibly, so at least you can get to them) pushed inwards or reshuffled, and left in this new position on the return to the desktop. This is completely annoying, especially with sidebar gadgets, as they end up overlapping desktop items on a busy desktop.

Sidebar: worst in class?

In the early days for desktop widget/gadget systems, I found them to be pretty useless and gimmicky. Over time they got prettier, neater and more useful. Now we have such systems built into browsers (Opera), operating systems (Vista and OSX), and of course a plethora of stand-alone systems (Yahoo! Widgets, Samurize and many Sidebar clones). Unfortunately the quality and reliability of gadgets being produced for Vista’s own sidebar is patchy at best – and I don’t know if this is due to the Vista sidebar itself being a limited platform for this kind of development, or just lack of interest from developers. Its early days admittedly, but I’ve not been truly impressed yet. One feature I find it lacking is that when I have undocked a gadget, why can’t I pin it to the desktop? It would help with the issue above for starters.

Stop stealing! Start stealing!

I’ve been getting very frustrated at the seemingly random stealing of focus. I’m not sure what I’m doing to cause it, but some applications (like Opera, Messenger and Outlook) sometime randomly loose focus. As I finger type, I spend periods of time looking solely at the keyboard, so don’t realise that I’m not actually typing into the correct window. It’s incredibly annoying. However, sometimes I want something to steal focus and it doesn’t – like when launching an application that required a UAC action, but instead it sits on my taskbar flashing until I click on it. If I’ve just launched an application, surely I want to see any actions it requires of me to open?

Shut down not the default

The default ‘off’ state in windows vista is sleep (standby) mode. Here in the UK there have been many TV and print ad campaigns by energy companies telling us not to leave our technology on standby, because it’s unnecessary and still uses electricity (and thus costs money). So the clever boys over in Redmond have done the complete opposite, they have changed the default ‘off’ state from an almost no-power usage ‘shut-down’ in XP to a fairly low (but still some) power usage state of ‘sleep’ for Vista. Why? Well as far as I can see it’s just to save face. With Windows XP, Microsoft shot themselves in the foot on this issue. They said they would aim to make the start-up times faster with XP and faster still with Vista – except it’s quite clear that from cold start, Vista isn’t exactly a fast loading OS, it actually tends to be slower than XP. Their solution seems to be to cheat the issue and not actually shut-down the machine, or even hibernate it for than matter (which is missing for me), but instead to merely put it in standby. So it’s essentially still (partially) on.

Wi-fi lost when resuming from sleep (standby)

Many users probably wouldn’t notice, or care, that their PC was in a sleep mode rather than a stone cold shut-down - until they got they electricity bill anyway. Well, except if they are using Wi-fi, because resuming from sleep, quick though it is, seems to play Russian roulette with the Wifi connection. Sometimes it reconnects, sometimes it says it has limited connectivity (a misleading term, it effectively means none at all) and I’ve even had it loose the Wifi adapter altogether on a few occasions.

Start-up: ‘black box’ process

Why does the Windows start-up process have to be like a dark art? I’d like to see what’s actually going on. Like with other operating systems I’ve always thought Windows needs an ‘iconified’ progress system, showing that various components and services are being initialized. It’d be useful for fault and performance diagnosis purposes too, would allow for error and warning messages, and it would actually look quite interesting. Instead, what do we get? - An ugly chunky looking low-res fake progress bar.

In closing…

I’ve not written one of these long ‘rants’ for some time, the last one was while I was still writing for Zombienexus.com, but my continual frustration is getting the better of me. I hope Microsoft can turn it around somewhat with the forthcoming service pack, but my faith is low. Windows XP was rough around the edges at first, but the experience wasn’t so much the problem – it was the security and hardware support in some areas that was lacking. Fixing the experience of Vista with a service pack seems like a lot to expect.

I’m looking to by a laptop in the near future and this will undoubtedly come with Vista pre-installed. I usually want the latest and greatest, but I now feel a bit trapped into the situation. Windows still offers me the best environment for the type of usage I need from a computer, but I’m no longer happy about using it.

I keep meaning to seriously assess my software. The process in my mind is:

• Write a list of all the Windows XP software I use
• Identify which are freeware and which are not (and I know most of them are)
• Investigate if there are freeware alternatives to some of the ones which aren’t free
• Donate a small token of my appreciation to the cream of them
• Spread the word by writing up a brief list of them here

I originally meant to do this as an article for ZombieNexus. There’s a couple of flaws there though. Firstly as many people keep reminding me, I’m still not posting to this blog very often. Frankly, for the most part, I’m happy that my life is already busy and fulfilling enough that I get little ‘free’ time. Still, I’m very aware of it as I’m paying to host this site, and I still have good intentions for it. My buddy Graeme who’s reportedly still working on the code for ZombieNexus, knows the score.

