Final Thought – iPad

I know that no one can shut up about the iPad and I get that. However I feel that I should give my opinion on the new device, and why I won’t be getting one.

 

First of all I have a Desktop PC and a Netbook, which are great assets to have on you. As Steve Jobs said, the iPad will not be able to match a netbook in terms of performance. I also have an iPod Touch, which is great for looking at my E-mails in a glance. So long story short I don’t need an iPad and I will not be wasting £500+ on one when I can save that money for better things …. such as a holiday for example.

 

So, why might you want to get one. The iPad is designed for those who prefer to sit at home and just quickly check their E-mail or read a book, to be honest though, the iPod touch can already read E-books so I don’t know why it’s being sold as an E-nook reader. It can also be used for students to read text books on their subject of study.

So overall, if your not a heavy reader, and/or have a netbook then you should save your money for a better time. The thing is don’t rush out to buy an iPad as knowing Apple they will release too many different generations of the iPad, and then you will realise that you wasted £500+ of your hard earned money on it.

I don’t hate the iPad, but I won’t be getting one.

Thoughts on new YouTube video player, the layout.

I recently read in the YouTube UK blog about the new video page layout on YouTube. I managed to get it at college, but I couldn’t get it at home. However I only recently found out that it’s an “Opt-in” kind of deal. So I gave it a shot, and I was impressed.

The first think you will notice how minimalistic it looks. This is great, as those with slower internet connections will not have to wait for ages for a YouTube video to load.

Moving on now, the video description is under the video it’s self, I think that it is a lot better there. Because most people don’t even read the description, having it under the video will draw more attention to it. It also saves space on the right hand side. Which can be used to add more features. The view count has also been placed there.

Next thing, is that all of the YouTube user data is at the top (In simple terms the channel of the user who uploaded the video), next to that link there is a menu where you can see all of that users recent videos. Another feature that I like, saves space on the side bar and I don’t have to keep scrolling down all the time. The Subscribe button has been placed above the video as well. I think having the button there makes more sense, you can just watch the video and then click subscribe without having to scroll around to the right to subscribe.

If you are the uploader of that video, you’ll also get all the video editing options (for the descriptions), and you can also add anotations from there. It is placed above the video title.

 

Now onto the ratings. It seems YouTube have opted for a facebook “like and dislike” system. Instead of the old rating system. I quite like that because it is simple and it means that people can tell you whether they like the video or not without having to be confused about all the 5 stars stuff.

YouTube have also added a share and favourite button under the video as well.

Finally, onto the comments section. They have added an “Attach video” feature to the comments, instead of having a separate section to post a video comment. Really good feature, as it has more integration with the comments section.

 

That is not all that this new layout has to offer. I didn’t cover everything since most people don’t want to be reading on forever. I did cover the major changes.

Overall;

The layout is nothing short of amazing. It has been laid out really well and it isn’t hard to find where everything is. This is the one update that YouTube have gotten right in the past year.

App Review – Flast.FM (Online social music networking)

By now you have already heard of last.fm. It's a free music social networking site, it allows you to listen to and discover new music. I find that this service can’t be beaten.

Anyway, this is about the iPod touch/iPhone app for it.

Price
Since the Application is free there is no need to give it a negative rating, at the end of the day having the application for free is a lot better than paying for it.

Usability
The Application was not designed for socialising on the site, it is more music orientated than it’s PC/Mac counterpart. All you’ll be able to access is the music radios, and search engine. the application does the same as it’s PC/Mac counter part, you can search for artists and start a new station with music by similar artists.

The search engine (as displayed above) works how you would expect it to work. It’s also quite fast, so that’s a plus.

When you have found an artist(s) you can then activate the radio screen, however this is where it starts to slip believe it or not. Crash issues and slow downs are quite common while listening to the radio stations even on a full wireless signal which leads me to believe it is the application itself that is at fault here. This is what might put you off the application in the first place. However, if you can manage to work around the issues with the radio player it’s self then it works great, but take into account that the slow down’s and crash issues will also affect the entire application it’s self.

After selecting an artist the station will be saved to the main home screen, so when you open the application up you can chose the artist station you want to listen to without having to search for the artist(s) again.

 

Overall

Bad points

• Suffers from crashes and slowdowns too often
• No offline mode
• No way of buying/downloading tracks
• No social networking of any kind
• Eventually runs out of music to play on a station
• Lack of ability to comment on an artist

Good Points

• Works exactly the same as the artist radio stations on the PC/Mac Counterparts
• Search engine is easy to use
• Recent stations are automatically saved to main menu
• Whole application is easy to use
• Can save separate songs to a play list.

App score – 6/10
The crash issues and slow downs need to be solved.

