JamesX

This post is a continuation of Happy New Year…

July
War of the Worlds and Live 8 were making headlines in July and semester 2 and GigManX continued to roll along. Around mid July, grandma returned from the UK and Richard and I began to move into the Widget arena with the new assortment of ISP Usage widgets. Stu M managed to injure his back (obviously *cough* working too hard!) and Muppets Inc. was born in my Organisational Behaviour class. We celebrated birthdays for Ed and Gronow and capped of a relatively busy month with System Administrator Appreciation Day.

August
Uni was powering along well and my results were higher than ever. Podcasting was starting to make it’s debut and the ski season provided a perfect opportunity to get away for a weekend. Houses were burning down, the weather was crazy and the WordPress Tiger Style caught my attention.

September
September was a time for many developments. JamesX 5.0 was launched and rekindled the blogging spirit. September also saw the return of The Bitch Box and the surprise release of the iPod nano. eBay acquired Skype and my thoughts turned to how much snow would be awaiting me at Perisher. Returning just in time to expand my gadget collection with the Harmony 880 and RAM upgrades on the table.

October
October was quiet as the uni year ended (for RMIT anyway :)). James Blunt was in our ears and we had new iPods to listen with. Addo’s blog made a comeback along with my gallery. And that was it for October, but not before the clocks went forward and my new office was ready.

November
Spring Carnival fever hit Melbourne in November and it was Cup Day and Stakes Day that kept me busy this year. Dennis got older and I finished exams. The question now was what to do next. Two days at home and I had my gadget fix - TomTom GO 500 was here at last! Of course, November is always an exciting time for me, but this year was extra special for it was my 21st!. The party was huge and is still a fun topic. But it was tiring and some serious resting was in order!

December
December was seemingly busier than most with enrolments and concerts, birthdays and Christmas it was as packed as it could get. But I did get some toys along the way, new plates for the car and iPAQs for work. Then came the K600i to wrap up season, just in time for organising Boxing Day, it seemed it would never end. But it did, and it was time for a break, escaping to Bright for the last few days of 2005.

And so there you have it. The whole year in one (well two if you want to be picky) little package. For those who were here for the journey, thanks for your support. 2006 looks to be a promising year.

2006! Happy New Year!

It’s time once again to look back upon the year that was 2005…

January
Work started early on in January in preperation for the new school year and it wasn’t long before the heatwave hit Melbourne. January saw the least blogging by people and it was time for me to rant about it. It was also the month when I finally managed to get my eBay blue star, we celebrated Marc’s 20th birthday, and that horrible deer roadkill was unleashed upon the world. We continued to slug through the mountain of boxes at work and it’s also the same week that the RodentJet was born.

February
By February, uni was starting to appear on my radar and the timetabling gods seemed to be on my side. Either way, it didn’t phase me much as before long, the great South Pacific adventure had begun. It was one of the best, if not the best, holiday I’ve been on and by the end of it, I had taken almost 1,100 photos! The AFL footy tipping season was about to begin, Richard finally cracked the RMIT wireless problem and a new game was on the horizon…

March
Yes March is where it all began, World of Warcraft was taking centre stage at it began to occupy more than a little of everyone’s time. Our family friend Jean was over from England visiting and in between all of this, work and uni were plodding along nicely. As if it wasn’t already enough, No Worries, the latest play at work was a huge success.

April
It was a time for new things when April came around the picotux, Yann Arthus-Bertrand, the list of 200 things, “never have I ever”, and the release of Tiger (although I didn’t get it until later) were enough to keep me busy. I also got to celebrate Oscar’s birthday and I uncovered the mystery behind the Graphinc Calculator application.

May
May Day was when Tiger arrived on my Powerbook and brought with it a host of new features to help convert those who still believe Windows is a better OS. Hitchhikers hit the movies, and a day later it was Andrew’s birthday. Then came Remember Ronald Ryan and the fifth season of Big Brother began in earnest. It was also the time to launch the new backend on the site. It would still be some time before it all tied together, but having grandma away for 7 weeks was sure to help.

