After my recent flurry of posts about my new iPhone 3G, I’ve noticed lots of new visitors attracted to my site by this particular subject. With the rumours of Apple planning on shifting 45 million more of them next year its likely to remain a popular topic for some time.

And with good reason as the iPhone is the most powerful pocket-sized device available so far thanks to the ability to add additional applications that extend the functionality nearly to infinity. It truly is a Swiss Army Knife of gadgets.

As a result of my recent health problems, I’ve pretty much had the last month with nothing but time on my hands and my iPhone in my hands. I’ve barely put it down, its the first thing I fondle when I wake up in the morning and the last thing I stroke before drifting off to sleep.

As much as I adore my iPhone, and believe me I do, I’m not going to lie to you about the smoothness of the experience. I’ve been suffering with some of the issues and problems you may have read about; apps crashing on launch, apps and updates not installing properly and the dreaded poor signal on the 3G network, but even with these niggles, it is still an amazing piece of kit.

I believe the problems I’ve had are addressable and Apple will be able to fix them through software updates. The last update, to 2.0.2 has already stopped the crashes on the phone itself and since installing it, I haven’t had a spontaneous restart.

I did have to do a full restore though, as I had lost some apps when iTunes tried to install their updated versions. It took a couple of hours and the most recent back-up I had done was around a week old, so I lost some SMS messages and a few other bits of data, but the phone is now working well.

The 3G issues persist for me and it could be that the coverage where I live isn’t that great, but I have trouble believing that, since I live in London. I hope it improves and soon.

I’ve installed dozens of apps already, stretching across 5 home screens and I thought I would share a few interesting ones with you, that you might not have heard of yet.

Simplify Media
Simplify Media is very cool, it allows you to stream your entire iTunes collection (unprotected tracks only, nothing with iTunes DRM), over wi-fi, Edge and 3G to your iPhone and it really works. In real terms, it means there is no storage limit on your iPhone, it will hold as much as your Mac or PC at home. You install a small piece of software on your networked computer, install the app on your iPhone, log into both devices with the same account and your entire musical collection magically pops up on your iPhone and you can play any track! The app is currently free, but after 100,000 downloads, they will start charging for it. Grab it while you can!

Sol Free Solitaire
There are many versions of this popular solo card game, but I like this one, mainly because it is free. I’m not much of a gamer, but I used to play Solitaire on Windows PCs and its nice to have a version to play on my iPhone. The interface is smooth, you tap the card you want to move, then tap the card you wish to move it to and it away it goes. There are several variations to play, my favourite is Klondike 3,

Dual Level
This is another app that’s free, which makes it preferable to the paid versions. Its a simple idea, when you start the app, the screen turns into virtual horizontal and a vertical spirit levels linked to the built in accelerometers. You can use it to level hanging pictures or anything else you might use a spirit level for - very cool!

iVote
This is a simple app which lists poll questions for you to respond to, ranging from politics to personal, with the results available for you to break down in various ways. It’s more geared towards Americas (like almost everything online!), but it is a fun app and a real time waster. I like it!

WhosHere
Of all the social networking apps, this one shows the most promise with its simple, yet focused function. It’s a chat app that uses your location to show you other iPhone and iPod Touch users and their approximate proximity. In other words, its a location based chat application which is very clever. You fill out a profile with as much, or as little (or nothing) and tap the near button - you are then presented with a list of people, their profiles and the approx distance from you. You can set the proximity of your search from as little as 5 miles up to 3000 miles. You can also blur your location, up to 2 miles from where you really are, so you do have options to maintain some privacy. The app’s user base seems to be growing fast and yes, this one is free too.

PhotoSwap
PhotoSwap is very new, its only been available for less than a week (at the time of my writing) and I find it strangely addictive. The premise is simple, you take a photograph on your iPhone and the app sends it to a random stranger, while you receive a photo from the same random stranger that receives yours - that’s the photo swap. Once you receive a photo, you have the option of replying directly to that person with another photo, effectively having a conversation with iPhone snaps. I’ve received all sorts of photos; city skylines, beach views, people’s homes, pets, all sorts really. And before your sick imagination conjures visions of body parts, I’ll disappoint you - I have yet to receive anything offensive and there is a “report” button to tap if you do. The app allows you to chose a user name, plus one line of description for a mini-profile (accessed through the main settings via the home screen not directly from the app) and you can choose to show your location on a map. I would suggest turning off the location stuff if you are at home and only use it when you are out in public. It might sound a bit strange, but try it, I think you will agree that there is something very endearing about using it.