Secondly, my main rig which is Running Windows XP has been a bit sick since about November. It generally works but I sometimes get strange errors, and all my investigations are coming up blank. I get DEP (Data Execution Errors) on boot sometimes. My sound mysteriously disappears sometimes, weirdly - an application at a time, but once one app does it I know its going to start on others and for the first time ever on my home machine I’ve had a BSOD - on shutdown of all things.

What this means is that I’m just keeping it ticking over until Windows Vista comes along. If I’m going to re-install, I may as well upgrade at the same time. This probably makes me glutton for punishment, as the driver situation on Windows Vista is quite clearly not ideal, but the strictness of how they have to be written should help stability.

Anyway, back to my original point. I’ve decided to try and post the list of good freeware apps, one by one, and then make the list later. I’ll see how that goes.

I've been mental busy at work this week so missed most of the fanfare of the launch of Nintendo's new console - the Nintendo Wii. I've just spent the morning catching up on events, so why its all fresh in my mind I thought I'd post my comments.

The Nintendo Wii Console

I've never owned a console, I've always been more of a PC gamer. They type of games I play are better suited to a PC - long, complex and highly immersive. However there is a place in my heart for fun arcade style games - hell that’s why I BYOAC. The only type of games the PC market ever misses out on that I'd like to play has traditionally been fighting games. The rest I can take or leave.

Then, a few months back, I got wind of the Nintendo Wii and my first impression was that it looked really good because its just seemed to be such a fun concept. I mean it was a new and different tack on the control method altogether - the old idea of steering your joypad like a loon with the vain notion its going to make some difference to the game, now actually does just that. It makes gamers get out of their chairs and interact with other gamers and the game itself. Exercise. Fun. Genius.

Just wait for the pro-fitness body-weights for your Wii, and the Japanese will end up becoming a muscle bound nation.

The Nintendo Wii's typical controller actions that will be employed in games

I must admit I had some pre-conceptions about its capabilities - I was expecting that Nintendo would forgo the Microsoft/Sony method of trying to refresh/extend/justify their product by adding in some PC or TV entertainment functionality like HD-DVD playback - with are inevitably not as good as the real thing, are expensive additions and just seem to push the price up. Fortunately they haven't done this, and I'm very glad - That’s what I have a DVD player for. Of course there is a web browser, Opera 9 no less (my personal desktop choice as its the fastest, most advanced and provides the best browsing experience IMHO), but from what I've seen the marriage of the Wii's interface and Opera 9 looks to be a truly innovative browsing experience. I'm definitely looking forward to trying Opera Wii.

The games, while not jawdroppingly beautiful graphically, do look incredibly fun and that's the most important factor. As long as people (kids mainly I suppose) get past the fact that side by side a PC, X360 and Wii version of the same game will look the least impressive on the Wii because of its lower spec, and realise that the games developed solely for the Wii will be (hopefully) truly innovative in gameplay, then the Wii will be a success. However, that's a hard challenge for the Wii, as consumers are easily fooled. Personally, I look at X360 and PS3 versions of some PC titles and think:

"What's all the fuss about? It looks just like the PC version but lacking a lot of the visual (and probably audio) detail and effects, and its undoubtedly simplified for the controllers and most probably easier and shorter. Plus that's got to be hard work playing with a joypad? Nah, I'll stick with my PC cheers."

But console owners are easily fooled into thinking they are getting the same game as the PC version but for their console which cost them less than a good spec PC. Sure Consoles cost less as an initial purchase, but the games normally cost more. Its £15-30 for a PC game at Play.com (£30 is usually for games from the likes of id). X360 games are weighing in at £30-40. PS3 games are quoted at £50. I buy about 2 games a month on average that's about £500 a year, vs. about £850 for the equivalent on the X360 and a whopping £1200 on the forthcoming PS3. So if I spent £1200 on a gaming PC rig then £500 on games, that's the same as the PS3, which can't do all the other tasks most people have a PC for. Anyway, I digress...

The Nintendo Wii Rayman Raving Rabbids game screenshots

Rayman Raving Rabbids is definately a game I'm looking forward to, which suprises me since its generally not my usual type of thing at all - but it looks so bloody funny. Check out some of the media coverage, and make sure you watch the scientific facts on the official site - hilarious!:

• Official Site
• IGN
• High Quality Game Trailer

The Wii pricing is a tad more than I expected. I was hoping for about £149.99. Its debuting at £179.99. That sting could be removed if most retailers offer a free game with the console at Christmas, seeing as gamers are retailing at £34.99 to £39.99, or perhaps a second "Wiimote" controller which retails at £29.99 (plus £14.99 for the Nunchuck). So for me that will be part of the decider - the Christmas extra value packs. However as the console launches on December 8th, very close to Christmas, and given demand may well be high, the retails may well not bother to do this at all, making me rethink it as a purchase. This is of course forgetting the pricing in other regions, which often enrages me. Word is that us Brits are getting stiffed on the price as usual (its usually baed on the exchange rat or some such rot) - with the US version priced at ~£133 and the Japanese version prioced at ~£115. The £150 price tag would have looked unfairly but predicatably higher than those, but £180 seems unjustifiably higher. Maybe I'll just import one?

