Reilly2040's Blog

Well, as the counter on the right shows, the release of Ubuntu 9.04, codenamed Jaunty Jackalope is happening any time now.

As always, I’m excited to see what the new distribution has to offer over the previous version, however this time I find this tinged with caution, as previously my main installation was on the second disk of my desktop PC, so if the upgrade broke anything, I could happily reboot into Windows and keep using the machine until I got it fixed.

Now however, my main installation is my laptop, which is 100% Ubuntu. And as long term readers (both of them ) will know, I’ve had a tortured history getting my wifi to work (not necessarily getting the card’s drivers setup, more the authentication to my home network that kept failing).

So do I grab the new distro based on the fact that it worked in Intrepid, and since its all setup and working, it should survive the upgrade, or do I hold off in the fear that the upgrade will knacker my network connectivity?

Odds on, I’m going to crack and risk the upgrade. Realistically the only thing that’s given me hassle in the past has been the wifi, so if that breaks, then I can switch to Ethernet to try and get it fixed (or pull files off the laptop prior to wiping and reinstalling).

Look forward to an “I broke my laptop” post tomorrow

Last night, I was browsing through the App Store, and I noticed something really interesting. Namely Star Trek Countdown 1-4.

Star Trek Countdown is the official movie prequel series, released by IDW, and what a company called (I think) IVerse Media have done, is port them into an iPhone/iPod Touch friendly format.

This is interesting for a couple of reasons. Number one, these comics were really hard to get here. I think I saw issue 2 once, and that was it. Making them available in this way means everyone can get a copy. Secondly however, its interesting because they were only 59p each. That’s a heck of a good price compared to the £3+ you pay in the comic shop (who didn’t get them in anyway).

Of course, you’re not getting the issues as they were intended, and things like splash pages lose their impact in this format, but for a cheap, mass-market alternative to the proper comics, I think its great. I’ve also picked up Farscape #1 from the same company.

This got me thinking about digital comics on the whole. Now Marvel have made moves into this area, with their Digital Comics Unlimited service (that I blogged about here) and also their collections of older comics available on DVD (I know they did something like 40 years of Amazing Spider-Man available on a DVD at a bargain price and I’m sure a few others as well).   DC however seem pretty unsure about the idea of making their comics available digitally.

While I would never say digital comics will or should replace proper comics (or at least trades – I feel the same about eBooks and books) I really like the “mass-market” idea digital comics could bring.   Its been something widely commented on for a while, that sales of comics have been badly affected since they moved off of news stands in the States and became the almost sole domain of the specialist comic shops.    It occurs to me that making more comics available via a digitial medium (and given the undeniable success of the iPhone, the app store is a good starting point) could surely only be a good thing.   It wouldn’t even have to be the newest releases.  They could lag a few months behind, meaning if you wanted to be up to date, you could still go to the comic shop.   Heck, even the pricing could be raised a bit.  59p is outstanding value, but given how much the paper copies go for, you could double that easily and it’d still be good value.

With both DC and Marvel courting the mainstream press for attention (Marvel more successfully), why not bolster that with electronic versions of comics.  Imagine DC talking to the press about Blackest Night, and being able to back it up by saying that you can buy Rebirth and Sinestro Corps War for cheap on the App Store, or off their web site or something.  

Digital piracy is a problem for comics like every other medium.  However, while music has iTunes, Amazon etc providing legal sources, TV and movies also have iTunes, and services like Hulu and the iPlayer, comics seem to be stumbling a lot more with embracing the medium, and all that does is make piracy the only option to people who want their comics digitally.   I’m not condoning it, just saying that’s the case.  

Think about the changes coming with the iPhone v3.0 software.  Companies could make an comic book reader app that would allow you to purchase more comics and download them from within the app, or set up a regular subscription to certain titles.   That’d be very cool.   And with other manufacturers providing their own App Stores (Blackberry’s App World, Android Marketplace etc), companies could provide readers for a variety of handsets that would download the comics in some standard format and display them, with the reader handling the hardware-specific stuff.

Just a brief thought/rant on digital comics.   I would definitely like to see more in this field, especially from DC (I’d love to have some GL comics stored on my iPod Touch for reading on the train be it any of the 4 volumes so far).   I can definitely see me buying more for my iPod Touch, especially if more Farscape issues turn up.

Last week, Blackberry released their new App World to the public. Free to download from their website it brings their version of the Apple Appstore to Blackberry handsets.

