South Liverpool Rehearsal Orchestra Christmas Concert 2009

A couple of weeks ago I posted my initial thoughts on Schubert's Unfinished Symphony. To this day I'm still confused as to whether what we played was his seventh or his eighth? Perhaps someone will be able to enlighten me?


The opening movement of the symphony was used as the opening to our Christmas concert. In a similar setup to my previous concert with SLRO, it was held at Allerton's United Reform Church in Liverpool and was a joint concert with the Liverpool Oriel Singers. The programme consisted of five traditional Christmas Carols arranged by Sir David Wilcox, the first movement of Schubert's symphony, The Minuet and Trio from Haydn's 101 Symphony and four movements from Handel's Messiah. The Oriel singers also performed a couple of songs (the names of which unfortunately escape me) and the concert ended with a rather dubious 'horse whinny' by yours truly. Unforgettable that was not!


The concert on the whole was a success. More audience participation seems to help, as they stood and sang the carols and had bits and pieces to do in some of the songs (12 Days of Christmas was particularly good). With only four movements of Messiah performed I can duck out and say there wasn't enough on which to base an opinion! I was also solely concerned with the rather exposed, high and prolonged Trumpet section in the Hallelujah chorus to really take anything else in. For those in the know, they'll agree there's a lot to be said for shallow mouthpieces!


I really like the Schubert, especially the opening movement. From the first time I heard the main theme I was hooked. I think my previous posting was after the first week or rehearsals and I'd deliberately held back from voicing too much of an opinion. The more we played the movement the more I started to really appreciate it. The themes are very lyrical and capture a conservative sense of adventure; engaging and driving yet refined and alluring to deeper, more exiting things. 


I enjoy playing Trumpet parts in orchestras. There's often not a great deal to do, but in music such as the Unfinished, the fanfare nature of the trumpet part really adds to the music. It also gives me an opportunity to listen to other parts of the orchestra. I like being able to hear how the first and second violins interact with each other, how the viola bridges the gap between violin and cello and how 'good' cello writing can be listened to all night! This was something as a school pupil I knew I was supposed to be able to appreciate, but I've found it wasn't until joining this orchestra that I do. 


There was also an unexpected development that came out of the concert: playing carols and melody in general really emphasised that orchestral playing hasn't returned me to the level I was playing at when still at a school and university level. My lips are woefully short of stamina! I suppose there's a few options I can take to address that, most of which will require more commitment to playing.


I do like playing Christmas music. It reminds me of standing on the corner of Doncaster's main High Street interchange alternating between Traditional and Contemporary Christmas music to appeal to all passers by, counting our rewards with frozen fingers before retreating to the pub! Happy Days!    

Sky Sports on the iPhone. Heaven! (Part 1)

It's nothing short of miraculous. Sport, on a phone. The holy grail of a geek in denial!

Last month Sky Sports and o2 got together to offer this excellent innovation in broadcasting, offering an initial 3 month free trial as the carrot to the £6/month stick to view Sky Sports and ESPN through an iPhone! My first impression was somewhere along the lines of 'that looks cool and it's free, I'll give it a go'. However I had my suspicions regarding watch TV and live sport, on a phone. Following the success of TVCatchup.com, I perhaps shouldn't have been!

Somewhat masked by a live shot of cricket, the photo doesn't do the quality of picture justice. It would also have helped with my 'real time' plug had there actually been any live cricket, but the match today against South Africa was rained off (still we won).

So far about 3 weeks into my trial I've watched a few cricket games and a couple of football games. The only stipulation o2 have made is that it needs a WiFi connection to stream, which I can understand, even if TVCatchup.com doesn't. As long as there's a good signal the streaming it perfect.

There is one further test I'd like to do before passing final judgement. I'm trying to get hold of an Apple Composite TV cable to see what it's like streaming the iPhone feed onto a TV. If that's successful I might be tempted to pay the £6 charge (more than 66% cheaper than the cost for Sky Sports on the TV).

I'll post again after testing... 

Welcome to Stanley Park, home of Leverton!

Is it the truth that dare not speak it's name? The facetious merging of Liverpool and Everton Football Clubs aside, is a Stanley Park ground-share not just the obvious solution to the cities stadia problems, but the only solution? I believe it is...


Traditional views, stereotypes and negative thinking often hampers change; especially volatile and dynamic change that challenges the way the world is today. This is particularly evident when discussing the taboo that is a shared ground in Stanley Park for both Liverpool's football clubs. The reason for the taboo: the fans don't like it. I can probably be rightly accused of having a bit of an issue with football fans and their positioning within a football club, my post outlining essentially why football fans aren't important would be a good indication. It's not that a hate football fans (I consider myself as one), more the outdated way in which they are perceived and the influence they have upon how a football club is run. 