This is just a small selection of apps that have caught my attention, there are literally over 1000 of them available already, with more being added to the App Store every day. Have a look, I’m sure there are some that will appeal to you too.

And I’m still waiting for the two apps I’ll pay for, TomTom navigation software for the car and a SlingPlayer client. I’d lay you odds I have both before the year is out!

After all the whinging and complaining over the last week about my problems getting my new iPhone 3G from O2, I thought I would share some of my initial impressions of it.

Yes, that’s right…I’ve got my brand new, shiny, lickable, 16gb black iPhone 3G. I exclusively revealed this exciting bit of news on FaceBook last Thursday when it was delivered to my north London lair.

And again, yes, you read that right, I posted it on my FaceBook profile, as a status update.

Status updates on FaceBook are a lot like Twitter posts. It’s another reason why you should be my FaceBook friend!

Even though it was 6 days later than expected, I was still very pleased to be receiving iPhone 3G and couldn’t wait to unbox it and fire it up.

I didn’t buy the original iPhone, as it was only released officially here in the UK around 8 months ago. My reasoning was sound, or so I thought. As I expected a 2nd generation of iPhone to come out around now, I didn’t want to be in a position of wanting to buy it so soon after getting the 1st gen.

How was I to know that O2 were going to be handing out cheap (or free) upgrades to existing customers? Doh!

I was bit disappointed that Apple left out a couple of goodies that shipped with the original iPhone - the dock and the microfibre cloth to wipe the screen. The lack of the microfibre cloth is a real silly miss, they can’t cost that much when you’re buying a million of them.

The touchscreen does pick up a lot of fingerprints, though they are only really noticeable when the the screen is off. When the screen is illuminated, its very bright and you really don’t see any.

The screen is actually gloriously bright, extremely crisp and pin sharp. I could easily watch a full length film or television programme on it and probably will. The multi-touch control of the device is nothing short of astounding. It’s extremely intuitive and very accurate.

The iPod functions are also impressive and it blows away my old 60gb 5th gen iPod with video.

I’ve also set up several email accounts on my iPhone. If you want to reach me when I am on the go, you can contact northlondonhippy@gmail.com or northlondonhippy@yahoo.co.uk and I’ll receive them pretty goddamn quickly! You might even get a mobile reply…

I’ve also got the FaceBook mobile application, AIM for instant messaging and I’ve been playing around on Twitter with that cool app called Twinkle. I’m northlondonhippy on all of those services too, though Twitter registered my username as n_londonhippy because they don’t give you enough characters for my full online name.

Surfing the web on the iPhone is something else I’ve spent a good deal of time doing and its the first hand-held device that gives you any sort of useful internet experience. I’ve accessed the net from various mobile phones and an old Palm Pilot of mine and I’ve always found it sorely lacking. Spend ten minutes doing the same on the iPhone 3G and you will wonder how you lived without it. I’ve used both wi-fi and the 3G network and pages load very quickly too.

I read that the new iPhone 3G has about as much computing power as a laptop made in 2003; similar processing power and storage is what I took that to mean. Think about it - I’m now carrying something as powerful as a five-year-old laptop in my pocket now. It blows my mind!

There really are only 2 major differences between the new iPhone 3G and the original iPhone (and yes, I know there are plenty of minor changes, just humour me, please). The inclusion of 3G network access and GPS.

The GPS is nothing short of amazing. Even sitting here , deep inside my north London lair, not near any windows and it still knows where I am with frightening accuracy. The map software lets you know how certain it is of your location, by using variously sized circles to indicate your approximate location, until it is certain and then places a push-pin like marker where you are. Outside with no obstructions, when the iPhone can see the sky, you get a remarkably accurate reading of your location, so much so that if you walk a bit, the blue dot adjusts to your new position.

The location data isn’t only utilised by the map application, but any app can grab it. This includes geo-tagging of your photos and with some Twitter apps, can include your location so you can track people nearby. Spooky!

Can someone please release some turn-by-turn, good enough to work in my car, navigation software? I’ve read that TomTom have already written the app, so why can’t I buy it already? My old TomTom is massive, compared to my tiny, slim little iPhone, if I didn’t have to carry the TomTom with me, it would be a real bonus and my pockets would thank you.

