Yes, they’re back! That’s John Gruber and Dan Benjamin on The Talk Show, now part of the multimedia empire that is 5by5 Studios, discussing Macs, iPhones, coffee and environmentally friendly garbage disposal.

During the period of radio silence I even managed to listen to all 30 episodes of season one again. Was the break really only two weeks… it seemed more like three.

My last day in London. Travelodge, being forever helpful, won’t let you leave your bag at the hotel for the day so you have to either carry it around with you or rent a locker at Euston station. At least my feet and my legs didn’t feel as bad as they did the day before, so it’s off to my usual haunt for breakfast, along the Thames to the millennium bridge and Tate Modern.

I will always find Tate Modern and it’s contents completely fascinating and I'm not entirely sure why. Most of the items inside you couldn’t really call art, they aren’t the kind of pieces that you can stare at for ten minutes and see something new for that length of time. It’s more a case of the logistics of making it and setting it up in the gallery. The turbine hall contained the How It Is piece at the far end. You cannot possibly call it art at all, it is just a huge shipping container that is open at one end. It hasn’t been sculpted or moulded by hand in any way it has just been manufactured. You can walk up the ramp and go inside but there is nothing to see, it is completely black. You can hear kids running around, banging on the walls and screaming but that’s it. Possibly that is the point, how much more black could you get! There is a great sign near it which forbids flash photography in the exhibit.

I certainly wasn’t going to walk around carrying my bag so I left it at the cloakroom, purchased a ticket for Pop Life and started to wander. Pop Life was more interesting than the other exhibits, I think that most of the other stuff is static. The kind of pieces that can’t be moved because of their size and weight. One gallery contains a VW camper van and a huge metal slab that is hanging from a girder that mustn’t have been moved in years. Lots of cool stuff by Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, a piece or two by Anish Kapoor and a few items by Damien Hirst that I hadn’t seen before. The strangest of which was not the white calf with gold hooves in a gold framed tank but something much more alive. I was walking around one gallery and saw two young ladies, both blonde, both identically dressed and both twins. Strange to see twins that are dressed the same, surely that is just something that parents do to make their lives easier. Once they get a sense of independence, possibly around the age of 5 or 6, they want to dress differently. Anyway, I didn’t see them again until I was near the Damien Hirst exhibits, when I saw a member of the public talking to them. They were just sat on two chairs about 6 feet apart, any closer and it would have just looked strange. Later when I walked around for the second time they were just talking to each other. I think the description of the ‘piece’ just said Dixie Jo, but I may be mistaken.

It is such a great place that I always contribute the required amount at the cloakroom for looking after my bag and also at the donation boxes on the way out.

Back over the Thames again and down the Embankment, past the Houses of Parliament to Tate Britain. Again leaving my bag at the cloakroom. I did consider going to see the Turner Prize 2009 exhibits but after seeing them in Liverpool a few years ago I decided that paying for the privilege isn’t really worth it, unless you know what is being shown and have some appreciation of the artists. The other items were just as interesting, exhibits by Bridget Riley, Gilbert & George and some huge paintings by David Hockney. The other stuff I'm not really a fan of, the old masters I'm not all that interested in. Some of the oil paintings are interesting because of their size and the detail that goes into them but even the works in the Turner galleries, for me, weren’t worth more than a passing glance as I walked past.

Downstairs for a sandwich £3.50 and a cappuccino £2.20 and to collect my bag. The shock at paying so much for a butty and a drink made me forget to make a contribution. Oh well.

Walking back, in the general direction of Euston station, I had to stop off again at the Apple Store to see if they had any Magic Mice in stock. They were still just selling the Mighty Mouse that I had seen the other day, but I did get to try one on a new iMac and was quite impressed, both with the size of the iMac and of the new mouse. It just didn’t look as if they had any in stock.

My train back wasn’t until 8:00pm so I did have an hour or so to kill beforehand.