Looking at the ground share concept, that fans do not want to share a stadium with their city rivals is a reasonable concern. In an ideal world they would not need to. However the utopian Liverpool as depicted by so many of the football fans of the city is about to held up to scrutiny. 


A consultation period has been afforded and the views expressed but that should not stop the concept being explored further. In particularly I'd like to see the city, the football clubs and the fans look into the consequences of a ground share. Doom and gloom will inevitably be the predication but objective analysis and rational thinking may well prevail. For example, a common argument is that 'I could not sit in the Liverpool home end during an Everton match where the away fans didn't take up their allocation of tickets'. Why? Would it really be that bad? The colour of the seats is also a common concern - paint them all black then!


The identity of both clubs isn't primarily associated with their grounds anymore. Both have new and modern training facilities that act as a strong-hold for the club. An oasis and somewhere they can call home on a day-by-day basis. The clubs train there, eat there, relax there and only use the stadium to play matches. Having a stadium as an identity is nice but both clubs are beyond nice in their searches for improved facilities. Facilities is also a key word in the debate: a football stadium alone is no longer sufficient for the 21st century. Additional, complementary facilities are required as well: community centre, conferencing, hospitality, retail...the list goes on!


Tackling each issue such as the example above will only help gain a consensus on whether a ground share really would be feasible. Would the fans boycott? Perhaps for the first game or two, but forever? And even if they did, would there be other fans waiting to take their seats? Arguably yes there would.


Again in reference to early postings of mine, the fans aren't the most important stakeholders of a modern premiership club a the mission, objective and strategies of these clubs are more wide ranging that just football (if you think that sounds like business-speak, there's a reason for that!). Sponsors, TV companies and other sources of commercial revenue are what makes the business of a football club run. These stakeholders do not come with the same amount of sentimental baggage as a football fan. That isn't a criticism of fans but a fact. 


Radical change is sometimes needed to achieve the progress and change that is desired. Incremental change has it's place and is effective in lots of situations. I'd like the catalyst for change to determine the method used to achieve change and for that to be driving force of change. 


Share a ground, realise the benefits and act accordingly. The fans will follow suit... 


    


  

Geek Alert: Google Chrome OS

I absolutely love Google. I'd like to think I can still be objective when talking about their products and services, but as I agree so much with their philosophy and innovative view of the future I'm not sure whether I'm being objective or subjective! In short I like Google so much because they are the future, they are going to revolutionise the way we use technology and unlike Microsoft before them, I'm able to be a part of it. That sounds yuk, but you get my drift!


That's why I'm so excited to get my hands on Google's Chrome OS. Chrome OS is basically an operating system (alternative to Windows XP and 7 etc.) for people who spend all of their time on the web. It has been designed with the Netbook computers in mind. Netbooks have become increasingly popular in the past 12 months as they strip away non-essential hardware, weight and functionality from a laptop that is only used to browse the web. They become lighter, smaller, more portable and most importantly cheaper than conventional laptops. 


The Chrome OS builds upon the successful Google Chrome web browser, expanding it to become an entire operating system. It's key feature is that everything is web-based and run from within a web browser. All applications run within the Chrome OS are web applications. This fits nicely with Google's strategy for Mail, Calendar, Docs, and photos through Picasa etc. It also replaces the need for traditional applications like Microsoft Office that need installing and updating from CD. As Google have stated in the video and link below, the aim is to get connected to the web as quickly as possible. In essence Google Chrome turns the desktop computing concept on it's head in a similar way that Client/Server architecture did to Mainframe computing. Ironically the mainframe concept is not dissimilar to the 'cloud' concept and Software as a Service (SaaS) concepts that Google is developing. 


There will inevitably be a downside: specialist computing such as music composition and photoshop editing will still require traditional laptops with sufficient processing capabilities. If netbooks do become mainstream then the traditional laptop is likely to become more niche and therefore expensive, which won't suit everyone. However Netbooks will allow affordable computing to households that we previously priced out of the laptop market and Chrome OS will further breakdown traditional barriers with its free web applications replacing paid for software such as Office (sorry to be so hard on office, but you're time is nearing an end!). Adverts while typing your letter or balancing your finances in web based spreadsheets will become common place, but that's a small price to pay for more affordable computing.  


The excellent Official Google Blog introduces the new Chrome OS here, and the video below is taken from that post. It's one of the best explanatory videos for a new concept I've seen, and no surprise it's being used already in blogs and news reports all over the internet. 

