Android Ice Cream Sandwich Source Code Released

Now that the code is officially out there it shouldn't be long before we start seeing devices with this on. The is the operating system google intends to merege the Operating systems of its tablet devices and phones together. Previously we have Gingerbread (2.x.x) for phones and Honeycomb (3.x.x) for tablets.

I know for a fact that someone over at XDA already has it up and running on a Motorola Xoom tablet (I must admit I've only looked at that devices forum as I own one).

Apple rant & suggestions

I had a friend talking to me about buying an iMac the other day and asking me what I thought. Now I don't own a Mac but I have supported and used the iMac in various job roles over the years and I've grown more accepting of the platform. Especially since they moved to Intel processors and had bootcamp come along. I advised it wasn't a bad choice as he's also musically orientated in his work / hobbies and I think he'd love software such as GarageBand.


Out of curiosity I was browsing the iMac product specifications and I seriously don't get some of the  hardware choices.


I can forgive things like eSATA being left out in favour of the new Thunderbolt interface but the rather confusing part for me when it comes to Apple is:


The iMac is a multimedia machine if you look at the specs, but if you look at the back you only have one analogue input / output port (well two if you count the headphones jack as well). No optical out.... No 5.1 jacks....


Next up is Video playback.. Not a problem you say? Correct! but just go and try and stick a Blu-ray disc in your iMac.... Yep, thats right, Apples 'supper drive' still doesn't support Blu-ray discs. If my PC can do it with a £50 addition I sure as hell would expect a iMac to. It's the creative industries choice workstation after all....


Ok, to counter my comments. I'm sure you can get add-on devices for sound output and for Blu-ray drives. iTunes and various other content provider offer downloadable services for movies but should I limited to these options and not be able to purchase physical media.


Come on Apple, you have some of the best displays on the market ( 2560x1440 pixels on the 27" iMac)! Actually on that topic, a touch screen OLED display would be awesome as well. Better quality OLED displays are set for 2012/13 and Tim Cook could do well to bring a few of these 'innovations' (I love how they use the word innovation to mean "we brought it to market in a user friendly way") to Apple to show everyone he's picked up the baton properly from Steve Jobs (RIP) and it's full steam ahead. 

HD Voice - UK operators

Wow, we still haven't got wide spread availability of 'HD Voice' and we're fast approaching 2012.... Then again the UK looks set to be one of the last European countries to jump on the 4G bandwagon as well. 


I hadn't looked at this for a bit but just did a quick check and its good to see that Three jumped on board this year to join Orange with availability but it would seem other operators are still dragging their feet. 


Probably the upgrade is costly or they are concerned about the disparity when their customers fall outside a 3G coverage area (required on both HD Voice handsets in order to function).


The magic phases you want to look out for our:
HD Voice,

G722.2

AMR-WB

Anyway, for more info, check out the Wikipedia link:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wideband_audio

Boots.com Search fail!

So before I went on lunch I thought i'd pop onto the boots website to see what they had for my recently burnt arm:

I went with Savlon in the end.... 

The New Gmail

For all you Gmail users out there.

You might not have seen it yet but in the bottom right hand corner of your Gmail browser window will be a 'try the new Gmail' button. Give it ago, it's really cool and very user freindly!

Tip: Facebook permissions.

With Facebook being well established and users having used it for a good few years now it's well worth checking over your security settings regularly to protect what to do and do not want to share.

It's also worth making sure your doing as much as possible to protect unwanted access to that data. It's also wise to limited what can access that data.

What page that deals with your app's permissions is found here:

https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=applications

You'll be surprised at what might be on there. I had app's listed form years ago that I'd forgotten about (Graffiti, Yahoo, game promotion apps). Even with only the ones I wanted it's a pretty hefty list:

I'll cover other checks another time but I found this a rather quick and easy thing to tidy up & just felt like sharing it.

Fibre to the cabinet (UK)

I learnt a couple of new things today about FTTC. Firstly I got to see the master socket that gets installed with these new VDSL installs (This is what that £70 install buys you). 

It looks like the filter is now built into the socket. Whether that turns out to be a good or bad thing is yet to be seen. I suspect that it wouldn't be easy to replace from the looks of it. Not sure I like that.

Secondly, BT are using Huawei hardware (HG612) with PPoE. Pretty indifferent about that, IPoE would've been nice but I guess we're not there just yet... 

[Update] Check out my broadband page over on the right >
I have lots of broadband related links and info kept here!

Also the socket is made in three sections. There is a middle section that can be detached.

Tutorial: Animation snapshot in Maya.

I was looking for my old blog archives from previous ones I've had over the years as I wanted to pick out of the more interesting / informative entries (site content = visitors = ad revenue ) but I seem to have lost the archives. Needless to say, I still want some decent content for this blog so I'll stick up stuff I can dig out. Starting with this:  

Infinity sword! iPhone

Been checking this iPhone game out as I remember seeing posts raving about the quality. I must say I'm impressed. Here are some screenshots direct from the phone :