macworld keynote ‘09

talking about mac this year…

starting with iphoto ‘09…

this year they’ve introduced ‘faces’, which uses face detection to help with tagging. iphoto finds a face and you tell it who the person is, then it will find other photos that it thinks contains the same person. they say face detection isn’t perfect but it’s incredibly good.

another way to organize is ‘places’. it uses gps geotagging. more and more cameras including the iphone have built in gps, so it will automatically add a location to a map in iphoto. if photos aren’t geotagged, you can enter the location yourself.

they’ve also added support for facebook and flickr to iphoto ‘09. facebook users can add names to people in your photos, then that information gets transmitted back to iphoto.

imovie ‘09…

there’s context sensitive menus for clips, you can make new movies with dynamic themes: titles, transitions, effects. animated travel maps (you can create 2d and 3d maps to show where you’ve traveled), and now they have auto stabilization for shaky video. also they’ve added some new video effects, cartoon, x-ray etc…

moving onto garageband ‘09

in this new version, there’s a feature called ‘learn to play’. it’s a new interface and it teaches you how to play an instrument. there’s nice basic lessons for guitar and piano thats bundled in. what’s pretty cool is that when you want to learn a song they’ve enlisted artists to help you play…including patrick stump from fall out boy, and sting! there will be a built in ’store’ where you can download lessons.

that’s just a small preview of ilife ‘09 shipping in late january. it’ll be £69 for the upgrade, family pack will be £85 plus it ships with all new macs.

 

the new 17 inch macbook pro…

according to apple, it’s the world’s lightest and thinnest 17 inch notebook.

inside they have a new generation of c2d cpus, upto 8gb of ram, new nvidia graphics options, and the battery. they’ve designed the battery to last upto 8 hours on a charge.

pricing, it comes out at £1,949 (2.66ghz, 4gb ram, 320gb hard drive), and it starts shipping at the end of this month.

one more thing…

itunes.

they’re boasting that they’ve sold 6 billion songs and have 75 million accounts with credit cards. so what’s new in 2009?

first up, price. over the last 6 years songs have been $0.99, music companies want more flexibility. so they’re two new prices. one at $0.69 and the other is $1.29.

next, itunes plus. it’s drm free, and much higher quality. starting today, 8 million songs will be drm free.

the third new thing happening with itunes is to do with the iphone. the music store is not just on wifi, it’s now over 3g aswell, and that’s starting today.

 

that’s all from the macworld keynote ‘09, and that’s the last ever keynote too.

 

thanks for reading x

a light bulb above my head…

just a quick one! someone should invent an automatic bath filler-upper! filling the tub up just to the right height, plus the perfect temperature! how ace would that be? anyone who’s a bath expert please get in contact! even more advanced baths could have computers in them so you can choose different heat/height settings if you prefer it!

moving on…

i went for a run this week, but instead of going around the usual route i decided to go for a more ‘scenic‘ jog down a country/farm lane. you’ll notice the ’scenic’ in italics, because it was the exact opposite! of the numerous piles of junk, here are some of them that stuck in my head:

• burnt out car engine
• wheels
• left over picnics
• a whole family’s christmas
• clothes/shoes

apart from the rubbish i saw, there was a few positives to make it a pleasant run. i saw two peregrine falcons for the first time ever, probably about to devour a poor defenseless mammal but that’s natures problem. i also saw a few herons perching on the edge of the canal waiting for it’s next meal.

that reminds me, i need to eat…

 

ta ta for now!

i can post from my mobile!

finally, i’ve figured out how to blog post from my mobile! this will make it a whole lot easier now because i can update whenever i need to!
work today…yey…
but i suppose we need to be thankful for our jobs in the current financial situation, so i can’t complain too much.

a brand new post for a brand new year!

hello and welcome! long time no speak yada yada lol! i thought it was about time i updated this thing, blow the dust off the keyboard etc.

lets start with the exciting news first!

ali can officially walk unaided! it looks so weird when he’s walking. it’s just like having our own little mini me! so cute. he’s just getting more and more confident everyday. please see for yourself at this link to a video i created.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=hjZ4UEzjuBs

i hope you liked it! his next rank will be talking! god help us! he’s already picked a few words he can perfect.

