Botchandango.com

Blogging in the park

For no real reason other than I can... but at least I have something different to do at lunchtimes now. Will be interesting to see how well Skype works...

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: Mobile, Eee PC, Me

Blogging from Flock

A nice blogging tool built into the Flock browser...

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: Web

Vox

Not too sure why I would use this over Typepad (other than it's currently free...) but I received an email last night from SixApart detailing their new offering Vox. Basically a 'lite' blogging tool along the lines of MySpace from what I can see. I set up an account to see what it's like and have 5 invites (sound like a familiar marketing strategy?) if anyone else would like to give it a go. Just let me know if you'd like me to send an invite.

Anyway... here's a link to my Vox blog, not that theres a great deal to see there at the moment :)

Faster than a speeding bullet

Those lovely people at NTL have just announced that by the end of year all current subscribers will be upgraded to 10MB broadband. From next year 10MB will be the standard speed for all customers.

Read the story as reported by the BBC here.

I'd like to know if that means that all subscribers will then pay the same as the current 3MB link customers (£37.99 per month) or whether we will have our bills dropped to the level of the current subscribers of the standard 1MB broadband (£9.99 per month). My guess is that they will come up with a price somewhere inbetween low enough to attract new customers but high enough to reduce the loss taken by charging existing 2MB and 3MB customers less. When 10MB becomes entry level, I'm curious to know whether they will be offering any faster speeds...

Nice to be part of something

Apparently its official, the UK tops the world in being responsible for 'illegal' Television downloads....

I can see the problem with US shows that are planned to be broadcast at a later date in the UK. Obviously, if people have already seen them then advertising revenue could suffer. However, I'd say that 99.9% of the shows I'm interested in (Japanese TV drama) will never be broadcast in the UK so to my mind nobody is losing out.  If anything the program makers are gaining as their product is being distributed and viewed (free of charge) to audiences they would never otherwise reach. Their work gets known and their reputations built.

More on Last.fm

I'm really enjoying the service provided by last.fm. So far I have added over 2000 tracks to my playlist, granted usually whole albums at a time, but I have found most of what I have been looking for even some of the more obscure stuff ranging from Caribbean Soca music to 90's Industrial via a bit of punk, SKA, and of course 80's Goth, Electro Pop and Indie.

The only disappointments so far are that these bands are not available :

James
Siouxsie and the Banshees
The Wedding Present

Still cant have everything. POP was finally enabled on my Gmail account too this afternoon.. which was nice.

Botchandango FM

Hey pop pickers! get over to my Last.FM playlist to listen to a whole host of tunes that I whole heartedly reccomend. Will you like it? Not Half! It's totally Indy-tastic mate. Dont touch that dial.

This button will take you to Botchandango FM

Oh... its free too. Can't get much better value than that, just need to create an account to log in.

Gmail POP and SMTP

Gmail just got a lot better.... (or at least it will for me soon)

One of the things I had been waiting for was the ability to access my Gmail account through an email client such as Thunderbird. Soon, according to the online help, it appears that that this will now possible. The only thing is the functionality isn't being activated on every account at the same time so I'll have to wait for the 'New Features' menu option to appear sometime in the next few days. Still, I've installed Thunderbird again and configured it for Gmail so that I can get started straight away.

This is another step closer to my goal of reducing the number of email accounts I have spread all over the place (At least 8 I can think of quickly - NTL, Yahoo, Hotmail x2, Claranet, Gmail, My Domain and Work).

Squared Circle

The creative concept of a 'Squared Circle' is followed by members of a group on the Flickr photo sharing service. It seems like fun so I thought I'd join in...

3MB Broadband

Those lovely people at NTL will be doubling my cable speed from 1.5MB to 3MB early next year with no rise in price. Not quite the fastest in the world but one of the better deals around in the UK at least.