The Nintendo Wii's reported, but unconfirmed, colour options

One big factor for me (which really isn't a big thing, but its important to some of us) is the colour. The initial release is white. WHITE! I detest white as a colour for technological gadgetry UNLESS its in the kitchen. A fancy kettle, toaster, microwave, dishwasher, fridge-freezer - that’s white! White makes me think of Kenwood food mixers. Not fun gaming consoles. I find it to sterile a colour - which is useful in the kitchen, but not in the living room. I'm assured it will come in different colours, eventually, so I might just wait for the Black or Silver version that would look at home next to my black and silver HDTV (which I haven't bought yet but will before Christmas), my silver DVD player and my silver (well brushed aluminium) HTPC. Its not that they have to match, but its an important aesthetic that they compliment each other - white doesn't compliment silver and black, it contrasts them.

Fortunately I have good gadget restraint. Every technology purchase I make has to be triple justified in my head (and allowed by my wallet) before I dive in. When it comes to gadgetry I don't often do impulse. So Wii, you're on my list of gadgets to watch, but I'm not sure you're right for me just yet.

I didn't used to watch much TV, but I used to watch a lot of films, mainly at the cinema. Then I met Emma, my girlfriend. She definitely likes her TV programmes and so I started spending more and more time watching them with her. About the same time the DVD revolution started too, so we took up buying or borrowing various movies and TV shows on DVD. Recently we've cancelled our cinema 'unlimited' cards, partly because the people who go there keep ruining the movies for us by being noisy, making phone calls (!) or vandalising the cinema, but partly also due to not finding convenient times to go - so a good new home theater setup may be in my near future.

I purchased a 32" widescreen TV (CRT - a traditional glass type) a few years ago when my current 25" square one was on its last legs. It was particularly hard to watch sports on that old TV as the picture was badly curved, so on our TV Beckham wasn't just bending his shots, he was defying the laws of physics. The newer 32" TV does the job, but not very well, and its very heavy (I move around a lot). It was cheap, as I expected I'd want to replace it with something more sophisticated when the time came, and that time draws closer.

I have had my eye on the whole HDTV market for a while, and am fortunate enough to work for a company who have a very large interest in HDTV, and a very large R+D department. I almost broke last summer and got one after spending a day at the R+D site looking at "HDTV and beyond", but fortunately I calmed myself down and refrained. Over the last few weeks I've been reading up on them again. To my surprise an Xbox scene site provided me with the best reading. These articles in particular:

• The TeamXbox.com Guide to HDTV
• The Facts and Fiction of 1080p

The articles were particularly interesting to me as my requirements are a bit more varied than most people. I have a HTPC, a DVD player and a cable box I'd want to plug into an HDTV, plus I want all of these things to share (switch able between sources?) the same sound system. Obviously Xbox users have a similar requirement to be able to use the Xbox on their HDTV along with their content delivery system (Satellite, Cable, TiVo, etc). The only thing I disagree with is the authors preference of DLP (Rear Projection). I personally prefer LCD, but it is very much an individual choice.

The three issues I need to be comfortable with before I make the jump to HDTV are the interoperability of the devices (and of course the connectivity to the HDTV itself), the price of the equipment and the status of British HDTV content. On that last point, this article at Hexus proves that there's an increasing amount, but still not a whole lot.

I was impressed by a review of an unheard-of brand of HDTV over on Hot Hardware. It was called the Sceptre X37SV-Naga and it appeared to be one of those impressive gems that a lesser known company produces as a low cost unit, but actually has very impressive spec's. The reviewer certainly seemed impressed. It's close to what I'd want, but TV's are very regional and of course I'd want a UK specific version to receive our DTV broadcasts, and maybe have a SCART socket or two.

As I got into the DVD scene big time when it happened I have a LOT of DVD's, so I'd want a nice new DVD player capable of getting the most out of them. BlueRay and HD-DVD are of course just around the corner. BlueRay appears better on paper, but never mentions DVD compatibility - and there's no way I'd selling my DVD collection. HD-DVD, while also clearly improving on DVD, does have backwards compatibility and is now even on sale. It is of course too early to tell which will win, so I was looking for a good DVD player, that's not too expensive, in the mean time. By the looks of it, if found what I'm looking for in this NeoDigits/Helios HVD2085. It appears to be very impressive on paper, but I've yet to read a proper review of it. From what I can see it does everything I want, lacking only DivX/XviD support (but I have a HTPC for that) and also lacking UK availability.

So, along with the all the other expensive gadgets and such I keep eyeing up, all I need it a large sum of cash and I'll be sorted.