not yours

TV's back: week one

2009-09-13T12:17:15Z

It's been quiet in TV land these past few months, which coupled with a rather boring summer at work has made for a rather boring summer overall, hence no real updates. Still, the new TV season is gradually kicking into gear this month, and as usual I'm relying heavily on TV Guide's Fall Schedule Calendar to plan the weeks ahead; it works out to two and a bit shows this week, twelve next week, four the following Sunday and two or three in October - notably Stargate: Universe.

This week, I'll be sure to watch the series finale of King of the Hill tonight, followed by premieres from Fringe and The Office on Thursday.

The thought occurred

2009-08-05T09:18:15Z

I'm sorry, but looking at the new Microsoft Store logo:

Can you really blame me for making the association?

I think I'll trademark that.

Bye-bye, privacy

2009-03-19T08:49:16Z

This morning I went on Google Maps and discovered, completely at random, that they've very quietly enabled Street View for Edinburgh, and indeed quite a few other spots in the UK and some other countries. Only a day behind the reveal!

Whoo

2009-03-03T14:06:24Z

I've decided I'm buying a second Mac mini now the new ones are out, but I'm sure as hell not paying £120 for the extra 260MHz of processor speed.

twits

2009-02-18T19:44:20Z

Public Service Announcement: "Twittering" is NOT blogging. I don't care that this post could have fit into a Twitter, either. Darn you all.

Tomorrow is just another day

2009-02-13T22:14:11Z

Everyone seems to have forgotten about 14022009.

Up yours, commerce.

An ode to Boxee

2009-02-07T20:00:00Z

While I wrote about Apple TV becoming more useful last June, I don't remember mentioning that I actually bought one with earenwe's help while I was Stateside. I invested in the 40GB model only when I was sure I could at least modify it to play my numerous XviD downloads, and that's what it's been doing since. It's gotten to the point that I have a whole lot of TV to watch on my own, because the parentals have been using the ATV's piss-easy-to-use interface to blaze through episodes of various shows when I'm not around. Purpose served!

Last night, with the 2.3 software update (and a freshly-activated Boxee account) calling to me, I decided to try updating my Apple TV once more through the use of a patchstick. Downloaded the excellent atvusb-creator, and Apple's own 179MB 2.3 update DMG (direct link); put two and two together and got eight, as atvusb-creator added SSH+FTP access, plus a launcher for the Boxee and XBMC media interfaces. All went really well, and all I had to do once the Apple TV restarted under the new firmware was install the add-ons using the customised interface.

Boxee is a joy to use; I only wish I could say the same about some of the content providers it offers inroads to. Hulu is a total waste of screen space, as all its content is US-only. MTV's channel is even more annoying, as some of the music videos are US-only while others aren't - it's only when you find something and try to play it that you get the obnoxious "no pony" message up on screen. Anything you can't watch is still logged in your Boxee feed as having been watched, which is also irritating.

BBC iPlayer's interface, on the other hand, is brilliant, mainly because nothing's off-limits and I no longer have to illictly download off iPlayer only to re-upload to the Apple TV. I was watching full episodes of The Daily Show and South Park through Comedy Central's channel, although again I encountered sporadic problems streaming video, with one South Park ep coming through in black and white which was odd. CNN's channel is useful for the odd news clip, and one day I'll get around to adding my own video feeds from other sources.

The XBMC media interface looks definitely more polished, but there are a few bugs still to be worked out: mainly the one where if you return to the menu while watching a video, you can't access the small playback controls using the Apple remote to go back to full-screen mode. I have to admit though, watching the main menu blended into a currently-playing episode of Fringe looks quite nifty. Both interfaces have the overscan problem licked, with a nifty interface to control visible corners and aspect ratio.

I'll go back to playing with my infinitely-more useful Apple TV now; if anyone wants a Boxee account, let me know.

Waking up to Elbow in the morning

2009-02-07T09:59:09Z

Really enjoying this Elbow concert, recorded at Abbey Road Studios on January 17th. It's only available until 10pm tonight, though, so be quick if you want to catch the full hour. Sample below.

OMG WHITE STUFF

2009-02-02T18:09:30Z

Seriously, every time a little snow falls in this country, everyone behaves as if snow didn't even exist before that exact moment. I want out.

