Wi-Fi Woes (Part II)

After Saturday's post lamenting the Wi-Fi situation in Starbucks I welcome today's news that the coffee giant is to provide it's customers with free access via their partnership with BT Openzone.

I'd like to think the decision has been made after senior Starbucks staff read of my issues and realised the need to address them immediately. There is still some confusion as to the extent of this offer as their UK website says free Wi-Fi is only available in four stores.

You do have to obtain and register one of their Starbucks cards but it's a minor hurdle to clear if it means access to free Wi-Fi and I'll be checking it out myself as soon as I get a chance.

Browned Off

Why can't I bring myself to read Dan Brown's latest offering?

Last week I was heading into Harrow for my college interview and assessment, making a pit stop at Tesco I was confronted by stacks of the publication just begging to be taken home. At less than half the RRP it seemed a good deal and I popped one in the basket.

A week later and my copy is sat on the desk unread. Normally books don't last more than a day or two before I'm finishing off the final page. I've read the other four Dan Brown masterpieces and while I'm under no illusions about it being anything but pulp fiction it's certainly entertaining. The films were woefully bad but all four books were excitingly fast passed and with just enough factual flavouring to make the ridiculous portions of the plot easier to swallow.

Maybe it's other aspects of my life taking precedent over any literary longings? The past week has seen me acquire a shiny new laptop and get started at college, so I've not had as many hours free for reading.

Still I think it's an overall reluctance causing me to leave the tome unopened. After the hype that developed since I read the previous books and the disappointment of the movies it would be all to easy for the latest story to fail to live up to expectations.

The anticipation, pre-order hoopla and record breaking sales just contribute to a sense of unease and fear of being let down. I know I'll get round to reading it, I'm just not in a hurry to do so.

Musical Maladies

When the hard drive in my PC died a few months ago there were a few things on it that were lost forever. With two more internal hard drives and three further external hard drives holding the bulk of my data, most of the missing files were unimportant and their absence hasn't bothered me.

All of my music was safe and sound but unfortunately my iTunes 'library' was on the deceased storage device. At first this doesn't seem like a great loss, a quick reinstall of iTunes and a couple of hours reimporting the tracks and I'm good... right?

While all my songs are still there, it's the little pieces that are missing which are really felt. Losing playlists, ratings and play counts makes a library of over 8,000 songs nearly unmanageable. The way I selected which tracks to squeeze into the 32 Gb of space on my iPod Touch revolved mainly around ratings and play counts, now I'm wading though a haystack looking for record needles.

The only other casualties were a few apps which weren't on my iPod at the time of the crash. At £6 each it's frustrating but not life altering. All in all I'm now back up and running with very little pain.

Now if I could only figure out how to stop it happening again?

Wi-Fi Woes

After a few days 'breaking in' my laptop at home I thought today was time for a road-test. So I packed the 17" beauty into it's Ferrari red padded sleeve, squeezed it into my bag and headed for the bus. After completing the few errands I had to run (see my other blog) I decided to see how my new baby handled in the wild.

On my trip to Florida earlier this year I'd brought a borrowed laptop with me and made use of the abundant available free Wi-Fi. The only places I encountered that didn't offer it were the beach and the Church my friends wedding was being held in.

It seems Harrow doesn't believe in the same need for public internet access. Neither shopping centre appears to have it and the only premises I could find which advertised their internet connectivity were McDonald's and Starbucks.


Having had issues with this particular branch of McDonald's' sketchy signal before, and unwilling to put up with the noise and ruckus of rampaging teenagers for a free surfing session I passed in favour of Starbucks.

Presuming (rightly) that the BT Openzone in Starbucks was not not something you could just log on to, agree to the terms and get straight onto the web I asked the lovely young lady behind the counter if they gave free Wi-Fi access. Bearing in mind that my public Wi-Fi experience is limited I had presumed I'd receive a voucher/code thingy giving me an hour or so of surfing. The lovely young lady didn't have a clue what I was talking about, neither did either of the two lovely young men also behind the counter.

As I had come to expect from previous encounters with Starbucks over the years, there was no manager on duty, it seems they're only wheeled out for special occasions and wouldn't be found dead working on a weekend.

So I find myself sat in Starbucks, sipping my Grande Mocha (no cream, seasoned with Nutmeg) and a enjoying a tasty Cinnamon Whirl, with laptop before me. Sadly I'm reduced to typing this into OpenOffice for later upload to Blogger instead of seeing how my new portable computing beauty handles when you pop the top down, spin the wheels gun the engine and head on down the information super highway.

