We are adults after all, what is so difficult about managing your time so that you can go out on your bike, do your job, visit your friends and family, mow the lawn, walk the dog and yes play WoW and even Farmville! It is possible to do all of these things. Is that so hard?

If it is then (imo) it’s not WoW that’s the problem, it’s the player. If you can’t manage your time then don’t blame the game/activity. Frankly i don’t care if you are an addict, some addictions are great but i don’t much care for people getting on their high horse and making it sound like we must all follow suit now that they have seen the light.

Anyway, i can’t sit here blogging all day, i have a Blood Elf that needs levelling up …. :-)

1. Do you see what i did there?

…You wake up and check your email on your bedside iPad — that’s one app. During breakfast you browse Facebook, Twitter, and The New York Times — three more apps. On the way to the office, you listen to a podcast on your smartphone. Another app. At work, you scroll through RSS feeds in a reader and have Skype and IM conversations. More apps. At the end of the day, you come home, make dinner while listening to Pandora, play some games on Xbox Live, and watch a movie on Netflix’s streaming service.

You’ve spent the day on the Internet — but not on the Web. And you are not alone. – full article here

I personally spend a lot of time doing my internet stuff on everything but my computer. I often browse my favourite sites from my smartphone, i bought the other half an iPad and after seeing what it’s capable of, plan on getting one myself. I listen to internet radio on my phone, ipod or internet radio, i sometimes blog from my phone. I frequently facebook and twitter from my phone and i notice a lot of my facebook contacts do too. Using iPad i rarely use the web browser, Apps pretty much give me everything i want.

Is the Internet kicking the bucket? Ok maybe not but it does seem to be changing more quickly than ever. Obviously there are a lot of things you need your computer for (like World of Warcraft 8-) ) but it’s only a matter of time before tablet devices catch up. And why not, who the hell wants to be sat at a desk or dragging a laptop around?

Well i handed my beloved HTC Hero over to the hubby and i got myself a Motorola Milestone. I must say i haven’t taken to it as quickly as i did my Hero. It feels very much like a work-in-progress device unlike the Hero which felt fabulously polished. I love the screen on the Milestone, it’s bigger and better than the Hero (and in fact most phones). It feels very solid and it looks geeky. It’s a brilliant portable internet device.

But as a phone, it’s crap.

There is built in noise cancellation and it’s a pain in the ass. You have to hold it really close to your mouth or else the person on the other end can’t hear you. The problem with this is your cheek then brushes against the screen pressing either the mute or the hold icon. The screen should switch itself off but it doesn’t always unless you hold your phone at an EXACT angle and at an EXACT distance away from your face in preferable lighting conditions ….. WHAT THE FUCK!?

So as i say, it’s a shit phone. Interestingly though if you use something like Fring or Skype, the noise cancellation switches off and you can use the phone normally. Sadly there is nothing in the settings that lets you switch off the noise cancellation yourself, It really is a pity because there have been thousands of complaints about it. But Motorola don’t seem to do ‘listening to the customers’.

I carry around a Samsung Soul with me and i use that for the phone and my Milestone for texting and internetting on the go. And as an internet device it is amazing. The big screen is wonderful and it’s nice and snappy. It’s saving me having to go and switch my main pc on a lot. I can facebook, tweet, post to wordpress, shop on amazon, have my fave news feeds delivered to me, play on google earth, play games, email and what not without going near my pc. Fabulous! It’s a great time saver.

Now the main reason i went with this (because i was very happy with my Hero as i said) was for the physical keyboard. Well, imagine my disappointment when it turns out the physical keyboard isn’t great! Ok it’s not shite but the keys are so flat that you keep hitting the wrong one or press two at once. It’s much faster to type on the virtual keyboard. But what it is handy for is if your in the car (as a passenger of course) or on the bus, it’s a lot easier to use the physical keyboard when you’re shaking all over the shop.

The camera is also important to me because i’m always taking snaps and don’t always have a main camera with me. It’s not brilliant but it was ok for a phone – until that is i updated it to Android 2.1 which has added more camera features and a shed load of noise to the images. Lord knows why and i hope they fix it. Mind you that said, the ladybird macro photo just below this post was taken with this phone and i don’t suppose it’s that bad?

So i don’t regret having it because having a portable internet device is very important to me and i believe this is the best one. It’s a shame about the phone, keyboard and camera but you can’t have everything. However it has made my mind up that i’ll probably never have another Motorola device but will definitely be going back to HTC -something like the Supersonic (EVO) or whatever they have coming out after that because i’ll probably keep me Milestone for a while yet.

I’m going to add this little bit of info to my blog in case anyone searching for this problem is struggling to find a solution, hopefully Google will find this.

A few months ago, for no apparent reason my iPod touch would no longer be recognised on my computer and windows kept throwing up the messsage ‘apple mobile device has stopped working‘. I had to disable it in services to stop the message but this left me still unable to update my iPod. Then the same thing happened on my partners laptop a couple of months later. We have the exact same laptop, both are Dell.

