My 2007 in Blogs, Music, Events and Apps!

As has been my wont since the early 90’s, I like to write up the things that have tickled my fancy for the past year…

Blogs

This is should actually be in the singular, as there has been one particular blog that has lit my fire like no others.

Ace Jet 170 seems to have the ability to find objects that trigger the same emotional reactions, like these Routemaster and Underground Signs. A new AceJet post is often followed by a trawl on ebay…

Music

As usual, not everything in this list was released in 2007, but I couldn’t leave out Midlake’s Trials of Van Occupanther – 2006 be damned! Along with Midlake, the other big discovery for me was Band of Horses, and in particular ‘Cease to Begin’.

So limiting myself to only one song from each of my favourite albums, here is the top 20, in playlist style order:

Song	Artist	Album
Is There a Ghost	Band of Horses	Cease to Begin
Blackout	Amusement Parks on Fire	Out of the Angeles
Time Bomb	Goldspot	Tally of The Yes Men
Melody Day	Caribou	Andorra
It Covers the Hillsides	Midlake	The Trials of Van Occupanther
Intervention	Arcade Fire	Neon Bible
Isn’t Life Strange	The Clientele	God Save the Clientele
The Pills Won’t Help You Now	The Chemical Brothers (feat. Midlake)	We are the night
23	Blonde Redhead	23
Rest My Chemistry	Interpol	Our Love to Admire
Girl Sailor	The Shins
Black Magic	Jarvis Cocker	Jarvis
You Can Make Him Like You	The Hold Steady	Girls and Boys in America
The Strangest Secret in the World	London Elektricity	Power Ballads
Mistaken for Strangers	The National	Boxer
Mutiny I Promise You	The New Pornographers	Challengers
Clever girls like clever boys…	Pelle Carlberg	In a Nutshell
Up Against a Wall	Peter Bjorn and John	Writer’s Block
Jigsaw falling into place	Radiohead	In Rainbows
Don’t bother they’re here	Stars of the Lid	and their Refinement of the Decline

There are few that didn’t quite make the final list, such as Of Montreal and Hammock.

Apps that have changed the way I work

Two apps have changed the way I work in 2007 like no others.

Coda

Since I first raved about Coda, I’ve met people who have either hated it, or see it as manna from heaven. As I suspected, it doesn’t really suit the hardcore TextMate users, but for me Coda has caused some big shifts in the way I work, and everything I do bar graphics is made in Coda these days.

The biggest change for me is that web development tools in browsers have become less of a necessity. The browser is regaining its position of being ‘pleasure’ while Coda is for everything that’s ‘work’ – like the distinction between home and office. I don’t even use Firefox & Firebug anymore, the revised Web Inspector in Leopard has been incorporated in Coda and that does everything I need and more.

My design process has also been changed by Coda. I’m working on visuals less and less in Fireworks and Illustrator, and starting on the HTML/CSS much much earlier. There are so many things that are hard to convey in a static mockup, and writing the CSS and HTML in Coda is so fast, there seems little point making one. I feel that I can iterate quickly and try out ideas. I still sketch and plan on paper, but a middle man has been cut out.

There’s more to love. The ‘Sites’ view has become more like a project folder or workspace. The saved tabs in a site can include not only the site files, but the remote and local previews, the Textpattern admin panels, phpMyAdmin and the project on Basecamp. I can’t do that in Textmate. The split views in Coda are another favourite feature. Apps like CSS Edit have useful tools, like the ability to override site styles, but the multiple windows for editing and previewing drive me mad.

I could go on, but in short, if I ever see someone from Panic, they’re in danger of getting a big kiss.

Billings

I mentioned Billings fairly recently, but beyond being a very well thought out time tracking and invoicing application, it’s meant that I have for the first time been aware of just how long I spend doing various different tasks, and how much I spend in terms of expenses and meetings. Having a timer in the menubar wins over a dashboard widget or floating window anyday.

Its also been a great motivator, making me more aware of time I haven’t spent working, without being annoying about it. If I had one request of Marketcircle though, it would be a quicker way of seeing which invoices are unpaid (such as an link in the sidebar), something I need to refer to a lot!