A defence of Thierry Henry

I'm fairly certain that this is going to be a controversial posting. Not least because a defence of cheating isn't really going to be water tight. On which note I have a couple of caveats! Firstly the YouTube clip will probably disappear from the site as soon as TFL get round to complaining so apologies if the link is broken at some point in the future. Secondly, yes it's in French (all the English ones have already gone!). A full transcript is proving hard to come by, but The Globe and Mail have some quotes here:

“I will be honest, it was a handball. But I’m not the ref,” Henry said. “I played it. The ref allowed it. That’s a question you should ask him"

"We suffered for two years, we have been having some problems with our press, our fans, with other people,” Henry said. “It would have been better to do it in another way, but as I said, I’m not the ref...If they had got through it wouldn’t have been robbery (lucky)."

"We have a lot of respect for this team,” Henry said. “We knew they play long and like a physical battle. You saw tonight that they are a very good team. I played eight years in England and I can tell you they are.”

Cheating in sport is always an emotive subject and divides opinion. It is generally unwelcome yet common place, a juxtaposition that often leads to subjective and wide ranging guidelines on what is acceptable to form. A quick search in Google for 'examples of cheating in sport' returns examples of more famous acts of cheating, with The 7 Ballsiest Sports Cheats Ever and Cheater, cheater...The worst cases of sports cheating being the most prominent search results. However these 'famous' examples mask the regular examples of cheating that occur in sport, and football in particular, every week. 

Robbie Savage was interviewed on several media outlets a couple of weeks ago insisting he would do 'whatever was necessary' to help his side (no quotes available on the internet unfortunately) in what was an uncommon admission that the people who play sport don't always play within the rules. I won't name them hear but there are at least two English International players who have a reputation for diving during games. Michael Owen 'went down easily' I think is the euphemism in order to win a penalty against Argentina at the 2002 World Cup and Sven Goran Eriksson was widely quoted by his players as having encouraged them to seek free kicks within David Beckham's range for free kicks. Neither example sending the nation into outrage. 

Much effort has gone into addressing the issue of cheating in sport. The World Anti Doping Agency is probably the most prominent and professional organisation that exists to reduce cheating in sport, but regulation is increasingly being used in an attempt to combat cheating during play. The problems encountered through using regulation is that in order to apply it, the referee or official administering the laws is in effect calling the player a cheat. The concept that a professional sports person does not cheat therefore calls into question that players professionalism and ethical standing. All on the strength of someone else's subjective interpretation of their behaviour. 

This is a particularly complex issue for an official to navigate through when players employ tactics to hide their cheating. A footballer who 'falls' over an opponents leg yet leaves their own leg trailing in order to make contact with their opponent is a particularly difficult person to discipline. At high speed and with only human judgement to aide, is it possible to decide in a split second whether the incident be a genuine foul or an act of 'simulation'? [introducing a euphemism for cheating isn't in my view making a clear statement that deception is cheating]. There isn't a retrospective science that can be applied to cheating within football that WADA benefits from in Athletics. Technology can provide more information on which a decision can be made, yet that decision is still a subjective one, even when it isn't (when is there ever a consensus on what 'obvious' is?).    

So to Thierry Henry and his self-confessed act of cheating...

I can not and do not condone cheating and my defence of Henry here will not amount to such. My defence of the player is aligned to the media hysteria that has been generated and then venum that has been directed towards him as a result. It is also a defence against the disproportional view of his action that has been taken by a large amount of stakeholders for the sport. 

There are several factors that need to be taken into consideration when viewing the incident yesterday (during the France v Ireland second leg play-off for the 2010 World Cup Final). Circumstance, timing, impact and consequence are factors that are used (rightly or wrongly) in the judgement of a person's cheating within sport. When W.G Grace was bowled first ball in an exhibition match and retorted the bowling elation with 'Young Lad, they've come to see me ball not you bowl' before retaking his place at the crease, hysteria was not forthcoming (yes a different age a different media, but...). Hysteria was not appropriate because it was an exhibition match, it was the first ball he'd received, it would have caused a major disappointment for the people who had paid to watch him bat and there was little in the way of consequence (unless you were the bowler or his team mates!).

The reaction in England to Michael Owen's penalty against Argentina? Nothing compared to the reaction given to Diego Simeone who fell to the ground after David Beckham had kicked him four year's earlier. The reasons for such a difference in feeling relate to the factors identified above. 