Pondering the events of the past few days I don’t think stay in London again. The expense of an overnight stay is too great, that and the lack of rest because you never sleep as well in a strange bed, just isn’t worth it. The journey from home to London is just over an hour and a half on the train. Booking in advanced the trip there and back only cost £30, even a return to Manchester costs about £15 and that’s only about 25 miles away. If there is something in the capital that I want to go and see I can book a ticket ahead of time and go down on an early train and return on a late one. It just isn’t worth staying over.

My legs ache, my feet still hurt, I have another day of walking ahead and to cap it all it’s raining. Not the water running down your neck kind of rain, just that fine drizzle that blows around instead of just having the decency to fall vertically.

Breakfast first then I decided to take the tube from Holborn to Tower Hill. I certainly couldn’t face walking the full distance again. A single ticket in zone 1 is now £4. On my first London trip it was, I'm sure, just £1. At least I bought Carnet tickets 10 for a tenner and that was it, all of my travel in London paid for. There was a change at one station and I ended up surfacing before realising my error and going back down underground to find the correct line. Getting through the barrier at Tower Hill was fun, as the machine took my ticket the gate snapped open, but I wasn’t quick enough on my tender feet and almost got stuck. The alarm went off but no one stopped me.

By the time I arrived at the Design Museum I was slightly damp to say the least. Thankfully they were open and I purchased my ticket by handing over £8.50. The first floor was filled with architects models and photographs of buildings, some actual, some proposed, including a few designs for Tate Modern that didn’t make the cut. Not all that interesting. The second floor seemed to be closed off. I don’t know if this is usually an exhibition floor, this being my first visit, but I'm sure there must be something there. The third floor had more architects models of futuristic houses as well as some artwork done by someone who did the design for one of the last Olympic games… and that was it. Talk about being completely underwhelmed! After seeing all the great stuff in the shop I thought that the museum part of it was going to be more of the same. Chairs, furniture, gadgets, iPods anything that is well designed and serves it’s purpose, but there was nothing like that. I'm sure I've been to the art galleries in Manchester that have had more ‘design’ items than that. Yes, bitterly disappointed having visited the place twice on consecutive days. I just had another walk around the shop, which was infinitely more interesting, and free, bought my pack of Field Notes memo pads and headed back across the bridge to Tower Hill tube.

On the underground again to Euston Square and a trip to the Wellcome Collection, which I had only passed the other day. I've always had a fascination for medical artefacts like this and admission is free. It is just wall to wall science. A printout of the human genome, that isn’t something that you’ll see every day and certainly isn’t something that I think you could replicate with a bubblejet printer. Guillotine blades, hair and teeth of those long since left us. Amputation saws, shrunken heads, male anti-masturbation devices, chastity belts, artificial limbs, dentists chairs, it’s all just wonderful intriguing stuff and did I mention that it’s free? The café was packed so I just had a little wander, more of a limp really, around the shop and then outside to decide what to do next.

I still had places I wanted to go to, Hyde Park in daylight might be nice and it had stopped raining. In the end I decided to head back to the hotel via M&S for something to eat. Walking was still painful to say the least so back down to Euston Square tube I went. At a ticket window I asked for a single to Tottenham Court Road, the bloke behind the glass said that I just needed to go up the stairs and left and that was Tottenham Court Road… and like an idiot I did just that. I guess it did save me another £4 tube fare. So I ended up walking back to the hotel. By this time I was limping quite badly, so much so that passersby were checking my left leg to see if it looked wooden.

Back in room 721 of the Covent Garden Travelodge I lay, under the duvet, eating my sandwiches, watching afternoon TV and I really noticed how grubby the room was. The ceiling was false, which is fine, but they always seem to be made from the same substance that egg boxes are made out of, that really course cardboard that has just been loosely mashed together. So there’s a brown stain on the ceiling, a light bulb no longer works over the door, the window frames are metal and have fixtures missing, this allows cold air and any outside noise easy passage into the room. There is both a vast air-conditioning unit, which looks as if it was fitted in the seventies, I didn’t try it, and a Dimplex heater, again untested. One wall had a large bubble in the wallpaper, another had scuff marks from a boot, it was certainly a boot as there was also a clear print of it on the wall. I counted 4 electrical outlets that must have been in use at some point but now just had covers on them. The bathroom was in a similar state of disrepair. Caps that should have been covering the heads of screws were missing, fixtures like the toilet roll holder had been broken, replaced with new holes drilled without filling in the old ones. A bath was completely out of the question as there was no plug. Four drill holes in the tiles didn’t seem to perform any purpose and lastly, the one thing that never seems to work in hotel bathrooms, the ceiling extractor fan didn’t work. Or possibly it was so efficient and well made that it was inaudible. A snip at £120 a night for a room with only a single bed.

