Connected to the Mothership

Watch F1 and enjoy lots of tech

I love Formula One.  I have been watching F1 for so long I can remember Sir Jackie Stewart driving the Tyrrell, the BBC "coverage" being a 30 minute highlights programme and even before Bernie ruled the roost.  One of the great things about F1 is that over the years the technology has got better and better and thankfully so have the TV coverage.  The cars have had turbo, traction control, instantaneous gear change and camera all over them.  The TV coverage now extends to all practice sessions as well as full live coverage of every race.  However, this is just not enough F1 for me.

When I started watching racing the only way to keep track of the timings was to be at the circuit with a pad, pen and stopwatch.  Indeed one freezing cold May Day at Silverstone I stood on the timings wall as the Formula Ford team I was with was driving very slowly around the track.  My job was to record his lap times.  It was so cold it snowed and I could not hold the pen to note down the times.  I even failed to pause the stopwatch on one lap as I was so numb.  Thankfully our driver was useless in the dry and worse in the wet.  In the snow he was a liability, so much so he took the leader off at the last corner on the last lap.  My failure to record lap times was not the main talking point on the way home.  Actually there was not any talking on the way home, just a very, cold silence.

Nowadays it takes me almost as long to get ready for the race as the teams themselves.  First, I watch the race on the plasma screen.  Really it would be hard to beat unless I was able to watch it in a cinema.  I also use my Mac Pro with it's 20 inch Apple display to show the live timing screen from the official F1 website (registration is free but required to access the timings).  This shows all the runners, their split times on the current lap, their fastest lap, the track status (e.g. yellow flags waving, safety car deployed, etc.).  You can spot a bad sector before the commentators, see that someone has pitted before the TV cameras show it or even that someone has dropped out of the race before a replay shows you what happened on the track.

The one thing I was always wanted but could never get was the graphic of the track which showed the relative positions of the cars as they moved round the lap, which the teams in the pit lane had and was one of the tools to see the gaps on track that could be useful to drop their car into after a pit stop.  Well last year there was an iPhone app that gave me that as well as the live timings and a few other things.  So I now also put my iPhone on it's stand and load up the app.  It is best to turn the phone into landscape format and have the track graphic displayed on the full screen.  Just wonderful.

F1 is one sport that you can enjoy best from the comfort of your own seat but if you do go to watch a race live and I strongly recommend that you do, as you with be blown away by the noise and the speed of the cars, you can now hire an handset to give you the timing information and various other useful bits and pieces.  F1 really is a sport that not only loves technology but has it as an integral part of its make-up and it is great that there are ways that a geek can use a few gadgets to enhance that pleasure.

iPad - What is it good for?

The media have been frothing at the mouth about the launch of the iPad. Techies and geeks, like myself, were salivating at the potential specs for this gadget but what is it actually good for, now that we have seen the options available? The media (press and television) were committed to it being the next big thing regardless of what it turned out to be (thank heavens it was not another Apple Hi-Fi - for those of you that remember that ghastly piece of white plastic nonsense). Some of the more savvy tech journalists were disappointed that it was in effect a souped up iPhone/iTouch, a mistake I initially made but on reflection I think there is great potential in this device for a number of different groups and it is this multi-purpose use that makes it such an exciting item and potentially the seas-change gadget that Apple obviously believe it to be.

Ultimately this is to computers what the Wii has been to the gaming market. It is the device that can open up that part of the population that is not in the slightest bit interested in the equipment, or learning key strokes to do thing more efficiently rather it is a device you can just pick up and use. One of the joys of Mac OS X over whichever version of Windows Microsoft has put out this week is the interface. It is intuitive to use and indeed it is easier to use if you do not come in trying to use all those Windows shortcuts you had to learn. They distilled this functionality down to the iPhone and blew that market wide apart. Now they have taken the iPhone knowledge and used it to redesign the computer. Finally there is a device that people can pick up and use without reading a manual and heading to the internet for endless tips on how to do what you thought it could do out of the box. People will walk into the shop to buy an iTouch play with the iPad and find themselves walking out with a new computer.

