webcoding.co.uk

I love film but not LoveFilm.com

I decided to sign up to LoveFilm today on a 14 day free trial.

The signup process

Terrible, in a word.  Locating the pricing for LoveFilm is a near on impossible task unless you “sign up”.  It’s just ridiculous that a site would deliberately hide this information and make you go through a sign up process before telling you the cost. I decided to carry on because I wanted to see what the on-line streaming was like.

LoveFilm film & television selection

First up, I don’t want nor care about the “postal” part of LoveFilm.  I couldn’t care less about it and the hassle of receiving, sending and managing it  is so 1997 that it’s almost an insult that they demand you select this is a default option. I want on-line, streamed and unlimited content.

I’ve got no doubt it’ll get better with time but the truth is that the “free streaming” online section is inadequate.  Films are old and for the most part have been on TV many times before.  Television seems to be relatively old UK series with the likes of “The West Wing” (which for the early seasons dates back to 1999) not available for streaming.  I do feel sorry for them in some ways as they are bound by the pretty awful TV/Film bodies which make it terribly difficult to make all this stuff happen.  Still, for £9.99 a month I’m going to be looking for something which I feel provides value for money, which this doesn’t.  Of course, you can point out that fairly new movies are available on a rental basis via the streaming service but this ISN’T what my £9.99 is paying for.

Media Player options

Now, I’d almost forgive the lack of selection above and might even maintain my subscription but the on-line player system is the straw that broke the camels back.

a) The flash player embedded into LoveFilm has a lot of problems:

1. There is no “pop-out” option for the player

2. You can’t watch full screen on one monitor and work in the other

3. The default embedded player is so small you couldn’t watch it like that

b) Where are the Windows/Mac desktop programs?

Seriously?  How hard would it be to create a Windows desktop client which could have a vastly improved search system and better media player.  It’d be so easy and a big win for them.

c) Where are the Media Center plugins?

I’d take a guess that a reasonable number of subscribers to an on-line system like this are fairly tech savy and perhaps have some fairly good home cinema setups.  Maybe an XBOX360 MCE or the wonderful Windows 7 Media Center which I run.  They might even run Apple’s media center or a Linux Myth type system.  As far as I could see there isn’t one authorised plugin for any of these devices.

Thanks LoveFilm, it was an interesting hour and now I’ll go an unsubscribe.

** Update -  I am so angry that during my “free 2 week trial” i have to CALL THEM to cancel my account. That makes me so unbelievably angry I’m lost for words.  Furious!

Ajax RSS Ticker

I created an AJAX based RSS Ticker for people to use a while ago (http://webcoding.co.uk/?page=blog45)

I’ve now updated it a bit, more options etc etc, get it here:  webcodingtickerv4-test-release.

HMGovernment - data.gov.uk

Brilliant, just got my app listed on data.gov.uk:

http://data.gov.uk/apps/ordnance-survey-datagovuk-mashup

Open data mash-ups.

I’ve begun creating a few simple mash-ups of data via the excellent data.gov.uk website.  Combining the newly available Ordnance Survey data, some interesting geographical data via data.gov.uk and my own web-based mapping experience I’ve compiled a few geo-accurate maps with some information.. I think there is a lot more to come but this is purely an exercise in messing around with the data and having some fun.

Personally I think simple plotting of geographical data onto maps produces some lovely looking results which can often tell you a lot more than you’d think.

Project: http://server-2.webcoding.co.uk/OpenData/

BBC Archive - part of Backstage

A few weeks ago I thought I’d restart my old “archiving” project, primarily to archive the BBC’s main pages but with a further thought that this technique of archiving web content is much more efficient and long lasting than the current method employed by archive.org.

The project consists of two main parts.

1. I wrote an automated system to capture the entire web-page as a screen shot every X minutes which then automatically uploaded the results to a remote server.  Written in C# and running on a Windows box.

2. The front-end consists of a few PHP scripts which catalogue the images in a calendar view and make available some varied “views” such as monthly outlook, daily view and comparison tools.