When a player handles the ball on his own half way line when 3v0 down, what happens? A free kick. Same player, same incident in the opposition penalty area? A free kick with perhaps a few acknowledging voices from the opposition defends, glad the dangerous play has ended. So to the same incident in that player's own penalty area? Mayhem? Hysteria? Arm-waving? Gesticulation? Suddenly the circumstance, the impact and consequences have changed. A theoretical example it may be, but one a lot of people will be able to relate to. 

Intention is another factor that has to be considered. The general view is that positive intent coupled with cheating is the worst form of cheating. I would not counter that. I would, however, refer back to the subjective nature of determining intent as an issue to consider before passing judgement. 

Thierry Henry handled the ball twice, in the opposition penalty area, in the last minute of extra time to create the goal that knocked out Ireland and sent France through. The only factor missing is intent. The most subjective factor and the most difficult to prove. General consensus deems the second handball to be deliberate. Again, so difficult to prove but even if it was a conscious act it was almost certainly not premeditated. The reaction time between Henry seeing the ball, it hitting his hand the first time to him handling the ball the second is factions of a second. How much time does it take to make a conscious decision? Is it understood what effect the first handball has upon players who then handle the ball a second time? In such a short period of time do they feel justification? Just scraping the surface of the issues that surround those two acts bring doubt. 

The second part to examine is reaction: the reaction of the player, the officials, media and fans. What should Henry have done after the goal was scored? How should he have reacted? There are no rules, no guidelines and little precedent of action other than that of which he took. To deem his actions as wrong is to apply your own personal rules and guidelines and then judge accordingly. No-one would want that to happen to them in other areas of their lives. 

The only stakeholder in that situation that does have rules that govern how they react are the officials. The officials reacted to the best of their ability and the rest, as they say...

I understand the arguments that surround cheating, that you should not do it and that no matter what mitigating arguments I put forward here, it was still cheating and as such is wrong. My defence of Thierry Henry is based around the fact that cheating is an accepted part of sport, if it wasn't it would not happen and that a player should not be vilified because his cheating came at a prominent part of an important game. 

Only if it is ever proven that it is feasible to remove cheating from sport will there ever be any real attempt to remove it. Until such time, please lay off Henry because you feel aggrieved. After all, he was dignified enough to admit it.     

Beyonce: 2 hour master-class!

There's a lot to be learnt from being under the influence. Decisions made in such circumstances always allow the inevitable get out of jail clause to be used alongside the 'perception' of hindsight, but sometimes the truth of the matter is that inebriation can offer judgement more astute than the conscious mind. That explaining the reason I found myself at a Beyonce gig, the scepticism was left at the proverbial door.


Granted I didn't really 'get' quite a few of her songs, the screaming kids or incessant military policing of said 14 year old's, but that aside I found her show a thorough masterclass for others to aspire to. Comparing dishcloths to cravats isn't always helpful, but the last ever [question mark] gig of Oasis' at the V Festival that I witnessed left me feeling that even as an aspiration Beyonce was just too ludicrous to even contemplate.


My expectations admittedly were low; a Kylie-inspired dance-a-thon and upmarket karaoke perhaps? It didn't even enter my mind there may be a costume change! (I stopped counting at 10) and as for singing live......? My ultimate feeling was that I wasn't sure what a singer such as Beyonce could offer that was worth the cost of attending. I found out.


The dance routines alone were worthy of commendation and the live singing flawless but the enegry and execution at which they were both seamlessly combined left me feeling very humbled. Not that I can properly comment having only seen it on YouTube out of curiosity, but Cheryl Cole's 'live' performance on the X Factor leaves so much to be desired. 


Beyonce sang for a full two hours, with the occasional song's rest to accommodate costume changes. Her ballads had a air of Whitney Houston about them, thankfully minus the contemporary        tendency to 'over-blow' (she avoids screaming merely because her voice can) and offers genuinely lyrical melodies that even in a huge reverberating stadium are fantastic to experience. The more up tempo numbers are delivered with a commanding control that belies the rigour of the dance routines and are appreciated beyond belief by a hugely energetic, shrilled audience. 


Her band was the single most impressive band I've heard since (and I almost dare not say) some of the latin numbers executed so exceptionally by the Strictly Come Dancing house band! (Both bands really are that good!). The fact Beyonce employs an all female band is secondary to their talent and the only worthy observation on the subject is other musician's reluctance to follow suit. They were tight, dynamic and played a range of different styles. For all the dancing her Trumpet player indulged in whilst performing, I would have had to mime!


Stevie Wonder aside, I can't think of an artist currently performing who could achieve the same level of success and produce quality in so many different areas: vocals, dancing, style, stardom, humility were all on show in abundance and you left feeling privileged to have experienced them. A gentle dig into her background and upbringing suggest a Michael Jackson-esque talent nurtured and guided from an early age that involved primarily hard work and talent. Whatever the cost of such upbringing it has paid untold dividends. 