The iPad is obviously going to be the media delivery machine of 2010. Steve Jobs demonstrated it as an eBook reader and rather than the poorly designed interfaces of the Sony reader or the archaic design of the Kindle it will be as easy to use as a book. However you can also expect useful features like marking up text, adding notes, etc. so that it will be useful not just to reader but to students, academic and members of book clubs the world over. Although not yet a key part of the package the iPad is clearly the device to save the daily newspaper. It will not be long before publishers are using it to publish a media rich electronic version of the daily rag. The screen is a good size for newspaper stories and with the easy ability to embed audio and video clips your daily newspaper is going to become a great deal more interesting in future. Obviously music will be another part of this media machine but probably a less important part than the other items. It is a much better machine to watch film and TV on however than the iPhone/iTouch or any of the other mini players that are seen on trains and planes currently. One final item on the media front that I am particularly excited about is that of the comic book reader. You can use the zoom function to get the most out of a particular drawing and viewing those two page spreads is going to be a joy on that screen. Marvel already offer electronic version of their comics and the Mac has the equivalent of iTunes in the Comic Book Lover application. This has recently been ported to the iPhone, where it is almost impossible to use unless you have 20/20 vision but as that app will run on the iPad from day one there will be a comic reader for the device and given the increase in screen size I think it will suddenly show itself to be a worthy addition to the Comic Book Lover family.

The final area where this device will appeal is to the geeks and techies out there; I realise this may seem obvious but we do not buy everything that comes out you know! There are a number of things that make this a desirable object the first of which is its weight, 1.5 lbs. Those of us that carry round their laptop can now save their backs with this little beauty. It can e-mail and be used to surf the web but more importantly for some you can add a keyboard, either using the dock or via Bluetooth. this means that typing an article or blog is suddenly viable rather than a pain as it is on the iPhone. The fact that iWork has been retooled to work on it with Office document support means that it really can replace your laptop for a number of scenarios. One of the most exciting features is that you can use iPhone apps on it too, this means that Skype is possible (although no video yet) and there is an app for using a printer with the iPhone so now you can use that on the iPad too. With the move to cloud computing the fact that the biggest hard drive for the iPad is 64gb is less relevant especially with the Wi-fi/3G version that should allow you to be connected to more storage. Indeed I should remind everyone of the marvellous application Dropbox that I already use to synchronise key documents between my home unit, laptop and iPhone, which will be one of the first apps I install on the iPad.

There has been an awfully large amount of print and TV time given over to this device already but I think the possibilities are almost endless. I was excited by the iPhone when it was launched and it was only after living with it for a while and trying to extend it further that its true potential became clear. Should that be the case with the iPad then we will look back at the launch and talk about it being the real start of the 21st century.

London Marathon (Part 5 - the end)

So having walked across the footbridge to Canary Whatf I find an old injury is causing me some distress. This happens if I stand for too long, you may see me doing an impression of a flamingo by standing on one leg. I am rather embarressed to say that I am going to have to call it quits, which seems particularly wimpy following marathon runners round London but I know I will be standing again at my final vantage point for 30 minutes at least. So back across the river & home to a large milkshake I go having totally failed to see my friend. I trust she fared much better than I did today.

London Marathon (Part 4 - Docklands)

Well I have had to walk from Deptfordto here, roughly 17.5 miles along & my friend is due by in about 20 minutes. The crowds are unbelievable & with the weather so warm it must be hard for the runners.

Next up will be an attempt to get to London Bridge & over the river again for a cheer at Monument, 23 mile point.

Come on runners, you can do it.

London Marathon (Part 3 - Cutty Sark)

The cue for the foot tunnel is emorous, the size of the crowd is much larger than when I last followed a friend. Needless to say I failed to see my friend but I have over an hour to get to Canary Wharf & try again. Looks like my relaxed lunch & large coffee have bitten the dust.

Onwards ever slowly, onward.

London Marathon (Part 2 - Deptford)

It has been almost eight years since I set foot in Depthord & it has changed a great deal. They have knocked down my digs & replaced it with the plush new block you see, ah dear old Rac Mac (Rachel Macmillan Halls) what stories you could have told but nothing stays still, everything changes.

London Bridge was packed with the trains just as packed as during rush hour, only with better manners.

I have hideously mistined this trip so I have about 50 minutes to wait for Caroline but it gives me a chance to see the leaders.

I will be back . . .

London Marathon 2009 (Part 1)

Despite the weather forecast it is a beautiful day, blue skies, little wind & the freshness of a spring day not yet the mugginess of a summers morning.

Here I am, sitting at a South London train station waiting for a train to take me via London Bridge to Depthord & my first encounter with the marathon this year.