Events

• Moving into the Rissington offices with John, Jon and Simon, and recording The Rissington Podcast. Its the design studio I always wanted.
• The iPhone. Crappy camera aside, its the convergent device of my dreams. I can’t wait to see what happens when proper 3rd party apps are written for it. In particular I’d like a cut down version of Coda and a way of playing music wirelessly through airtunes.
• 2007 has been a good year for visitors – Luke Dorny, Scott Boms, Derek Featherstone and Ms Jen (thrice!) popping by to see family Hicks.
• Oxford Geek Nights are really something special
• First year of partnership with Leigh! Many people ask me how well we’re working together, but not only does she run her own projects, she’s also busy making stuff.
• The National, Imogen Heap and The Hold Steady were gig highlights.

Thanks for letting me get that out of my system – I’m done till next year!

Tags: 2007, apps, blogs, music, osx, review

Podspeakers Micropod and Dock review

I felt it was time I wrote a proper review of my Micropod Speakers, particularly as there doesn’t seem to be much written about them on the interwebs (In particular, they haven’t been covered by iLounge).

Specs and Sound

Sold as a set (but also available separately) comprising of ‘The Dock’ and 2 Micropod SE Speakers. ‘The Dock’ is a combined iPod dock (with inserts for all dock connector models) and amplifier (two 15w Class T amplifers to be precise). At the back are 4 bare wire & banana plug (which is superior apparently!) connections for the speakers, as well as a line out to attach a subwoofer. The Micropod speakers come with what Scandyna call ‘Sputnik Spikes’ as stands, but they can be used without (if you get some rubber feet) or even wall-mounted. You also get speakers cables and a basic remote control.

When you first pop your iPod in and play, the sound fades in smoothly – a nice touch. The sound is wonderful – bright, clear and crisp across all ranges, but doesn’t allow for Bass & Treble adjustment, presumably using the dynamic approach used by the Bose SoundDock. Playing music through these speakers reveals previously unheard parts of the music, and even compressed mp3s sound good. While you can get a Minibass or Microsub subwoofer to go with this setup, but chances are that you won’t need one as the bass is well served.

Design

The first thing you notice when you unpack the speakers and dock is the build quality. Solid, weighty, refined and smooth. Normally, I would advocate ‘Black = Cool”, but the white podspeakers option is a subtle creamy off-white (you can’t really tell from the photographs), that gives them almost a ceramic look. I also like the contrast of the creamy white with the black speaker rings.

JBL aside, dedicated iPod speaker manufacturers have tended towards very square designs, the most extreme example being the couldn’t-be-more-sharp-cornered-if-it-tried Logitech Audiostation. While JBL produce more rounded designs, they do tend towards a Darth Vader helmet look, whereas Podspeakers are much more natural/organic, with their mollusc-esque curves. They just look superb.

The downside

A minor quibble is that the ability to input an extra audio source would’ve been preferred, and video out better still. Their newly launched ‘V Dock’ offers all this, but it’s too new to find anywhere outside of Switzerland at the moment, and the price is yet to be announced (I’ve been quoted £200 by one shop!). I’m sure that once the V Dock gets proper distribution, they will be sold with Micropod Speakers as reasonably priced set.

However, a more major grumble is that with the speakers and dock oozing such quality, it seems odd that Scandyna chose to throw such a crappy looking remote. The plastic is the cheap textured kind, and controls are just a ‘pop dome’ type with a grey/silver sticker overlay. With so much thought and effort going into the speaker and dock design, it feels like too much of an afterthought, it can’t possibly have been created by the same team. It doesn’t let you rewind or fast forward, but it does mute, play/pause, skip, power on/off are. Harumph. The Apple Remote uses a high gloss plastic that feels much more at home with the podspeakers.

Conclusion

Once the V Dock is bundled rather than the standard dock, and the remote is given an overhaul, it would get a 5. As it is, these niggles aren’t enough to take away from the fact that these are superb (dare I foolishly use the word ‘audiophile’) speakers that look like design musuem exhibits. The sound and design of the Micropod and Dock is so good, that other choices look a bit bland in comparison.

I do highly recommend these speakers, but if you’re interested, I’d advise you to wait until Scandyna start shipping a set with the ‘V Dock’ instead of ‘The Dock’. Buying these elements separately would be much more expensive. The other option would be to get the Micropod SE Active speakers (which contain there own amplifier) and attach a Apple Remote & Dock into that. While the design won’t match exactly, it would be an opportunity to get a much better remote.