(by the way, if for some reason you can’t be bothered to read these posts, they will soon be broadcast in audio form as podcasts, so you can listen to your heart’s desire! like i do with stephen fry..in the bath…ha!)

i am driving,

yes, you thought you’d never hear those few words in the same line ever, but yep i’m officially learning to be on the road! and to be honest, i think it’s going spiffingly well! in the last lesson i successfully managed to do the emergency stop procedure, that was fun!

- i have to pause for a second because nikki has just locked me in the room where i’m typing this post, which is rather inconvenient. what if i need to go to the toilet!!!!

i’m going to wrap this incredibly short present of a post up now for another day, where i can spill out my guts with all the ins and outs of my life to you all!

 

peace to you all, hope you have a great 2009!

 

that video link again: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=hjZ4UEzjuBs

the 50th birthday blog!!

happy birthday blog! it was also ali’s 9 month birthday this last week, so that’s two things to celebrate! woo!

he loved his three quarter birthday cake even if he hasn’t learnt how to blow the candles out yet lol! it isn’t long now until his first ever proper birthday… 3 months and counting!

nikki, ali and i went back up to clitheroe for a few days over the weekend to catch up and see people. it was nice to see everything again, but i can’t believe how different it all looks just in a few months.

i know it’s evil (so leave all your hate mail comments off please), but i’ve got a couple of stories about two people we saw on the numerous public transport we get.

the first was about a month ago when we were on the bus to chester. there was this young man waiting at the next bus stop from us, and he didn’t put his arm down from waving the bus over until it practically moved his arm out of the way. he’d only been sat down for about two minutes, then he somehow realized that he was on the wrong bus and stood up, and from what i could only describe as a great impression of ‘frank spencer’ from “some mothers do ‘ave’ em”. he was running up and down the bus panicking until the bus driver stopped. you all probably didn’t find that funny, but i guess you should’ve been there…

the second story happened just this afternoon when we were traveling home from clitheroe on the train. now you all probably know that in these modern trains, to separate the carriages there are sliding doors that open when you press the button next to the door. i couldn’t help but smile when this man in the next carriage tried to slide the doors open without knowing about the buttons. the doors were just about opening but he was using all his strength to try and open the door, but the door refused to open. he eventually squeezed through the tiny gap before the doors slammed shut again. i think someone should’ve told him about them because he carried on through the train to the toilet doing exactly the same to every sliding door!

ooo and one last thing before i wrap this birthday celebration up…

we saw the bluntest form of cheek and thuggery (is that a word??) we’ve seen in a while today in manchester. we had just got off the metro in the middle of piccadilly gardens and while walking past ‘greggs’ or ‘hampsons’ (can’t remember which it was), we saw about five teenagers run into the bakery, grab all the ham sandwiches and ‘fanta’ and ran out! then after a couple of steps, confidently walked off. nobody from the shop even tried to stop them!

 

sorry to leave it on a low, but that’s what britain seems to be declining into.

 

thanks for reading!

 

xrobx

little chomper!

good evening and welcome!

as you may have guessed from the title if you knew, or if not… part of this blog is about ali and his newly grown teeth!

you can just about see the tiny sticks protruding from his gums and we’ve already felt the force, and destruction of those little devils. he’s managed to chew through a beanie baby, various digits and basically anything that’s in sight! lethal!

and the other news…

one thing that he’s got down to a tee is clapping! he loves it!

it’s so cute to hear the faint claps when he’s excited or just done something proud.

=]

 

talk soon!

xrobx

zoooooom!

just a quick note which i forgot to add on to last nights blog!…

ali can now sit on his own unaided! he’s clearly very happy just sitting up and playing, and now he’s just got a walker today so now we’ll see him zoom around the room!! watch out!