Of course, third party apps on the Blackberry aren’t a new thing.  Unlike the iPhone, which is reliant on Apple’s Appstore Blackberry developers have long enjoyed the ability to develop and distribute their own applications freely, resulting in many third party vendor websites for the Blackberry already enjoying success (http://shop.crackberry.com and http://www.bplay.com for example).  So what App World provides is a handy one-stop shop.  Rather than having to find any third party vendors out there, there’s now a handy store that is Blackberry approved (and will presumably ship preinstalled on new handsets).

Its my hope that having one, central store like this will provide a development focus, much like Apple’s Appstore. There’s plenty of good software out there for the Blackberry, but with it spread all over many different sites, it can sometimes by awkward to track down exactly what it is you’re after. However, I’m also glad that Blackberry’s App World isn’t replacing third party vendors either. It should create a degree of competition that you can’t get on the iPhone.

Having played about with the app for a bit now, I’m finding it very nice to use. I like the featured content sections, top downloads etc. The only things I’d really like to see added would be to split the top downloads by free/paid, as in the Apple App Store, since the free software tends to dominate the paid stuff, and I’m also slightly concerned by the pricing. Unlike the Apple version, the Blackberry’s App World pricing starts a lot higher. There’s no concept of a 79p application here (prices start at $2.99 I think), and I think that’s a bit of a shame. There’s quite a lot of nice, cheap software on Apple’s App Store, and developers have started to twig to the fact that putting your prices right down, can mean a lot more sales, thus generating more profit overall. This I worry is something that the Blackberry offering may miss out on.

Hmmm, ranty blog post time.

So Apple have finally got around to sorting out the features (copy-and-paste/MMS) that other phones have had for years.   Looking forward to adverts and fanboys proclaiming this as the 3rd coming of the iPhone and acting like they invented these features.

Yes I’m bitter.  Why?  Because the iPod Touch users are getting charged for this update, while the iPhone users aren’t.  Granted, most of the update doesn’t interest me in the slightest, but there’s a couple of provisos:

1. Calendaring updates.   I’d quite like the ability to sync my iPod Touch’s calendar with my Google calendar.   As I’ve said here before, part of the reason I went with a Blackberry was because I didn’t like the iPhone’s reliance on Outlook to do anything in Windows.
2. Updated App Store APIs.   Wonder how long it’ll take before I can’t really buy much from the app store without having the 3.x software?
3. Security fixes.  Nothing confirmed on this one, but something I thought was really dodgy about the 2.x update was the way it included security fixes.   Now, as far as I know, once 2.x hit iTunes, there weren’t any 1.x updates anymore.    So does this mean that if I want the latest Safari etc security patches I’ll need to pay Apple $10?   Or do I risk having an out-of-date OS and browser on my network?

As it stands, I can see me skipping this update and probably having iTunes moan at me forever more.   There’s just not enough in it to justify the money for me at the moment.

If I had an iPhone though I’d be grabbing it in a heartbeat as Copy-and-Paste really is incredibly handy (as I’ve appreciated ever since getting my BB), and MMS is a necessity for me (not having it was a huge mark against the iPhone for me, and it still boggles my mind how it wasn’t there from day 1).  Top marks to Apple for finally getting these implemented, but you still have to wonder why they weren’t in the iPhone 3G.

Not that that seems to have stopped it selling mind, so what do I know?

I was listening to the latest Linux Outlaws podcast, and they mentioned a new gizmo called SheevaPlug.

That looks really cool.  Hope we get them over here at somepoint, as I would be very tempted to get one.   Granted, there’s only one USB port, but I could really see myself plugging in a USB hard disk and using it as a cheap fileserver.  Or possibly using it as a webserver for mucking about with stuff at home.

Regular readers will know I’d been debating what new phone I would get this year. For a while there, the Blackberry Storm really caught my eye, until it was announced as a Vodafone exclusive. And from the initial reviews floating around, its looking like I may have dodged a bullet on that one.

Instead, I went for the more traditional style Blackberry, the new Blackberry Bold. And I must admit, after some initial connection hassles between the shop and the network, once the device sprung to life, it quickly became apparent why they’ve got the nickname crackberries.

Setting up email was an absolute doddle. I simply got a message saying my Blackberry account was active and prompting me to add in my email details. I gave it my address and password, and it figured out everything else. 20 minutes later and new emails to that address were getting pushed out to the device. Simple and how it should be.

I’ve also added various apps to the Blackberry.  Google sync for my contacts and calendar, Windows Live Messenger, Facebook.   All of which work great, with new Facebook alerts or Windows Live messages causing the red light to flash just like emails or texts.  Brilliant.

