Belated New Year's resolution

1. Read more books (currently 2-3 a week - I would like to do 4-5 a week minimum)
   
2. Get back to cycling (currently 0 miles a week for shame - I would love to do at least 20-30 miles on weekends, but I've to get back in shape first)
   
3. Listen to more new music via the fantastic last.fm site
   
4. Completing more video games (as in back catalogue)
   
5. Getting more sleep (I average 5-6 hours a night currently)
   

Palm webOS and Pre smartphone

My first proper tablet PDA was a Palm m500. I've since owned various Palm OS devices since including the Sony Clie N760, T615 (sexier than an iPhone - look it up), NR70V and the famous Palm Tungsten T3. What I've never owned however was their Treo smartphone line. Instead I've always preferred Series 60 or Windows Mobile for my smartphone need. This may soon change...

Many has writen off Palm, Inc. as a dead horse (including me), but today has proven us wrong (well almost). Palm still has a lot to do if they ever want to claw their previous marketshare (highly unlikely IMO), and the new webOS and Palm Pre smartphone seems to be the right start. The OS look the part, and more importantly they seem to be designed with functionality first. The Pre on the other hand reminds me of the HTC Blue Angel (which I owned briefly) and seems to be very usable, albeit a bit on the ugly side. Hopefully the GSM version will be prettier.

Daily Mail's war on eco lightbulbs

Not content with hating Muslims, immigrants, Portuguese, gays, darkies, communists and everyone else, the Daily Mail has set its bigotry sight on energy saving lightbulbs, claiming that it can cause skin cancer or whatever. They are also moaning the pending death and unavailability of these 'traditional' and 'beloved' incandescent thingies. Remember this is from the same paper who enjoys complaining about rising cost of living and electricity costs. Go figure.

Anyway the good people at the Daily Mail is offering five "free" 100W (who uses 100W bulbs anyway?) tungsten lightbulbs. Whoopeedoo! Now you just need to buy 12 of their "newspapers" at 50p each and send them a cheque for £1.63.

Sony Walkman NWZ-X1000 DAP with OLED touchscreen

I am really digging the design. It reminds me of the classic Clie TH55 PDA. It has both touchscreen and dedicated buttons (volume, play, skip, back). Finally, a touchscreen DAP that makes sense and has usable blind controls. It also has a nice 3" OLED screen. Other features includes WiFi, acitve noise cancellation (headphone independent), Web browser, You Tube and a proper GUI. It will be available in 16GB and 32GB flavours. I don't really like the headphone jack's placement, but at least it makes sense in regards to the control layout.

If my relatively new S639 is sentient, it ought to be feeling worried.

Updated:

There will be two flavours to the X1000-series, the NWZ-X1050 (16GB) and X1060 (32GB). The X1060B is now available for pre-order at Amazon UK and Amazon.com

National Rail

Graeme Monteith, a chartered engineer from the Institution of Civil Engineers, says the freezing weather would have played a part in Network Rail's woes.

"You can't hang the blame on Network Rail for cracked rails," he said.

Such problems were difficult to anticipate, he said, and were brought on by the very cold temperatures. (via)

I am no engineer, but even I know this is bollocks. This is Great Britain, a country which has seen snows and arctic conditions since the creation of trains, and will continue to see it for a very long time. These weather conditions should have been anticipated. Instead while rail fares has increased every year, almost all the time above inflation, the service goes from bad to worse. There is absolute no excuse.

New Year's Day Parade London 2009

Pictures from Thursday's event in Central London:

Klipsch UK's Image X10 offer

Klipsch's Image X10 is easily the sexiest and smallest high-end IEM I've ever laid my eyes on. Unfortunately they are pretty expensive. Klipsch UK, in conjunction with What Hi-Fi? Sound & Vision, is offering the Image X10 for a slightly better price of £129.99 down from £179.99, the same price as the mid-range X5. The offer ends on 6 January.

Unfortunately for me and my wallet, I am all spent out. :( You can read my opinion of Klipsch's Custom-3 here.

Happy New Year

Wishing for a truly stable world, but somehow I doubt it will come true (way to be a true cynic).

Happy New Year you chums!