I had a look at my friend Owen's Christmas present (to himself I think) an MP4 Watch! And thought "I really want one of those!" (envy). But I was stuck with a bit of a dilemma, I had to get to a friends place for a get together and I had to go by car and I really wasn't sure of the route. So ... I could purchase a Tom Tom (poor excuse I know) or an MP4 watch (because its so cool!).  

Quite a lot of my friends know that I only have a provisional drivers licence, that means I can only drive a car with L plates and a supervising responsible adult  with a full drivers licence in the passenger seat (my wife). What this also means is that I can't go on any Motors Ways when I am travelling anywhere (bummer). As you can see the TOM TOM is becoming more and more attractive hey? And yes to cut a long story short I did purchase the Tom Tom and it is soooo cool!

I was able to put the post code of my destination into the Tom Tom and then revise the route excluding all motor ways and it automatically re-calculated the route...sweet! What was even cooler was when I was on my way through Windsor I didn't turn off at an exit when it told me to and the Tom Tom just recalculated the route on the fly telling me where to go to get back on course again. Another interesting part which I had no idea these devices had was the speed camera warnings (defined by Tom Tom as "Safety Cameras").  I know many people have had these devices and I am only just discovering how really cool they actually are, as a backup however I did have my wife map reading next to me but we soon discovered we didn't need a map. This is one of the new entry level Tom Tom's available from Halfords for only £149 which I think is a real bargain. The only complaint I actually have was the customer service in Halfords, they don't really seem to have anyone around to help you out and when the till is busy they leave one poor girl struggling with a long queue while other staff members seemingly seem to be doing stock checks. If you do find someone in the store you are lucky if they get back to you as they sometimes seem to have forgotten they were checking something for you. Its not only my local Halfords where this has happened, a number of friends have complained about various stores where its the same problem. Great advertising campaigns on TV guys just get the service in stores sorted and you could be making a lot more money, instead of people leaving long queues at your stores annoyed by having to wait so long.

If you've been reading my blog you will have noticed my fascination of trying to stream content via my Xbox 360 for services provided by the BBC iPlayer, SkyAnytime PC  and now Channel 4's 4oD service (TV and Film on demand). Basically the BBC, Sky and Channel 4 all provide separate services for which you can download content off the Internet. This could be an episode of Star Gate SG1 you may have missed (Sky), Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares (Channel 4) or East Enders (BBC and no I don't like it but my wife does).

What all of these technologies have in common is they all use Microsoft's DRM (Digital Rights Management). What this means is that the content provider (BBC, Sky or Channel 4) can control how long you are able to watch this content until it expires, this also controls who can watch it. All this is taken care of in the background where a licence is downloaded to your machine enabling you to watch the content. While all of these providers may appear to have different innovative interfaces, under the covers they are all really using Windows Media Player which supports DRM. The BBC got a lot of flack for not using an open source platform for doing the same thing. The truth is this method has probably worked out cheaper, as so many other providers are using the same technology its tried and tested (until someone cracks it of course).

One of the let downs I found of these services was there was no way of watching the content you missed on your TV. You had to watch it on your computer. Unless you were a bit computer savvy and knew how to plug your computer into your TV (not all TV's support this) there wasn't really much of an alterative. That was until the Xbox 360 started to be able to stream content from your Windows Media PC. I found the Xbox 360 proved to be a cheaper alternative than having a dedicated PC for watching content from the Internet on your TV. I have also found it also works well with content from Channel 4's service 4oD. The only problem I have found is that 4oD's videos are not as higher quality as those provided by Sky (this may probably change), it gives the impression of a pixilated image on my 1080i LCD screen. I think Microsoft can provide a lot more upgrades for the Xbox 360 to take advantage of this place in the market. Although I suspect they may be keeping a bit quiet about the potential because they may be thinking of a separate content deal they want to put together, so they can charge Xbox Live subscribers for the privilege.  

It looks as though no one has really taken advantage of the potential for a TV Over Internet Provider (TOIP) box that could pull all these providers together maybe even including Joost?

Having finally gotten around to taking some of my holiday time off work I've noticed just how annoying the cats can really be. I found the best solution to the problem when they run around in the morning knocking things over is just to put them outside every time they come inside. The cats do get a bit annoyed but the benefit is that around noon you let them back inside and thy fall fast asleep on their bean bags.