It doesn’t stop there – the other annoying thing was that the two lifts had indicator numbers for the floors, so that you knew if it was your floor. The LED indicator numbers didn’t work, so twice when the lift doors opened I got out. Thinking that that was my floor. There isn’t even a sign on the wall where the lifts are showing which floor it is. The only way you could tell that you'd hit the ground floor is to look for a tile pattern on the floor instead of carpet.

I had been sending text messages to my niece Zoe, telling her what I was up to. She had sent me one back asking if I'd go to the Apple Store on Regent Street and get her a Magic Mouse. I thought that she was mistaken and that it was called a Mighty Mouse and that there had been rumours of a touch sensitive mouse with no scroll ball. I said that I'd only been in there the other day looking for one myself. Little did I know. You don’t check the internet for a couple of days and look what happens.

So Apple have taken steps to limit app reviews to just the people who have downloaded or purchased it, according to Matt Gemmell.

I, for one, hope that this will filter out to the movie reviews (or film reviews, as they are called here in the UK). How many times have you seen one star reviews of good films that start with, ‘Welcome to rip off Britain’, which are just a tirade against the purchase price and not about the film? If you don’t want to pay £6.99 for a film then don’t buy from the iTunes store. When do you ever see someone storming down the baked bean aisle in Sainsbury’s saying that you can buy them cheaper in Tesco. You don’t.

Lets hope that this restraint filters out to other online stores like Amazon. As I said last November the reviews on certain items can become absurd especially on pre-release items like video games and music.

iPod touch 2g

Well, it didn’t take me long after the Stevenote to order an iPod touch second generation from the online Apple store. It has been a long hard struggle… but it’s been worth it.

I did originally think about buying an iPhone, even before the 3g model came out, because it would save me having to carry a phone and an iPod nano. With the phone I'd get phone calls, text messages, the built-in camera and internet access on the go for £35 a month minimum. I even waited for the 3g release and news that O2 may have a pay as you go plan for the phone. That news was released the other week and really didn’t seem like a good deal. Available from September 16 it would cost £399.99 for the 16GB version, unlimited browsing and Wi-Fi for 12 months, after that £10 per month. Then there is a minimum top-up of £10, even if you don’t use the phone.

Besides, I don’t use the phone. I've been with Virgin Mobile since 2000 and have only topped up the phone twice. So when Steve Jobs announced the new iPod touch with 16GB for £219 I decided to get one. Even then I was undecided about getting the 32GB, but my iPod nano, which has 8GB, is only half full with podcasts so I couldn’t see myself filling it to capacity.

This new iPod touch is really nice, reassuringly hefty in the palm, thanks to the solid metal back and the glass touch screen. The interface design really is just a joy to behold. Everything just zooms, spins and scrolls with ease. Remarkable how they have managed to get everything to work with the minimum amount of buttons.

Naturally I've installed a few applications: Air Sharing, BubbleWrap, Cro-Mag Rally, Dactyl, Enigmo, Hanoi, Instapaper Pro, iWik, Koi Pond, NetNewsWire, OmniFocus, Remote, Tap Tap Revenge and Twitterrific. I've had a little dabble with all of them but NetNewsWire, for reading my news feeds and syncing with my iMac, was a must and Instapaper Pro was a no brainer for reading the web pages away from my desk.

That’s really all I'm going to use it for, surfing the web, checking emails, news feeds and reading web pages. I have put some TV shows, music, podcasts, photos, music videos, even PDFs on it but I’ll still use my nano for listening to podcasts when I'm walking, cleaning or cooking because it’s just the right size for my top pocket.

