Classical Music

As someone who is a huge fan of music of varying kinds I has puzzled me why I really don't get classical music. Of course there's the ones you hear on adverts or used countless times on TV but the whole Classical genre is not something I can connect with at all.

However! I recently decided to trade in my XBox One and become a member of the PS4 brigade (I might blog about my reasons why) and in doing that I picked up a game called Everybody's Gone to the Rapture. It's an indie title which I think would have only cost £15 if I hadn't managed to get it as part of my bundle. I'd seen a few YouTube videos on it and just from those I really wanted to play it - there aren't many games which have had that effect on me! The game itself is visually stunning and although not a lot happens - it's kind of like 'follow me Archers' for me there is one element of the game which really makes it something special - the music. There's something about the soundtrack / score which I absolutely love and it will come as no surprise that the music is all classical. Combined with the images and scenery it all works and I've found myself listening to some of the music via Apple Music tonight, I'm pretty sure if Katie had walked in I would have been given a 'What on earth are you listening to that for' kind of look.

Anyway - if you're even the slightest bit interested in having a listen to it here's the Apple Music link https://itun.es/gb/2hpb9

A General Election

Today is one of those days often known in the UK as a General Election. The day every four years (normally) when the UK population comes out to vote for who they would like as their local MP and subsequently as the Prime Minister.

I am someone who on the whole finds politics to be something so riddled with corruption, lies and 'jobs for the boys' that it annoys me more than interests me. I'm a big believer however that I am in a very privileged position of being able to vote in what appears a pretty democratic system and so will cast my vote at every election possible. I also think that everyone else should use that right too - we took our children along to the Polling Container today so I could explain to our eldest (who is 5) what voting is all about and why it's important. I think she understood but we'll see next time it happens.

What really pleased me tonight was that for the first time ever we had to queue to get into the polling station - meaning that lots of other people were making the effort to vote. I spoke to my Mum earlier and she said it was the same at her polling stations so maybe the voting population are actually starting to care!

Right now voting is still open for another 15 mins and the overall results won't be fully known until tomorrow morning, my money is on a hung parliament which I'm hoping and crossing everything does not involve the Conservative party! Who knows - but that's the joy of democracy!

Inspiration

Compared to some people I don’t spend too much time on my daily commute but I must spend about 3 hours each week just sat trundling along in traffic. Of course when this happens it’s hard to stop boredom kicking in and then of course my mind wandering. About a month ago on one of those occasions I started to think if there was anyone in my lifetime who I could say has inspired me – with the exception of the obvious ones like my parents, wife, family and close friends – I struggled, like really, really struggled.

I must have then pondered this for ages, there must be someone out there. I had some great teachers at school who really helped me become who I am today – my art teacher Mr Shevells, Mr Shakespere and one or two others but although they helped me develop I cannot remember anything specifically inspirational.

Since I had this realisation I suppose I began searching for inspiration, while doing my usual trawl and meander through Twitter and YouTube I came across a bloke from New York called Casey Neistat. I found myself watching one of his videos, then another, and another and it’s now got to the point where I look forward to each of his daily vlogs. There’s something about his outlook on life, the way he thinks and things he does I find intriguing and I’m starting to think – inspirational. If you watch his videos the little clips of time-lapse which link the clips to camera are fantastic. I’ve found myself having a go with my iPhone at shooting a few of the out of the window – with admittedly average success but it’s a start. I would never have the confidence to voice over or talk to a camera but if I can practice enough and learn bits of techniques I hope to pull together a video of my own – which of course no one will see but at least I’ll have done it.

I would definitely recommend checking out Casey’s videos just to see what you think for yourself. I may have found someone I find inspirational but I’m going to keep looking for more.

Motivation

It could be said that me and motivation aren’t exactly great friends. I see people around me on YouTube or at work who all seem to have this amazing amount of reason for doing things or the drive and verve for getting somewhere or achieving something – why don’t I have this?

Yes, I’m a very laid back person and often content in my own little world. I’m very happy with my family life – I have an amazing wife and two unbelievably fantastic children but when it comes to motivation – I’m empty!

I often have ideas of things I would love to try or do – mainly when sat in the car in traffic – but when I get home I never do them. I recently wanted to have a go an putting together a short video or presentation thing to upload to YouTube. Not with me in it or voicing over it, just something interesting to watch. I ended up filming my drive to and from work in Timelapse mode on my phone but when it came to editing and putting it together I lost interest quickly and it went nowhere.

