A new toy

I bought a new phone the other day, for no good reason.

Nope, I did not buy an iPhone, nor and iPad, continuing my small protest of all things Apple. (I’m thinking of going into business making signs with a bar sinister slashed through a rotten apple proclaiming “Fruit Free Zone” but my wife thinks I’m trying to justify a meat-only diet!)

Nope, I did not buy a replacement Nokia, despite being incredibly satisfied with my N95 8Gig. When I bought this phone almost two years ago I researched available phones for months and became convinced that the N95 was very close to perfect. At the time there was even a thread on Nokia.com’s forum entitled “Is the N95 the greatest phone ever made?” I have always been happy with this phone but I fell in love with it when we were closed for our stocktake/tagging period and I took advantage of it’s amazing music player and Bluetoothed some wireless headphones. It was a fantastic experience, not far away from the first time I heard LP’s through decent headphones. This has been a great phone but it’s spiritual successor, the Nokia N8, uses an odd OS called Symbian and Nokia have already announced they will not be supporting the OS for much longer, which doesn’t inspire much faith in the long-term viability of the phone. It is a staggering phone in terms of hardware with a 12Meg camera, HD video capabilities and another fine media player but these days phones are all about apps.

I hate this word ‘apps’, what was wrong with ‘applications’? Too many syllables? But, since it has become an accepted term, and I am an advocate of using English as it adapts and alters, I’ll just have to cope.

I wouldn’t be the first person to note that mobile phones are now much more about computer-like abilities than telephonic proficiency but in very recent days I have become a convert to the concept. Apple pioneered (or, at the very least, popularised) the idea of downloading additional applications to add personalised functionality to your ‘device’ (as opposed to ‘phone’). Arguably because it was Apple, developers swarmed to the concept and both validated and  expanded the market for those applications. Most of us would remember Apple’s  “…there’s an app for that” marketing campaign and I have often wondered if it was the first phone campaign that never actually mentioned the device’s ability to make a phone call.

I will happily admit that I liked Apple’s concept and the iPhone introduced a slew of interface improvements that were incredibly smooth and intuitive, making the iPhone so easy to learn and use that it set new benchmarks for the whole industry. Just because I have issues with Apple-the-company doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate Apple’s achievements and products.

So I guess, essentially, I was looking for a non-Apple iPhone (or a Clayton’s iPhone, if you are mature enough to recall that reference). I wanted a phone with a great screen, auto-rotating aspects, pinch-to-zoom and, most importantly, the ability to download and install additional functionality (no, Saire, not games!).

A wish-list like that meant I was going to end up with an Android phone.

Android as an operating system has been around for few years now but it is only recently that it has become big news. It’s now up to the sixth release, called FroYo, and the next version, Gingerbread, is being hotly anticipated. FroYo has added a few features that closely emulate iPhone apps and there are some that are probably superior. Certainly there is a greater range of free apps than is available at the App Store although Apple has almost double the range of apps in total.

I love tinkering with technology, especially hardware, and Android phones have that appealing tinker factor, although they are generally pretty decent phones without modifying or upgrading.

Yes, I did consider one of the range of phones using the new Windows Phone 7 OS, which seems to be pretty well regarded, with a lot of pundits alleging it is the finest iteration of the Windows Phone OS ever made. Lots of reviewers seem happy with it but, to be honest, the whole ‘tile interface’ looks cheap to me. It’s only my opinion but isn’t your own opinion the most important factor when you buy a phone?

In then end I bought a Samsung Galaxy which does not currently have FroYo but, like most Android phones, can be upgraded to the newer version. Indeed Optus have already sent me a message encouraging me to enjoy a free OS upgrade.

I did not need a new phone but I knew I was approaching the end of my current contract so I started looking around and got very excited about these Android phones. Optus bent over backward to allow me to finish my existing contract early and sign a new contract and it turns out that I will be saving just over $13 a month on the new plan.

In the end, being a tech head, do I need any better reason than a $13 a month saving? J

Multiple media and synchronicity (or just co-incidence!)