And while I’m at it with a wishlist, could someone please design, manufacture and sell the following:

A powered dock for use in my car, that has a suction-cup windscreen mount, so I can position the iPhone like a SatNav, plus a built-in, sophisticated FM transmitter that scans to find the best frequency and then beams audio to my in-car stereo, in high quality.

My super-dooper in-car dock/transmitter/mount is not actually such a big ask and it would sell like proverbial hotcakes. Bundle it with a code to get a navigation app and you would probably sell 500,000 of them in the first year alone. I’m giving you a multimillion pound idea here, for free, so if one of you do this, at least cut me in for a slice of the pie. Or just send me one of these cool in-car suction-cup, FM-transmitter thingies for free. It’s the least you could do!

There is a third thing that separates the new iPhone 3G from its predecessor, though you can upgrade the original to the new 2.0 software and enjoy it as well. I’m talking about third party applications which you can access via iTunes or on the iPhone itself. Some apps are free, others cost. So far, I’ve only installed the freebies.

I’m not being cheap, its just none of the pay apps have really appealed to me and the best ones seem to be games and I’m not that bothered. When I see one I like the look of (navigation software!!!!!), I’ll happily part with my readies.

There are so many applications available already that I’m not going to actually talk about any of the specific ones now, but I’d rather come back at another time to give them proper attention.

What can’t be denied is that this is the real game changer with the iPhone 3G, the ability to do so many cool things with it. And that’s just today, who knows what tomorrow’s killer application for the iPhone might be…perhaps one of you out there in internetland is already working on the next HUGE thing! Just whisper it in my ear, before your start-up has its IPO, so I can get in on the ground floor and make a little dirty lucre too…!

The one thing no-one seems to ever mention when they write about the iPhone is the phone itself. I think that shows you how far we come with personal technology and gadgets, that the voice-communication function of something with the word “phone” in its name, is taken for granted and doesn’t matter that much.

It does to me and one of my concerns about the iPhone was how it performed as a basic mobile telephone.

It turns out I had nothing to fear, the iPhone is a very robust cellphone. Calls over my network on 3G are clear and the connection seems strong. The speakerphone function really works too, dialling a contact or a phone number is also very simple and works very well.

What’s interesting about the iPhone is the many standard mobile phone functions it DOESN’T do. There’s no MMS messaging, so no sending photos as text messages. There’s no way to forward a text message either. The iPhone has BlueTooth, but the only thing it uses it for is to connect a wireless headset. You can’t send a photo to your computer, or to another phone, you can’t exchange contacts with another phone, you can’t even Bluejack strangers!

I don’t really understand why Apple has locked these functions out. At the very least, let us send photos over bluetooth. And synching notes from my Mac would be useful too!

Something else I don’t understand is the lack of cut & paste. It couldn’t be that hard to get a clipboard like functionality running on it. It’s supposed to be the same software that runs on Macs, so what’s the problem? I know some Apple big-wig mentioned that it was on their list of things to do and they just didn’t have time to get to it, but that comes off sounding lame. There’s got to be some marketing reason for withholding this function, I just haven’t a clue what it could be!

All of these cool things do come at a cost and I don’t mean your monthly bill, though they might sting a bit too. I mean battery life, or the lack of it. Surfing the net, checking emails, playing with apps, all drain the battery far faster than you would like and its very easy to see it drop 50% in a couple of hours.

I could see carrying a spare dock cable and attaching it to the nearest PC at every opportunity. It’s another reason why I want a powered dock for the car. I don’t see how I would get through a full day of serious usage without topping up the battery a couple of times.

So am I happy with my new iPhone?

What do you think? It’s easily the coolest, most powerful device I’ve ever had the pleasure of owning. I’m looking forward to 18 months of delirious joy as I find new and fun things to do with it.

And at the end of 18 months, I can only imagine what sort of iPhone I will be upgrading to then! It will probably transport me to a virtual new reality where I’m the king of the universe and everyone worships me as a living god. Now, that’s a app I’d buy!

Man, am I pissed off!

I’m still sitting here without an iPhone and I think every single one of the many people I’ve spoken to at 02 have lied to me about it, repeatedly.

I’m fucking fuming!