I don’t know if motivation is something which comes naturally comes to people, I find that I really need to force myself to do it which sounds to me like I’m trying to motivate myself to motivate myself.

The number of times I’ve tried to start a blog and then lost interest is unbelievable – I again seem to have an idea about what to write about but then very quickly I either forget the idea or dismiss it as absolute arse.

The normal ending of my idea is me spending time sat in front of my Xbox or PC playing something like Advanced Warfare or GTA V – as a 39 year old should I really be doing that?

Music

Yesterday I did something which I haven't done for ages, and by ages I'm talking years! I went into an actual shop to look at buying music! I had some time to myself in Newcastle and found myself wandering without any particular destination past HMV. Like most people now when I want to peruse or buy music I trawl through iTunes, Amazon MP3 and Google Play without giving a thought to HMV or other real life shops! There's a couple of albums I've been thinking about getting and online they are all £8 and above - compared to years ago that would have been perceived as cheap but as normally one of the online stores has albums for £5 I seem to perceive £8 for someone's hard work as being expensive. 

So yesterday I wandered through the rows of CD's, DVD and Blue Ray when I suddenly remembered about the albums I was looking for - to both my surprise and joy I found both albums in a 2 for £10 deal! They are now beginning their new life together at my house! 

I definitely wouldn't describe the record store business as thriving however it's good to see that it's still surviving and actually an option which I should actually consider in my normal scan when looking for something new. I really liked being able to pick up the cd and play it as soon as I got in the car. Of course I'll be uploading it into iTunes to transfer onto my phone and turning it digital!

Relaxing

Not sure if this is something a lot of people find but I suspect it is - I cannot relax! 

I cannot remember over the last few years a time when I felt truly relaxed. I know I now have more responsibilities with the two amazing children who call me Daddy but even in the down times when they're in bed or with grandparents there are still loads of things which need doing and cannot be ignored. 

I used to visit Vienna quite a bit but haven't been for a while, just being in that place really helped me relax and for me there was something special about it! I'm not convinced my children would feel the same about it though! 

I'm sure there are things I could do to help myself but I'm just not sure what they are! 

Decision made!

After watching the Apple Keynote this week I have to confess that it all had my mouth watering! After a year away from the iPhone and finding out that the roses in the garden of Android smells a little bit farty I decided the time has come to return to the world of Apple!

Despite the problems O2 had with their website I've preordered the 64Gb iPhone 6 to collect next Friday and cannot wait!

Now that the deed is done I've been thinking about what it is about the Note 3 and the Android experience it has provided!

Firstly the wireless chip in the Note 3 is awful, I regularly lose wireless connection in both our kitchen and bathroom even though our router is in the next room! Other handsets have no problem at all so it can't be the signal strength from the router.

I get the impression that Samsung are spending too much time trying to cram as many flashy features and wizardry into their phone and OS and in doing that they've neglected the basics! Apps shouldn't regularly crash, the signal strength should allow calls to be made in more places than not - I could go on!

The concept of the s-pen is great however to me its not something I like using. The apps which use it aren't the greatest so I spend more time typing or dictating rather than write it out then watch while it tries to translate my scrawled handwriting because it's quicker!

I think I've mentioned it in another blog but I think taking stock Android, then adding Touch whiz then adding apps, widgets, themes, launchers, icon packs is all very lovely but it really make it feel like a very fragmented experience and takes away the togetherness and seamless experience I imagine you get from stock Android on a Nexus phone for example! Yes Android rolls out features first and yes Apple adopt them later but for me that helps Apple get them right!

So no doubt there are a loaf more things and reasons but I've made my decision and am very pleased I have! Next Friday can't come soon enough!

Back to what I know

Over the last year when it's come to technology and general home gadgets I decided to leave a couple of providers who looking back I had no issues with other than I think I was getting bored with and wanted to see what it was like 'on the other side' away from them. When I make a decision like this then I spend quite some time reading, watching and generally researching everything that the other provider can give me. The first instance was with our home broadband, phone and TV provider, where I live the internet was always something in the 3mb download speed range and when along came BT waving their fancy Infinity in my direction I had to move over. BT were the first provider to offer fibre internet and so I moved everything over to them. Now hindsight is a wonderful thing and I think in real life I should have waited a month or so until Sky hooked up their equipment. I'm now in the position where I still have BT for my phone and internet but I have gone back to Sky for my TV - there's only so many signal issues, box freezes I could put up with, not to mention the slow speed of the box and the distinct lack of decent channels.