So i looked what what was common between both laptops in the programs list and we both had ‘Dell Support Center’. I uninstalled that and what do you know, the problem was fixed. I don’t know why there is a conflict between Dell Support Center and iTunes but if you’re having the same problem and you own a dell then get shut of that program.

Or if you have a different make of PC perhaps you have a similar support program? The point is, this is not a vista or itunes problem (as such), there is a program on the pc conflicting. It’s just a case of uninstalling and reinstalling stuff until you find the culprit. I’m sure it’ll be a support program of some kind. Good luck!

For google:
apple mobile device has stopped working Dell Support Center

But anyway, i’m going to start uploading everything in full HD from now on anyway because i’m sure there will come a point when it becomes the norm and at least it will save me re-uploading everything. Here’s my first test video shot and uploaded in 1080p. It looks how it does on the PC so Youtube haven’t destroyed the video. I just wish i’d had a better clearer video to demonstrate!

Click this link [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwkGwOMJy_s&fmt=37] and switch the video to full screen mode (the button just to the right of the HD button). At the moment to watch videos in 1080hd you aparrently have to add this to the end of the URL

&fmt=37

The settings i used in Sony Vegas Pro 9 are:

I shot the video in 25p CINE mode with the Vivid setting on, i also tweaked the levels in Vegas. Anyway, Render settings were:

Incidentally, i’ve also installed the new Flashplayer 10.1 which has made viewing these videos much smoother: http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10.html

I thought technology was meant to make life easier for us? Clever computers and devices and so on to make life better? Well i switched my laptop on the other day and for no apparent reason it decided to tell me that the ‘apple mobile device service has stopped working‘. This is a service that runs in the background to check for when you plug in your iPod touch or iPhone. It’s stopped working and now i can no longer synch my iPod with iTunes. Marvellous. I have uninstalled iTunes and everything associated with it, reinstalled it, googled the problem, checked the drivers and nada.

Luckily a few weeks ago i moved my entire iTunes library over to a NAS drive so i could get at it from any pc on the wireless network. So thankfully i can update my iPod on another computer. But i shouldn’t have to. I made no changes to windows and installed no new programs so i have no idea why it suddenly stopped working. I’m going to guess that it’s the usual culprit (Windows!) updating itself as per usual and breaking more than it fixes.

But it has got me thinking. I rely too much on technology. Or rather, over complicated technology. I have this iPod touch and i don’t use any of it’s features, the only thing i do with it is listen to music and it’s fairly well documented that it is not the best music player. With all of the updates iTunes keeps making to its software my library is now looking very strange and disorganised because iTunes decided to created another music folder in my iTunes folder and now i have duplicates, files missing and all sorts.

I don’t need this crap, i just want to listen to my music collection. So my next mp3 player will be a Sony Walkman. In terms of sound quality they are ahead of apple. And that’s the main thing.

Oh and although this massive library is online, you can actually download the tunes to your pc/ipod/phone in case you’re out of range of wifi or don’t want to eat up your mobile data plan. What you can’t do is have mp3 files that you can burn to a CD, not unless you buy the song. You can listen to radio and share friends playlists too.

Read more after the jump…

Here’s an iPhone demonstration:

The free version of spotify only works on your pc and you have to listen to an advert every half an hour or so. The premium version costs £10 a month (about the price of 1 CD), has no adverts and can be played on portable devices. It can also scrobble to Last.fm so your Last.fm account will keep updated with what you’re listening to on Spotify.

I usually buy at least 1 CD a month but after a month or two it sits gathering dust so for that £10 a month i now get albums galore! Oh and another thing, some albums surface on Spotify before they are released in shops and best of all, it’s toally legal. Most of the big record labels are on board. Check it out: https://www.spotify.com

I decided against iPhone because i couldn’t get on with the keyboard (i was practising on my iPod touch) and *oo controversy* i actually think it’s starting to look a little dated! I have a feeling they will give it a cosmetic makeover though next year.

Anyhoo, what i ended up with was this, a HTC Hero!

Read More after the jump….

And i love it! The software (a HTC skinned version of Android) is brilliant, i love how customisable it is and i like how (unlike iphone) you can have fabulous widgets and apps running in the background. It has a Marketplace which is an app store similar to the ones you get for iPhone and Blackberry though not as large as iPhone’s appstore obviously (yet). But you know, after all the rave reviews android seems to be getting i do think that this could be the one to topple apple. In fact the HTC Hero just won phone and gadget of the year in T3 magazine. I gather Stuff has also named it gadget of the year. Not bad considering how young it is. Take that iPhone *insert Karate chop here*

I updated the firmware and that has made a big difference to lag which i know was one of the complaints with this phone. I’m getting no lag at all now. Also improved is the camera. You now get touch focus so in other words touch the screen somewhere and it will focus on whatever you point to. No flashgun but the pics are much better than my Blackberry Bold. The video recorder isn’t great though, quite low quality and if like me you’re used to recording in HD then … well, keep your camcorder or dedicated camera with you!

