Re-launch of my music weblog

Following problems with my original blogging software I have decided to bite the bullet and jump ship to a new package and all things being equal I am trying out WordPress and MarsEdit. It will take up to three days for the DNS data to percolate through the Internet.

I have written album and concert reviews only when really moved to do so since 2001 and I am going to add a new feature covering specific tracks that affect me. To start the ball rolling I will be listing my 10 favourite Prince songs.

Leave it a few days and then check out R145.com. Where did the name come from? It was my account number for some time at a specialist record shop where I used to order the majority of my CD's from back before the Internet made getting Japanese imports, rare, long deleted records and very limited editions much easier to come by for those of us daft enough to care.

Free Apple Gadgets?

I have found this site and it seems to offer free Apple kit (and other manufacturers). You simply sign up for an offer (I went for something from Corals but there is a wide choice including film rentals, credit cards and energy supply) and then pass on the good words to your friends. I am aiming for the iTouch. I will let you know how it goes.  Oh and it is open to our American friends too.
Free Apple Kit

The Untimely Death of HD-DVD

With the recent news that Warner Brothers have jumped high def DVD format from HD-DVD to Blu-Ray the format wars appear to be all over bar the shouting.  However, for those of us in the UK (or indeed anywhere outside the US if you can speak English) this is bad news.  Why?  Because there is only one region for HD discs, Region 1.  This means any disc will work on any player anywhere in the world.  No more  waiting to play it on your region coded machine whilst it is sitting in the bargain buckets of America for a few bucks.

Take the recent definitive (I will believe it when I see it) release of Blade Runner.  I bought the special edition five disc standard definition DVD version for £18- from a UK online retailer.  I could have bought the HD version for the same price but the HD version in the UK only included the final cut of the film, whereas the five disc SD version contained the original US release, original international release, 1992 Director’s Cut as well as the final cut and all the extras you could think of plus another disc that had never occurred to you.

So what, I hear you say, or perhaps not but I shall plough on regardless, well the US got a five disc HD version too (well and a Blu-Ray version but Blu-Ray has traditional region coding and my PS3 is UK specific, so no joy there).  Just for the really sad amongst you (okay and me too) there was even a special, special version issued in a Decker briefcase. Why did Warners, for it is their release, not deem those of us outside the US as worthy of the full shebang in high definition? Ridley is actually British, his films have made millions over here, so why did they think there was only the market for it in mainland America?

Since I now have an HD player (well it is the add-on for the X-Box 360 but it does the job) I also have the special, special HD-DVD version in a briefcase courtesy of PlayUSA.

My advice, if you have an HD-DVD player make hay whilst the stocks last and grab discs from wherever you can lay you region free hands on them.

PlayUSA (Blade Runner the ultimate version)

Apple Things - Part 1

Now those who know me also know I am an Apple nut. I will cover my love affair with Cupertino in another posting but this intermittent series will just highlight some of the little extra programmes that make using Macs so much more enjoyable than hacking around in Windows land.

One simple little programme that I have constantly turned on is iStats Menu. It sits in the System Preferences app but displays in the top bar of Mac OS X. You can choose what exactly you want to monitor, as I work on a laptop I am conscious of the temperature of my system rather more than if I used a desktop so one stat is CPU temperature but if you click on it then it also displays the current temperatures for all the key components of the Dual Core system.

I also have the network monitor enabled, which shows KB per second both in and out. Again you can click on it for further information including the ability to launch both Network Preferences and the Network Utility, which is very useful for me as I move from one wireless environment to another.

The final one that I will highlight is the HDD monitor, this actually only shows the amount of space used, again given I have a laptop with a fairly small HDD this is quite important for me. I also have a number of external drives linked at home with my iTunes collection, movies, photographs, etc. and if you click on the HDD monitor it will show you the used space and the available space on all the drives you have attached.

This great little programme is available from iSlayer.com along with a number of other useful items.