Posted from my iTouch

Just testing the wordpress app for iTouch!

We’ve moved!

My company, Chunk, have just moved in to our shiny new office. Practically everything in it is brand new, and it should give us the perfect platform to move to the next level. We’ve got some great work coming up over the next few month for a number of really high profile clients, so keep an eye out for some of the cool stuff we’ll be launching over the next wee while.

The Happening

Don’t waste your money. It’s shit. Really shit.

M Night Shyamalan - your days are well and truly numbered if you keep churning out crap like this and ‘Lady in the Water’

Well, they’ve done it

By releasing the 3G iPhone, and offering it for a mere £99 on O2, Apple have at last convinced me to move away from my N95 to one of these bad boys

I’m a little concerned over three things; firstly, the battery life on 3G is meant to be pretty poor (I’ve heard as little as 5 hours talk time); secondly, I’m not sure I can handle the drop from a 5MP camera in my N95 8Gb to the 2MP camera in the iPhone; thirdly, I’m not totally convinced I can do without picture messaging. I think I’ll keep the iPhone for my personal phone and use my N95 8Gb to replace my T-Mobile PDA.

Roll on 11th July.

Rock, Paper, Scissors

I understand how scissors can beat paper, and I get how a rock can beat scissors, but there’s absolutely no way paper can beat rock. Is paper supposed to magically wrap around the rock and leave it immobile? If so, why can’t it do the same to scissors? Screw scissors, why can’t paper do it to people?? Why aren’t sheets of paper constantly suffocating people in schools, universities and workplaces around the world?? I’ll tell you why - because paper can’t beat anybody. A rock would tear that shit up in a matter of seconds.

When I play rock, paper, scissors, I always choose rock. Then when somebody claims to have beaten me with their paper I can punch them in the face with my already clenched fist and say, ‘Hold On, I’m sorry. I thought paper would protect you. Idiot.’

Where did October go?

It’s soooo cold. November already. Scary.

The upside of it all is that it’s even less time until we head to Whistler!!

But this is even cooler …

Keifer Sutherland Jack Bauer is the man …

This is pretty cool …

This picture shows who is playing Halo 3 around the world at the moment, in real time. I feel it for the one guy in South Africa giving it a bash!!

Xbox Case Mod

I wish I had the design/diy/soldering skills needed to pull of something like this. Someone has modified an original xbox to fit inside the slickest of cases for running Xbox Media Center. It looks as slick as an Apple EyeTV, but being based on XBMC is much, much better.

I want one. Now.

Far from ‘classic’ iPod …

I dashed off to the Apple Store after work tonight, cash in hand and ready to purchase a 160Gb classic which I had been keen to get since they were announced.

I’m now at home, and with no shiny new iPod, despite the fact that my 40Gb iPod photo is overloaded and has a dodgy hard drive and poor battery.

I would love an iPod touch, but the capacity just isn’t enough. The decision I reached was that I’d get the 160Gb classic just now - utilising the massive storage capacity - and since I’m more than likely certain to pick up an iPhone once they’re launched, have it for the nice next-gen interface and interactivity.

So why no iPod? One reason - the interface is terrible. Not the design of the UI. Whilst I would argue it isn’t up to Apple’s usual standards, I like the extra graphical elements which improve the whitepsace and text heavy elements of the previous generations. The UI is just waaay too unresponsive. I wondered if I was just being sensitive to the fact that some reviews have said this, but on reflection it just isn’t up to scratch. The album view takes agest to load in, and the slow caching of album covers makes scrolling a stuttery, glitchy nightmare. The view of the album art on the now playing screen is nice in its angled version, but I am amazed at how ‘jaggy’ the top edge of the artwork looked. Even if it had been against a black background I think this would have been improved, but against white it just looked nasty.

Then there’s Coverflow. On the demo iPod in the Apple Store it took 2-3 seconds to load up, and then was almost unusable when it came to flicking through the albums. Regularly it would lock up for half a second to a second while it loaded in new artwork, or it would end up with a screenfull of grey boxes while it struggled to cache the new artwork. Again the jaggy issue was there, and it just looked ropey against the black background. The more I looked at it, the more I realised that it was a view I would never use other than for the ‘wow’ factor, which now that the view is becoming ubiqutous in all things Apple, is of only limited impact and appeal.

All in all, I’m amazed these have made it to market. The new interface tweaks seem half-done and not up to standard - both visually and performance wise.

Hopefully a firmware upgrade will sort these issues, but until such time as this is released and proven to increase the speed, responsiveness and performance of the new UI elements, my money will be firmly staying in my pocket along with my old 40Gb iPod photo.

Come on Apple - sort it out.