Alex Hughes

I don’t believe in new years resolutions but here is a list of things I want to accomplish this year

Let’s see how I go.

Or at least her fans are. This one seems quite dedicated but at the same time very. very creepy.

If you want to see the proper version and vomit like I nearly did you can find it here

About two months ago I eagly awaited the arrival of one of the greatest musical games since Guitar Hero, Rocksmith. Rocksmith was created by a  development team that said what if instead of creating a game where the player can pretend to play guitar with a stupid plastic guitar we actually give the player a real guitar and some simple lessons so they can actually play guitar.

Thats basically what Rocksmith is. Why haven’t you heard of it? Well just before the game was due to ship worldwide a UK band (ironically called Rocksmith) stated that it was a breech of copyright to call the software Rocksmith and the long and short of it is that instead of going back and changing the name they just cancelled the product for the UK and Australian market before anyone really caught wind of it. That wasn’t good enough for me so the moment it had a release date in the US I jumped on amazon.com, somehow got free shipping to Australia and about two weeks later had a lovely Epiphone Les Paul Jr for around 299$. (Sadly it looks like direct importing is no longer available but the diehards will find a way) 

So I got the game and the guitar and hooked it up with the trendy quarter inch to usb interface (which also works as a USB audio interface for mac and PC) and started rocking out….or not. I am obviously a slow learner because two months later I am only finding myself using chords. Now this isn’t actually the games fault, I just always choose the easy way out and chose single note mode. I know I will eventually get there because I want to learn but I have to warn the amazing guitar hero players. THIS ISN’T THE SAME, DON’T THINK YOU WILL GET GOOD OVERNIGHT. Rocksmith is a fantastic teacher and with the downloadable content available (A US Playstation account required) its a gift that keeps on giving.

Here is a video of someone else playing…not me. I suck

Now before you go rushing out to buy it, you can’t actually buy it in Australia (yet) and the Xbox version is region locked (more reason to own a PS3) It is also a large investment if you buy it with the guitar.

You have been warned

9/10

It was revealed yesterday (Which I will level with you, is actually today but I delayed this post to keep your interest and not flood your facebook) that the NBN pricing will actually be cheaper than current ADSL2 plans. As a bit of an internet nerd I love the prospect of paying less for more but the report on WhistleOut has failed to take into account that varying speeds people get with ADSL2. In fact it is my belief that the guaranteed speeds instead of the “possible speeds” that we currently get will be a lot more commutative as people will be able to choose their speed. For me my home internet sits around the 5mpbs mark for download and around 300kbps for upload which makes uploading content for websites a lot more painful. The NBN is a required step forward, those who think its just a waste of time need to be examined as the NBN isn’t just the internet it also replaces our phone lines which are badly in need of updating.

WhistleOut has a fantastic breakdown of the points that I shall steal and post here

The NBN

There’s a lot of things about the NBN that provide context to this analysis. Depending on who is in government, the NBN may never be completed or may be reduced in scope and this may reduce the cost to build and cost to access for ISPs and consumers.

• The NBN sets out to be the core telecommunications infrastructure for Australia’s immediate future. This replaces the existing PSTN copper line to your home.
• The NBN Co. provides the access and then an ISP like Telstra, iiNet, and many more will resell this access. The speed and quality of access will be relatively universal so the quality of access should be entirely commodotised. The network and traffic management done by an ISP may affect the speed and quality of the connection for a consumer but this is yet to be seen in reality.
• Marketing, customer service, content bundling, VOIP plans and other elements will be the key choices for customers as the broadband access will be common across ISPs.
• The prices charged by NBN Co. to ISPs for access would be far cheaper if it only had to cover metro areas and not provide national coverage as there is significant cost in connecting 93% of the population to fibre across this huge and sparsely populated country. If it was metro only, a new broadband network would be cheaper to build and cheaper to access for consumers.
• However, the NBN is national and the NBN Co. Business Case shows that the price for the entry level plan (12Mbps) will be the same in the metro areas as it will be for satellite access in the most remote areas. This may be seen as admirable and democratising or may be seen as the metro areas subsidising the regional areas.

Honestly I don’t understand you general population. Today The Age newspaper has two negative articles about Apple products. The first presents a subject line which is as follows”iPhone 4S security hole uncovered” and goes on to say that a lead security expert at company somewhere has identified a major security risk with the iPhone 4s’es Siri feature and how if even if someone had a password on their device people who stole the phone could still read emails by asking Siri to read them aloud or extract contacts.