Why Deptford? Well, first, the cameras stop just past the Cutty Sark & then ignore the less attractive areas of London & Deptford is straight after the Cutty Sark. Second, there are normally fewer people around this portion of the course & at 7-8 miles everyone could do with a cheer. Finally, I have an attachment to Deptford & the place where I hope to stand as I read History at Goldsmiths College & my digs were in Deptford.

Well, my train has arrived so I will be back once I have landed in Deptford.

Boxee and the Apple TV: The New Future of our Viewing Habits

On another blog at the end of 2007 I wrote a piece on how the PS3 was being maligned as a failure but really with the additions that were coming it would be seen as ultimately a successful bit of tech kit. Well soon afterwards the next gen DVD battle was won by Blu-Ray and whilst the PS3 has not set the world alight it is now seen as a success.

Today I have the Apple TV in my sights, that much maligned and misunderstood bit of Apple kit. Now not everything that comes out of Cupertino can be a success, their earbuds for the iPod have been less than brilliant in all their guises but somethings take time to mature and prove their worth. I believe this is true of the Apple TV.

First I should probably try and describe what it does as this is not really understood. Essentially, it is a way of watching and listening to content on your computer through your TV and home cinema system without you have to worry about trying to link your computer into those items. Second, it also has internet capabilities, which means you can rent films through iTunes and watch them on your TV. This seems to be where Apple thinks the future of the device lies but actually the internet function is most useful when you move away from iTunes.

I have resisted its charms until now because I have already connected my MacPro to both my plasma TV and my home cinema system. The Mac sees the TV as a second screen and the home cinema system loves the digital inputs (and putputs) from the Mac. So why bother with the Apple TV? Well watching BBC iPlayer programmes on the TV through the Mac causes a band of controls to appear on my computer screen and using some other internet streaming sites causes the computer screen to black out entirely. Also some programmes seem to think when I watch something full screen I am not going to use another programme so they shrink as soon as I go to Safari or check my e-mails. All of which spoils my viewing pleasure.

Enter Boxee. What is Boxee, well it is a media portal, essentially it brings together the music, film and TV media on your computer with that available on the internet in the same way as Front Row does, which is the software for the Apple TV. The difference is that you are not restricted to iTunes content so they have the BBC iPlayer as one of their feeds. On my Mac Boxee was a pain, it started full screen by default and did not play nicely with me when I wanted to have Boxee running and do other things on the Mac.

However, if only I could get Boxee onto the Apple TV then things would be different. Oh there is a way and it is easy! Basically you can use a memory stick to install Boxee onto the Apple TV and then through Front Row launch Boxee. Now suddenly I can watch BBC programmes on my plasma with sound through the home cinema system and still use my Mac as nature (and Cupertino) intended. I can also link Boxee to the hard drives where I store my music files, my photos, my films and TV programmes and it can then stream them from my Mac to the plasma without interfering with the Macs operations.

There is more though! US TV companies streaming their programmes surely Boxee can and then stream their content? yes it can and despite a kerfuffle Hulu is still available on Boxee. However, for anyone living outside the US you are unable to watch this media. Fear not brave citizen of the wired world simply sign up for a Virtual Private Network (VPN) that will spoof the site to believe you are in the States. This also works the other way so that you can spoof it to believe you are in the UK when you are abroad. Hey presto you can now watch US TV programmes without having to illegally download them!

One final bonus, or not depending on your views on this, are that you can link your Boxee account to your Twitter account and your blogs so that it can post what you are watching or listening to or just update when you use Boxee's recommendation feature for a programme or album. One final point to note if you use the Apple TV for this purpose then buy the 40gb model as the size of the hard drive is irrelevant, you are streaming media either from your computer or from the net, either way it is not stored on your Apple TV unit so size is not an issue.

Support Bands

Support bands, are they worth it? One of the best gigs I went to was a four hour Bruce Springsteen gig with no suport act. Ok the other hand I loved Joan as Policewoman, who supported Rufus Wainwright as well as being in his band. Plus I saw the Cocteau Twins as support many years ago. David Sylvian traditionally does not have a support act & his shows are all the more special for that fact. Some support acts can overcome the minimal sound check, cramped condition at the front of the stage and impatience for the act we have paid money to see to transcend the moment and still be memorable after the gig has finished and we wander home humming the main acts big number. I write this sat in Kentish Town, on a bench in The Forum waiting for Marillion to star their two hour show thinking that the support act, whose name is unknown not only to me but to all around too, will not stay in my memory for more than a few seconds after they leave the stage. This may be down to dementia rather than their musicianship.

Just some of the 5,000,000 steps down to Positano