I have never considered myself much of a fan of classical or symphonic music but there have been any number of connections to it, whether I recognised it or appreciated them. I have a cousin who plays French horn (which, I’m told, may be the hardest instrument to master) and has worked, full time, his entire life as a professional symphonic musician (he currently plays for the Sydney Philharmonic and Sydney Ballet Company, I think). My mum and an aunty used to take me to the Proms at the Entertainment Centre (RIP) every year in my youth, which I enjoyed, perhaps more than I told them. (BTW – I really miss the Proms; they disappeared while I was living in Brisbane and it made me quite sad when I realised they were gone.) I listened to a fair amount when I was a kid but mainly because the only records ( for the youngsters out there ‘records’ were an oil-refinery by-product once used for recording audio. Think of oversized, black, CD’s) my parents owned were classical or movie soundtracks like Oliver, Jesus Christ Superstar and West Side Story.  

As I age, however, I’ve noticed that I more often enjoy the musicality of symphonic music as a variety to my usual punk, techno, alternative or Floyd. I still hate opera but I’m learning to appreciate classical and symphonic music enough that ABC classics is one of the pre-sets on my car stereo. It’s probably worth mentioning that I loathe listening to adverts and idiots on the radio; if the music stops I’ll change channels, except if it’s for the news.

I work with staff who’s musical taste covers just about everything and a few of them are mighty talented: one passed all her piano exams right up to the point where she would have been permitted to teach but then gave it up when she had kids and moved up north; another one is a violinist with one of Perth’s local symphony orchestra’s, though she insists she is still an amateur.

One advantage of being surrounded by peers who all have different musical taste is that discussions about music can range far and wide. Last Friday, for example, I was discussing music with some of the other staff and the discussion turned to 80’s and 90’s music. One of the staff, let’s call her Smurfette, mentioned what a fan she was of ‘Depeche Mode’ and we had a bit of chat about the band and her memories of their music. I played one of their tunes called ‘Condemnation’ and told her that it reminded me of the song I had used for my wedding. I don’t know why – the lyrics, tune, melody and rhythm were all different but, for some reason it reminded me of ‘Gorecki’ by a band called Lamb, a powerful and romantic song that so moved my fiancée the first time she heard it that she instantly agreed we would use that as our wedding song, instead of Vast’s ‘Touched’, which had been her preference for years.

Smurfette said she had never heard it or, at least, couldn’t recall it and, as we can’t play YouTube or other music clips here at work I told here I would bring it to work next time she was working here.

On Friday night I was driving home from an excellent dinner with friends at Mahsuri Thai and, as moronic DJ’s and inane advertising would have it, I switched the car stereo to ABC Classics. Now there was someone talking but he wasn’t loud, nor abrasive, nor irritating and, to tell the whole truth, my wife and I were discussing plans for the rest of the weekend, so I was only giving the radio 10% of my attention, because 90% was fully focussed on everything my wife was saying J

Anyway, the ABC DJ was talking about a 20^th century composer who, in terms of his reputation, fell on quite hard times in the 70’s due to a change in his style and it was many years before the impending piece was recognised as an extremely significant work in the minimalist milieu. The work in three movements was about motherhood and the pain of separation through war. Called Symphony number 3 officially it is better known as the ‘Symphony of Sorrowful Songs’ by Henryk Gorecki.  The music started and I was immediately struck by the sparse power of the melody and was thoroughly enjoying it in a very short time. My enjoyment was interrupted, temporarily, by us stopping for petrol. We were gone for some time and when we returned to the car I found that the tenor had started singing and I changed the station, not with any disdain, simply because I don’t like opera.

Today, I was talking to the staff member who plays violin, let’s call her Talented, about music and I mentioned that I had heard this piece by a 20^th century composer who’s name I couldn’t recall, but I really enjoyed at least the start of this work. While we were trying to work out who I was talking about I mentioned that the piece was included laments by mothers bemoaning the loss of their sons during wartime. Talented was sure she could work out what it was and she went off to ask Uncle Google.

Talented very quickly got back to me and told me the name(s) of the piece and the composer: Gorecki.

I replied that there is some irony there because Gorecki had written a piece called a ‘Symphony of Sorrowful Songs’ and I had used a piece called Gorecki as the primary tune during my wedding – “I hope that wasn’t my wife's lament, hahaha” I said.

Talented noted that she, too, had never heard of ‘Gorecki’ by Lamb and I replied “Well, I have it here, I bought it in for Smurfette to listen to” and started rummaging in my bag.

After a while Talented wandered off, tired of waiting for me to find this mysterious tune.