June
It was semester one exam season around the time that my relations were visiting from England. I took them to the football and showed them around Melbourne - including Phillip Island. June was also the month that GigManX was born. It had been a long while since my last gadget purchase and it was time for something new. FOXTEL iQ entered the household and it hasn’t stopped recording since! Exams were over and reports were printed just in time to finish the month with dinner at Han’s.

So that’s the first half of 2005. The second half can be found in Part 2.

When composing posts for this site, I often find myself typing the same phrases over and over. For example every time I insert an image in a post, I have to type <img src="/blog/img/imgname.jpg" alt="image" class="alignright" />, which becomes rather tedious.

Enter Textpander. This little donationware app makes the whole process simple by allowing you to create snippets of common text (and pictures) that you would like to insert. You then assign each snippet an abbreviation which will be replaced with the snippet whenever you type it. The beauty is that it will replace the snippet anywhere in the OS.

This opens up a whole range of opportunities including auto correction of common spelling mistakes and the ability to insert pictures, such as a signature, with a simple text command.

It’s been a long time coming but the iTunes Music Store has finally been launched in Australia. Speculation about what caused the hold up has been floating around for ages and the notable absense of SonyBMG from the store seems to point the finger at them.

Nevertheless, we Australians can now purchase and legally download over 1 million tracks for $1.69 each. In the scheme of things, it’s very competitavely priced with what you’d pay if you went into the store and bought a CD. Only time will tell if it will actually curb illegal downloads like it has done around the world. The addition of this store, the 21st such music store for Apple, means they now cover over 90% of the worldwide music market.

It’s a pity that the TV Shows downloading feature, recently launched in the US, is not available here. But I’m sure over time, more things will come on board. Of course, all the other features such as 30 second previews, music videos, gift vouchers and the like are available in the store.

CNet has a short FAQ that lists a few details about the launch so head over there for more information. You can also listen to an MP3 recording of the press conference “launch event”, thanks to APC.

Today I managed to acquire a copy of Photo Booth - the new application that ships with iMac desktops. (It runs fine on my Powerbook so it’s not just for the new iSight and I suspect it will work for any camera) It’s basically a small app that lets you take pictures with an iSight camera. It extends the usual camera features by allowing you to apply realtime effects filters to the picture and take instant snapshots that can be emailed or added to an iPhoto library.

It’s all a gimmick really and it’s not much more than a time waster. But at 3.5 MB, it’s a fun little app to muck around with. I’ll see if I can get some of these uploaded to the gallery over the next few days.

Well it seems Apple have done it again. At their “One more thing…” keynote event today, Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the company’s latest product lineup.

By far the most exciting product revision is the fifth generation iPod. The “white iPod” as it has become known has led a rather interesting life. It started off as a clumsy brick-like music player with lots of moving parts, then came the touch wheel, then the click wheel, then colour screens and photos, and now it even supports video. There are some really cool things about this latest iPod, but there are some obvious problems that aren’t really apparent on first glance.

Naturally, the good things are video and the new large screen. Oh and just like the nano, it now comes in black as well as white. It is capable of playing back both H.264 and MPEG4 and due to the small screen size, doesn’t need much space to hold the video. The downside is that you need to convert video to one of the above formats to be able to play it, and also scale the video down to the correct size for the iPod’s screen. The other major gripe I have is with the total lack of accessories. When I bought my third gen about two years ago now, it came with everything you would ever need. The new iPods don’t come with a Firewire cable, a dock, a belt clip or even a power charger. But at least all my old ones should still work.

The other new addition to the Mac family is the latest iMac G5. Sent into the marketplace to take on Microsoft’s Media Center PCs, the new iMac sports Front Row, an on screen menu that allows quick access to rich media on your computer. The iMac now ships with the new Apple Remote Control. Not to be confused with the software, this six button remote allows you to take command of your media experience from your couch.

The new iMac also comes with a faster processor, built in iSight, more hard disk space and an Apple Mighty Mouse. Surprisingly the product is still reasonably priced. The 17-inch model will set you back about $1,800 which is a bargain when you take a look at all the features it packs into it’s sleek little package.

Apple have managed to dive head first into the online media market with this new product lineup. The real question now is… Black or White?