How uncanny!

Hot on the heels of my "The mightiest mouse" post, Apple have brought out the Wireless Mighty Mouse, which I have to say looks pretty darn promising.

I first heard word via TUAW after some idle soul found a prototype published on the FCC's website, as is required of laser products. The very next day it was up on Apple Store ready for buyers.

Apart from being wireless the mouse has a couple of other features which set it apart from its antecedent. For a start there is laser tracking replacing that old fashioned optical stuff everyone else is using. Apparently it does make a difference to the way the mouse feels over the Apple Wireless Mouse, which I have right now. The wireless connection is over bluetooth, so no stupid dongle required (take that PC folks) and excepting that the mouse is exactly the same as the wired Mighty Mouse. Same 360° scroll ball, right clicker (it'll be revolutionary I swear), and side squeezy buttons.

Rather oddly, but kool anyway, is the mouse's ability to run on either one or two AA batteries... I guess in case you get into some sticky situation where you only have one battery.

The mouse seems to be exactly what I need, and no doubt I'll get one to complement my new MacBook, whenever I'm actually rich enough to afford one.

The joys of 5.1

Wow. Surround sound is the sex.

So I finally got me a surround sound speaker system yesterday, and boy does it sound good, especially since I've been listening to music on my iBook's speakers for the past year. Named the escXite from the audio-masters at JBL it has five channels plus base, so 5.1, and is quite simply amazing. Apple Store sells it for £200, I eBayed it for £100, and it was worth every penny.

It gets better though. I've paired it up with Apple's AirPort Express for wireless music playing goodness. Like the speakers, AirTunes is spiffingly amazing. I pick a song in iTunes, it leaps over to our router, then jumps back to the AirPort Express, slithers down a fibre and then pours out the speakers. Right now Ray Charles is keeping me entertained, and he sounds better than I've ever heard. Every word crisp, every note rich, every little detail perfectly evident. Au revoir stereo iBook speakers.

This all being said, there are still some issues. Most annoyingly is the occasional cut out in the music because of wireless latency and network traffic. The music is routed over the wireless network and is therefore subject to the conditions which that introduces. We have a type G wireless network, but I've 'downgraded' it to type B which seems to be more reliable for my setup. I'm getting fewer drop-outs, but still, three-second drop-outs are there every now and again. It's a shame the extensive AirPort Express/iTunes options don't let you increase the buffer size.

The centre channel speaker's cable isn't long enough for where I want to put it, but that doesn't matter too much since it isn't actually used. My iTunes music (taken from CDs and iTMS) is stereo encoded, the audio processor rips the music up into 4.1 channels and doesn't actually make use of the centre speaker. The centre speaker is only used for stuff encoded in DTS or Dolby.

The remote is crap. Talk about IR being line of sight. You have to have the remote perfectly pointed at the IR sensor for it to work. A few degrees out of line and noting happens. It really is terrible considering how fantastic the rest of the package is. I've emailed JBL in the hope that it's maybe just a problem with my particular remote, and I could get a replacement.

Otherwise though all is good. Wireless surround sound is bliss.

[UPDATE] JBL replied swiftly to my email and said that I am not experiencing normal behaviour with the remote. Apparently I should try a new battery, which I will, one day.

The future of IM

So what with the Adium betas being out recently I've been giving a lot of thought to instant messaging in general, and in a wider context I've been thinking about online communication and how I see (or at least want to see) it progressing.

Let me take you back to the late nineties, when ICQ was king. ICQ was great in it heyday, better in concept I think than today's big three. ICQ was more than instant messaging, it was instant email. A hybrid of the two. When online you could talk live to people. When offline, the messages people sent you were saved for you to pick up when you came online. A few tweaks and it could have been a great alternative to ageing email. But alas, along came AOL and changed all that.

AOL's leading presence in the US online arena made AIM the de-facto instant messenger. Most people chose AOL as their service provider and so most people ended up with AIM on their computer. Therefore most people used AIM and the uber-geek users of ICQ had to make the move in order that they could talk to their non-geek friends.

In the rest of the world the market was picked up by Microsoft and Yahoo!, both offering instant messenger clients to complement their online services. I remember Hotmail's heavy advertising of this MSN Messenger thing. I had never been tempted to try it, IM was foreign to me, but one day I saw a pile of people using it at school and was awe-struck, "wow" I thought, "this is better than email."

So MSN was my first take on instant messaging. And, I guess it was the same for a lot of people. We all had Hotmail, so we all got MSN. I knew one guy who used all three clients and convinced me to give the other two a try, but I eventually ended up uninstalling because he was the only guy I knew who used them. Here in the UK, MSN remains the instant messaging protocol of choice.

Just recently Microsoft and Yahoo! have joined forces, at least in terms of IM, and are making their protocols interoperable. I've yet to see it work however. I tried this morning, but it was sketchy, neither client saw the other as online, and messages would only send from the Yahoo! client. Apparently it works best if you have an @msn.com or @hotmail.com email address. I don't, and couldn't be bothered to register one.