Imagine if I had to take Friday off because I was told IT was coming, only to be told on Friday that IT was coming on Monday. Imagine if today was my second day of missing out on work, to wait for a delivery that’s near as I can tell, not coming.

Now imagine I was looking at taking a third day off to actually receive my iPhone. Wouldn’t you be feeling homicidal?

I have the urge to crush, kill and destroy! Thanks O2!

Luckily, I haven’t had to take any time off work; I was off on Friday anyway and while I am working tonight, Mrs. H is off today, so it wouldn’t have been a problem if it was coming today.

But its not grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

This morning’s O2 liar is “investigating” why my order hasn’t been shipped yet. She says the “stock hasn’t been released”, which is bullshit, because I was told on Weds that it was following my credit check. She says it could be still sitting in their warehouse, awaiting clearance for shipment…

As fucking if!

There probably isn’t a 16gb iPhone 3G to be had right now in the entire country. The chances of a stray one, just sitting on a shelf in a warehouse with my name on it, awaiting someone’s green light is laughably absurd.

I’ve just had a call back from O2…they still don’t know if I have an iPhone waiting for me. Their “system” is giving them mixed signals and its not clear what’s going on. How impressive is that?

The woman who phoned me back says she will keep an eye on my order all day and will phone back if it is shipped out today for delivery tomorrow.

Put it this way, I’m not going to sit by the telephone waiting for that call.

I don’t think I’ve ever put so much effort into spending my own money. This is beyond a joke. I wish I could go to another network and get one, O2 appear to be shite!

I have iWorries over my brand new, shiny, lickable iPhone 3G.

iDon’t think its coming today.

And ok, ok, enough with the iWord jokes. They are wearing a bit iThin now.

As I previously posted, I was assured on Wednesday that my iPhone would be delivered today, but that now appears not to be the case.

According to O2’s website, I should have had a text message before 6pm yesterday, confirming delivery today. I didn’t get that text. Further more, a mate of mine who is getting an iPhone 3G as an upgrade has been able to track his package all the way to DHL. My order is showing online as still “in progress”.

I’ve already phoned O2 this morning. Yes I am sad.

The rep I spoke to told me they are still having problems with their website and database and she couldn’t confirm if it was coming today or Monday. She said the stock had been allocated, but it didn’t appear to be shipped yet, but because of their internal problems, she couldn’t be sure. Her feeling was that a Monday delivery was much more likely, but again she assured me I was definitely getting one and told me not to buy one at the shop.

As if the shops have any left by now! I’ve had reports from my spies of small (10-30 people) queues at every O2 and Car Phone Warehouse shop they passed this morning. With the very limited stock numbers, I’m not the only potentially disappointed person in the UK today.

Of course, I could be pleasantly surprised by the arrival of my brand new tech-toy, but I am not feeling confident at all.

It seems like O2 screwed this up royally and they should never have attempted to pre-sell them online. If they kept all the stock they had for the shops, I’d probably be stroking mine right now. Instead, I foolishly believed that pre-ordering as soon as they went on sale would secure me one on launch day. Oh what a twat I am!

Instead of having a huge celebration of gadgetery-geekery, I’ve spent the better part of this week suffering from a bad case of tech-stress and customer service rage.

So there you go, its 9:30am on the 11th of July, international iPhone day and rather than playing with my new toy, I’m sitting here playing with myself and that’s no where near as satisfying as it sounds!

Please Mr. iPhone man, deliver mine today! I’ve waited oh so long and I’ve been oh so patient! I deserve to have all my iPhone 3G dreams come true!

Don’t I?

Doesn’t everyone?

That’s not wishful thinking, the title up there. That’s what O2 told me on the phone today.

I won’t bore you with the details, but I managed to get a real live human on the phone, provided the info they needed for my credit check and had it confirmed that a black, 16gb iPhone 3G will be delivered to my north London lair on Friday.

I’ll believe it when I see it, and so will you, because I’m going to post some pictures of it once its here.

Tune in again on Friday to see if O2 make one particularly demanding customer in north London very happy. I’m counting the seconds already.

Back in September, I wrote a little piece on why my phone was not an iPhone, yet.

But soon, my phone will be an iPhone.

iHope.

iPray.

iDream.

iPre-registered…

…for the brand new, shiny lickable iPhone 3G just as soon as O2 let me. Yesterday, I received an email advising me that I could pre-order one of these little babies online and it would be delivered to my north London lair on Friday, which is the official launch day for this latest version of the world’s favourite touchscreen mobile.

