Hello all, apologies for not writing anything in the last 10 days. Working in retail has meant very long hours and almost no free time. Then came Christmas and that was spent with family, sadly everyone at the oldies house (mum, dad & gran), except me was ill. Now however, I have what appears to be the bubonic plague!!!
I will endeavour to write a full xmas post and year round up as soon as I can (tomorrow hopefully).

For the moment, let me pass on my best wishes to all my readers I hope this holiday season brought you all you wanted and was a happy time.

A

p.s I wrote this post from a wii

A set of layoffs announced by outgoing Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang on Oct 21st is set to go ahead tomorrow as planned. The reported numbers a the time of announcement was 1,500 but that is now rumored to hit near 2000 in light of the current economic situation. Kara Swisher of BoomTown reports:

The layoffs are mostly across the board. But expect general, human resources and finance to take a bigger hit, since the expenses are cost-based and most of their costs are staff.

Employees targeted will be told on Wednesday morning with a “normal separation period,” said a source close to the situation, which means they will be out within a few hours on the same day.

That’s a harsh deal really, to turn up to work on weds morning told your gone and be out again within 2 hours. I understand why it happens and the necessity for it but it’s still a really harsh way to go.

It’s never a good time to lose your job but this timing could be a bit worse than most with the holidays fast approaching and with the current economic conditions! My thoughts to whoever is affected tomorrow.

A

Apple Insider has reported a rumor that Apple is to release DRM free tracks on iTunes as of Tuesday in an end-of-year push to drive sales.

A report from last week brought to AppleInsider’s attention by French technology site ElectronLibreasserts that it’s now "clear" Apple will spark new interest in its music store by removing DRM from tracks published by Sony, Universal and Warner on December 9th.

Apple Insider

This would be a great addition to an already highly used software (not by me I hasten to add). Apple Insider also writes:

More recently, the same site also believes Apple will quickly follow up the move with a promo campaign nicknamed the "12 Days of iTunes" that will let shoppers in France, Germany and the UK download an "unlimited" amount of content just after Christmas.
Running from the 26th through to January 6th, the formal debut of Macworld Expo in San Francisco, the campaign would tie into local radio stations and news outlets and would make a point of offering big-name content. Lily Allen and James Blunt songs will supposedly be offered in addition to an episode ofSpongebob Squarepants and other videos.
Although Apple gives away content on a regular basis, a daily giveaway would be rare for the company, which usually limits offerings to once a week and to less high-profile content. The timing nonetheless implies a campaign meant to soften the drop in downloads after Christmas.

 

This would be a huge offering that could see them fall flat on their face. Depending on how “unlimited” it actually is this could see them lose a lot of revenue for very little ROI (return on investment). I don’t see how, just because Apple gives away a load of content it will cause people to buy more, especially in the current economic climate.

We’ll see what happens in the next few days.

A

I just watched a video about the making of Laptop hard drives in Seagate’s China factory. They produce 1 drive every 4 seconds at the factory and turn out over 1 million drives a WEEK!! They work 24 hours a day 7 days a week and make drives from 80GB up to 500GB.

It’s a really interesting watch, just  seeing how much work goes into making one of these things we rely on so much is quite astounding!

Here’s the link

A

Matt Mullenweg, founder of Wordpress amongst other things was interviewed by Robert Scoble a couple of weeks ago (see the videos here and here). In the videos he talks about the blogging systems up and coming version release which, is the biggest they have made since the jump from 1.9 to 2.0.

2.7 is now due to be released within the week for those using the self hosted option (like me) and has in fact been rolled out to those using the free blogging tool provided by www.wordpress.com.

It’s a big change for the system and is expected to be a good change to what is already a very good system.

I’d recommend watching the video to see not only about the changes but also where Matt is looking to take Wordpress over the next 2 years!!

A

P.s. Sorry about the gap in the posts, I was rather busy over the end of the week and the weekend. Normal service has now been resumed!

As of tomorrow Vista SP2 becomes publically available via TechNet under a CPP (Customer Preview Program).

Beginning Thursday Dec. 4^th, we will be making the Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 Beta available to everyone through a Customer Preview Program (CPP). The CPP will launch on TechNet and be available to anyone interested in trying out this service pack. The CPP is intended for technology enthusiasts, developers, and IT Pros who would like to test Service Pack 2 in their environments and with their applications prior to final release. For most customers, our best advice would be to wait until the final release prior to installing this service pack.

While it suggests that most people should wait till the final release (a comment I agree with whole heartedly) anyone who wants can download it. I personally, will be waiting for any horror stories to emerge before downloading and installing this beta release but when I do I’ll let you know how it goes!

A

It was unveiled and the crowd went oooh…. Well maybe.

Nokia says

The N97 isn’t a device that will trigger knee-jerk hysteria, but instead it should breed cool-headed excitement at the prospect of a new era of mobile experience.

It may be an Nseries handset, but the N97 carves a new space in the otherwise blurred realm between smartphone and laptop – a product built on a foundation of rock solid mobile principles, Nokia innovations, and tangible new technologies, pushed to the extreme and embodied in a slimline pocket shell.

Hrm we’ll see whether this “New Era of mobile experience” is really all it’s cracked up to be, many have come with such claims in the past and many have fallen, will the N97 be the same. As for the phones aesthetics and technical stuff, it’s not as pretty as the iPhone but it does have a full QWERTY keyboard and that’s a good thing. It has a 3.5 inch screen and a 32GB internal memory. It can also take another 16GB microSD card giving it’s user a whopping 48GB memory! Apparently the N97 can play 37 hours of music on a single charge or 4.5 hours of video but how often do we here over-inflated claims on battery life. A-GPS, WIFI, stereo Bluetooth and a 5MP camera are just some of the other features that this revolution has on it’s spec sheet. 

Jonas Geust, Vice President, heading Nokia Nseries, had this to say about it:

“From the desktop to the laptop and now to your pocket, the Nokia N97 is the most powerful, multi-sensory mobile computer in existence”

Here’s a the Nokia promo video for you all to see. Oh and did I mention the cost 550 Euros!!!

Nokia has just placed a big counter on their website counting down to the key note speech that is to be held tomorrow at the Nokia World Conference in Barcelona. There are rumors running around the internet that a VERY tightly guarded secret of a new Nokia device is to be announced at this speech. 

Robert Scoble says that Nokia execs are running around bragging that "the Internet" is totally in the dark on this one, and that only a small number of people within the company have seen the new device

Engadget Mobile

I look forward to hearing what this may be. The speech is scheduled for 8.15am UK time tomorrow.

A