It appears that ITV is one of the first broadcasters in the UK to broadcast live on the Internet. Now I know the BBC and Sky have shows available to download on the net but it appears ITV are broadcasting (with a slight delay) on the Internet all of their live channels.

Now if you think about it this makes incredible sense. ITV's revenue model is based on advertising, that means the more people you have watching your TV channels the more advertisers want to advertise on your channels. Clever? Very clever indeed. Sky however does not seem to be able to follow the same revenue model. If you can get Sky Channels on the Internet why on Earth would you want to shell out £25 a month on a Sky box and dish? Mmm that's not a hard one to figure out. I think ITV are onto a winner here I just hope they get the content and shows to back it up.

My video machine has finally left the TV cabinet and here ends an era.

It started gradually I suppose when DVD's started replacing Video tapes in the video shops and I got my very first DVD player in the form of a Playstation 2. It was quite an exciting time, movies were crisp and all of a sudden I had Dolby Surround Sound - virtual bullets were flying through my living room along with a a stampede of horses. This was the true magic of home cinema I would no longer be able to go back to VHS after I had discovered this new and wonderful way of watching movies. Soon my video machines only use was for recording the odd program on TV I desperately wanted to watch. But alas - soon the poor video machine was no longer doing this when the Sky Plus box entered my household. Gone was the issue of ensuring you selected the correct channel on the video machine, setting the time on the video machine and finding it had recorded nothing but static. The Sky Plus box made recording live TV, pausing and rewinding it child's play. So much so the only job left for the poor video machine was to show the time. Later it was not even useful for this when it was replaced with a small LCD clock and eventually consigned to the loft. Maybe one day old videos machines will become expensive collectors items for watching old VHS video tapes not available on DVD?

I thought today I'd have a look at this MSN Music UK tab in Windows Media 11 today. Why? Because I have an Xbox now and I thought it would be great to download music/entertainment from MSN Music instead so I could stream it to my Xbox which is connected to my surround sound system what a great idea right?

The thing that hit me straight away when using MSN Music was it really wasn't iTunes. It didn't come close, its as though MSN just thought about their own convenience when setting up this option in Media Player. MSN Music is basically a website rendered within Media Player with hooks into the player. A bit like iTunes but so badly done. The first thing I did when I entered it was type in the name of the song I was searching for in the search bar just above the MSN Music logo. This of course was the wrong choice as it started to search through MSN Live Search. Why on Earth have this functionality here where you are trying to sell music? What I should have done of course was go further down the page to the Music Search box's. Before I could do anything though I had to install a plug-in for MSN music urrrghhh why? Microsoft have such great ideas but you can't help but think the usability department is out on a constant lunch break most of the time.  Looking at the page I saw an option for movies and naturally thought I could download some movies that I could watch on my PC....wrong! This was just the MSN movie section that contained reviews about movies... Argghhh. Now I understand what Microsoft is trying to do with Windows Media player. Its a market place for you to select the music or video provider of your choice. The problem is how it does this and a distinct lack of clarity and usability. Anyway that said MSN Music does appear to be good value for money when it comes to their streaming juke box player. Which only costs £5 a month and you can listen to what ever you want.

There was a rumour of it before the Northern Rock crisis took place which seemed to have been brushed off by Barclays. Now it appears the London Stock exchange briefly stopped trading in Barclays shares yesterday when they fell by more than 9% in early trading. Apparently the reason the LSE stopped trading in their shares was actually caused by an automatic cut off by the system which thought it may have been a technical problem.

Rumours are spreading that Barclays may be facing some problems brought about by the under performing home loans market in the US. Barclays strongly deny these rumours have any substance.

At the moment no one really knows just how badly the UK banks have been affected by sub-prime lending in the US. Any announcements of these problems could cause mass panic a lot bigger than the affect the Northern Rock crisis had.

Biltong is what I coin as a South African delicacy my friends in the UK call it dried out meat and are not too keen on it and neither is my wife. The closest thing to biltong in the UK is Peperami which is a pretty poor substitute.

The one thing useful about biltong is if you have South African IT staff working for you, you can probably boost productivity by about 40% by giving them biltong.

I understand our local council is trying to introduce a bit of "culture" with their new glass bus shelters but I knew even before the week was ended that we'd see the local young hooligans names etched on the glass and a few releases of trapped energy which lead to the smashing of glass...oh well..