Meanwhile, I was going crazy. I have, normally, three USB drives in my drawer and 6 more USB drives in my bag. I checked each one for this tune, remonstrated with myself and then checked again, and then again. I knew I had bought ‘Gorecki’ into work, I remembered putting it my bag and mentally ticking the task off. It was very frustrating. Eventually I decided there was a chance that one of my USB’s might have been accidentally put in the wrong pocket in my bag and I started to dig through the accumulated detritus. Then I noticed the CD….

“Ah ha!” I cried, pulling the CD out and waving it in the air like a trophy.

I called Talented over, plugged in some headphones and played her track 4 on the album.

I left her to have a listen and she found on note on the album liner that I had never seen, in which the writer explained that ‘Gorecki’ the tune had been written to honour Gorecki the composer after hearing his 3^rd symphony for the first time.

So does all that count as synchronicity or is it all just coincidence?

But that wasn’t my only question…..

I had significant difficulty locating a piece of music I knew was in my possession. Why had it taken so much effort to find?

Because I knew I had planned to play a tune on my work PC my brain had gone straight to “Which USB stick did I send that file to?” and I had spent fruitless minutes checking and rechecking one form of media.

Once I actually started looking for alternatives I finally noticed that CD I had been shoving out of the way.

Now I don’t bring an MP3 player to work, so I knew the file had to be on a PC-compatible media but I find it fascinating that I couldn’t let go of the idea that it was on a USB drive. Even as little as 3 years ago I think I would have looked for a CD first but now it’s all about the portable flash drives.

I played a video for friends this weekend and, once again, the first place I looked for the file was a USB drive. Admittedly I own rather more USB drives than most people but the reality is that USB drives and iPods (or non-fruit equivalents) have usurped CD and DVD as a storage medium in a quiet but pervasive manner. One has to ask if we should bother with the whole BluRay thing at all – maybe  we should just start waiting for movies to be released on USB drives instead.

I’m not sure I quite realised how much I depended on USB drives instead of discs before today.

In case anyone has tweated me

hmmm, I wonder if it's related to the wiki-war?
anyway...
If anyone has tweeted @gozziehoon and I have not replied it's access to Twitter has gone weird. I (and I'm guessing other staff in the council) can sign in but everything works except the actual tweets :-)
It's a lot like having a working DVD player but no discs :-)

One other facet of the Wikileaks frenzy

I am so NOT trying to start a debate about Wikileaks, Julian Assange, their philosophy or political reactions over the last couple of weeks.
What I am fascinated to see is how fragile the Web has turned out to be, once real challenges to general perceptions of free speech were made.
I was a little dismayed to see the Library of Congress ban Internet access to the site but, honestly, I can see some elements of truth in both sides of the debate. (If you want to see a reasonable, generally well-reasoned and relatively insightful discussion about it you could do worse than checking out their own blog site  http://bit.ly/eN4hom  )
What caught me off guard was the swift and strong responses by elements of the Web: Paypal took away Wikileaks ability to get money through them; different hosting services refused to host Wikileaks; a primary DNS service denied Wikileaks IP resolution services (now that was new and very scary  -I've not heard of that happening before) and banks froze Wikileaks funds.
It's a strong reminder that, although we think of the Web as virtually unassailable and a haven for all forms of expressions and free speech, in the end there is still a lot that can be done by governments and corporations to limit what the average citizen can see.
Here is a pretty good summary of the issues http://rww.to/gkETu2
I would like to re-iterate I am not willing to discuss the rights or wrongs of Wikileaks actions - I don't think this blog (set up as part of my job) is the appropriate forum for that discussion.
But, I do feel that we are now watching "The first serious info-war...", given the reactions by a loose association of hackers operating under the name 'Anonymous', who, over the last 24 hours, have used the Web to launch attacks on banks, the Swiss legal prosecutors, Facebook, Twitter and others in what appears to be retaliation to the way Wikileaks has been treated.
It's all a bit grim.
EDIT: Up-to-date, financially oriented, follow-up article here http://bit.ly/gLeG7w

