DigitalOutbox Episode 20
In this episode the team discuss Windows 7, people power on Twitter, Apple bugs and some great picks.
Playback
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Shownotes
1:20 – Windows 7 Review
– The conclusion? First all of all, you’ll get much better battery life running OS X on Mac laptops than running Windows.
– Secondly, performance-wise, Windows 7 is probably a better choice if you are a gamer (there are more games developed for Windows, anyway), even on Mac hardware.
– Third, if you can get by with just software designed by Apple and if money is not a big issue, you will be happy with a Mac. Examples of these software choices are iTunes, iLife, QuickTime, Safari, iChat, and so on (and you probably won’t need much more than those for daily entertainment and communication needs).
– Finally, if money is not an issue–and it definitely is for most of us–you should get a Mac anyway. It’s the only platform, for now, that can run both Windows and OS X.
5:03 – Family Guy to Promote Windows 7
– Full half-hour show of Family Guy related content with Seth MacFarlane and crew. No ads – other than the huge one of the show itself!
– Is this really a match? Can it work? It will be watched for sure but who’s going to gain? Family Guy probably isn’t.
6:33 – Sidekick Data Found
– Last week we reported about the cloud computing loss of data.
– Statement released by t-mobile/MS warning users not to turn off/hard reset their device otherwise all data would be lost.
– Appears that the data has now been recovered and they are more confident that nobody should lose out.
– Vulnerability of cloud data – out of our control. Hopefully will focus cloud services to ensure redundancy as well as consumers to their responsibility.
8:12 – Guardian Gagged
– Guardian gagged from reporting parliamentary proceedings
– Twitter, blogs go wild
– Most of the info is online anyway
– Trafigura employed legal firm Carter-Ruck, known for it’s media gagging expertese to enforce the ban which stopped the Guardian speaking about this : “To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura.”
– Parliament order book lists the question – http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmordbk2/91014o01.htm – blogs started to piece the story together, spreading the news on twitter
– http://order-order.com/2009/10/12/guardian-gagged-from-reporting-parliament/
– Later, gag is lifted – http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/oct/13/guardian-gagged-parliamentary-question – The existence of a previously secret injunction against the media by oil traders Trafigura can now be revealed.
– Wikileaks has the report – http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Minton_report:_Trafigura_Toxic_dumping_along_the_Ivory_Coast_broke_EU_regulations,_14_Sep_2006
– Does this highlight the futility of media gag’s?
– To many people can publish, too much information distributed, too easy to spread word quickly and effectively on twitter
12:09 – Jan Moir and Daily Mail
– Links death to unnatural causes and links gay marriage and death
– Spouts shite basically
– Twitter outrage, quite rightly so
– Response from Charlie Brooker
– http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/16/stephen-gately-jan-moir
– Daily Mail – orchestrated internet campaign
– PCC (Press Complaints Commission) under severe load – http://www.pcc.org.uk/
– Right wingers bemoan the lack of free speech
– So why did Jonathon Ross and Russell Brand get targeted by the Mail over Sachs comments and where was the freedom of speech there?
– Power of the mob, power of free speech on twitter, mass spread of information
– telegraph’s 50 things killed by the internet – 2) Fear that you are the only person unmoved by a celebrity’s death
– Digital pulse, soapbox for todays generation
– No where to hide for journalists and large corperations when power of the public can be harnessed in this way
– http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/oct/16/jan-moir-stephen-gately-response
15:40 – Sir Tim Berners-Lee apologises to your fingers
– Sir Tim, inventor of the WWW was asked if there was one thing he would change about the net if he had his time again. He said the “//” after the “http:” are completely unnecessary!
– Bastard!
16:55 – Spotify moving ever closer to iTunes
– You can now buy DRM-free 320Kbs MP3’s direct from within the Spotify app.
– It’s like iTunes with full song/album preview against everything. If you want a track to keep, no problem. If you want to remove adverts and listen on the move, no problem.
18:24 – Sky Songs
– Launches Oct 19th, Can’t buy tracks, subscribe per month
– For £6.49 a month, users can download one “£6.49 album” or ten individual songs and stream as much music as they want for one month.
– For £7.99, users can download a “£7.99” album or 15 songs and have the same access to streamed music.
– All four major music labels on board
– PC only at the moment?