A hugely likeable personality with a show second to only the legend who is Stevie Wonder. It was not what I was expecting but I'm extremely happy it's what I got!




[YouTube clip is taken from Tara Welsh, shot at a Beyonce gig in Liverpool and chosen virtue of the only clip I could find of any quality and primarily to showcase live vocals]            

Tasks v Calendars: Why can't tasks have reminders?

** WARNING: RANT ALERT! **

I've tried hard to keep rants to a minimum: suppressing anger until it can be reflected upon and emerge as a coherent and consise (if a little damning and judgemental) posting. Posts on Referees in Football, Cricket Referrals and Why Fans Aren't Important in Football spring to mind. I hope others agree that they're more thoughtfull than spleen-venting electronic anger! Up until now these postings have been reserved for sport-related topics but I can't hold back on my loathing of tasks any longer!   

If I had one question to ask anyone in the world right now it would be this:

"Why can't tasks have reminders in them?"

I've searched the web a bit for a definition of Tasks and Events (or more a distinction between the two) and not been able to find any. However I don't think it's too difficult to suggest a couple myself. I believe an event can be described as 'something that has or will happen'. A Task in contrast is probably adequately described as 'something that has to happen'. That's adequate in respect that it could be more concisely described were I not to make the link between the two obvious ('something' and 'happen'). 

Definition aside the real differences between the two categories is functionality: events have people, places, resources and reminders associated with them, whether you are in Microsoft Outlook or Google Calendar. Likewise, non-application specific Tasks share descriptions, due dates and status categories. These seem like sensible enough features and appropriate to each category. I doubt a task (cancel the milk, phone the estate agent or finish the draft strategy document) really needs people, resources, scheduling re-occurrences etc. Neither would you expect to need to mark off an event 'corporate hospitality at the football' as complete after the final whistle! I do believe, however, that there is a place for reminders in tasks.  

As someone capable of forgetting my front door in the event I'm not actually looking at it, tasks are important to me. I write down almost everything that is asked of me in a working environment, less I would forget the instant my mind wandered inevitably towards food! Anything not work-related tends to end up as an event in Google Calendar as I use the SMS reminder feature. But they're not events as such (and defined above) they're most definitely tasks. When Google released their Task application I was excited and started to use it. After a couple of days I forgot about it and it wasn't until a chance encounter a week or so later that I remembered it even existed and then came the realisation of what I'd forgotten to do. Each tasks was neatly described and assigned a due date, for what is was worth. That worth turned out to be nothing as it relied on me checking the list every day to see what needed to be done. 


For me a task is not something that should take a large amount of planning, if any. Therefore I find it's best to schedule it for the time I want to execute the task. Having a reminder go off at that time allows that to happen. I get a text, it reminds me to book the tickets so I pick up the phone/find the website and away I go! It seems such a logical and obvious feature I can't believe it's not standard across all applications. Tasks invariably live with Events so the capability is there. It leaves me at an infuriated loss! 


I would love to know why reminders are included in Tasks. Does anyone know?

Catch Up by Name, Real time in everything but...

Like most people I suspect, new technology tends to politely step forward and introduce itself in a couple of ways: RSS and other internet related mediums and the good, old fashioned word-of-mouth. Through an old friend from my music days in Doncaster on Facebook, I was introduced to TVCatchup.com. It appears that I'm slightly behind the times as browsing some of the forums it seems like the site has been up for well over a year! However a new and recent addition to their service offering, and the way I stumbled across TVCatchup.com is their iPhone offering. Although currently in beta, my first impressions are that you could not wish for a more simple yet effective service. Simply navigate through your safari browser on the iPhone to iphone.tvcatchup.com and from the main menu select the channel you wish to watch. A video stream then loads and away you go!

As of posting the channels available on the iPhone are: BBC's One/Two/Three, ITV's 1 and 2, Channel4, Five, Film Four, E4, More4 and 4Music. The website has a few more channels to offer, listed here.

I've tested the service on my phone a couple of times now: firstly in the office on a 8MB connection, then my home network which is 2MB. Connection over WiFi seems fine. The feed is naturally a few seconds behind that of live TV. While watching the England v Belarus game on ITV1 the TVCatchup feed on my phone was 40 seconds behind. Football is a useful medium to compare as it has a timer on the screen! In the office I could only compare what was on the BBC's website for BBC One and that was a shorter delay, maybe 10 seconds. In the grand scheme of things the delay isn't really any sort of issue, such is the quality and near real time programming provided.