I think I can put my move from iOS over to Android in with this kind of decision too. I'd definitely got bored with iOS and from the research I had done I was well and truly sold that Android was the future and was the mobile OS for me. It is clear for all to see that a lot of the 'new features' Apple add to the iPhone etc have already been around on Android for one, maybe two years before. It was this and the promise of endless customisation which I think make me move over. Now I have tried life on both sides I think my argument may be that yes Android do implement idea before Apple however that doesn't mean to say they are as seamless and polished as they should be. I have yet to find a keyboard for Android I really like - I'm currently using the Android L one but I am fed up of accidentally adding a comma every time I press space. Given that I'm using a massive screened Note 3 you'd expect that even my sausage fingers could glide beautifully round the keyboard and not accidentally hit the same key every time. The customisation available with Android is great and any element of the experience you want to change you pretty much can. After getting used to the phone through Touchwhiz I tried every Launcher and as I've said before I settled with Nova and GEL but what I've noticed is that although there are umpteen themes out there I could use I seem to have set my home screen up just like I would have on an iPhone - no widgets, fancy clocks or scrolling bars - just apps and folders. Now I have never made the decision to do this and I hadn't realised until about 10 mins ago that I'd done it. I've tried the widgets etc but they annoy me and get in the way. 

I think what I'm trying to say is really that my holiday in Androidland has been a good one, and I have learned a great deal about other phones, OS and how they work - however I have to admit that no matter what Android changes, adds or removes I'll always be an iPhone kind of guy. iPhone 6 here I come!

More thoughts

Since my last blog I've been thinking a bit more about what I do and don't like about Android. One of the things which I'm finding more about Android is that it feels fragmented. Instead of the overall feel of it being the 'Android Experience' it feels more like a series of apps or interactions which are all made by different people and then thrown into a central melting pot and given the Android touch. One great thing is that they all do seem to interact with each other and the number of different options you are presented with when pressing Share is fantastic - although some of the options seem a bit strange.

This fragmented feeling may be caused by the fact that the experience I'm having isn't the stock Android one - it's the Samsung Touchwhiz version and I am yet to be convinced that this is a good thing. I've never tried the HTC version Sense 5 but I get the impression this is probably similar.

10 months in....

Last October I made the switch from being a staunch iPhone user to an Android user and at the time I was very enthusiastic about entering the open source world on my newly acquired Note 3. Almost ten months down the line I think I'm now trying to make a decision as to whether I like Android or not?

The reasons for me switching were boredom with the iOS operating system, the locked down nature of it all where you can only do what Apple wants you to do; plus the attractions of Android looked like a whole world of fiddling, customising and new features! I thought the idea of widgets interesting and thought I'd have loads.

Ten months in I think I've now got to know Android well enough to make an assessment of my use of it and whether I like it or not.

The Note 3 I got obviously comes with the Samsung Touchwhiz skin loaded with the usual bloatware, I stuck with this for a while until I got used to the phone but I very quickly wanted to change. Thanks to the option to download new themes I immediately began trying out all the different ones and settled on Nova however I have subsequently switched to the Google Experience Launcher. One of the great things about Android is the App Store, more often than not if you can think of something you want your phone to do there's an app for it. The Android app store reflects the open source nature of Android and allows any kind of app but still had rigorous checks provided by Google to make sure it's not a danger to the handset or user. One thing I really like about the app store is that you can get a refund on any app if you don't like or in the first 5 mins (I think it's 5 mins) and before you install any app the Play Store lets you know exactly what the app needs to access on your phone.

One common comment I get is about the size of the Note 3, for me it's fine as I have large hands but the general comment is "that's massive". I think one of the issues and things I now dislike about Android are the number of niggly errors which keep happening which I think are connected to the Samsung build of Android rather than the stock version. There are issues with WiFi connection - the regular appearance of 'your network connection is unstable' is very annoying and now music, YouTube videos are pausing for no reason - each update of Samdroid seems to fix some issues but create the same amount of new ones!

Having an OS which is issued by Google but then changed by each of the handset makers for their devices to me dilutes the experience and opens up an opportunity for faults and issues!

Now I've got my phone set up for me I have no widgets on my screen, I never use the S-Pen, and often find myself searching Google for Android equivalents of iOS apps!

So I'm thinking, do I like Android - stock version yes, skinned versions - not really! do I like my Note 3 - not really, are there other handsets on the market currently I like - not really!

Guess I'll see what comes out over the next few months and make a decision! Is the grass greener? Definitely not!