Where are we : ‘Internet’ or ‘internet’?

We have a nice television, people often comment on it when they come to our house. They say things like “oooh, you have a nice television” and we say things like “thank you, we like it too”.

But of late I’ve been wondering why we have our nice television.

We spend most of our evenings on the net. I choose to listen to 6 Music (otherwise known as BBC 6) in preference to watching television in the evening. We read blogs, email friends, surf, download podcasts,study and work. Is this the way of the future? Will the internet kill the video star or are we abnormal?

What do you think?

It’s here.

Firefox 1.0 is now available for download.

Stop what you’re doing, go get it now and help reclaim the web.

UDPATE

And now I’ve installed it I’m over the moon! They’ve included the one feature I wanted more than any other – force other applications to open links in a new tab instead of opening a new window! No more spawning new windows – just the one browser and many tabs. Heaven!

More changes and bug fixes here : http://www.squarefree.com/burningedge/releases/1.0.html

When you follow a foreign sport (go the mighty Canucks!) one of the trickier things to keep track of is time. GMT, +/-, daylight savings, all play havoc with the tiny section of my brain set aside to calculate in base 24.

Now, of all organisations, Microsoft have come to the rescue with a fantastic little tool bar icon, called rather aptly Microsoft Time Zone that allows you to specify up to five locations to keep track of. It’s small, elegant and does the job it’s supposed to with the minimum of fuss. Most un-Microsoft.

Of course, there is a catch.

It’s one of the carrots they are dangling in their new Genuine Microsoft Software program. Yes, you can only get this, and several other toys, if you agree to let Microsoft check if your install is genuine and licensed. For the moment it appears no action is taken if you are found to have an unauthorised copy but I’m sure the conspiracy theorists amongst us will be keen to speculate on where this may lead.

I don’t think I’ll be returning to Computers Now any time soon. It’s where I purchased my Ipod, the now wonderful machine I never want to live without (and please don’t tell me about ‘the battery problem’ – do the research first).

I wanted a couple of accessories – a skin and an Italk. I asked about the Italk when we first purchased the Ipod. “Oh no, you need this one.” said the sales guy, pointing to the Belkin version. Hmm, $10 more expensive. Yesterday I went to purchase a skin. “Oh no, you need this one.” said the sales guy pointing me to the $20 (or maybe it was $30) more expensive one.

Okay, I know they are sales people. They are there to get as much money from me as possible. I understand this. What they obviously don’t understand is that a knowledgeable consumer will not return if they know they are being taken for a ride. I had done my research. I knew the Belkin mic was omni-directional and totally unsuitable for what I wanted – but they didn’t even ask what I intended to use it for. The skin, too, was more suitable for me. I wanted to put it on and leave it on. I don’t care it’s a snug fit and the other is in a different colour – this was perfect for me.

Don’t assume you can sucker your customers. Give them service, give them what they want and need and they will come back. Look at them, and treat them, as a walking wallet and they will not return.

(And as for the sales guy at MegaMart who told me that the Ipod mini was the same as a 4G Ipod….the less said the better)

I got my Ipod today.

It doesn’t work – refuses to talk to my PC or my PC refuses to talk to it. All I get is the error message ‘Can’t mount Ipod’. I’ve followed every suggestion I could find on the net and still nothing.

Apple only have paid customer support on Saturdays, I have to wait until Monday if I don’t want to get slugged to get my new machine working.

Looks like my first purchase from Apple may also end up being my last.

I’m converting my music collection to play on Itunes (go on, guess why). Currently they are in WMA and Itunes wants to convert them.

Fair enough. There’s 1570 odd files to convert so I set it running. It gags on one file about 100 in and rather than continue with the next file it stops stone cold. And there’s no resume option. And it doesn’t delete the WMA file once it’s converted so you double the size of your music library. 1570 files will take about 12 hours to convert but how confident can I be to let it run overnight? Knowing my luck it will choke again once song after I head off to bed and I’ll have to nurse it through tomorrow.

Not impressed with this supposed Apple brilliance.