Ocasta

I don't know if Apple are ever going to launch TV shows outside of the USA but it's always annoying to read of folks saying how great it is to be downloading the latest episodes of their favourite shows. Of course I could revert to bt's and p2p networks but it's such a hassle and most of the time I don't find what I'm after.

So last week I forgot to record an episode of The Shield. The best series of the best show on TV and I didn't want to miss it. iTMS US has The Shield for sale. but due to archaic distribution and licensing agreements Apple can only sell these in the US. Since I live in the UK, I'm not allowed to register on the US iTMS. If you've ever tried you get blocked when you need to enter details of a credit card issued in the US.

A quick web search and I discovered what many people probably already know but I'll share anyway, there's a loop hole - iTunes Gift Cards. Buy a US gift card from an online supplier, get a friend in the US to buy one or stock up on holiday. Once you have the PIN you can then register on the US store without a credit card.

The result was that I happily bought and downloaded my missed episode. Now, do I buy the rest of the series and skip needing to wait a week for the next episode?

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Between Christmas and New Year we took a couple of days out in Wales. For those who haven't been, Wales is a small country of dramatic scenery and equally dramatic weather. This year we were blessed with some stunning winter sunshine. We took the opportunity to head up Cader Idris from the west side as described in the the guidebook from Bike Fax. We knew we'ed be going up for most of the journey, but underestimated the amount of pushing rather than riding. But since the weather was so mild and the views so stunning it didn't matter.

As we neared the saddle of the mountain/hill we discovered that all the walkers came up the east side from Dolgellau. From this point we had an excellent vista in all directions. Given the time of day we decided that this was a far as we would go and commenced a fast and chilly decent. This still gave us time to catch an amazing sunset, walk around the old cemetry at Llanfihangel y Pennant and the castle ruins of Castell y Bere. All in all an excellent day out. An area I would heartily recommend to others.

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Last night Google held an open house at their London offices and what a great party it was. I haven't seen so much good and free food and drink since the dot com days. Ah, it takes me back. There was a raffle and I won a bluetooth headset. Thanks Google!

The real purpose behind the open house was to celebrate the opening of Googles glitzy new central London office and to push the fact that Google are hiring a (a or the still isn't clear to me) mobile development team to be based out of London. There were three presentations. Google Europe (Nikesh Arora), Google Technology (Alan Eusatce) and Google Mobile (Shannon Maher). The first two of these were standard fair. Nothing revolutionary or new. Google is big, Google makes oodles of money and Google does tech in a different way - because the problem is big it has to; because the data volumes are huge it can.

The mobile section however was disappointing. Where we should have been overwhelmed with a vision for a Google enriched Mobile world we got the Internet on your phone - advertising, search and more advertising. I though we'd been there and realised that that wasn't what people wanted. Local search is an answer, but to the wrong question. The question is not how do people find the local pizza restaurant but how do they book a table; not how do I post to my blog but how do I make blogging and photo sharing so simple and easy on the phone that the general public use the stuff without even thinking.

I came away with the impression that Google don't get mobile, that they don't understand how it changes the game. They are ahead of some US companies in that they understand that they need to be doing something but didn't convey that they knew what it was that Google can bring to mobile in a way that makes money. Maybe there was some psychology going on and the presentation was a clever way of saying "Help!".

Don't take this as all negative Google, I really did enjoy the party!

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I just noticed that in upgrading to MT3.2 I broke the comments script. This might explain why I hadn't had any comments posted recently.

Fixed now.

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I'm in the middle of upgrading the site to MT 3.2 so don't look. The upgrade went fine, but I need to redo the Templates and CSS to be compatible with the new styles.

Once this is done then I can start looking at Lifeblog for 3.2

Updated: Issues with IE now fixed. L+F changes compled. Phew.

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