Walking Down The Street: Variations on a theme

The winner of this years 'Best Breakthrough Video' was somewhat overshadowed by Kanye's comments at this years VMA's. The video for Lesson Learned by 'Matt and Kim' was a worthy winner with a shocking ending so realistic that some have mistakenly believed it to be real.


Matt and Kim - Lesson Learned

While impressive I couldn't help thinking that it was just a variation on a standard music video motif. A quick 'click & run' on YouTube confirmed my suspicions and threw in a few more examples I hadn't seen previously.

Individuals or groups walking down the street to a musical refrain are a familiar sight, it's origins dating back to the great musicals of yesteryear.


Gene Kelly - Singing in the Rain

The modern trend is for the action to occur in one continuous take, or at least create the illusion of it. There are exceptions to this rule which are notable for other techniques.


The Pharcyde - Drop

The single shot format is the norm and it's easy to see how a simple concept can tell a great story.

Massive Attack - Unfinished Sympathy
by chilavert

The focus upon one person can produce powerful results when coupled with the right song. Here The Verve's Richard Ashcroft (who I once met in an Italian airport) shows us how it's done.


The Verve - Bittersweet Symphony

The video may have led to conflicts on the pavements of the nation as copycats tried to emulate the iconic scenes. Some people managed it to do it quite well.

Fat les Vindaloo.flv
by Waddleforever

It's not all confrontational lad culture, there have been some softer songs accompanying the singers march.

Sandi Thom - I wish i was a punk rocker
by FranKc

And some are downright sexy!


Make The Girl Dance - Baby Baby Baby

(As a bonus here's Guitar Hero's take on the previous video)

The Sound of Music(videos)

So music videos are finally back on YouTube UK. To be honest most of the videos could still be found but it was a bit of a hassle so it's great that it's been finally sorted.

How have YouTube have marked the occasion?

"In the first of a series of Guest Editorships to mark the return of premium music video to YouTube, click-magnet Basshunter highlights four of his favourite clips. Bring on the Dance -- and see the YouTube blog for more from the man himself."

A short video from the man himself shows him speaking of how big a fan he is of the site before introducing four videos.



Each mention is accompanied by one of those clickable annotations which pause the current video and open the selected video in a new window. I do like this feature and this is a pretty good use for it although they're a little stingy with some of the timings!

The four videos Basshunter recommends?


Snap! - Rhythm Is A Dancer
A true classic from 1992


Arash - Donya (featuring Shaggy)
The video is ok but nothing special


Basshunter - Every Morning
It might not be to everyone's taste but I have a penchant for cheesy Euro dance/pop and feel this will be added to the rotation


Prodigy - Firestarter
One of the most memorable videos of the 90's and still great today

Twitter Time?

I've been finding it difficult to make time for Twitter recently. I've not fallen out of love with it, I just can't seem to devote as much time to it as I used to.

You'd have thought that having left my 9-5 job the extra hours at my disposal would have allowed a richer and deeper set of Twitter relationships to develop, but somehow the opposite has occurred?

Having thought on it I now realise that Twitter filled a niche in my daily routine which has suddenly become far narrower. Previously the bulk of my Twitterings took place during my daily commute to and from work. Lunchtime, tea breaks and any spare moments in my working day involved a quick check of Facebook and a longer spell on Twitter.

My current worklessness doesn't provide such a neat slot for Twitter to occupy. Now it must compete with all the other distractions of the modern world and it suffers for it.

It's absence has been felt so I now find myself looking for ways to recapture the magic of the early days in our relationship and find time for Twitter once more.

Speeding through Paris

Running red lights, scattering pigeons & pedestrians, mounting pavements and travelling the wrong way on one way streets... it was certainly a busy morning for Claude Lelouch back in 1976.

His journey through the early morning streets of Paris is one of the most spectacular automotive scenes ever captured on film. A short film called C'était un rendez-vous ("It was a date").

The remarkable footage is not quite as spectacular as it looks or indeed sounds. For starters the engine noise, gear shifting and squealing tyres are later additions and not actual the sounds of the car racing through the near deserted Parisian streets.

The speeds the car reaches have always been a matter of dispute, with Claude Lelouch's claims seemingly disproved by closer examination of the recording. It is the angle at which the footage has been shot which creates the illusion of far greater speeds than those actually achieved. The camera was mounted as shown, placing it level with the front bumper and resulting in close up shots of the tarmac, cobbles and concrete rushing past at apparently breakneck speeds.