This has to be one of the stupidest thing I have heard in a while, firstly for all personal users this isn’t a concern and second if you were really a leading IT expert who had rolled out deployable Apple hardware before you would of course heard of and used a program called iPhone configuration utility which in its latest version allows you to disable Siri entirely. In this age of instant gratification and information we simply cannot trust everything we read. Clearly the “IT reporter” on this story has done minimal fact checking on the subject and has decided upon a headline that will have had all IT person scared.

The second one is a story about someone impersonating a Apple employee and going to a business and trying to sell a bulk amount of iPhones and iPads to people. I honestly don’t understand why they bother posting stories like this since there obviously can’t be anyone stupid enough to fall for this. How is that news.

Another thing conventional media. When you are discussing the Samsung v Apple court case make sure you use the right stock images of the device because its very funny to see you mixing the two up but not very professional.

Yes, You heard right. I ordered an iPhone 4s. But Alex, I thought you had an iPhone 4 already and you have been quite vocal in stating the iPhone 4s is nothing but 4 with a nice camera and an app that can be easily ported to other iphones. Very true person who is capable of using a Google to quote me word for word.

The reason for the order is simple. Currently I pay $65 for no phone and 1gb of data and unlimited texts. I was recently looking at iPhone4s telstra plans and discovered for less than that price I can now get the same thing with a bonus 16gb iPhone4s. After thinking about it for a few hours I decided I would be stupid not to take up this offer with the best carrier around.

The order was thankfully shipped today because rumour is that all Australian suppliers have now sold out of stock. Even in Adelaide.

24 hours in Adelaide- Or, What its like to go to purgatory for 24hours in.

Cool LED Thing. Apparently this is what you go watch when you get stoned in Adelaide.

Firstly, Yo Adelaide. Why you no have proper population. It feels like there has been an evacuation and only half the population has heard about it. (I am aware there is only a million of you but you should be out and about more)

A few other things that would be better in point form:

• You have pedestrian crossing that confuse me, can I go diagonally across or are the lines there for another purpose?
• You might be a nice tourist attraction, but only if you really like churches
• You have convenience stores that basically sell everything , I had a real coffee this morning and it was actually quite decent so I am impressed with that.
• You really love your partying Adelaide. I swear you never stop and when you do get “shutdown” by the police you just start right back up again thirty minutes later. Which makes you know, sleeping harder
• Everything is expensive and I’ve been to Sydney and thats not even as bad.
• You need more computer places to buy stuff from. All I need is a mouse mat and I can’t find any anywhere.
• Also your water tastes horrible. I thought it was just my hotel but it isn’t.

As most will be aware the new iPhone OS update came out only hours ago and as a result Apple’s servers are not really coping with the update traffic. As a result you are left with two options.

1. Don’t Update for the next few hours (Let other people work out the bugs that might have snuck through)

2. Download the files directly and do a restore

If you really really want it now with fantastic Android’esqe notifications then you can grab the files from Apple directly below

Ensure you have the latest iTunes (Download it here)

Download the file for your device and save it somewhere safe then open iTunes and connect your device

• iPhone 3GS
• iPhone 4 GSM
• iPhone 4 CDMA
• iPhone 4,1 (4S?)
• iPad
• iPad 2 WiFi
• iPad 2,2 – GSM
• iPad 2,3 – CDMA
• iPod touch 3G
• iPod touch 4G
• Apple TV2

• Mac users: hold down the OPTION key then click on “Restore”, locate the aforementioned IPSW file
• Windows users: hold down the SHIFT key and then click on “Restore”, point iTunes to the downloaded IPSW file

On another note, if you have any iOS5 questions why not drop a comment in below and I will answer the questions as best as I can. I have been running developer builds since late may. Or send me your question in a tweet! (My twitter)

Your Questions!

I can’t seem to find how to hide text message preview in the new version, is it possible still?

Yes! They just decided to hide it in a new spot.

1. Open settings
2. Open Notifications
3. Find “Messages”
4. And turn off “Show Preview”

Today marks the beginning of a long journey. In eight months from now (May 2012) I plan to be in the US. My current plans are quite sketchy other than meeting a friend I have no other plans. I am currently looking at spending maybe three weeks total in the great U.S.A but to be honest. Hopefully it doesn’t end up like this

Stay tuned for updates

I open with a simple question. Are sites like Catchoftheday and Spreets killing eBay businesses? Thanks to sites like this setting the price of items so low small eBay seller just can’t compete with the prices. The internet killing itself.  My point has been basically proven by the fact the over the past six months ebay conversation rates have dropped an amazing 20% while Catchoftheday moves into its third warehouse……