The other device functions are great as well.  Having not had a 3G device before, its a revelation as to how fast it is, and its great fun using the builtin GPS with Google maps.   As someone who’s not completely sold on the iPhone’s touchscreen keyboard as well, I must admit to being very happy with the Bold’s full qwerty keyboard.  Typing on it is very natural, and while it means the device is a bit wide, I’m glad I went for it for the slightly larger keyboard and screen.

All in all, the Blackberry Bold is definitely a device I’d heartily recommend to anyone interested in a smartphone.   Its only real failing for me is that the 2 megapixel camera’s a downgrade from my previous 3.2 (not to mention my previous one had a nice picture stability function which compensated nicely for my shakey hands).

Its been a thorn in my side for months now, but yesterday I thought I’d have another stab at getting my wifi working on my laptop (glutton for punishment, I know) yesterday. Imagine my surprise when, on booting, the wifi connected no problem.

Despite not working on its initial install, it now seems quite happy. I’m still not completely sure how well the default driver (b43-fwcutter) is supporting my card as, while the connection seems stable, the blue wifi light on my laptop keeps flicking on and off. Could just be an asthetic thing though, but I may try switching over the driver to ndiswrapper and seeing what happens.

Still, if this test install runs smoothly for the next week or so, I reckon I’ll completely repartition the laptop and setup Ubuntu Intrepid as its main OS. Which given how creaky the 3-and-a-half year old WinXP installation was getting will make me a lot happier. Looks like a win for the new network manager.

I got around to quickly installing Intrepid on my laptop last night, but with the usual mixed results sadly.

Most hardware was detected and works out of the box no problem (graphics, sound etc), but networking is still an issue. The restricted drivers manager did ID my wireless card no problem and installed the driver for it, so that side of things is working, but the actual connection to my wifi network is still problematic. Network manager does seem happy that its connected, but I’m assuming the WPA encryption is still failing, as I can’t actually do anything with the connection.

Ethernet’s proving an issue with this new release as well. Whenever I reboot and want to use an ethernet cable, I’ve got to re-enter all the details. The new network manager (which I’m not actually that impressed by, I don’t think the interface is as obvious to use as the old manager) doesn’t seem to be saving the settings properly. Although I presume that’s something I can fix by setting up the config files manually, since it works fine in my upgraded main PC.

I’ve not really mucked about with it much yet, this is just first-install impressions.  To be honest though, aside from the issues with the network manager, the wifi stuff is exactly the same kind of problem I’ve been having with other releases, so I don’t think that’s anything to do with Intrepid.  Its something more fundemental that’s going wrong I feel.

Well, as the countdown I posted on the blog should be indicating, Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex was released today.

I’m always quick to nab new updates and try out the new stuff, so I upgraded my PC straight away, and the good news is that so far it seems to have been a painless process. The new Gnome theme feels a little more polished, but other than the general stability I’ve not played with it much. Of course, given that previous upgrades have tended to break something (the 7.xx series tended to break my sound, fortunately something that the 8.xx series has fixed), the main thing for me is the upgrade has been smooth. The only bit of weirdness so far is that the window title bars sometimes go a bit weird on me, but there’s nothing major going wrong.

So, unfortunately it looks like I’ve not found my new phone after all. Vodafone’s website is now advertising the Blackberry Storm, and in a move similar to Apple’s much-complained-about iPhone network lock-in, its looking like a Vodafone exclusive.

Network coverage in my area is spotty at the best of times, and Vodafone is one of those networks that doesn’t get great signal, so this means that I’m not getting one.

I also notice that the Blackberry Bold, another handset I’d have wanted, only seems to be on Orange. Well, since that’s another network that doesn’t work in my area, again I’m not going for it.

So currently looks like I’m looking at a Curve, unless the Javelin comes out cross-network. Of course, the Curve is an older handset now, so maybe we’re looking at Blackberry losing me as a potential customer while I go for some other kind of Smartphone that’s a bit more up-to-date? (I’m not getting an iPhone as I’m a big texter, and the touchscreen’s not that great for typing).

Can we please nip this kind of thing in the bud? The iPhone being locked to one network has been hugely controversial, and now Blackberry are doing the same thing. Its just an escalating problem, and it limits consumer choice. Let the networks compete in terms of coverage/pricing etc, and let the handsets compete on their own merits.

*Update* Having quickly done a more thorough check I see the Blackberry Bold *is* available on Vodafone as part of a business contract.  Not much use to individuals, but at least it isn’t just Orange that’s selling it.