chrisgreen.co.uk

Yes, I know its only Monday, but that doesn’t mean I can’t resurrect my favourite list-based rant format. Christ knows I need something to get me motivated today:

1. That study is not going to tidy itself.
2. 90 per cent of the world is populated by very nice people
3. 5 per cent are idiots
4. 3 per cent voted for Bush – they need to be shot first come the revolution
5. 1.5 per cent bought Betamax – need I say more
6. The remaining 0.5 per cent are rude/prickly/overly aggressive/piss people off/don’t appreciate the situation (delete as appropriate). I haven’t decided what to do with these ones yet – might sell them on eBay.
7. eBay rocks!
8. I didn’t want a walnut-effect steering wheel, what I really wanted/needed was a new leather one.
9. I’m sure Euro 2008 was a feast of football, but it failed to do anything for me 
10. Not enough going on at Frightfest to justify a full festival pass this year, but I’ll be there for at least half the event.
11. Jeremy Clarkson actually said something useful…when was the last time you just went for a drive……It’s been too long.
12. Mmmmmmm…….cheese!
13. Lovefilm sucks! If it improves, I’ll stay, otherwise I’m off
14. Busy busy week this week.
15. I need a new phone. I want a Nokia E71, but given my network provider only seems to add new handsets a year after everyone else, and has a hatred of anything with a keyboard, I’m not holding my breath.
16. Finally did an iTunes movie rental on Saturday – the whole experience was surprisingly good.
17. Despite being a Tesco loyalist, I am thinking about defecting to Asda.
18. Not spending enough time blogging or Twittering. Need to sort both out.
19. Need to find a nice place to stay in Northern France for a long weekend, somewhere that’s big for food and drink would be a huge bonus.

It’s the perfect gift for birthdays, christenings, grduation, or just a good read if you are stoned or just miss the greatest decade since we all realised the world isn’t flat.

Written by members of the greatest generation (those of us who grew up in the 80s), and edited by my friend and colleague Simon Brew, this book is the definitive guide to all things 80s - TV shows, music, films and proper computer games (the ones that came on tapes).

You can buy Celebrate the 80s now from Amazon.co.uk.

And yes, I did write some of it.

Seriously, its a brilliant book and it will bring back some fantastic memories, and a few that will make you cringe as well. Find out what all your 80s big and small screen favourites are doing now (not all of them are flipping burgers for a living) and read some exclusive interviews with the people who pioneered 80s entertainment.

WARNING: This book does contain a picture of me, with a mullet!

Tomorrow (May 1st) is the London Mayoral election. If, like me, you live within the boundaries of Greater London, please do not ruin it for the rest of us by voting for the leftie Communist Newt-toucher Ken Livingstone or the damp lettuce-leaf ineffective copper Brian Paddick. Vote for Boris Johnson.

A VOTE FOR BORIS IS A VOTE TO SAVE LONDON FROM ANOTHER 4 YEARS OF ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL FAILURE

I was born in London (in the Middlesex Hospital, which was opposite the IT PRO offices until it was knocked down a few weeks ago), I grew up here, I’ve worked here for almost my entire working life, and lived within the confines of the M25 for all but 4 of my 32 years on this planet.

In that time I have seen London develop and prosper. However, in the last eight years I have seen it steadily unravel and become a cesspit of hate, poverty, social unrest, failed public services, wasted local taxation, failed and unnecessary environmental projects, an underground rail system that is a worldwide joke, and unwanted Mayoral project after another. And there are too many buses on the roads!

Ken Livingstone has been responsible for destroying London over the last eight years, and given another term in office he will finish the job to the point that the effects of his ill-conceived and self-serving policies will not be repairable.

The Lib Dems have demonstrated themselves to be good local council custodians, but nothing more. Their choice for Mayor is inexperienced, a poor public speaker, and was an irritating politically-correct police officer who must share some of the blame for the woeful state of the Met and the frustrations felt by thousands of good coppers who just want to do their jobs. A London with him as Mayor would simply fade into the background, much like the current Lib Dem leadership.

Only Boris Johnson can provide common-sense leadership for the London Assembly and start the work on repairing London’s deteriorating public services and appalling record on law and order, putting London back at the top of the global agenda for businesses and investors, as well as tourism.

A vote for Boris is a vote for prosperity, for good schools, safe streets, jobs, good public transport, affordable driving options, environmental policy that makes sense and a London to be proud of again!

For the first time in years (far longer than I can actually remember for sure), I’ve forgotten to take my mobile phone with me. As I am now half way along my journey to work, this means I will be separated from my phone until at least 7pm today.