What I’ve decided to do is marry a pair of Micropod Speakers with a Denon micro hifi & dock, so that it can properly serve as a complete replacement for the old stereo. In the end, Leigh and I just couldn’t do without a radio, but would’ve waited for the V Dock otherwise.

Tags: audio, ipod, review, speakers

Come with me on a journey

Not another chuffin best of 2005? Of course, what else?! As is my want at this time of year, I sit back in a comfy chair, with water biscuits and a well stocked cheeseboard to mark my highlights.

Favourite things of 2005:

• My Family. It sounds awfully trite, but I’m nothing without them. I love you.
• Merlin Manns podcasts.
• SXSW was amazing, meeting so many great people. Some I knew before, some I met for the first time, but all such good company!
• Rob Weychert’s Musical Breakfast. (The first part of 6six).
• VoodooPad. The more I use it, the more I love it. It has no equal.
• Flickr for its provision of doing quick, easy blogging to a community without worrying about the site design. I just hope the crack down on ‘non photographic content’ doesn’t get out of control next year.
• Safaristand for bringing Omniweb style tabs to Safari.
• That people still stop by here to read and offer comments, despite having little to offer in the way of Standards discussion or ground breaking CSS techniques! The goodwill from the Firefox logo is sure to give out soon though!

Music of 2005

Without a doubt, Sigur Ros’s “Takk” has been my favourite sound this year. However, while there have been great albums, nothing got as heavy rotation as ‘Antics” by Interpol did last year.

• Sigur Ros – ‘Takk’
• Starflyer 59 – ‘Talking Voice vs Singing Voice’
• Rufus Wainwright -”Want One & Two”
• Ladytron – ‘Witching Hour’
• Embrace – ‘Out of nothing’*
• Low -’The Great Destroyer’
• Arcade Fire -’Funeral’*
• British Sea Power – “Open Season”

*I actually got these last year, just after last Decembers ‘best of’ post, but I love them too much to leave them out.

Cheese of the year 2005

Without a doubt, it has to be the Oxford Isis. A great all-rounder.

Hopes for 2006

• Samantha starts school in January. This will be a big upheaval to our lifestyle – rather than finishing nursery at 5pm, she’ll be leaving school at 3pm. However, my hope is not that we ‘manage’ timewise, but that she makes friends and enjoys it. Our little girl is growing up! Sniff!
• That Omnigroup will get a substantial update to Omniweb out, with the latest webkit, more interface polish and find as you type support. I so want Omniweb to succeed, but in some important areas, they’re behind Safari. Especially Safari on Tiger loaded up with Saft and Safaristand!
• That I manage to create a mac-based home entertainment system – music/photo/movie/work server with my G5. Siobhan wants this too. I could just use Windows Media Center (which is excellent), but I want Mac-ness, and quite like the idea of cobbling it together.
• That no more embarrassingly manky items of clothing end up on ebay.
• That the practice of calling yourself ‘CEO’ of anything you create, will result in severe mocking and derision.

Predictions for 2006

• John Oxton will retire from blogging in January.
• John Oxton will return to blogging in March.
• John Oxton will retire from blogging in May.
• John Oxton will return to blogging in August.
• John Oxton will return to blogging in September, forgetting that he hadn’t left it yet.

Concern for 2006

OK, here is my worry. It feels as if a lot of people are getting a bit too worthy, earnest, serious and po-faced in their blogging. I’m not naming names, but to me, there seems to be very little fun of late. I might well be guilty of this myself.

Balancing informative articles with wit and humour is hard but John, Jeremy Greg and Merlin seem to manage.

Finally, an apology

Bear with me, I don’t want to sound all Britney Spears about this, but I might. People send me emails, a quantity of which surprises me, and I’m finding that I just can’t cope with it. It goes against my beliefs, but I’ve had to learn to live with not answering all of them. I know how it feels to never get a reply from someone – its rude and it sucks donkey – but there just aren’t enough hours left after famiily and work. If you’re one of the people feeling dissed from not getting a reply from me, sorry, its not personal.

Tags: music, review