I heard about TED, it stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design, on the net@night podcast with Amber and Leo. After watching the first three that came down the intertubes I must say I really enjoyed them. They are just short 18 minute talks given by fascinating people who have done extraordinary things in their lives.

Really inspirational stuff.

Check out the TED web-site or the TEDTalks (video) page in iTunes. Ideal for watching on the Apple TV.

Apple TV

Yes, the update I've been waiting for. The update that I bought the Apple TV for. Being able to rent HD movies to watch on my new TV… and I'm a little disappointed.

I did hear that rental downloads wouldn’t happen in the UK until later this year. So that killed my reason for buying the unit in the first place. To be honest I was expecting quite a lot from those lumbering giants the movie studios. Rentals are available in the US why not the UK? Surely all they have to agree is a price. The same release rules will have to apply. The same rental conditions will apply because they’ll already be set in the software upgrade. So I just can’t see what the problem is! Then again it’s these huge monolithic companies who are still stuck in their old ways.

Apart from the no rentals thing it’s not a bad upgrade and free at that. The UI has changed, you can browse the iTunes store and download podcasts directly. Strangely they don’t show when you look at the contents of your unit within iTunes on the iMac. So when the two sync you won’t get the shows that have been download directly to the Apple TV. I did think that you could subscribe to a podcast, the same way that you can on iTunes, but it just seems that you can flag a show as a favourite. All this does is add it to a list, you would then have to select each episode for download manually.

It’s a step in the right direction. I've set the video output to 1080p so that it matches the TV, but it looks like we’ll have to wait for movie rentals. I’ll just keep watching video podcasts.

10.5.2

This latest release of Apple’s Mac OS operating system added a great little Time Machine icon to the menu bar. I was always checking to see if it was backing up, how much it was backing up and when the next backup will be (I do tinker too much). Now you can see from the icon when it’s doing it’s thing. As if the sound of the drives in the Drobo aren’t enough of an indication. The icon itself animates with the hands of the clock, and the arrow, going backwards. Clicking on it shows the date and time of the last backup, with a Back Up Now, Enter Time Machine and Preferences menu options. I've set a keyboard shortcut for the Back Up Now option just in case I feel the need for a little security before I do something stupid.

Also, I've switched the Translucent Menu Bar off. Not something that I really liked, the same as the glass dock which was changed a couple of days after the upgrade. Now you can also change the dock folders so that you aren’t always faced with seeing a disc image in your downloads folder. That, and allowing you to select just plain old list instead of stacks, my set-up is looking more like Tiger every day.

At least Apple are listening and acting upon requests from the community.

Drobo

Well, my Drobo and the 2 500GB drives arrived on Monday. They've taken a leaf from Apple’s book and the packaging is very slick, the unit itself is very well finished and minimalistic. Set-up was a breeze, just slide the drives into the top slots (just like floppy disc drives of old, ask your parents), plug it in, install the software, format the drive and that’s it. Nothing else to it. The drive appears on your desktop and you can start dumping files on it.

The first thing that I did was use SuperDuper! to copy my Time Machine directory from my LaCie firewire drive to the Drobo. It was about 125GB and took about 5 and a half hours. USB 2.0 ports are not the fastest in the world. After I had pointed Time Machine to the Drobo drive it’s been fine. It does seem to make a clattering sound when it’s writing to the discs but that was only when it was doing the full copy. I pulled out the drives afterwards, one at a time and only after the optimisation had finished, there isn’t a problem with the drive being seated correctly. Maybe it will sound quieter when I put another two drives into the bottom bays.

After Time Machine was working fine I used SuperDuper! to make a full copy of my iMac drive. That’s alongside the Time Machine folder on the Drobo and took another 5 and a half hours. Luckily SuperDuper! does say what it will do, that it will leave Time Machine as it is. That saves you partitioning the Drobo drive, which I can’t see working very well if you add additional storage later.