Some niggles (and they are only niggles) all of the facebook apps for this phone are useless. Nowhere near as good as Blackberry. The twitter widget is also a problem on Vodafone networks for some bizarre reason. But there are other Twitter apps that work fine. For messaging/email/facebook and twitter the Blackberry is still unbeatable.

As i type this i’m sitting with my headphones on streaming music from last.fm. The sound quality is surprisingly good! So much so i’m considering installing the premium version of Spotify enabling me to take a music collection everywhere without having to store it!

As a gadget freak i love this phone. It’s so customisable, it looks great, you can tweak the hell out of it. And i LOVE it!

**Update**

After much playing i’ve started replacing one or two default apps as well as adding quite a few new ones and it has made a big difference. Power manager is helping to save the battery and Advanced Task Manager is helping manage the memory making the phone run much better. Anyhoo …

Barcode Scanner

Barcode scanner can be used for scanning barcodes on CDs, books, and other products, then look up prices and reviews, or search for a word in a book and find where it occurs.

You can also scan QR Codes containing URLs, contact info, calendar events, and more. Scan the code by these applications to go straight to their dwnload page on your phone.

Handcent SMS

This is a replacement SMS app and it drastically changes the look of your SMS application. You can give each person a different background and speech bubble type (for example my Friend Jason who is a Madonna fan i have given a madge background with colour matched bubbles, very cool). You can also give each individual person their own notification sound so you know who is texting without even looking. You can have a pop up window that shows even when the screen is locked – it can either show the full message and you can quick reply from there without unlocking the phone or if you want privacy it can just show who sent the SMS. Or you can disable that feature all together.

BeebPlayer

Unofficial player of BBC iPlayer.
TV programmes
Live TV channels
Live radio.

Shows video in higher quality when viewing over wifi.

Spotify

This only works if you subcribe to Spotify (£10 per month) but honestly it’s well worth it.

You can search for and add albums to your phone/computer instantly! You can either download to your devices SD card or stream over 3g or wifi to save space. There are millions of songs to choose from and is sorta similar to iTunes in how it looks. You add albums as playlists and they get beamed to every device you have running Spotify.

Camera Zoom fx

I replaced my default camera software with this app and wow what a difference it makes to the pictures. This app adds image stabilisation which is very handy for dimly lit indoor pictures as demonstrated here with a photo i took indoors in a room lit by a single lamp:

Find more Hero tips, tricks and recommended apps here.

Now i’ve only had a quick play because i’m putting it up for Christmas for my prezzie. Anyway, very impressed! I bought an ebook (Coraline) from Amazon last night and it beamed it straight to my kindle. I’ve also got a collection of eBooks on my computer that i’ve sent to it and all seem to be displaying just fine. I’m fast running out of room for my book collection so this should hopefully be ideal. The screen is very easy on the eye as it sin’t backlit like a compute screen, it really does look like you’re reading paper.

Some would argue, why would you want to carry around hundreds of books? Same reason you carry around thousands of songs on your iPod, so you have you’re whole collection with you because you can’t predict what you might be in the mood for reading/listening to in the future. Plus i sometimes like to read more than one novel at the same time.

You can even have your newspaper sent to your Kindle every morning and i believe some magazines too. I don’t think the UK version can read blogs unlike the US version yet but i’m sure it will only be a matter of time.

If you have any ebooks that need converting to a Kindle friendly format then i’d strongly recommend using Mobipocket creator. It’s free and very quick and simple to use. You can find free books at:

http://www.planetebook.com/
http://www.gutenberg.org
http://thekindlewarehouse.com/free-kindle-ebooks/

If like me you’re a book lover but you’re running out of shelf space then this could be just the thing!

Did you know you can do things with twitter other than tweet what you’re up to? It’s extremely useful. For example, Say we were all on twitter and connected to eachother and i had a file i wanted to share with you (mp3 or whatever). You can send files privately to your pals using FileTwt.

You can play games on twitter such as @trivia. Wait for questions to be sent to you, tweet the answer and you could win prizes.

Heard a great song that you want your pals to hear? Well go to http://Songza.fm and find the song, click share and bam, it’s on your twitter for all to hear. (also see 10 ways to share music on twitter: http://mashable.com/2009/05/29/twitter-music/)

You can share images in the same way by either using TwitPic (which you automatically become registred to when you get twitter) or if you already have flickr it can automatically beam pics to twitter.

You can share videos with TwitVid and Tweetube (as well as send fave youtubes directly to twitter).

You can even sell stuff with Twitter using TwitPay. The possibilities are endless and i reckon it will keep on expanding. It’s a good thing it’s so versatile because who knows how long the status update fad will last. Hello my name is Andy and i’m a twitterhollic.

New York Cover by Adropofchaos