But it's great to hear that something is being done. This crazyness has gone on long enough. You don't see telecoms companies not allowing you to phone a customer of a rival network now do you? It just shouldn't work like this. And yes, there are the alternatives, Adium et al. But as great a piece of software Adium is, the client side multi-protocol solution is just not good enough.

And I don't think the shabby pasting together of Yahoo!/MSN, AOL/ICQ approach is going to work either. The differing protocols cause so many conflicts. For example, the Yahoo! protocol requires the registration of a Yahoo! ID whilst MSN uses your email address to log you in. In Windows Live Messenger you enter yahoo_id@yahoo.com to add a Yahoo! contact, but, what if this particular Yahoo! user has that Yahoo! email address registered as an Microsoft Passport? What happens then? Does Windows Live Messenger try to use the Yahoo! protocol or the MSN protocol?

Yahoo! and MSN probably aren't anywhere near able to integrate their voice and video systems, let alone file transfer, gaming, shared folders, avatars, display pictures, personal messages, emoticons and all the other proprietary goodies.

Google is on the right lines, using the open source Jabber protocol in its Google Talk instant messenger, and it's very nice to see a big company taking some initiative here, but, I don't think Google has a good shot at breaking the bond people have with their preferred instant messengers. After all, you use what the people around you use. No one here in the UK is going to use Google Talk, because MSN is already established.

So what needs to be done? Clearly there is a need for a set of open protocols which any service provider, be it AOL, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! or anyone else who wants to set up an IM service can use. A system not unlike Jabber's. Service providers would compete in terms of software ease-of-use, lack of advertising, disk space for email and other non-protocol-specific features.

But could this actually happen?

These being for-profit companies, they would surely never voluntarily open the protocols which tie users in. Instead we'll need international governments on board. If the US and EU governments started throwing hefty fines at this lot I think we'd begin to see it all open up before us. And let's face it, these proprietary protocols are basically monopolistic behaviour, locking consumers into one service.

Ultimately it would be best for the consumer and it really would just make sense.

BluePhoneElite

The first app I bought for my Mac was BluePhoneElite from reelIntelligence - the one-man software company with the one aforementioned product.

BluePhoneElite is an extraordinary little app which hooks up to your mobile phone via bluetooth, allowing you to manage calls and text messages. It offers a lovely little SMS chat view, whereby you can exchange texts within an IM-like window which is great for keeping abreast of what's going on.

Quite simply, typing texts on my Mac when I'm at my Mac is easier and far more convenient, and for that reason alone BluePhoneElite retained its position on my menu bar for some six months. Now I like to keep my menu bar clean and simple, currently it's just Bluetooth, AirPort, Clock, Power and Spotlight - the default system icons basically. Me keeping BluePhoneElite on my menu bar for that length of time highlights just how important an app it was to me.

So why the past tense, I hear you question.

Well, it got slow. With about two-thousand texts stored in its database, the app was beginning to get annoyingly sluggish, but I persevered. That was until one day when it occurred to me that in my time using BluePhoneElite there had only been maybe a couple of times when I actually needed to access some messages from the past. I figured that I really didn't need to store my texts. Hell, I never did on my phone, why on my Mac? The solution could have been simple; turn off the auto-saving feature which automatically saves all my sent and received messages to the database. But instead I wanted to try something else. I wanted to try Apple's solution.

I knew before I even tried BluePhoneElite that Apple's built in Address Book could manage the sending and receiving of text messages, but at the time I thought I needed some kind of storage solution, which I didn't, so I went for the third-party alternative.

But, as it turns out, Apple's solution works just fine, well, sort of. It's certainly a lot easier to use. I find people in Address Book click their number and select 'Send SMS'. I'm then greeted with a text box to compose my message and a Send button to send it. If my phone receives a text it appears on my Mac's screen and I can hit reply to reply. All very simple and easy to use and exactly what you expect from Apple. My only gripe is that Address Book won't handle multi-SMS messages - messages longer than 160 characters which are sent in more than one SMS and pieced together at the other end. It's a feature which really wouldn't be hard for Apple to implement in the slightest, so if you're listening Apple... pretty please with a cherry on top?

BluePhoneElite is currently sitting on version 1.0.9, and version two was promised a very very very long time ago. A posting to the news section on May 28th was looking to get a beta out in June, but that never materialised. I have to say, I've all but given up hope for a new iteration of BluePhoneElite, which was boasting features like a decent Mail-like interface, the ability to make calls through your mobile over bluetooth via your Mac's mic and speakers (i.e., sit-at-your-Mac-and-talk type thing), and other goodies.

What I'm really hoping for is that Apple will somehow integrate text messaging into Mail - now that would be something to text home about.