 

that was all if i remember correctly…

 

thanks for reading you loyal readers lol!

 

xrobx

the return.

“it’s the circle of life, it moves us all….” sorry I was watching the lion king last night. i forgot how amazing that film actually is.
welcome back to the return of this blog that you read in front of your eyes. i hope you’re sitting comfortably because loads have happened since i last updated in january.
Here’s some breaking news to start us off, we’ve started to see a tooth coming out of Ali’s gums! All the more for biting us with!

can you believe baby ali was born 8 months ago?! time flies eh? it feels like he’s grown so much in so little time. he even rocks to ‘rapper’s delight’!! how cool!

the weather has been so good this week that we’ve all been in the garden a lot more. i mowed the lawn and tidied the garden a little! and today we decided to have a nice picnic in the garden, just us three. it was sweet but ali decided he preferred the plastic plates than the actual food lol. i think the best of the weather has gone now which is a shame but it will be back soon!

here’s a pic of ali with his ice lolly!

some recent shocking news for you all, i’ve taken up running! :O very shocking i know. i decided i’d better do some exercise because i’m not going to get any thinner lol! so i started on one mile running then i would walk back the mile. i’ve now moved onto two miles without stopping. if i keep on training i want to run the robin hood half marathon in nottingham this september, i’ve got a long way to go though. 

just a little word on grand theft auto 4. easily the best game i’ve ever played on any console. it’s just amazing how much information you can fit on a tiny disc. the amount of things you can do, not even related to the main story mode is astonishing.

i think that will do for the second blog of the year!

 

take care people,

 

xrobx

2008 starts here!

happy new year!!!

how does it feel to be in 2008?… cold lol. i heard it may snow tonight! woo! i hope it does because i haven’t seen snow in ages!
i hope you all had a great new year’s eve night and an even better 2007. i’d say it was my best year of my life so far.

lets get back to the previous few days…

last week i bought fifa 08 for the xbox 360. easily the best fifa yet, and far better than pro evo by a long way! if any of you have the game and want to play me on xbox live, message me or add my gamertag rob stead to your friends list and hopefully i’ll be seeing you soon!

now to new year’s eve.
instead of going out to a pub or club, me and nikki decided to go to the cinema to see ‘i am legend’ at the vue on cheshire oaks. but before that we went for a romantic meal at…mcdonalds haha! i tell you, it was an amazing burger lol. and if it couldn’t get any more romantic, look what i found on nikki’s quarter pounder!!

a heart-shaped gherkin! aww sweet isn’t it!

we finally got to the cinema and sat down. while waiting for the film to start, the trailers were running and i was scoffing on popcorn and coke. then suddenly, everything cut off and the lights came up! the projection started up again but didn’t last 30 seconds and shut down again. this happened a few times, then one of the staff came in and apologized for the delay and explained that it was the projector with a technical fault and all the film frames spilled on the floor. and at 24 frames a second, i’m guessing they had a pretty mess upstairs to deal with. we eventually got moved to the 3d screen which was huge!
for the actual film, i really liked it. a little jumpy in parts, but it was a great movie. credit to will smith who had to act on his own for almost all of the film. that must really show how good of an actor you are if there’s no one else around to rebound a script off.
i definitely think i’ll get it on dvd to watch it again.

this blog was a little longer than usual but i hope you enjoyed it!

thank you all for reading,

rob.x.

“here’s to 2008!”

welcome to my new year’s eve (eve) blog!

this week has been filled with sweets, wii games and food! but it’s been great! it was even better with it being ali’s first christmas.
i’m working tomorrow and i think in the evening nikki and me are going to the cinema. still deciding what film to go and see. please help us decide.

what film should we see? 1) i am legend 2) st trinian’s View Results

thanks! hopefully we’ll get some votes by tomorrow lol!

i think this will be my last blog of 2007 :’( sad i know lol, but lets look forward to 2008!!

happy new year to everyone!

xrobxpeacex