This one's for the fangirls

2009-01-31T19:56:38Z

Oh, Gaeta...

Shopping list holders

2009-01-30T14:12:30Z

Dear Lazyweb,

I have been wanting one of these for a very, very long time. But my Google-fu has failed me, for I can only find an American retailer who sells them for $17 but then charges (through a third party) $50 in shipping costs.

Does such a thing exist in the UK, or even another European country? I hear they're popular in Sweden...

Can you? Can you?

2009-01-24T20:22:26Z

Ten points to anyone who attended Tuesday's inauguration who can find themselves in this photo. (blog post)

I'm thinking the app really needs a "link to this view" button.

Down with flash radio player sneakiness!

2009-01-04T23:01:10Z

My Roku Soundbridge just proved its worth a third time, thanks to my shiny new universal remote. Turns out there's a dedicated infrared command for each of its eighteen Internet radio presets, so while there aren't eighteen equivalent buttons on the remote I can still program my universal remote to access them directly. Now, if I can only assign channel icons to them, it'd be all pretty.

So with my new-found ability to listen to as much Internet radio as I like, guilt-free, I decided to look up the stream URLs of my favourite stations. Which is when I discovered a dirty tactic by CBS Radio, which has hidden its various stream URLs behind a silly Flash player. Went hunting, and found an incredibly handy generic PLS address:

http://provisioning.streamtheworld.com/pls/STATIONNAME.pls

Where STATIONNAME is the call letters or name of the station, for instance:

http://provisioning.streamtheworld.com/pls/KROCK2.pls (K-ROCK2, Internet-only version of New York's WXRK with better music on it)
http://provisioning.streamtheworld.com/pls/WBCNFM.pls (WBCN-FM, The Rock of Boston)

Append DIALUP for the low-bitrate stream, e.g.: http://provisioning.streamtheworld.com/pls/WBCNFMDIALUP.pls

I imagine this URL format works with most of the call letters from the List of broadcast stations owned by CBS Radio. Neato.

Just give me cash next time, okay?

2008-10-25T19:19:28Z

If gift vouchers were a false economy, then gift cards are a total scam. When you lay down your money to purchase a gift card, the salesperson takes this credit card-sized thing and swipes it in the till to credit it with its new balance.

The balance is nowhere to be found on the card, but on a receipt you get with the card. Both can get lost, and at the very least they'll get separated. Worse, this balance expires if the card remains unused for a period of anywhere between 12 and 24 months.

Retailers claim that gift cards are preferable to paper vouchers that don't expire, suggesting it avoids situations where people try to buy goods using years-old, moth-eaten vouchers and risk being refused. But really, it's a way for them to use terms and conditions to steal your money; take too long to decide what to spend your virtual balance on, and said balance gets nullified.

Virgin Megastores, as was, tried to stick these bullshit terms and conditions on their gift vouchers, before so many people complained that they were forced to remove the 12-month expiry, which of course returned when they started their gift card scheme. Since Virgin sold its megastores to lowercase zavvi, Virgin gift cards are still valid; only problem is zavvi has now closed the only store that was close to me.

HMV Group, meanwhile, has taken this gift card scheme to new heights of insanity. Time was, HMV (music store) gift vouchers were valid in Waterstone's booksellers, and Waterstone's vouchers could be used in HMV, as both chains are owned by the same company. Since HMV and Waterstone's eagerly switched to selling gift cards, this freedom of choice has disappeared. HMV gift cards are only valid toward HMV purchases, and Waterstone's gift cards can only be redeemed in Waterstone's.

After spending £49 of my £50 in M&S gift vouchers this morning, I'm left with a £1 M&S gift card.

I am so opposed to gift cards now that I will send back any I receive. I would encourage others to do the same.

Scam artists

2008-10-02T19:45:44Z

I don't like surprises, so imagine my surprise when I decided to actually look at this month's phone bill only to discover a single international call costing £14. So, I took unilateral action. We're now paying BT £1 per month so we can pay them an additional 6p/min for calls to Iceland, instead of 50p/min.

Why I oughta...

Fun with Finance!

2008-09-29T22:04:49Z

The week after my bank over here gets taken over by another bank, news comes today of my bank over there which has been renationalised, albeit temporarily.

I don't particularly envy my mortgage-paying friends right now.

