Getting access to USA iTunes music store January 24, 2006
Posted by Michael Quinn in : Apple, Pirate Geek, iTunes , comments closedAlthough the iTunes Music Store has been made available I have been looking for ages to find a way to purchase US iTunes content (especially the video stuff - big fan of Lost).
Unfortunately i am not lucky enough to know anyone in the states, or anyone with a US card. But i came across a site that is selling US iTunes gift vouchers. Basically they email you an electronic US store voucher.
Tried it out and it works fine. Although you need to register a US account, which means you need a US address (but appears as though Apple dont care what address you use - ie just make one up).. but, you dont need to register a credit card (unlike the aussie store).
But, makes me wonder about the legality of it all? Aussie can not buy from t he US store without a US card… but.. if you get a US gift voucher.. then you can use it…?? Loop hole?
anyway.. for those who are interested… www.capsule-productions.com
My New Broadband - NCable Wireless Broadband August 30, 2005
Posted by Michael Quinn in : Geek , comments closedAs you may know I moved into a new house about a month ago - can’t believe its only a month - feels like 2 or 3 months !
Part of the “deal” with the the new house was that we probably wouldn’t have broadband access here for at least 6-8 weeks. Around September / October. Telstra had to upgrade the local RIM - the usual blah blah story as to why you can’t get decent internet access.
But we knew that coming in and I was reasonable happy to put up with Dial-Up for a month or so, plus going around to my parents place once a week or so to use Dad’s internet to move some big files around. The house was a great deal – a bit of a bargain in my opinion – so it was worth a bit of pain.
To be honest - Dial-Up wasn’t the nightmare I imagined. Sure I wasn’t going to be downloading 10 podcasts every day or surfing sites all day. But for general email and basic surfing it wasn’t too bad.
OK it still sucked but I wasn’t completely offline.
As I was telling all of my contacts about the change of address, phone number etc – I was contacted by Neighborhood Cable – an Australian company with an American name. NCable are a Victorian regional Pay TV / Internet company. They are in Mildura, Ballarat and Geelong. Unlike most ISP’s they install their own infrastructure and cabling – rather than running off Telstra’s backbone.
http://www.ncable.com.au/
Even though they also don’t have their cable running down my street – they have a new service called Wireless Cable Broadband. They have a transmitter in town on the water tower – click for webcam view which gives them about 25km of range. At my place I have an antenna on my roof that runs down into a modem in my office – and from there to my wireless router etc. From there its business as usual in setting up the internet etc.
http://www.visitmildura.com.au/quicksite/index.php?id=webcam
So I know have broadband where otherwise I wouldn’t have. And even better – its FASTER. Best ADSL speed I can get here is 1500/256. It will be a long time before we get ADSL 2/2+ in a country town like Mildura. So far the speeds I have been getting have been the equivalent of 3500/1200 !! And I’ve even complained as I was told to expect download speeds around 5000 !!
http://www.milduravictoria.com.au/
And because I am in a country regional area with no access to ADSL broadband – I got full subsidy from the Australian Government’s HIBIS program. The whole install cost me nothing !! Yai !!
http://www.dcita.gov.au/tel/higher_bandwidth_incentive_scheme_hibis
So far the quality has been excellent. No problems at all. The increased upload speed already has made a huge difference to my productivity. Instead of queuing files to upload overnight – I can do them during the day while preparing the sites. 100Mb used to take an hour on 1500/256. Now its like 10 mins. That makes a huge difference to my planning.
Really happy with it all so far. Will keep you up to date on my experiences as we go.
RSS vs WebFeed ? August 24, 2005
Posted by Michael Quinn in : Microsoft, RSS , comments closedJust wanted to toss in my 2 cents on the whole RSS vs Web Feed issue.
A brief summary: RSS (really simple syndication) lets you subscribe to websites, podcasts and other things. Once you have worked out how to use it your internet browsing is changed forever. Instead of having to go back to a website to see if its changed, your subscription service sends you the latest news and headlines.
There is an RSS feed for this site – its the orange icon on the bottom right hand corner of the browser. If you have an RSS agregator or reader, you put the link into it and you started getting updates of the site when I make them. You don’t have to give me any information like an email address to subscribe to a newsletter. You come and go as you please.
Sounds great doesn’t it? Microsoft thinks so too and the are incorporating RSS into the next version of Windows – Vista – formerly known as longhorn. It’s due out late next year. Probably. But Microsoft are planning on putting RSS into Vista in a big way – especially Internet Explorer 7.
However Microsoft want to call it Web Feeds – not RSS. They feel RSS is a bit techy and complicated to explain. Web Feed sounds simple and easy enough. Of course this is upsetting a lot of people who claim Microsoft are trying to reinvent RSS in their own image. Much like they tried to do with html, css, media files, document files and pretty much anything else.
I actually like the term Web Feed. It makes it easier to explain to someone what it is. RSS just sounds weird and unfriendly. I think once you know what it is – rather than what it stands for – its a good name for it. But the 30 second conversation of introducing it to someone and explaining what it does – I’ve just had too many of those in my life of being a geek. Why can’t we find a simpler way of describing things?
Eventually I think the term Web Feed will slowly become more accepted. We will probably still use the RSS / XML buttons – but know them as Web Feed buttons.