The results can be seen here: http://server-2.webcoding.co.uk/BBCArchive/calendar.php

Ian from Backstage at the BBC wrote about it here http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcbackstage/2010/04/prototype-bbc-archiver.shtml and I’ve had some pretty good feedback and I’m hoping to perhaps take this further.  I suppose the eventual conclusion would be to replace the excellent archive tool written by another back-stager a few years ago which sadly ended it’s run with the changes to the BBC’s homepage.

WESC Headphones

First impressions of the WESC headphones are good.  They are light weight with a nice quality feel to them.  The extenders are smooth and easily operated with a nice sheathed lead which will really reduce the tangle problems you usually get.  For extended distances you are given a 3.5mm female to male extender.   The colour choice are great, funky and fun and definitely got my attention when “browsing”.

When playing music the sound is loud and clear with reasonable to good bass definition.  The tight fit around the head keeps outside sound to a minimum and whilst at high volume there is some sound “leak” it’s pretty good and wouldn’t annoy anyone in an office environment.

Overall they are good.  There are options ranging from £40 to £100 and obviously sound improvment grows with price.  I’d love to test out the “Alp Horn” model but given the price and the inability to test these in the shop I wasn’t going to put out the money for them.  Anything over £60 for a pair of head phones requires on site testing and without I’m not going to bother.  I made that mistake with a £300 pair of sennheiser headphones a number of years ago.

You can see more of their products at: http://www.wesc.com/stuff/986

Jim.

Zune HD

Boy do I want to get my hands on one of these (the new Zune HD)!  I can’t really justify the cost considering I have an iPhone but the HD device with music and good compatibility to things like Napster (which I still somehow subscribe too) make it a really desirable device.

It’s looking like they are not available in the UK as of yet and with a price tag of $219 in the USA you can bet that a similar number, in £ will be the price.  Probably a nice £199.  Still, it looks stunning and if ONLY it contained a phone!

Find out more about the Zune here: http://www.zune.net/en-us/products/zunehd/default.htm

Apple’s rumoured iTablet at $999?

Engadget posted a story about Apples rumoured tablet which will ship in February 2010 for a eye watering $999.

I have an iPhone and indeed a Macbook Pro (old generation) and whilst I do appreciate the Mac hardware I also run Windows on my Mac  I just can’t understand how Apple are going to charge an almost identical amount for a tablet as they would for the macbook..  Personally I’m waiting on the TechCrunch CrunchPad and although it’s going to be a fairly limited device in terms of horse power it’s built on Linux and thus will become an utterly hackable and at a $400 price tag it’s much cheaper.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/15/apple-tablet-rumors-strike-back-9-6-inch-with-hsdpa-coming-feb/

XMI X-mini II Mini Speaker

Some time ago I bought this little GEM.  The X-Mini speaker is about the size of a slightly over-sized golf ball.  You can unscrew the central part to create a slightly taller version which allows the base to ring through much more clearly.  It’s an EXCELLENT little speaker and put with an iPhone or a laptop on holiday it’s brilliant.  The sound is loud, clear and whilst not perfect it takes the usual laptop sound and seriously improves upon it.

The internal battery life for this speaker is big - I’ve charged it once or twice in a few months of ownership with a reasonable use between each charge.  Charging is done via a small 5V USB connection.

I picked mine up for £20 but I noticed Amazon is now making these available for £13.99.  If you’re looking for a decent smaller portable speaker then this is good.

Max Value USB 2.0 to Widescreen SVGA Adapter (MV42431)

USB2 to SVGA

This week I bought the “Max Value USB 2.0 to Widescreen SVGA Adapter” from Amazon.  £31 for a additional monitor extension is not bad value and allowed me to have three monitors working together, one for code, one for email and firebug and the other for a browser.  So far the product is doing fairly well though it basically kills Windows 7 Aero feature but I suspect this is more a driver issue than hardware.

Overall the device is good.. It’s small, easy to install and does the job. It’s not fast, it doesn’t have the best picture but I didn’t buy it for this reason. Overall I’m pleased and it increased my productivity - but not as much as the transition of one to two monitors.