I already feel a bit cut-off, but that will soon change when I get into the office. For now, I’m making do with my 3G modm and the MacBook, which is how I am doing today’s post.

Suffice to say, if you need to reach me today, you will actually need to call my office landline for a change, rather than going straight to my mobile.

I do get rather fed up with people, usually work contacts, who insist on using my mobile phone number as the primary way of contacting me for work-related queries (and I’m talking about the pointless stuff like “did you get the press release we sent you a week ago” rather than the more useful “My client is running late for his lunch meeting with you”.

I have a perfectly good landline in my office - please use it in the first instance. The mobile is there so that you can get hold of me if it is urgent, or if you have genuinely failed to get me on the landline first - don’t just bypss my office number altogether.

I do reject about 70 per cent of the calls I get to my mobile number during office hours anyway (and definitely bounce unknown and withheld numbers straight to voicemail unless I’m not sat at my desk, then I will answer), so chances are you’ll still only end up talking to my voicemail before you talk to me, so you may as well talk to my office voicemail if it is not time critical - it’s more likely to get a reply, or at least listened to before my mobile voicemail will.

I’m having a bit of an iPod clear-out, having realised that I own more iPods than I could possibly make use of.

The stuff is listed on eBay, and all proceeds will be used to buy shiny new Apple items, such as a 160GB iPod Classic, and if there’s anything left over, a second composite video cable and power adapter for it.

http://search.ebay.co.uk/_W0QQfgtpZ1QQfrppZ25QQsassZchrisgreen1

Everything has been looked after, in most cases you’d struggle to tell it has been used at all as I keep all my iPods in cases as I am paranoid about scratching them.

And before anyone asks - I am not selling the engraved Nano I was given just before Christmas - as the guys in the office will confirm, I’m keeping that and use it every day!

The Apple iTunes movie service gets off the ground properly (around 1,000 standard definition titles/around 100 high definition titles) in just under two weeks in the US. Talking with some of my contacts in the movie business, it would seem a decent UK launch of the same service is not so far behind (unlike the TV show sales service which took forever to get to the UK due in part to the complexities of country-by-country rights issues).

If you are a shareholder in Blockbuster Inc (parent company of Blockbuster UK and listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbols BBI and BBI.B) I really think you need to consider dumping your stock now and putting what little money you get from selling into something that might actually have a future - like supermarkets (Tesco, Wal-Mart etc) or other grocery store chains (Whole Foods Market), guns, adult entertainment, Domino’s Pizza or oil.

I’d say you have about 12 months before Blockbuster’s stock isn’t worth the paper it is printed on (on the plus side, you will be able to use your share certificates as toilet paper - cheaper than buying the stuff on the roll), unless the company wakes up now and overhauls both its business proposition and its customer service on both sides of the Atlantic.

This year I’ve decided to split things into two posts - one for here and one for my IT PRO blog. For the personal blog I’m doing my resolutions, for the work blog I’ll be doing my technology predictions for 2008.

I should add at this stage that I am hopeless at sticking to such resolutions, but it remains important to at least try. You never know, this might be the year that one sticks!

Chris Green’s 2008 New Year Resolutions

1) Blog more - both my blogs (this one and the IT PRO blog) have been suffering a bit of late. I’m not losing interest in blogging, quite the opposite in fact, it is just a problem with spare time, and not having any. I need to blog here and at IT PRO more than once a week each. Hopefully I’ll have a bit more time this year as things continue to settle down at work and hopefully at home. Also, now that we have completed the migration of the IT PRO blogs away from the abysmal system we launched with and onto Wordpress, using it will be a lot more practical and pleasant.

2) List stuff on eBay - before anyone gets the wrong idea I’m referring to my own possessions, not anything I’ve ever received as a press gift of review item. I’ve become overloaded with junk again, and I need to do a massive eBay selloff to get some space back in the house. That means getting rid of things like obsolete computer equipment and software I’ve bought and subsequently replaced with other kit (for example I have a pile of CRT monitors I desperately need to get rid of), DVDs I no longer watch, obsolete DVD players and Freeview boxes, plus anything else I’m not using any more that is occupying space and cluttering the house up.

3) Pay down my credit cards - they are way too high and need sorting, sharpish. Item 2 will go some way to helping.

