The James Kilgour BlogA Life Blog.

A few weeks ago I wrote a lengthy post on Why I Would Never Buy an iPhone. I hated the phone’s small touch keyboard, expensive price tag and the prospect of having to move to o2.

But, as it turns out, I lied. Two weeks ago, I bought an iPhone. For the price of only £70 off eBay! Sure, it’s only the 1st Gen model, but still. I’m in love.

Why did I get it so cheap?? There was a small fault with the phone: it was stuck in silent with the switch on the side broken. But a quick Google and some help from iClarified allowed me to fix the problem, by changing a file over SSH.

I also managed to unlock and jailbreak very easily with Redsn0w. Although, getting the iPhone to work with Windows 7 RC is a nightmare. And Recovery mode doesn’t work. I also bought a Crumpler case to keep my iPhone nice and safe. I love these cases, and I have a Crumpler one for my iPod Classic too.  

So, over the past 2 weeks, I’ve been using the phone with Vodafone, and now I question myself: how could I live without an iPhone?? WiFi is great, and being able to check my emails quickly, and lookup places on Google Maps has been incredibly useful. It seems I have been converted!

JK

Today, I reserved my Facebook “Vanity URL”: at 7:30 in the morning. So, from now on I’m facebook.com/kilgour!

That’s right: I got my surname! Of cause, a lot of Kilgour’s in the world are related to me, I guess it’s really not a common surname. But still.

What the whole Vanity URL shows is that there are a lot of vain people in the world. Because really, there isn’t that much need for these urls.  Why can’t people just do what they always did; use each other’s emails to find each other?

Anyway, I’m happy to have my new URL. I’m not even a serial Facebook user; in fact I almost never use it, apart from once a month or so. I find it boring. (That’s probably the ultimate sin, right?) But i felt compelled to stop anyway else using my surname.

Which in itself is vain.

JK

The iPhone 3GS was the prized product of Apple’s WWDC conference yesterday. But what exactly is so different…

So it has faster speed, a better camera and a bunch of new features, it basically is the same phone.

And Apple are giving the old 3G version of the phone the updated firmware. So basically… what is the point? And why could they have built in the new hardware in the previous version??? I guess they wouldn’t be able to then market a new one and MAKE MORE MONEY. (The three M’s). Come on Apple! Give us something really new. And cheaper please.

JK

Bing: the new Microsoft search engine. Now available in Beta in the UK!

I was quite intrigued to test Bing, and find out what the fuss is about. Since Microsoft are rumored to be spending $100 million advertising Bing, there must be something special. Surely.

My first thought on loading the Bing Homepage was wow! It looks really nice, with some really great background pictures. On my 4mb Internet Connection, the picture did take a moment to load.

I then did a quick search: camera. It seemed like a good plan, and I was expecting some shopping listings, as shown in the Bing preview video.

I was disappointed with what I got. Just links, like Google. Wow. Obviously shopping and other cool new features are only going to be available in the US, at least for a while. This seems typical, as UK users always seem to get left out

However, there are some cool features working in the UK! Such as the live preview pain: this is quite a good idea on Microsoft’s part, and something that I think I will actually use. It would be easier and quicker though to have the orange dot on the other side of the listing. (You’ll see what I mean when you try).

Another good development is the ability to preview videos. Like the Preview Pain, this cuts down the amount of clicking needed for searching.

You can also watch the full video through Bing.

My first impressions of Bing is that it’s a great search engine, that I will continue to use. I would like to see the full features that are available in the US in the UK though. The questions everyone seems to be asking is Bing vs. Google. I think that Bing takes the prize: something I never expected to think.

JK

Here is the preview video for Bing: the new Microsoft search engine that is replacing the failure that is Live Search. It will be available tomorrow, and worldwide by June 3rd.

JK

The iPhone is such a cool piece of kit, with thousands of cool little apps. After seeing the massive campaign of ads for this iPod come phone, you would be forgiven in thinking that you couldn’t live without one.  I’ll tell you, very easily actually.

Like many other people, I wanted one! The thing that put me off though was signing up to a long 18 month o2 contract, (In the UK, Apple has an exclusivity deal with o2).

Also, the fact that the contract really isn’t that good a deal, and you have to pay for the phone! In the UK, this is like the ultimate mobile sin.

