Am I the only one?

iPad's, Androids, lack of Flash, tied to a proprietary environment.

Right now I feel like I'm the only one in the world that doesn't want anything to do with a phone running Android, and the only one who refuses to own an iPod Touch, iPhone, or and iPad.

Let's look at the reasons:

1. Android, though open source, is developed by the biggest advertisement dealer in the world, and I hate adverts.
2. Android is tied to Google, from what I've seen in a Chrome (OS) beta environment was all my data, my viewing habits, etc... going back to Mountain View, and I like my privacy
3. The iPod Touch, the iPhone, and the iPad are all tied to iTune's, which is great for organising music and movies, but horrible for user interface design, ease of use, and it's tied to the iTunes Store.
4. None of those mentioned in #3 can play Flash, which is roughly 75% of the content online. So if I want to play a remake of a game via one of the thousands of flash game sites, I can't. I have to instead go to the iTunes store and buy it for $0.99 or more, just for something that's free online.
5. Free apps, one of the greatest things in the world, no money, free to install, and can be found anywhere on the net. Unless you jailbreak your iPod/phone/pad (which kills your warranty) you're restricted to iTunes for the multitude of free stuff, even though there's even better apps available elsewhere.

I'm liking the look of the new tablets coming out by other manufactures, most have keyboards, multitouch screens, large capacity drives, and the ability to accommodate a multitude of peripherals natively, without paying extra for unlike the iPad.

OK, the iSeries stuff looks great, easy UI, etc. But people need more, to be able to do more. Most people I see on the bus or train in the morning that would use a tablet form system aren't just consumers, their users, ones that are reading that XYZ document in some format, while editing it, reading the latest headlines online, and listening to their music, all at the same time. From what I understand, with the iStuff, this isn't possible, as it doesn't allow mutlitasking.

At the end of the day I will be sacrificing battery life for functionality.

Android? Well let's put it this way, I prefer to not have all my eggs in one basket, nor do I want my habits being used to send target ads to me in my browser.

Feel free to flame/agree/whatever (or send me goodies to try and change my mind)

How do you get into....?

Becoming a voice over actor? In Sydney? Who do you need to see? How do you find auditions? HELP!

Music Piracy and how to combat it

I love music, you love music, we all love music, so why isn't it free?

An ongoing problem exists and has existed since cassette tapes were invented, possibly longer, maybe even back to the day's of reel-to-reel. This problem is music piracy.

Music piracy shouldn't be a problem, not today, but history has shown that if you can get something for free most will. With the advent of the internet and peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing music, video, and software piracy has gone nuts. With the added bandwidth people can download files in a matter of minutes depending on the size. I know a lot of people with thousands of songs in their collection of which very few were legally obtained.

But it doesn't need to be like this. There is a solution, trouble is that the music industry hasn't thought about it, yet. The answer is in the ISP's around the world. Nokia's got it right, a standard service for a flat rate that gets you unlimited access to music all for a flat subscription fee. Why not put that back through the ISP's? Why can't a part of my monthly internet fee be redirected to the publishers? And then I can download what ever I feel like?

Let's put it this way, I currently pay $90 per month for 90GB of downloads, why can't $10 go back to the recording industry? If every single person that pays for internet paid $10 per month back into the industry and then was authorised to download as much music as they wanted, the industry would, in theory, be millions of dollars better off, plus the customers would be happy, as would the actual recording artists.

Why can't people see this? I would even be willing to increase my monthly fee up $10 just so I could legally download music and movies(?).

Wow, I did it.

Short but sweet: I deleted my Twitter account, OMG, it's gone, thank the gods.

Sick of it

Absolutely sick of it. My wife and I work one normal job each, her from 7:30AM till 12:30PM Monday through Friday, I work a full time Net Admin job 9:30AM till 6PM Monday through Friday, plus an additional semi-full time job from 7PM till late 5 nights a week, not always the same nights either. My wife can't work a proper full time job because someone has to look after the kids, pick them up from school and drop the littlest one off to the baby sitter. It's not fair.

My full time job pays well, her work pays OK, but then for the hours it is better than can be expected, yet we still struggle. And it's not like we spend a lot on non-necessities, actually we don't spend on anything we don't need. There's the car payment, the rent, the phone and internet, school fees, telephone bills, etc... All come out of my "monthly" pay check, with the weekly pay's from my second job and her job we live, buy groceries, and keep petrol in the car, but that's it.

Why is it that today most "middle" class families struggle? Our lifestyle sucks, we just want to have a bit of time and money to be able to enjoy our lives. We haven't even been out to dinner in over 6 months, and it's been over 2 years since my wife have been on a "date."

Come on life, surely we're not the only ones? Anyone else like this?

Hello, World

OK, World, this is my first blog that doesn't limit me to 140 characters :)

Let's get some preliminaries out of the way:

1. Everything expressed in this blog is my opinion, period. If you disagree with my opinion go for it, I've got a very openly closed mind and will take what you say with a grain of salt (preferably disolved in acid first).

2. Feel free to comment, I like arguments

3. This blog will cover so many topics I haven't even had time to think of any yet.

a. Tech

b. Life

c. News

d. Work (LOL)

e. George (not sure who George is but we'll cover him)

f. Politics (refer to item number 1 in this regards)

g. Music

h. Money

OK, any questions?

Bonez