Sorted!

Or so I thought.

I placed the order before 8:30am yesterday, put in all my details and saw the conformation screen with my order number. They said I would receive an email with all of these details as well.

I’m still waiting for that email to arrive.

In O2’s FAQs, they say you can email them your PAC code, from your previous network and they can add it to your account, so I did.

The reply I received was a bit surprising.

I need to mention that this reply to my email wasn’t spotted by me until many hours later, because I slept all day, because I was between shifts.

I still am, so there will be another snooze very soon.

While I was sleeping, O2’s entire online ordering system was melting down into a steaming puddle of poo.

They were overwhelmed by the number orders being placed, or “victims of their own success” as I am sure some O2 spokesperson will be stating in front of a TV camera very soon. That’s what all companies say when they can’t keep up with demand; its an oldie but a goodie.

So anyway, I wake up and waiting for me is an actual reply from an actual human O2 employee, who apologised for the lack of a facility to input my PAC code when I placed my order and then explained what I needed to do with it (all after I receive the iPhone 3G) AND then went on to share an extremely important fact…

“Your order (on-xxxxxxxxx) for the 16Gb (Gigabytes) iPhone 3G is currently out of stock. You’ll receive your order on or after 11 July 2008.”

The key words in that sentence are:
- out of stock
- on or after

Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

FUCK!

You have no idea how deeply my little heart sank at this most distressing and unpleasant turn of events.

I ordered my iPhone 3G less than 30 mins after they went on sale and it sounds like there’s a better than average chance I will be sitting here all day on Friday, staring out my window for a courier that will never come.

Oh the horror!

I’ve been waiting a seriously long time for my iPhone 3G, forgoing the original version which I could have had last autumn…and if I did get that one, I would be getting a free upgrade to the new model, just for signing a new 18 month contract.

These ain’t tears of joy staining my keyboard, trust me.

So I wait and I wonder. Is there an iPhone 3G sitting in a warehouse somewhere with “the northlondonhippy” on printed on the label!

I hope not, because there’s no way they’d know where to deliver it, but my real world name and proper address might be better.

You get the idea anyway, either I ordered early enough to have them allocate me one, or they have so few that they ran out in like 10-15 minutes of online trading and I’m screwed.

No one knows for certain how many iPhone 3G’s are even available, O2 and Apple have remained silent on this issue, at least according to the various newspaper reports I read this morning. The closest I got to any sort of detail was that one newspaper thought half the iPhone 3Gs were being pre-sold online and the other half were heading to O2 shops around the UK. How do you play the odds on that one?

So here’s my next quandary, do I cancel my online order and gamble that I will have better luck at 8am on Friday at my local O2 shop? Will there be a queue? Will there be enough to go around? Will I get mugged on my way back home, because criminals read the news too?

I don’t have the answer to any of those questions, except that last one…I would die or kill to protect my brand new, shiny, lickable iPhone 3G, so you best think twice before you attempt to pilfer it from me!

I’ve got mixed feelings about O2 already and I’ve only been a (non active) customer of theirs for only 24 hours.

On the one hand, I’ve had a personal reply to my emailed question, but on the other hand, they have not confirmed my order by email, as they said they would, nor given me any sort of update on my order’s progress.

In light of the massive media attention this launch has seen and will likely see over the next week, you would think O2 would be prepared for a situation like this. Holding emails and press statements would be out there already to counteract all the negative information I’ve seen about shortages and poor customer service.

Maybe they should hire me to do their PR.

Then again, they don’t have to do anything. It seems we’re all slavering like rabid dogs at the prospect of owning the latest iPhone and no matter how badly we’re treated, we still want one.

It’s not like we can get one elsewhere, thanks to O2’s exclusive deal with Apple, we have no real choice.

I’m no different, I’m willing to jump through multiple hoops of fire and swear an oath to satan if I have to, as long as I’m clutching mine this Friday.

Ok, I know I’ve already sworn several oaths to satan, one more’s not going to make a blind bit of difference.

As long as I get my goddamn iPhone 3G on Friday, I don’t care about anything else!

Please oh great gods of high technology, may you be smiling upon me, your most worthy and devoted disciple!

