Christmas is now sorted – too late to change my mind!

So the previous post has set the scene, I have my mind set on the classic. Well I did have my mind made up until I tried one.

I initially looked in the Birmingham Apple store, however they only seemed to have 2 units on display. One Black(dead) and one Silver. Also there was a noisy Apple TV demonstration going on. So with this in mind I decided to head to Solihull. After a brief, but messy nose bleed I proceeded to John Lewis. The iPod setup is fairly poor, so went to the Apple Store in Touchwood. The store was fairly quiet so was able to have a listen and play with a iPods.

First up was a Classic, holding the thing seemed a little odd, it’s just like my fatboy Nano on steroids. Worse was to come for the classic. The first one I tried had a disturbing annoyance, I found that it was stuttering when listening to a track whilst flicking through cover flow. The other two I tried didn’t do it. Also found the classic experience to be a little sluggish in the operation, I’m comparing the operation to my current Nano. It’s nowhere near as bad as my old Sony hdd though, but enough to put me off.

Then looked at the new Nano, whilst I found the operation of the device really slick (cover flow especially – I’m not a big fan of cover flow, but it shows how slow some ipods are) I found the design felt a little cheap compared to my fatboy nano. Lightweight is good, but this really is light.

Then I had a play with an iPod Touch, probably my first real go on an iPhone/Touch device. And yes I bought one (16gb). I may have dismissed the touch in the past, but after a play I really liked it. I could have gone the iPhone 3g route but my existing contract is for another year and I really do hate O2 as a network here in the uk.

Must test the unit tonight then box it up for Christmas

I fancied some new Apple in ear headphones, but looks like they’ve missed the UK stores.

/edit: Mom and Dad now have the touch ready to wrap up 🙁

Christmas, sorted?

Maybe, after deciding against a number of things such as saving money or getting a Netbook I think a decision has been made.

Of course this decision now opens up a number of new decisions. However the original decision has been decided upon as I’ve made a decision to sell something.

O.k.

Decision one……

£175 from John Lewis – minus my discount should be around £150ish

Money from both parents £140, plus my decision(2) to sell my iPod Nano 2nd Gen and dock for £50.

So it’s affordable. Next decision(3) is I have a little change, so what earphones? Lets face it, the apple bundled ones are shit. Will probably have around £40 so will try to get some in-ear ones. The advantage is they cut down noise (handy on the train) plus I should be able to listen to iPod at a lower volume (assuming).

Next decision(4), what colour?

I normally go for the black finish, so I guess my mind is made up.

Possible other decision(5), the new 16gb Nano is cheaper. The 16gb iPod touch is only a bit more(6).

Of course the real problem is I’ve not visited my technical therapy areas recently.

Need to go to the shops…………..(well I could do with shoes as well)

/edit, mmmmmm seems it’s dropped by £5 today. Maybe I should wait! (7)

New Gallery…..

….on SCPhoto.co.uk

It’s night time Birmingham. A collection of images from Birmingham at night!

Currently all the images are around the council house/town hall area. Will hope to introduce more images as soon as I can get out.

I’ve got a few more galleries to do, mainly on the construction side plus a panoramic gallery.

Enjoy!

Netbook decision aka Am I ready for Linux?

Christmas is a dangerous time for me, usually no one knows what to buy me. I’m happy with this as I always get cash, either that or I choose my own presents. This Christmas is no exception, so whilst I’m awaiting the pre Christmas cash to arrive I’m pondering a Netbook.

I’ve had a play with the Acer Aspire in John Lewis. To be honest it’s not a MacBook running OS X, however the man that is known as Steve Jobs decrees that the glorious Apple will not enter that market (afterall, the fucking fanboys will tell you the MBA or the iPhone is ‘the’ mobile internet platform – twats).

So I go into this knowing it’s not going to be as easy (or indeed as easy as it would equally be on Windows XP).

A number of things are putting my off at present. I know that one is easy to resolve (how to get a 3 mobile USB modem working – should be a piece of piss), others are applications I cannot run on Linux.

2 big showstoppers for me. Photoshop and Lightroom. For a netbook I probably do not need the sophisticated library that Lightroom provides. However it’s raw conversion and editing tools/crop tools are required. As for Photoshop, it’s batch processing and further image manipulation are required.

Now I know with Linux others write similar applications. So lets look at the two rivals.

Ufraw: Seems on the face of it a fairly complex raw processer. It can’t (or i’ve not found how) process in bulk. It will process in turn each image If I open say 20-30 at a time. Still it’s only a raw processor.

Gimp: Advocates of Gimp will tell you it’s as good as Photoshop. Sorry it is not. Whilst it’s a good editor it is not CS3.

So game over? Some would say try LightZone. I’m sure it’s great, but at £145.21 for the Linux version it’s not that great. Especially I have invested in LightRoom already. The more I think about it the more I can’t see myself getting a Linux netbook. If it was just for web use then I’d have one now. But the main requirement for me is a small laptop for photography work. Whilst it has options for photography it isn’t an easy solution.

Looks like this Christmas I really do not know what I want.

London Midland

Mini shitfest this morning.

Train on time, gets to Snowhill without issue – then gets cancelled for no apparent reason.

Had to wait another 10 minutes for the next train the Jewellery Quarter (Metro was about 8 minutes, but I couldn’t be arsed to try it).

London Midland = Shit