Forgot to mention

2008-08-31T19:46:23Z

The annual Fireworks Concert here in Edinburgh is starting in fifteen minutes - 9pm BST, 4pm EDT, 1pm PDT - and it's being webcast for the first time this year. Check it out.

New channel hooray!

2008-08-15T17:53:42Z

I have this obsession with watching countdowns, so whenever a channel rebrands or a new one launches on Freeview it's likely I'll be watching the countdown. I feel sad we've lost The Hits, but 4Music is coming and it's looking sexier...

7 minutes to go! [And yes, this means I'm home at a reasonable time for once this month...]

08.08.08

2008-08-08T22:41:16Z

Say what you want about China, but damn do they know how to put on a good show. Great fun.

In other news, this past week's been hell.

Spotted literally MINUTES AGO

2008-08-01T17:05:47Z

The world's favourite invasion of privacy, a couple hundred metres from my home!

I have only today to decide!

2008-07-31T12:23:52Z

View Poll: VERY IMPORTANT POLL

And another thing

2008-07-07T00:08:00Z

Passenger remarks loudly on the plane back: "I lost the game!"

Guess what I just lost.

Home! No thanks to Ryanair.

2008-07-06T18:00:47Z

Ryanair is a depressingly shit airline, the only one to give me the feeling that I, along with everyone else, am being treated like cattle. Which is why I was shocked to be offered a free in-flight magazine on the flight home. Terribly rough landings there and back, though; as if the plane dropped a whole five feet onto the tarmac, ka-thunk style. Won't be flying Ryanair again if I can possibly avoid it.

They had the audacity to slap a £4 surcharge on me on Friday, payable at check-in, as I (along with the vast majority of those in the ridiculously long queues for my flight) failed to check in on-line because their web site wouldn't let me - "sorry, an error occurred, please try again later" - and then punished me further for using their check-in desks by denying me on-line check in for the return flight. They neglected (forgot?) to charge me another £4 for that, but I have a good mind to write the OFT regardless. I have never held so much resentment and contempt towards an airline even before I'd used them, although now I feel totally justified for doing so.

In other news: a limitation of my Apple TV, despite its Flickr integration, is that I can only subscribe to contacts and view their albums. This isn't so bad in itself, but especially for screen saver purposes I'd prefer to be able to subscribe to a pool, or tag, such as "landscapes", and use those. For now I'm settling on djw's recent photos, which feature a lot of truly spectacular architectural and landscape shots.

Apple TV just became that much more useful

2008-06-04T13:26:42Z

As with my iPod touch, I never planned on buying an Apple TV until I figured I could hack it to make it more useful. With the iPod touch I wanted to add applications and functionality, to the point where I now have it pushing live info on the tracks I'm listening to to last.fm, and I can use Soulseek to download tracks directly from the Interwebs - for free - that I own already but don't necessarily have on my iPod there and then.

As far as Apple TV is concerned, I primarily wanted to upload files to the thing's HD and enable it to play XviDs, and people have already figured out how to do this so all I need to do is follow the instructions. I posted back in January about how useless even Apple TV "v2.0" was in a UK market without any form of movie rentals, but as of today Apple and the studios have finally started offering a limited selection of "films" on the UK iTunes store.

There is still no way in hell that I am handing over even £6.99 for a digital copy of a library film - let alone £10.99 for a new release - when I can just as easily buy an actual DVD for less money and rip that. What actually does tempt me is the price point for rentals: non-HD rentals that last for 48 hours as opposed to 24 in the States cost £2.49/£3.49. Couple that with instant download+playback on the Apple TV and suddenly that £199 outlay for the unit itself doesn't sound nearly as extortionate. (Although I'd still prefer to buy it in the US for $229.)

Memetime

2008-05-17T09:57:15Z

Tagged by earenwe, of all people.

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they're not any good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your LJ along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they're listening to.

Phantom Planet - Leave Yourself For Somebody Else

Alter Bridge - Watch Over You

Massive Attack - Teardrop

Augustana - Boston

Louis XIV - Guilt By Association

Ludo - Love Me Dead

The Trews - Can't Stop Laughing

I hereby tag volantwish, jpallan, ursamajor, velvetchamber, aurorra, perfy and maidenus. So there.