Just gimme my goddamn iPhone, goddammit!

I purchased a full copy of Logic Studio, Apple’s audio production suite of applications and loops, at the end of October, when I bought my copy of Leopard. Around a week after that, I started installing Logic Studio; yesterday I finished.

Yes, you are reading that correctly, it took me 6 weeks to get all of the software properly installed and functioning on my iMac.

Why?

Simple, because one of the installation DVDs was no good.

The first time I tried to install the entire package, the sixth DVD of seven was spit out by my computer, around 7 hours into the process. The DVD in question, Jam Pack Content 2, had some problem and my drive couldn’t read it.

Being the resourceful sort, I decided to give it another try before contacting Apple. At the same point, around 7 hours in, the 6th DVD crapped out again. I phoned Apple.

Phoning Apple is never fun, they are always busy, you need to wait a while before you speak to the first human being and rarely can the first person you speak to, help you, necessitating a further wait. I was more relaxed this time, because I was armed with a fresh serial number and a recently purchased, boxed copy of Logic Studio.

After leaping successfully through all the right hoops, I finally got to speak to someone from the Logic department. I described my problem to him in detail and he agreed I had a duff DVD. He confirmed my details and said that a replacement DVD would be with me in 3-4 days. This was six weeks ago.

Like a twat, I sat by my front door, day in and day out, awaiting the knock of the postman or courier with my replacement DVD and every day, it did not arrive. I stayed cool, I stayed calm, I waited a couple of weeks and phoned again.

On subsequent calls to Apple, you are armed with something even better than a serial number, something they call a case number. A case number from Apple refers to the specific incident you’ve contacted them about and it makes it much quicker to navigate through the hoops to get to the person who can help you.

I got the same guy in the Logic department, he has quite a distinctive accent and that’s how I knew. He put me on hold to check on the status of my replacement and after a few minutes, he returned to tell me that it would be with me in 3-4 days. This was five weeks ago.

I continued to press my runny nose against my front window, patiently waiting for the delivery to come and making nasty, gloopy marks on the glass. I remained chilled, I was relaxed and as the holidays approached, I formulated a plan of action.

I also did a bit of research on the internet and discovered I was not alone with a damaged installation DVD. It turned out many people had a similar experience to mine, with the installation failing at the same point.

I’m guessing Apple had a serious quality control issue with DVD number 6 and getting them remade took a lot longer than expected. Or they just lied to me. Or both. It’s all very un-Apple.

I waited four more weeks, before deciding to phone Apple again and that was yesterday. Just as I was looking up their number on the ‘net to phone them again, there was a loud knock on the door and guess what it was! A courier with the replacement DVD. Yipppppeeeee!

I spent five more hours installing all the content for Logic Studio and at the end of it I was rewarded with a finished installation and all the loops and sounds in their proper folders on my hard drive. Result!

Though, to be honest I was hoping to have a long, drawn out argument with Apple which resulted in me receiving some form of compensation for my lengthy wait, but they stole my thunder with their well-timed delivery. If only I had phoned them a week before, perhaps I could have beat them out of some credit, or a free copy of Final Cut Express 4. Now, we’ll never know.

Now that I’ve got a full, working copy of Logic Studio cooking on my iMac, I can start thinking about my next big exercise in futility; my first northlondonhippy album.

Ladies, gentleman and stoners, I’m pleased to announce that coming sometime in the 2nd half of 2008, I will be releasing the comeback record from a career that never was!

I present to you for the first time anywhere, the title of my upcoming release:

“the northlondonhippy & the seven deadly sins - songs about sex and death”

My back-up band, “the seven deadly sins” are actually only a six-piece…Sloth keeps missing rehearsals.

I’ll be writing and recording the record over the next several months, aiming to release it for free on my website sometime this summer. I already have the bare bones of 5 songs in the works and ideas for the rest. The whole thing will be downloadable, along with cover art.

If 1 million people download this puppy, besides bankrupting my bandwith for a decade, I promise I’ll take my band and go on tour. No joke, no lie. I reckon if one million copies of this album are out there, sponsorship for a tour would be a piece of piss.

No DRM, no credit card numbers, it will be completely and totally free. I might make you handover your email address, so I can keep you up to date with a newsletter or something, but I would never sell, loan or give your details to anyone!