I've heard a couple of other reviews from people using it in more remote locations: The BBC's Rory Cellen-Jones used it on the train with a 3G connection

and had a few time-out issues. In his defence he also said the iphone radio service WunderRadio (another fantastic iPhone app) suffered a similar fate. I can testify to as much when using it on trains. Other tweets experienced similar success to mine, as @allaboutiphone's screenshot can testify.

Overall the iPhone offering (it's not technically an app as it's only available through the safari browser) is in my mind a success; especially considering it's still in beta. I was a bit surprised that I didn't have to sign up to anything to view the iPhone feed, and there were also no signs of commercial revenue generation either (sign-up fee, ads etc.). Perhaps this is still due to the service being in beta. Singing up for an account on the website did answer a lot of my questions, if leaving the biggest one unanswered.

The website is sleek and simple. You can view the channels that are available and a TV guide without needing an account. You can also view the forum messages without signing up. Understandably to watch any channels, sign in is required. This is why my questions began to flow and answers became slightly confusing.

Upon signing up the first thing you encounter is a message congratulating you on your ISP (named) is compatible with TVCatchup. Good to know in that I can use the system, but I'm extremely intrigued as to why this is an issue. I can assume it has something to do with rights or access, but it is bemusing why this is decided at the ISP level? I've looked through the forums but can't find any answers there either. Will probably post a message and report back...

Signing up for the website did answer questions as well as creating them. Before watching my first stream there was a 30 second TV advert (for Smirdoff Vodka). That's the business model and revenue generation thing addressed. As part of the sign-up states they will never charge for the service, I guess all their eggs are in the advertising basket.

T+C's were interesting: small capital letters with a grey font against a white background. In other words 'we don't really want you to read these'. Naturally I did, as I wasn't sure whether this service was a) legal and b) underpinned by the TV licence. It appears the answer to both is yes, although interestingly there is no burden of proof to ensure you have a valid licence to watch the channels. This is not dissimilar to the BBC iPlayer or 4onDemand, although both offerings are provided by organisations that already adhere to licensing. Students are exempt from this provided a pre-requisite check of 1000's of loopholes can be satisfactorily answered!

I've only used the site for a very short space of time so I don't know the frequency of adverts or any other restrictions. I will report back these in due course. Even though the football was not a major international match, I was pleasantly surprised the system stood up well and didn't crash. That's in no way vindication of the rest of the site but it's a good omen that reliability issues will be kept to a minimum.

So the big question: why is it called catch up TV when you can't watch any historical programming? I'm not complaining as I'd much prefer a live feed over an amalgamated 'on demand' service, but it does interest me (infuriate if I'm honest!). Again the website doesn't provide any answers so I'll keep working away at that one too.

To conclude then, an excellent first impression of an innovative and void filling offering. I do hope it's legal and that they continue to innovate and improve their service offering. Hopefully technological advances can iron out some of the 3G issues reported by some users when on the move. That'd be good for more than just this application.

UPDATE: Bizarrely, no sooner had I posted this then I followed a link on Twitter to TVCatchup's FAQ's. These answer a lot of my questions! (thanks to allaboutiphone.net)

HulloMail is good, but is it a short-term answer to Google Voice?

Yesterday I stumbled across HulloMail for the first time. (To reference all my sources correctly, it was through an article in The Register that had been posted on Twitter by @allaboutiphone). In short, HulloMail is a service that diverts your voicemail away from the default offering provided by your mobile phone provider to HulloMail. The primary advantage of such a service is that is offers the next generation of voicemail; something only O2 in the UK through the iPhone can even attempt to match through their Visual Voicemail. Essentially visual voicemail works like email in that it gives you a view of who has left a message and the date/time so you can choose what messages you listen to.

Not subscribing to the O2 pay-monthly iPhone tariff visual voicemail is one of the few features of the iPhone that isn't available to me. HulloMail offers a free workaround of this service, and in my opinion it is already better than the iPhone's offering. Firstly, HulloMail uses Gmail technology to store your voicemail messages as mp3's and then emails them directly to your Inbox. You can access your voicemail from any internet enabled location, even when you don't have your mobile to hand. It also offers a customisable text messaging service which is similar to O2's, in that when you have a new voicemail, it send you an SMS and you can call the phone number (local 01 number too!) and listen to your message. It will also tell you if someone called but didn't leave a message. This doesn't interfere with the missed call function on your iPhone, so a full audit of sent/received calls is still available.