So it is now a little over half full. There are 5 blue lights lit on the front out of a possible 10. The only thing that will fill it up are the Time Machine backups. I’ll just keep an eye on the drive lights, both of them now green, and add an additional drive when they change to yellow at 85% capacity. That could be quite a while. To be honest that may not be necessary as Time Machine will delete the oldest backup if it runs out of space.

One thing that could be done to improve the software, and this can’t be high on Data Robotics list, is to change the dull Drobo Dashboard icon on the dock so that it looks like the front of the Drobo itself. That way the pie-chart circle on the menu bar can be removed and the icon can show the drive lights as well as the blue capacity indicators. Just a thought.

People have complained that using USB 2.0 is too slow and that the unit should have been fitted with firewire as well. To be honest I don’t think that firewire ports are on that many PC’s and laptops, which has to be their main market. Yes, it would be nice to have a faster connection but for me I'm just using it for backups, I'm not trying to pull audio or video from it. For what I use it for it’s wonderful. Just don’t copy your iTunes library onto it and expect it to be as fast as your internal drive.

Just to recap… photos, purchased iTunes music and web-site backups are on Amazon’s S3. Time machine has backups from January 18th on the Drobo as well as a full backup that I’ll sync once a week.

Amazon.co.uk

Well that wasn’t much fun. I was just subscribing to another couple of podcast shows in iTunes, I deleted one and the blue progress meter appeared. Yes, I thought it was funny too as it was just deleting one file out of the library. I didn’t think much of it because my iMac was a little busy downloading and syncing with Apple TV.

Later I wanted to watch a Railscast when iTunes said that it couldn’t find the file. So I tried another, nothing, and another still nothing. I checked the Podcast folder in the iTunes library and, horror of horrors, most of my podcast folders were missing. Including the large ones that contain the video files that are on my Apple TV. What the hell! So I check Time Machine that is on my LaCie backup drive. Unfortunately, and you know where this is going now don’t you, the backup isn’t big enough to hold a full backup and a backup of my user folder if both backups also contain the podcast folder. At the time the podcast folder was about 50GB, approx. So it looked like I had lost loads of files and didn’t have a backup. Bugger. Luckily I could use Time Machine to go back to January and restore the Railscast folder and add it’s contents back into iTunes. There was a reason, besides the folder size, not to backup the podcast folder and that was because I could always just download the podcasts again. But of course since the weekend my downloads have been really slow in the evenings. Thanks Pipex.

My audio podcasts, that I listen to on my iPod nano, I managed to download again. But I was a little concerned about those video ones on my Apple TV. What if the Apple TV syncs, decides that it can’t find the file on my iMac and so deletes it from the disk? Luckily for me it doesn’t. So in iTunes they all have a grey “!” next to them because the file can’t be found, but they still stay on the Apple TV until I've watched them and they’re deleted. That is quite clever and a relief. One thing I don’t know is if that glitch in iTunes deleted anything else. Thankfully I have the rest of it backed up.

So the both partitions on my 250GB LaCie aren’t big enough to hold the podcast folder. I created a disk image of the folder that contained Time Machine. That took awhile but it’s only about 91GB in total. I completely erased the drive and used SuperDuper! to copy the image back onto the full drive. Setup Time Machine to point to the drive, removed the ‘ignore podcast’ rule, added another exclusion so that the disk image isn’t backed up and set Time Machine going. I watched it backup the files that had changed since yesterday then checked that I could still see files back to January. It’s all fine.

This now brings me to the subject of this little post. I had thought about getting a Drobo when I first heard of them. Where I worked before, I think we had 9 drives that were striped and mirrored, thankfully I wasn’t that involved but it was a really tricky setup. So to have a similar thing at home looks great. There is always that problem, like I have now, when you can only put one backup on your external drive where at one time I could have fitted three. So an order was placed with Scan this morning for a Drobo and 2 Seagate 500GB drives. To be honest I would much rather spend the money, have something that is expandable, and not have to worry or mess about for hours trying to get the files back.

Yes, I have obviously looked at Time Capsule as an alternative. But the thing is that I already have wi-fi built into my router and what if the drive broke, I know it’s unlikely but it could happen. You would loose everything.

Stay tuned for unboxing Drobo photos on Monday.