Here at HippyCo Industries Ltd (a division of HippyCo Enterprises plc), your privacy is important to us, just as is ours. For that reason, we’ll never phone you up at home for a chat or show up unannounced for a cup of tea.

Recently, I purchased a Slingbox Solo. I ordered it from Amazon and set it up a couple of weeks ago.

For those of you who don’t know what a Slingbox is, please allow me to explain. A Slingbox is a device which you connect to your audio/video sources and to your home network and it allows you to place-shift your viewing on a computer, in your home, or anywhere in the world where you have an internet connection and it also allows you to control the source device.

I’ll elaborate: I have a SKY+ satellite receiver and DVR (Digital Video Recorder) in my living room, connected to my flatscreen TV. I’ve connected the Slingbox to the SKY+ and my network and the Slingbox takes the raw TV signal and compresses it, then streams it onto my home network, to be received by, say by my laptop, wirelessly in any other room in the house.

Are you getting the idea? In theory, I should be able to view my Slingbox outside of my house, but I am having some port forwarding issues which I’ve yet to resolve, because it goes through two different routers before reaching the internet.

The Slingbox Solo is a very simple looking device, with connectors on one side and some blinky lights on the other side. There are no buttons or controls, the idea is to connect it, configure it and forget about it, everything else is done via the software you download, called SlingPlayer.

I connected my Slingbox Solo to my SKY+ via an S-video cable, as its the highest quality output signal available. My SKY+ is an original V1 Pace unit, feeding my TV via SCART, but the S-Video output mirrors it. This means the Slingbox Solo only sees whatever the SKY+ sees. If someone is watching the TV at the same time, you both have to watch the same programme.

I used a normal RCA stereo phono cable to connect up the audio from the SKY+ to the Slinbox Solo and connected the power supply. I also put the IR blasters above and below the SKY+ IR receiver as these provide the remote control functionality.

Finally, I had to connect the SlingBox to my network. The SlingBox only outputs ethernet, there is no built in wi-fi, which is fine if your router is next to your television. Mine isn’t, which meant using some sort of bridge.

My first try was an Airport Express from Apple. They are normally very robust and dependable units and this was a cost effective way to do it, but it didn’t work very well. I don’t know why.

I connected the AE to my network in WDS mode, connected the Slingbox Solo to it and within a minute, the Slingbox was connected to my network. I was able to configure the Slingbox quickly and was watching my SKY+ on all my Macs in fairly good quality.

It didn’t last, the bandwith dropped dramatically, and at least once a day, the Slingbox would lose its network connection, though it appeared the Airport Express was still connected to my network. I had other network problems as well, losing connections to my different computers and other Airport Express units, used for music streaming, were having dropouts too. Resetting the Slingbox and associated AE unit restored my connection and got the network working again, but the same problem happened every day.

When I disconnected the Slingbox and AE, my network performed fine, so I decided to connect the Slingbox another way.

I bought a set of NetGear HomePlugs, which do ethernet over powerlines and they are a total revelation. You plug them both into the electrical mains and they find each other automatically and create a durable and robust ethernet bridge between the two locations. Once plug is connected to my Airport Extreme, the other is connected to the Slingbox. Within seconds, they were connected and so was the Slingbox and its held the connection continuously since I connected them. These things are very cool!

I’m still having slight problems with my network; it grinds to a halt and loses the internet about once a day, but then comes back. I think I need to set it all up again, as my base unit is still looking for an AE in WDS mode and its not there anymore. When I have the time, I’ll reboot all the units and reset them up from scratch. That’s how it was before the Slingbox, so it should go back to being perfect again.

I’m also determined to sort out the port forwarding, as it would be cool to watch SKY+ from outside my home, either live TV or recorded programmes. The SlingPlayer software includes a virtual remote for the SKY+, which means you can duplicate any remote command with a simple click of your mouse. Very clever!

There are other models of SlingBox available, some offering more connections for more devices, others offering digital and analogue TV tuners. For my needs, with one main TV source, the Solo was perfect. I’ve got shitty freeview reception here, so a tuner was pointless and there’s no need to connect it to a DVD player, because most computers are already DVD players!

If I wanted to watch SKY in another room, I could have a second box installed, which I would have to pay for and I would be charged a tenner a month for the privilege. It wouldn’t be connected to my main SKY+, which means it would only receive live tv. Also, it would be in one fixed location, like my bedroom. What if I wanted to keep an eye on the news, while cooking dinner?