An impressive additional feature is that you can sync your contacts with Google and other providers, so instead of a list of numbers you can see names of people who've left you a message. This sounds straight forward when you consider listening to messages from your phone, but it takes on a different and more impressive function when you're checking your messages through your email! In Gmail, HulloMail will also create and label and label all messages as well; keeping things neat and tidy!

The upshot of this new approach is that your voicemail is now more accessible, with greater control over how you listen to your messages and has the added, and

probably key, benefit of being stored forever and simply to retrieve! It's a bold and innovative move from HulloMail and one that I'm sure will catch on to other, bigger players in the market place before too long. Which brings me to my second point...

Like most people who consider themselves to be cool, but in fact others would probably judge as Geeky or techy, I sign up to a lot of innovative service in the beta stage. (I'm currently waiting either to be invited by Google directly to test Google Wave, or for my invite from a very kind @artinliverpool for the invite they sent me to come through!) One service I was looking forward to getting a sneak preview of was Google Voice. Unfortunately when it did come through I was left disappointed as it's currently only available in beta in the US. (I might change my language settings to US, see if that works!)

From the preview information and marketing copy I can find of Google Voice, it's very similar to HulloMail. However and unfortunately for HulloMail, the list of additional features is also very impressive! In addition to shared features of being able to listen to voicemail on the web and receive notifications via email and SMS, Google offers voicemail transcripts to SMS and email as well as a host of calling features, conference calls, call screening and just about everything else you could wish for! The demo really does look exciting (if you like that sort of thing).

I've always been something of a loyal customer when it comes to technology: not afraid to change, but willing to stick with what I've found good service in the past. In theory that should persuade me to stick with HulloMail over Google Voice, but I suspect I won't. As I've posted about previously, I'm a big Google fan. Not only do I like their approach and the applications and services they produce, but increasingly it is becoming easier to adopt Google's version of the latest technology because I'm using so many other Google applications already! (one notable exception is the Andriod phone, but I'm not ruling it out). People may cite Microsoft as a dangerous precedent, but I believe that Google leant many lessons from how Microsoft developed during the 90's and have built a strategy that tries to ensure they won't repeat their mistakes. Their pricing and commercial model, for example, is so different, they shouldn't be labelled as Monopolists (is that a correct noun?) quite as readily as Microsoft were.

However, no amount of Google praising and reassurances that they will be a 'different' will be of much comfort for the likes of HulloMail. A great, innovative product built by small team of both technical and entrepreneurial minds, but still under a very real threat of trailing in the dirt of the new corporate machine.

Schubert: Symphony Number 8 in B Minor (Unfininished)

The season has restarted for the South Liverpool Rehearsal Orchestra (SLRO) so I thought I'd continue to discuss the repertoire as the year progresses. First up is Franz Schubert's Symphony Number 8 in B Minor. My limited knowledge of Music History (A Level Grade C) informs me that this is the 'famous' Unfinished symphony. It's left to Wikipedia to provide further explanation: to summarise no-one really knows why it remained unfinished, despite Schubert living a further six years after the first two movements were written. Of all the reasons suggested (a finale was written but used in his incidental music to Rosamunde and a scherzo does exist but only sketched in Piano form) the theory that seems most realistic is that the form of the symphony was not common for a Viennese composer of his time:

One possible reason for Schubert's leaving the symphony incomplete is the predominance of the same meter (three-in-a-bar). The first movement is in 3/4, the second in 3/8 and the third (an incomplete scherzo) also in 3/4.

In terms of my first impressions of the symphony (we've only played it once thus far), I'm primarily glad my part is written in Bb! I've always struggled with transposition and this hasn't changed since starting to play regularly again. I haven't really formed an opinion as of yet and will probably update this post over the course of our rehearsals. This post is primarily a selfish one in that it affords me an opportunity to look into the background of some of the music we play, hopefully in an attempt to enhance my interpretation and own performance. This is something I've decided might be a good idea having heard Alison Balsom's rendition of Haydn's Trumpet Concerto during the Last Night of the Proms. My Grade 6 and 8 recitals weren't quite the same!

Google Wave: The 10 Minute Demo!

The other day I posted about Google Sync and Google Wave. That included an 80 minute video demonstration from Google on Wave. Even I couldn't be bothered watching all that!

Courtesy of Lifehacker I've found this condensed, 10 minute version. Hope this is more manageable!

Gmail pushes iPhone, but is it too little too late for traditional mail?

This week has seen the long awaited release of Google Sync's Push Gmail support for the iPhone (and Windows Mobile). Google Sync has previously provided support for Google Calendar and Contacts with the iPhone through the phone's Microsoft Exchange client, but push support for Gmail was conspicuous by it's absence!