But my opinion on the iPhone changed dramatically when I actually tried using one. Of course, the interface was sleek, and the apps in particular are much better than that of a Blackberry. I’ve always been a fan of iTunes too, so that was a plus. However, the camera is terrible, only 2mp with no flash or autofocus, and the worst part is texting. I absolutely hate the virtual keyboard.

It’s not like I’m new to touch screen phones: my current phone is the Prada Phone by LG (Model 1). I can text on it just as fast as on a physical keyboard. It’s because it uses a standard phone key set on the virtual keyboard. As a result, it’s very easy to use, as the buttons are large.

On the iPhone however, I find each QWERTY key too small. I end up never getting the right letter, and I actually have fairy dextrose hands.

I’ve heard a landscape keyboard will be introduced in the next firmware update, (v3.0). This is by far something that should have been released in the beginning. I’m still skeptical of how easy the keyboard will be to use, even in landscape. Before I even consider buying an iPhone, I will definitely have to try it first. 

JK

The Pirate Bay founders have now be sentenced to one year in prison, and a huge £3 Million fine. There site is the webs biggest illegal file sharing website, and home to free downloads of Music, Videos and Software. But will this be the end of the site?

I don’t believe so. The site has already survived a raid, and if it did go down, there’s always another site to instantly take its place. But I don’t believe this is the real question. The question we shoudl be asking is one of morality: Is file sharing right?

Of course, the content creators need to make a living; their job is making Music/Movies/Software or whatever. But are any of these people empoverished? Madonna/Britney Spears/Take That? The music industry is worth several billion dollars. 

The Internet has arrived, and its popularity is reflected by the huge number of users of Facebook and Myspace. The Music and Movie industry need to embrace this. Record Artists make a huge proportion of their money through Touring and Merchandise. If the music is out their, then maybe more people will start listening to it. I believe that the time has passed from where Music was paid for, and delivered in physical form. Piracy will never be defeated, beacause so many people are not willing to pay for their music anymore. The Industry should stop being in denial of this, and accept it, and develop.

JK

Everyone! Everyone is on Twitter now: it’s the new facebook of the net. (And I find facebook boring). Everyone from Oprah to Ashton Kutcher, to CNN is using Twitter now, and so am I. You can follow my updates by adding jmkuk, or by visiting this page on my blog. Enjoy!
JK

(I’ll review Twitter soon)

We’ve all heard the Apple ad’s, I’m a Mac, and I’m a PC blah blah blah. In my opinion, Macs and PCs are all pretty much the same. They’re both computers, they can surf the web, write documents and organize photo collections. Why does there have to be such a big deal made out of  the difference?

I primarily use a HP Compaq Desktop PC, for day-to-day uses. It has an AMD 64 Dual Processor, 1gb of ram and an 120gb hard-drive. I also have a Acer Netbook, running Linux, and an old eMac, running OS X Tiger. While all three computers run and look differently, they all do the same things. 

On my Desktop, I use Windows Vista. In my opinion, it is a good OS, and I’ve never really had a problem, except once when I installed a bad driver. Lesson learnt. The whole world though seems to be against Vista and why? It’s really not that bad! 

I think perhaps if people actually gave it a go, without having preconceived ideas, built up by those dam Apple ads, then they may feel differently. I’m looking forward nevertheless to Windows 7. As I wrote in my review in January, Windows 7 is an excellent upgrade to Vista.

JK

Ads: they seem to be everywhere! Ad banners, popups, interstitials. They are never ending; a huge part of the web’s great commerce. However, these ads may be taking more from you then you realize.

Google, eBay and many millions of other sites use ads that spy on us: they find out what we are looking at, where we live, and a whole lot more. Google scans emails sent and received in Gmail, eBay uses are account information.

But what gives them the right? We haven’t asked for those ads, and we haven’t agreed with them, that prying on us and invading our privacy is ok.

A new ad site that has sprung up is Phorm. It already has agreements with BT,Virgin and other UK ISPs, that allows it to look at your live browsing history, and serve appropriate ads. The service isn’t yet live, but will be shortly. In my opinion, this is a direct invasion of our privacy. What gives Phorm the right?

Internet Advertising is now a valuable commodity, with many sites providing free services in return for the ads. Examples are Facebook and Spotify. While it’s great that we can get these free services, it is not ok with me, that these ads are spying on me. I should complain; if only I knew who to…?  

JK