The Slingbox is a cheaper, more flexible solution, it offers great picture quality, at full screen resolutions, anywhere inside my home. When I can view it over the internet, which I am certain I will do one day soon, it will complete the package. It’s a welcome addition to my A/V arsenal!

Thank you for dropping by tech-geek corner!

Hey.

Yeah, you.

YES, YOU!

Hi there.

Thanks for dropping by.

You’ve reached the northlondonhippy’s happening website and that makes you very cool.

If you’ve come here today for something genuinely entertaining, informative or interesting, you’re bound to be disappointed. Today, all we are offering is lame excuses and an invitation to explore the rest of the site. There’s some good stuff buried just below this apology and even deeper if you can be bothered to dig.

I’m letting the 100 posts thing get away from me, I can see my post count slipping away. I’m off for the next week, though and I’m bound to come up with something in the next seven days. I’m aiming for 10 posts of an indeterminate length and subject, but we all know how well my aims pan out.

I’m still adjusting to existing in daylight and I’m still catching up on my sleep. By the time I’m feeling nearly normal, it will be time to get on the nightbus again, metaphorically speaking, of course.

I’ve just been chilling out for the last couple of days, sorting out real life bullshit that is as tedious as it sounds. I’ve still got more to do as well and I want to have some fun too.

I need to have some fun! I’ve earned it!

Fun, this week is not going to involve hard drugs and whores, no matter how much you beg me, but playing around with my new copy of Logic Studio. I spent most of yesterday trying to install it, but one of the 8 installation DVDs was corrupted, so I’m not there yet. Apple were cool when I phoned them and the DVD they think is damaged is to be replaced. I should have it in my hot little hands in a few days. Then, lucky me, I get to re-install most of it again. It will take around 4 hours, but once that’s done I’ll have all the content I should have, loops, instruments, etc. Groovy!

Now, all I need is some talent, but I’m sure they have a pill for that. They have pills for everything!

Welcome to a lazy Sunday with the hippy.

I finished my last shift Saturday morning, which technically means I worked the first 7 hours of my first day off. That, in my mind makes it an actual 1/2 day off. I’m off all day today, but back at work again tomorrow night. Does this make sense? I’ve got a day and a half off. So what am I doing with all that time?

Sleeping mainly.

I had a 4 hour nap on Saturday in the late afternoon into early evening, woke up for a few hours (and for a Japanese takeaway) and then went back to sleep around midnight and up again at 6:30am this morning.

If you are wondering why I haven’t posted anything until now, I hope that answers your question. I also hope I’m not approaching proper blogging with detailed explanations of my fucked up sleep patterns and takeaway menus. At least it wasn’t lunch!

As today is my only proper day off in the last week, I’ve got to do all the real life shit I’ve neglected while I was working. I’ve got to run a few errands, do some stuff around the house and I’m hoping to have the time to finish installing the last of my big software purchase last week.

Specifically, I’ve got a full, boxed copy of the new Logic Studio, purchased at the upgrade price, because I have Logic Express. I think there are 6 DVDs or so to install, which means its probably going to take a couple of hours or more to transfer all that on to my hard drive.

After my next 2 shifts, I’ve got 9 days off and my plan is to put a fair bit of time into learning this new application and laying down a song or two. I even have a couple of things in my head, so I won’t be starting from scratch.

I haven’t done anything properly musical in around 20 years, though I’ve recorded some incidental music which I’ve used in videos and things. For example, the background music on my nlh deluxe graphic promo is taken from something I recorded around 3 years ago, when I first got Logic Express. It was a test recording and not meant to be anything more than that, but it worked for my purposes and there were no copyright issues, since I wrote it.

The cool thing about the music I am hoping to record next week is that I have some lyrics and melodies already that I want to play around with and I’m going to try to sing.

I’m not a singer and I can’t sing a note, so this should be fun. I’m going to attempt to find my voice.

The most inhibiting factor to this is that singing, unlike guitar or keyboards, can’t be hidden with headphones; you have to sing out loud. That means my neighbours will probably hear me, only without the benefit of any guiding background tracks. Oh, they are going to get a right laugh out of me!

If I really do come up with any music, I’ll post it here, don’t worry and you all will be able to download it for free. It’s not like a record company’s going to give me a contract! I’m not that deluded.