While Yahoo have had a push service for a while, there is growing concern that push notifications have been draining battery life. Google identified that as a concern when developing push for Gmail and cited their own efforts to reduce battery use:

While this type of speed is pretty awesome, push connections tend to use more power than fetching at intervals, so don't be surprised if your battery life isn't quite what it used to be. We've done a lot of work to optimize power usage, but if you prefer to save battery life, you can always turn off push in your phone's settings and fetch mail every 30 or 60 minutes instead.

It will be interesting to see how the new feature pans out. I've had it enabled for a few days now and have noticed the battery drain in addition to a couple of other quirks:

• Battery Life is now on average 1 day. This has decreased by almost 50% although unlike a Blackberry, you can turn push on/off and set custom fetch times so this is not really a problem for me
• What I assume is Google's attempt to reduce battery drain manifests itself in the service only checking for new mail and if there is any, placing a unread number with the mail icon and playing the new mail notification. This sounds sensible but when you open the mail app to read it, the app has to check all over again and plays a new mail notification once the message has been downloaded!
• It appears to notify on new mail better than it does re-sync once mail has been read. I haven't been able to read mail in a web browser and see the unread count on the iPhone mail app icon decrease afterwards. Only when you open the app and it checks again does it sort itself out (even then, occasionally it doesn't!)

There's a couple of bugs above that will no doubt be ironed out in the future, but as a first stab it's not bad. The iPhone Facebook app, for example, can't sync consistently when reading Facebook emails through a web-browser (or when switching between accounts) so maybe it's an Apple thing? And despite all that it is handy to have a audio notification go off (and as default a less intrusive one than SMS messages on the iPhone too).

The use of a Microsoft application (Microsoft Exchange) and one that's hardly cutting edge mail technology either suggests that Google aren't planning to hang around for the long term with this platform. A decision [if true] that appears sound in logic.

When Gmail was released in 2004 it was revolutionary: conversation view messaging, 1GB of storage, the famous Google search capabilities just some of the innovations that moved messaging forward. But it didn't, really. Hotmail responded by increasing the capacity of it's storage and others soon followed suit, but in terms of creative innovations to actual messaging, nothing really changed. Not until Facebook arrived and added an messaging capability to mirrored both traditional email and Google's conversation view did anything seriously adapt to Google's new benchmark.

For a while now that has left me with a feeling that perhaps traditional email and perhaps even Gmail is becoming redundant? Maybe not so for corporate world but certainly on a social level, how many of my friends who I talk to regularly are not on Facebook? [one is the answer, and he know's who he is!]. Over the past 12 months my social emailing through Gmail has plummeted! Facebook has definitely taken up that mantle; providing a service that is easy and uniform to use and can be accessed through a variety of mediums (web, mobile, iPhone, text to name a few). As 99% of my friends are on Facebook, I don't need to remember, store and maintain a list of their email addresses (although I still do, not trusting Facebook will be around forever).

Is it any surprise then that a Gmail-styled mailing application is the one that has grown and become more popular than any other over the recent years? Does this mean the end of dedicated mail providers, unable to gain such a monopoly of users as Facebook has managed? I'm not sure it does and it links nicely back to my view that Google is sitting tight on something new. Well not new as a lot of people already know about Google Wave, but new in terms of blowing everyone else out of the marketplace in one majestic swoop? (I couldn't bring myself to indulge in wave puns!)

At first I didn't really understand Google Wave. I think under examination I probably would still fail a 'Google Wave Comprehension Exercise'. The demo's, screen shots and reviews all give me the impression that it is just too busy an interface for you to get a handle on what's happening. I like to be able to 'see the bigger picture' and other clichés that mean 'to take perspectives that aren't spoon fed to you!' The more I look at it though, I'm more convinced it can cater for these desires and also deliver on the obvious benefits it will bring. I've long advocated using messaging services such as Skype or even MSN Messenger in business, arguing that it would free up Email to be exactly that: Electronic Mail. Google Wave would allow people to use it as both an electronic mail solution and a chat-based solution as it has been designed to do that. Microsoft Outlook and the host of traditional mail providers were not designed to handle chats (a post for another rainy day!).

So are Google holding back on their development of services that involve major use of Microsoft Exchange on the iPhone in order to pave the way for Wave, or are they simply reluctant to use Microsoft technology to facilitate their innovations? In a wider context than just the iPhone, will Google Wave end the old-style mail communication format, or will us end users reject such radical change?

Google Sync's Push Gmail could well be the last hurrah for an antiquated way of electronic communication. It saddens me a little to admit I'm really quite excited by that prospect!