The nearly nine minutes of film show a journey across Paris taking in some of it's greatest landmarks, although if you blink you may have missed some of them. Anyone trying a similar stunt these days would invariably suffer severe punishment but perhaps more tellingly it's unlikely that the event could ever be replicated.

Without the closure of roads the journey would now take much longer and be far more dangerous due to the greater number of people and cars occupying the Parisian streets. It is an experiment which I hope not to see performed as the consequences of any bad luck or errors could be grave.

So one man's early morning ride has become an iconic cinematic moment, unsurpassed in the intervening 33 years. It's no surprise then that others have sought to make use of the footage over the years. All attempts at gaining permission were denied, until finally in 2007 the band Snow Patrol were allowed to use a portion of the film as the video for their song "Open Your Eyes".

Give that man a hand(stand)

Below is one of my favourite YouTube videos. It features Tim 'Livewire' Shieff demonstrating his amazing abilities to the song "9 Crimes" by Damien Rice.



Livewire recently won the Barclaycard Freerunning Championship held in Trafalgar Square and broadcast live by the BBC with a fanatstic routine that made use of his prodigious upper body strength.



His style may not fit the traditional notion of Parkour but it's undeniable he is someone who has achieved true mastery of his body and can use it to dazzling effect.

Born To Fly

I stumbled across an old favourite on YouTube today, it was the video of skateboarder Danny Way making use of incredibly large (and no doubt similarly expensive) Mega Ramp built for him by DC shoes.

It's hard to believe this was only 6 years ago but I remember seeing this footage for the first time and the sense of awe it invoked within me. It seemed as if he took flight and soared majestically and a part of me longed to do the same.

I always wanted to be a skateboarder. Some of my earliest memories are of repeatedly asking for a skateboard and I remember my excitement when I finally received one at the age of 6 or 7. The excitement however was short lived as my skating days were fewer in number than I could have expected.

Eager for every opportunity to practice my new skill, I arose one morning before school and sensibly attired in pyjamas, dressing gown and slippers, began skating. The location in hindsight was far from ideal, a steep concrete slope leading down to our garage, it's surface pitted with stones. Inevitably I fell and these stones did their worst.

Along with the expected cuts and grazes to my face and hands a particularly vicious stone somehow defeated the protective qualities of my slipper and opened a large gash in my ankle. The sight of such a sudden outpouring of blood is likely the exact moment my skating dreams disappeared. The shock on the faces of my parents at the sight of my injury and the frantic drive to seek medical aid convinced me this was a little more serious than my usual childish accidents. Stitches complete the Doctor pointed out the folly of my actions and showed that a centimetres difference would have seen me open a vein, a far more frightening scenario.

So when I returned, the skateboard had gone and my mind turned away from those dreams, until a few years ago when I saw Danny Ways effortless flight.

Three Months

My friend Samantha has just begun a three month trip travelling through South America. I'm a little envious, not only of the exciting journey she'll be undertaking, but of her bravery in setting out alone into the world.


Three months seems like a long time, a full quarter of a year, so you may imagine my surprise at discovering that I haven't performed a full week of work in over 3 months. More than 100 days since I last completed a full 40 hours of toil and effort. It's a long and uninteresting story that led to this period of enforced idleness but the realisation of it's length shocked me. Three months may seem like a long time but I now realise it can fly by seemingly in a flash!


I had already promised myself that come September 1st I'd take steps to improve things and better my situation and so far a promising amount of progress has been made. I had given up smoking at the end of last year but three months ago I slipped back into old habits. Now I'm two days smoke free and going strong, determined not to give up on giving up.


I've looked at the courses on offer at my local college and have found one which seems ideal. I've made the necessary calls and now just need to drop my application in and hand over the tuition fee. My job search has now switched from a passive approach to an active one and I'm looking into the grants/funding/benefits available to me.

There's still a lot of other things on the infinitely long 'To Do List' in my head but I'm trying to keep in mind that it's better to do something, rather than try to create the perfect plan of action without ever executing it.


I'm looking forward to these next three months. I'm setting some goals and working hard toward achieving them. I'm imagining what a difference three months can make and how to go about making sure those differences are positive ones. When Samantha returns from her travels I'm sure she'll have had three months of change and excitement, here's hoping that in that same time I too will have experienced something similar.