News: I’ve become a writer on Duncsweb

I’ve been posting comments on Duncsweb for a while now. I really like getting involved with what people post on there.
Today I was contacted by the owner of the site DuncanM and he asked me if I wanted to start writing on there, I accepted his offer and I am now part of the duncsweb team. I am very happy and honoured to be given this position, and I will continue to produce content for the site.
You can view my profile here.

My advice, is to be involved, you can't expect to be noticed, if you do nothing to get noticed. You have to be in it to win it.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to posting more content both on this blog, and on Duncsweb.

Steam Beta – My thoughts.

I was bored one day, and I thought that I should give the beta version a try, it was free so I wasn’t going to miss out on anything,
and if I didn’t like it. I could just go back to the original steam client.

Thankfully this was not the case.

It seems that the steam beta is a hit or miss kind of deal with some people. Personally I love it, but at the end of the day you either love it
or hate it.

I like the beta as it allows me to organise all of my games into specific lists, and categories of my choosing with ease, in the previous version of steam,
all of my games were unorganised and hard to find, with this new feature included in the beta. It makes my life so much easier.
Also it allows me to see any relevant game updates or releases at a glance, in contrast to the older steam client I had to right click on each game
just to see if there were any updates. It’s a nice user interface. The in game overlay and web browser have also been improved. Simple and easy to use.

Now onto what might push you away from the steam beta.
First of all, your not going to be able to chat to other players using the in game overlay, which I find annoying but not too much of a problem.
Secondly, some games might have a hard time working with the steam beta. This hasn’t been the case for me, but reading around on the internet,
I’ve found that some people have this issue. It is something you might want to take into account when trying the beta out.

My final verdict;

This steam beta is good for those who want to save time, and are looking for a much easier and better looking interface with better organisation.
If your worried about not having the chat and some games work then I would avoid it until the final release.

If you don’t like the beta, you can always revert back to the original steam client. You have to keep in mind that the new steam is in beta and will have the
odd issue from time to time.

 

Thanks for reading.

Dock applications - Which one is right for me?

Dock's which one is right for you?


Last night, I made a video giving my opinion on what dock application you might want to use and why.
However I didn't cover all of the Dock applications on Windows. I feel I should cover them here on the blog. (In no specific order)

1. RKLauncher (http://home.cogeco.ca/~rklauncher/) - Personally I do not like this dock application, it's buggy, it's full of glitches and just overall  it is a pain in the arse to work with. It will keep constantly adding icons automatically for no reason which will eat away your CPU and RAM. However if you can get it working correctly it can be a great application.
    
2. Circle Dock (http://circledock.wikidot.com/) - I covered this in a video on YouTube, and I must say it is a very good little application if you don't like the other dock applications out there. It seems to be built off the same engine as rocket dock so it is worth checking out. However, on lower end computers it struggles performance wise, also the dock it's self tends to get in the way of doing normal everyday things on a computer.
   
3. XWindows Dock (http://xwdock.aqua-soft.org/) - I gave this dock a try and it is quite a good dock, it works just as the website says it does. However, performance wise it kept lagging even on my high spec system which can run most games. It leads me to believe that the application it's self is the cause, but it works quite well when it can run smoothly.
   
4. ViGlance (http://lee-soft.com/viglance/) - A very good dock application that emulates the Windows 7 superbar. Works amazingly well on Vista and doesn't do any CPU/RAM damage to the computer. One thing I don't like is on XP the transparency doesn't work which ruins the overall effect it brings to Vista users.

Ultimatly it is up to you to decide which dock application you want to use. If you know of any more Dock applications for Windows don't hesitate to send a link to illage2@googlemail.com.

Thanks for reading.

New tech Survey – Feel free to leave a response.

Due to me being bored, and having nothing else to do I decided to make a tech survey for me and other YouTube users to answer. So far I’ve already gotten video responses from NunoKaka85 and AmazingJustinTech.

Here is the original video if you want to find out my answers.

Me answering my own tech survey.

If you would like to take the Tech Survey your self here are the questions.

1.What version of Windows is your favourite & why?
2.Favourite version of Linux & Why?
3.Do you think Microsoft make good products?
4.Do you think Apple make good products?
5.Which is better, Magic mouse or Arc Mouse?
6.Have you ever used a Mac?
7.What video editing software do you use?
8.What screen casting software do you use?
9.What podcasting software do you use?
10.How many icons are on the desktop?
11.Do you think 1080p on YouTube is any good?
12.Do you use Google reader?
13.Do you use Google mail?
14.Do you use Twitter?
15.Which is better Mac or PC?
16.Which game console is your favourite?
17.What game or series of games is your favourite?
18.What keyboard are you using?
19.What web browser are you using?
20.Do you use Steam?
21.What Twitter Application do you use? (On everything)
22.What software do you use to listen to music?
23. What version of Mac OS was your favourite and why?

I added the last question in at the last minute so to answer that question I would have to say Mac OSX Snow leopard.

Feel free to leave a video response. And I will link your YouTube channel here.