Maybe it’s me, but I believe things have changed.

I’m all good with technology, I love my Apple Mac(s) and I would like an iPhone very much, and will probably be getting one soon once I’m decided on what contract to go with.

But, I’m not sure about you, when reading through the specifications for the iPod Touch one of the features was ‘view your E-Mail like you would on your computer’ or something to that effect. Now – I think I’ve missed something here, I like E-Mail, it’s good, and convenient but I don’t like being able to have access to them all the time. If I go on holiday I want to leave my E-Mail behind, I don’t want a Blackberry and have access to them all the time. (In all fairness there isn’t much point in me having an iPhone apart from desire factor). And yes, the iPod Touch only has Wi-Fi so you’d be able to use it in Hot Spots, your McDonalds or Starbucks etc, or at Home. But then, if I was at home, I’d have my Laptop, and if I wanted to listen to my music I wouldn’t want notifications coming up saying I had new E-Mail.

This all comes down to me needing a new iPod. I opened my old Classic rather than taking it back to an Apple Store, in hindsight this was a very bad thing to do as I ended up breaking it a little bit more. I want something, that I can use to play my music, that’s it. I don’t want to play games, browse the web or check my E-Mail.

Call me old fashioned, but maybe technology has gone too far here? I also don’t want something that may break if I sit on it. The iPod Touch is a lovely piece of kit, but the iPod Classic does everything I want it to do, and is strong enough to withstand being chucked around in my car (I will buy a case for the next one I buy).

Is anyone with me here, or have we all fallen into the trap that is the E-Mail-mad generation?

The end of another year.

So another year is coming to a close, and what a year it has been. It feels as if it’s gone all so quick, but looking back, what I’ve done this year has been crazy.

I’ve not been away on a proper holiday at all, but the number of projects I’ve worked on and started out on properly has been great. My Freelance IT company: Frantik Freelance IT Support/Web Technologies has done pretty well considering I’ve squeezed it inbetween running Death Cap Records and my day job, and hope to continue successfully with that next year.

I’ve worked a great festival voluntarily as artist welfare person and look forward to working on it again 🙂 You should all check out Rythms of The World in Hitchin – great stuff!

During Autumn I came to work and manage Online Promotions for Club 85 in Hitchin (Facebook/Twitter/general web stuff) and have now become a permanent guest of the Club – My heart does lie there, and I honestly couldn’t have asked for anything better. When I felt I had no one else to speak to I could always find a friendly face there. Thanks Bob, I really do owe you one!

My Distro Label, Death Cap Records continues to grow and I’m using the power that is Twitter to make loads of great connections, and I’m going to work my ass off getting stuff out to the Press – this will be the next big step. (If anyone is reading this, who happens to be in Music Press, and/or PR get in touch?!)

I’ve put the winter blues aside, given up on people I once classed as ‘friends’ and aim to continue with what I do best and hope to meet safe people on the way.

I wish you all a Happy Christmas, with lots of good cheer (and Beer, but not too much) and a very Happy New Year – all the best for 2010!

\M/

Toby

FreeNAS: The ‘Free’ network storage solution!

In an attempt to save money, and my ability to ‘acquire’ an old PC, I was recommended a piece of software called FreeNAS. I currently have some extra HDD’s in my PowerMac G5 which I share over the network using SharePoints. This works very well and I’ve set up a couple of AppleScript scripts which I’ve saved as apps, to mount these shares. Work’s very well all in all, and hasn’t failed me yet.

What would make more sense is if it wasn’t a G5 which consumes lots of power, and was something small and quiet that I could pick up from work (old PC being chucked out).

I therefore ended up with a 2.8Ghz P4 machine with a gig of RAM which I will soon be kitting out with a 500Gb drive or 1Tb drive (internal) to use as a storage device. I have now got FreeNAS installed on a USB stick (very quick and easy, had it set up in about 1hr) and boots in no time.

What’s nice about FreeNAS is that it doesn’t have a GUI so there’s nothing to load. It has a Web interface instead, although you can also set the IP address and what not from the device itself. But overall it’s great, I can power it on and off as a headless unit, and can get some nifty logs as well and status graphs from the web interface.

All in all, this will probably have saved me over £100!