The James Kilgour Blog

Same Difference, from last year’s X Factor performed on yesterday’s result show. They followed in the footsteps of Mariah Carey, Leona Lewis, Take That and Celine Deon. All those artists sang live, and they haven’t even been competitors on the show. Then it was Same Difference’s turn. And they mimed. It was terrible miming too, and if that wasn’t enough, you could hear that there voices had been enhanced, because the song had almost quite an ‘electronic’ ring to it. Then, at the end when they spoke the sound became completely muffled. Wow. Watch it for yourself below:

It’s despicable for them to Mime on the X Factor. Being contestants who sang last year, they should have done the same yesterday. Big difference.

JK

The PS3 is described as one of the most powerful consoles to be sold. With games packed with ultra-realistic graphics, a blu-ray HD drive and full net functionality, it’s strange to see that it’s flagging behind its competitors.

The Nintendo Wii is furthest ahead, followed by Microsoft’s Xbox 360. Why is there such a gap?

Is it because of the price perhaps? The Wii retails for around £179.99; the cheapest of the three. The Xbox is close behind, at a price of £229.99 for the elite version, (the basic Arcade version can be bought for as cheap as £129.99).  The PS3 however is a little more. £299.99 for the basic PS3 console, with 80gb. That doesn’t include a single game. (The Wii has Wii Sports for example).

In the current economic climate, are people really going to spend that much on a gaming console? Especially the ‘casual gaming’ market that these consoles want to tap into?

Plus, the games themselves are £40 each, and for the UK consumer, the consoles are a rip off! In the US, the same console sells for $399.99, which is today equivalent to £270.00, almost the price of a game cheaper. The same console!

If Sony wants to actually have a successful console, they shouldn’t make it so expensive. End of story. They can always make any loss back through the sale of games and accessories, which would increase if they lowered the price of the console in the first place!

Here is a funny little video I found anyway:

JK

One of the most annoying things in the world are Spam calls. Those things which make you blood boil.

Report Annoying Callers is a free site for tracing spam calls. Just type any US land line of mobile number into the search box, and click enter. It then quickly comes up with details of the location, and the option to generate a full report. You can also leave a comment on the site for other users, so if it was  a spam call, you can tell others about it.

Or so it claims. I put it to the test, typing the number of a big, Beverly Hills department store. And it worked! The website also gives the option to file a complaint against the owner.

This type of marketing is such an injustice. Perhaps this site will help to stop it.

JK Sponsored Review.

Spotify is a new music service, where you listen to as much music as you like for free! It all runs through it’s very well designed client, and the service has all the latest music.

Getting an invite to the service was the easiest! Luckily, I managed to win a competition to get an invite; the code arrived today in my inbox!

Downloading the software was very quick, and installing even more so! I only had to make one click inside the installer window!

Once installed I opened the program. I was shocked! It look almost identical to iTunes, except with no prices! The choice was good; ‘Funhouse’ by Pink and ‘Human’ by The Killers were just two of the available albums.

You would expect with such a service, (especially one in beta) would be very slow to load. Not at all. The songs start straight away, and actually, quicker than in Napster or  in iTunes. Neither have I had any problems with the streaming.

The service is also meant to have ads, but after 20 songs, I’ve only heard one of these, which lasted about 15 seconds or less. It was for Xbox Guitar Heroes, and I didn’t really bother me much.

The only thing that could improve the service would be the ability to download the songs free as MP3s! Here’s hoping. If it wasn’t for my Napster subscription, which allows me to download, than I’d probably switch to it.

So, if you want to give the service a go, I have some invites to give out. The first commenter’s on this post will be sent one each, (to as many as I get).

JK 

I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here is set to start at 9pm this Sunday on ITV1! It will be the eighth  series of the show, which has provided some of the funniest moments of TV ever!

This years Celebrities are set to include: Brian Paddick, Carly Zucker, Dani Behr, Esther Rantzen, George Takei, Joe Swash, Martina Navratilova, Nicola McLean, Robert Kilroy-Silk and Simon Webbe.

So. No real celebrities there then. I wonder if this series will be as good as some of the past ones. Last years for example was fantastic, with Janice Dickinson making the show. I still think she should have won!

Esther Rantzen should be fun though, and she’s the oldest ever to go in! Anyway, we’ll shortly see good the series will be. I’ll leave you with this funny video:

JK

Wordpress 2.7 Beta 3 has now been released, and this blog if proud to be using it!
JK

CERN Rap from Will Barras on Vimeo.

Here we have the CERN Rap! Not sure they should be rapping when they have a multi-million pound science project to do: although it does explain everything very well! Find out more here.

JK

AcoBox is a new service offering blogger thousands of blog pictures and images to embed into their blogs.

The one next to this text is from the service, which as you can see is a very high quality, professional image.

All the images on the service are of the same quality, after being screened and optimized for blog use.

The Images are also licensed, and adding them to posts is really simple. I tested this myself with the image you see above. I registered for the service, which only took 10 seconds after entering a username, email address and a domain name. My password was them emailed to me.

After I logged in, I did a search for some landscape pictures. I could have chosen an abstract one instead, like this one for example, (a favourite of mine).

Then I just selected the size, the alignment, then copied the code from the site, pasting it into my blog.

The images load really quickly, the service is easy to use, and best of all you don’t have to spend a penny, (unlike other certain photo sites). Most images are also licensed to be downloaded from the site to your hard drive.

Overall, this site is excellent for finding images. Normally, I use Google, but this site is fantastic, because of the high quality nature of the content.

JK Sponsored Review.

YouTube, the amateur video service is rumoured to be on the verge of streaming full length movies from the likes of MGM. Soon, we could be enjoying James Bond, Legally Blonde and more, for free!

It’s all a bid to earn more in advertising revenue; something the service desperately needs to keep afloat, with such high bandwidth and storage costs.

But will the service be of any value? YouTube is characteristically slow, with small and bad quality streams. How much fun will the videos be in YouTube style?

JK

Bingo was once the preserve of the elderly, who enjoyed playing the game at a club with friends. Now it seams everyone is playing, and no longer do you need to leave the house.

bet365 Bingo offers a wide range of games, which can be enjoyed with mates, on your own or even with the family. There now offering an excellent Promotion to UK Players, with £10 free when you sign up, plus a 200% bonus on any deposits you make.

You can also play free during 7pm to 7 30pm Mon-Thurs, which means that you can enjoy all the services without risking, or gambling a penny.

Another promotion is Winter Wonderland. Win £500 spending money so that you can shop to you drop in London, just by playing Bingo. What a great way to bypass the Credit Crunch, and treat yourself and friends to same great presents.

With the promotion you also get a 2 night stay in one of London’s finest hotels, an all inclusive, three course meal, tickets to Hyde Park’s Winter Wonderland show,  a private Gondola Ride, an Ice Skating Pass, and also VIP tickets to a West-End show of your choice!

Click here for full details.

JK Sponsored Review.