[UPDATE] The guy at reelIntelligence has released a beta for BluePhoneElite 2, for which I am signed up. It seems all right, but unusable right now. The interface isn't as clean and mail-like as it could be, and what the fuck's with the preferences being a part of the main window and the fade-upon-window-close? It's trying too hard to be kool, although it does have some pretty promising features too. I'll maybe write up a fuller review some time soon.

Adium Beta withdrawal symptoms

So the Adium betas are out and are rather nice, it must be said. Currently we're sitting on beta four released on July 8th. Four days later and still no beta five! What kinda crazy world is this? Up until now the Adium team were knocking out betas every day or two!

For those of you living under a rock for the last few years, Adium is, in my opinion, the best multi-protocol chat client about, handling MSN, Yahoo!, AIM, ICQ, Google, Jabber and numerous more IM networks. Although, for me that really doesn't matter, since here in the UK almost everybody uses MSN... sorry, Windows Live Messenger (jus' slips off the tongue doesn't it?). Still, Adium whips MSN for Mac's arse, which is still stuck at version five, whilst Windows users enjoy version eight is it these days? Now you don't see Apple only giving Windows users iTunes 4 do you?

But anyway, for beta Adium seems pretty stable. I've only had one crash so far. Reported it, and found it was fixed the next day. Impressive.

Adam Betts, designer of the love-it-or-hate-it Adium duck icon has released a fresh set of Adium duck icons including a rather sexy black one, which my dock is currently sporting. I imagine these will be incorporated into Adium in the coming betas.

There's a new status - "♫ iTunes", which appears to be something to do with setting your currently playing iTunes music as your status, but I can't quite figure it out. Maybe 'cause I'm on the MSN network, which from what I know in my very limited use of the Yahoo! and AIM networks seems a bit behind. Also, Adium, or should I say Gaim, still doesn't support MSN Personal Messages, my pet annoyance with the Adium experience.

But alas, Adium betas are finally here. Bring on version one.

The mightiest mouse

I have an issue with mice. And no, not the wee scatty things which scurry below the floorboards, but, computer mice.

When I bought my iBook I also got myself an Apple Wireless Mouse. I thought, "that trackpad thing is going to be diabolical to use, I must get a mouse, and why not a wireless one seeing as I'm going portable." But using it is not much better than using the iBook's trackpad. I can't put my finger on what the problem is exactly, but it just doesn't feel right. It feels slow but not in terms of tracking speed. It feels a bit inaccurate. It just doesn't feel the same as a wired mouse.

These days I often find myself stealing my Dad's Logitech thing, especially when I'm in Photoshop or Dreamweaver and need fast, accurate, steady movements. But still, my dilemmas persist. I'm really not convinced by these optical sensors. It's maybe my own fault, after-all, I refuse to use a mouse mat of any description and find myself working either on my bed or at the kitchen table. On my bed both mice track my movement very well indeed, but on the kitchen table they can be erratic, the pointer randomly jumping around the screen at times.

But anyway, whether it's the latency of the bluetooth connection, the surfaces I place it on, or perhaps even the additional battery weight, one thing's for sure; this can't go on. I need a new mouse.

So what do I get? Apple's Mighty Mouse looks rather spiffing, and it fits with the iBook's image. Plus it gives me right-click functionality, a scroller, and squeezy buttons which I'll gladly link up to my gorgeous lover - Exposé. But, it leaves me tethered, and means I have to keep plugging/unplugging whenever I want to pack my iBook into my backpack.

What I'd really like to see is Apple come out with a wireless/wired hybrid. A mouse much like the Mighty Mouse but with a cable which can be disconnected at the mouse end, allowing bluetooth to come into play. While connected up, the mouse's battery charges via power from the USB port. Sounds like a good solution, and doable. So why haven't Apple done it yet?

Othwise I'm going to have to look at third party stuff... and I really don't want to have to go there.

Linux is a booting

For a Mac blog... fifty percent is currently about Linux. But I shall precede with this entry anyway.

As I said... I asked on the Ubuntu forums and was told simply to leave the free space I created (by resizing my Mac partition) unformatted and unpartitioned, and simply let the installer do all the leg work. It worked. Now when I restart my iBook I can choose which OS to boot into. Linux is the default... obviously that needs to be repaired... but I restart my Mac so infrequently I really can't be bothered.

So what do I think? Well... it's pants really. For a start no drivers for the AirPort Extreme card exist... so no internet unless I go sit at the router... no thanks! And without internet I can't really be bothered to explore... having to boot back into Mac to look something up. Maybe I shouldn't be so lazy, get of my fat arse and hook up that ethernet cable. The other dire complication is the cursor moves incredibly slowly across the screen when you use the iBook's trackpad. I've turned up the mouse motion setting but to no avail. Instead I have to use a corded mouse! What century is this?!?

I originally thought I might use Ubuntu as a web development environment... but I've no connection. So now I don't really know what to use it for.

Tiger. Please take me back. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be unfaithful. I jus' slipped and it happened. Sorry sorry sorry.