Google joins the eBook storm

In my last post I just wanted a very quick note about the range of eBook readers and their formats, with a few links to other sites. Interestingly, a number of readers made very insightful comments and additions, which made the whole post much more comprehensive, not to say informative.
Just a quick follow-up, with a bunch of links. A day or so after my post Google announced their new (long-discussed) eBook service, which created a small stir, and then a big one.
Complaints included a notable US bias http://bit.ly/egGGUk or http://bit.ly/fg6Llo , which seemed to annoy people, and then a reaction from other booksellers, including Borders http://bit.ly/gtfvnC, calling it "...not a legitmate bookstore." and Amazon, who quickly went on the attack with Kindle for the Web http://bit.ly/ea2jop .
To wrap up, here is a link to a grumpy UK site http://bit.ly/fKPpl6 and a West Australian view, if you missed it http://bit.ly/gYMVaB .
I have to say that I feel like I'm watching a swarm of early adopters squabbling and I'm happy to just sit back and wait for the dust to settle before I decide where to spend my hard-earned.
So maybe I (and not a few libraries) will wait for next year before committing to an eBook relationship.

Thinking about an eBook reader for Christmas?

Further to our previous posts and comments about eBook readers I thought I'd have a quick look at this years choices. Last year I remember being dismayed that I couldn’t buy a Kindle at this time of year. I’m not actually sure, now, if it was because the Kindle wasn’t available, or I was too poor or whatever, but I do recall wanting but not getting an eBook Reader.

This year the range of choice is quite simply whelming (not quite overwhelming but getting there) and there are factors that need to be considered.

Not least amongst these issues is what format your preferred eReader uses or supports. As a technology trainer I am fully aware that most technological neophytes have absolutely no concept of file formats and I’m sure some eReader purchasers are going to be a bit surprised one they discover the 'joys' of unsupported formats.

I was going to do a quick summary of what to look for in an eBook Reader but I discovered that Harvey Norman have done most of the hard work for me at http://bit.ly/g0gdTa . It is worth mentioning, however, that they do not talk about the different kinds of screen. Essentially, you can get e-Ink (like the Kindle) or LCD (like the iPad). There is a lot of discussion about the benefits and drawbacks of both but I’m inclined to join the ‘eInk for readers, LCD’s for everything else’ team (as succinctly explained here http://bit.ly/f73sp7 ). These matters also directly relate to battery life and usability beyond reading digital books. (I am so not getting into a discussion of touchscreen versus buttons, either!)

Below is a very brief list of available readers right now. It is not comprehensive and I strongly urge you to research your choice before you buy; I have a strong suspicion that we, as library staff, are going to hear a lot of opinions about different readers over the coming months and a lot may be based on which model was bought.

Here are a couple of websites that are decent places to start researching your choices: http://www.ebookreaderreview.com.au/tag/best-ebook-reader  or http://bit.ly/fbxDu9

(Note, I am including the iPad, despite it not technically being an eBook reader. With the size and shape  it has I can’t imagine why you would buy one over an iPhone unless it was to use it as a reader. Now there is an opinion to incite bitter reactions.)

Migear 7 eBook reader

http://dicksmith.com.au/product/A3451/migear-ebook-reader-7-quot-tft-colour-purple

Supports PDF, TXT, EPUB, CHM, RTF, HTML

$129

GHT E-Reader

http://www.jbhifi.com.au/portable/mp3-players/ght/e-reader-7-inch-black-sku-54465/

Supports Ebook, txt, pdf, epub, avi, divx, mp3, jpg, bmp and others

$124

iRiver reader

http://www.jbhifi.com.au/portable/mp3-players/iriver/6-inch-e-book-reader-sku-52677/

Supports ePub, mp3, txt, doc, ppt and others

$343

Kindle

http://amazon-kindle-australia.com/

Supports PDF, awz (Amazon proprietary format)

$139

Hanvon eLink eBook Reader WRN516b

http://bit.ly/fz2yp1

Supports txt, mp3, ePub, html, jpg, pdf, png

$229

Laser eReader

http://catalogues4u.com.au/ViewCatalog.aspx?catID=1036

Supports Abode eBooks, ePub, doc, html, pdf

$99

Kobo

http://www.borders.com.au/electronics/kobo-wifi-black/13950042/

Supports Adobe eBooks, ePub, pdf

$177.95

Sony Touch

http://www.borders.com.au/electronics/reader-touch-edition-by-sony-6-black/13060543/

Supports MP3, PDF

$229.95

Apple iPad

http://www.apple.com/au/ipad/

Supports MP3, pdf, jpg, doc, html and others  

From $629