4) Get some exercise - I’ve spent the last 18 months driving a desk and I’m really feeling the worse for it. I have not been travelling to the extent I usually do over the course of a normal year, and believe it or not, all that time usually spent out at conferences, running around airports and generally working in the field does do some good in terms of keeping you healthier than normal (you don’t eat as much, you eat at regular times and you get some upper and lower body exercise from all the walking, running and luggage carrying). I’m not talking about getting back into the insane shape I was in at school and university (it would be nice, but is ultimately unnecessary), but I do need to be more active, and I’ll feel better as a result. That means less time in the car and more walking, getting back to the gym more often, dusting off the golf clubs now and again, and maybe laying off the Coke - maybe!

5) Write more - not just blogs but do more journalism in general, I need to write much more than I did in 2007, more news and especially more features and reviews. I am going to set myself a target of writing at least one review and one feature a month as a minimum, and see where it goes from there.

6) Podcasting - need to do the podcasting more regularly, and start doing some of the video stuff I’ve been threatening to do for a while.

7) Summer Party - For the last three years I’ve been talking about holding a summer bash at the house for family and friends, this year it will actually happen. Now I’ve said that we had better have the weather to make it happen.

8 ) Redecorate the conservatory - it’s a mess, I hate the colour and the roof needs some work to stop it leaking - again. All stuff I need to do this year and the sooner the better so that the conservatory can be used come the summer, as right now it is not somewhere I’d like to be, let alone entertain guests.

OK, I know I said the next post on this blog was going to be my Skypephone opus, and that is coming next, but I just wanted to slip in a quick post about my latest purchase and how much fun I am having with it.

On Monday, in-between having a puncture fixed on the car and trying to install Leopard on the MacBook, I did a load of Christmas shopping, and treated myself to a little gift.

Having recently received a iPod Nano as a gift, I’m using it a hell of a lot (it is a lot lighter than my 60GB iPod Video, which I still think is great, but the Video Nano is nice for taking to work and on short trips where I don’t want a brick in my pocket). The trouble is that the video output cable for my 60GB iPod Video doesn’t work on either the Video Nano or the new iPod Classic. Apple has removed the video out from the headphone jack on the new models and instead only offers video output from the dock connector (and they’ve changed the pin outs so that older dock connector video connectors etc won’t work).

Anyway, I decided to cash in my Nectar points, and in Argos I picked up the new and improved composite video cable with dock connector. It wasn’t cheap - £35 before Nectar discount - but you get a fair amount for your money. It is a well made cable, with a dock connector at one end (push-pull type rather than with locking clips), and three metal phono connectors at the other. There is also a USB connector, allowing you to charge your iPod while playing through the cable, or even sync it. Also included in the box is the new-style USB power supply. Its the same one bundled with the iPhone, so it is half the size of the original USB Apple power supply. US buyers get just the US 2-pin head attachment, us Brits get both the UK plug attachment and the 2-pin European attachment.

As a result of buying the cable (which works with the Video iPod as well as with the new models) I’ve been watching a huge number of video podcasts on my big TV in the study, as well as watching a roaring fire, courtesy of Cali Lewis and iYule.tv.  Even though I was only playing th iPod Nano version of the iYule video rather than the high-res one, it still looks and sounds great.

For many, the day is finally upon us. at 10am this morning Apple is holding a small press event at its Regent Street store to mark the UK launch of the iPhone.

Whether the device will actually go on sale today remains unclear, but whatever happens we will know the following information just after 10am:

• UK pricing
• Exclusive UK network carrier (sadly, this is 99.9 per cent certain to be O2, the Tub of Lard of mobile phone networks)
• Airtime pricing
• On-sale date

Also, a Chris Green prediction - I expect to see Apple also announce a 16GB iPhone today. The launch of the iPod Touch, which is basically an iPhone minus the mobile phone circuitry, in 8GB and 16GB varieties, coupled with Apple ditching the 4GB iPhone and cutting the price on the 8GB model suggests that a 16GB capacity bump was planned, but held back from the recent iPod Special Event in order to give the company something new to announce alongside the UK iPhone launch.

Holding back a 16GB version of the iPhone means the company has a genuine new product skew to underpin  today’s announcement, rather than coming to market and just saying: “The same old iPhone product that has already been on sale since June is now available in another territory.

The one certainty about the iPhone announcement - IT WILL NOT BE 3G. There is no need, no point and most importantly, Apple has not submitted a 3G device for radio-communications approval by Ofcom.

Speaking personally, I would not want a 3G iPhone at this stage, as using 3G would crucify the already borderline battery life of the device.

Reading the news that yet another retail chain has failed in the face of competition from bigger online rivals and major supermarkets, one has to wonder if the economics of online retailing in any sector are such now that only the biggest bricks-and-mortar traders can hope to compete on equal terms?

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