20:01 – 4OD Moves to Youtube
– Channel 4 has come to a deal with YouTube to hold all Channel 4’s back catalogue and stream in High Quality.
– Google and Channel 4 will split the revenue generated from ads on the Channel 4 content.
– 3 year deal, with all content expected available by early 2010.
– Channel 4 have the option to opt out of iPhone streaming but no decision has been made yet.
22:35 – Google Making Money
– $1.6bn profit off a total $6bn revenue for 3rd quater of year. 7% up on 2008.
24:41 – Snow Leopard Deletes All Your data
– Difficult to reproduce but seems linked to upgrade from Leopard and use of the Guest account.
– What happens, according to numerous reports, is that after logging in and out of a Guest account (which, upon logout, wipes out any data stored within the Guest account’s home folder), and then logging in to a regular account, people are finding that their regular account has been wiped too.
– Looks to occur only if you had guest account enabled prior to Snowy upgrade
– Apple, which is notorious for not commenting on these things, made the unusual step of acknowledging the problem to CNET.
– This is serious. It should never happen. Even Vista doesn’t do that!
– To prevent, if the Guest Account was enabled before you upgraded to Snow Leopard, pop in to your System Preferences and disable it. Close System Preferences and restart your computer. When you next log in, you can choose whether or not you want to re-enable the Guest Account. Doing so after following these steps ought to be safe, since the Guest Account will be recreated with all-new Snow Leopard settings which, it’s assumed, won’t delete all your valuable personal data. Note – community fix and not an official Apple policy. You could also just disable guest accounts if you never use them.
27:57 – Time Capsule Memorial Web Site
– Average lifetime of Time Capsule – 17months, 4 days – 212 people registered
– They get hot and capacitors look to be frying
– Not good for a device that’s to be used for backing up your data too
– Apple not acknowledging issue – surprise surprise
31:05 – Jailbreak for 3.1.2
– For Mac and Windows
– Let’s you install Cydia, etc
– Anyone tried it?
– iPhone 3GS now shipping with new bootrom, resistant to current jailbreaking techniques
33:45 – Layar for iPhone
– Augmented reality
– Lot’s of layars
– Works well and is free – 3GS only
40:10 – Radio App from Apple
– Tipped rumour that the FM chip in iPhone/iPod touch will be used for a new Radio app to be developed by Apple.
– Possible “Buy this song” functionality against currently playing track. Perhaps working in background just like iPod app.
43:58 – Dyson Bladeless fan
– uber-cool, uber-efficient but uber-expensive -£199 from Argos.
47:00 – Sky on the 360
– Channels
– G.O.L.D, Sky Real Lives, Sky Arts 1, Sky Movies 1 & 2, Sky Sports 1, 2, 3 and Xtra, Sky Sports News, British Eurosport, ESPN
ESPN Classic, Sky News, National Geographic, National Geographic Wild, History, Eden, Cartoon Network, Boomerang, Disney Channel
– Oct 27th
– SD only
– Even if you are not a Sky digital customer, you can now subscribe to Sky Player TV from £15/€18 a month for the Entertainment Pack. This includes the live broadcast of over 20 channels including National Geographic, ESPN Classic, G.O.L.D. and Disney Channel. You are also entitled to the free content available from these channels. You can also choose to upgrade this package to include Sky’s premium channels Sky Movies and Sky Sports, making a total of 21 live channels for your delectation. If you subscribe to Sky Multiroom account then you can watch all the live channels in your pack on your Xbox 360, at no extra cost! Sky Multiroom or Sky Broadband Unlimited customers can also watch Live TV on their Xbox 360’s at no extra charge. All other Sky TV customers can subscribe to watch Live TV on Sky Player for £9.75/€14.75 a month.
Picks
Ian
TVCatchup
– Watch 11 channels live on the iphone
– Works well over 3G
– Happy, happy days
– Free
Chris
SpaceSniffer
– A visual representation of space taken up on a disk. Files and folders all represented by blocks on the screen relative to their filesize. Folder blocks contain their constituent files as smaller blocks.
– Hypnotic to watch a scan taking place. Slick ability to zoon in on areas.
– And is very useful in idenfying where you lose all those Gb’s on your once empty HardDrive.
– Going to be useful for clean install of Windows 7.
Henry
Caffeine
– tiny Mac OS X program that sits on the menu bar and stops your mac going to sleep