I Bought Myself a Cowon S9 MP3 Player

So, after much research and analysis I bought myself a Cowon S9 mp3 player which arrived in the mail yesterday:

Cowon S9

[Source: Trusted Reviews]

Why a new MP3 Player?

I’ve been wanting to buy myself a new MP3 player for a while now. The iriver E100 that I have is decent enough, but it does have a few problems.

For example, its UI is rather clunky and I didn’t want to deal with slow menus, slow scrolling, and the inability to quickly forward through an audio track or podcast any more.

I was also feeling limited by its 2GB storage space and lack of good quality video playback (though the latter was more of a secondary concern).

Research Mode

So, last week I went into research mode and started to build a shortlist of players that met my needs.

My needs, by the way, were:

  • Excellent quality sound
  • Podcast support
  • Audible support
  • Small and light (so, most likely, a Flash memory based player and not a hard disk based one)
  • Plenty of storage space (at least 8GB)
  • A good UI
  • Ideally, good quality video

My early first choice was the Microsoft Zune HD but that’s still not available in Australia so it dropped out of the running pretty early on.

Most of the Sony and Samsung players dropped out, too. They had good quality sound but were lacking in one aspect or the other. The ones that fit the bill were out of my price range. I considered briefly the thought of getting an iPod – either the Nano or the Touch – but the iPods have always far to limited for my liking.

FYI: If you’re interested in this kind of thing, check out Pocketable’s ‘Apple iPod touch 2G vs. Cowon S9 vs. Samsung P3’ comparison.

Shortlist, then a Selection

So I ended up with a shortlist of three players:

All three met my needs but the S9, though it cost more than the other two, gave me more than what I wanted while remaining within my price range.

Specifically, the S9 had excellent quality audio while the other two had merely ‘very good’ quality audio.

It also had excellent quality video on a fabulous widescreen display, which was a big bonus. The Fuze’s video quality, meanwhile, was terrible while the X-Fi’s was good, though not widescreen.

And, while the S9 didn’t have the additional features the X-Fi had, I really didn’t want or need all those additional features.

So that was that. I ordered the S9 from Eljo Media last Sunday and it arrived in the mail yesterday. I also bought for it a leather carrying case and a mains charger.

I have since spent the day exploring it, updating its firmware, and copying my media onto it.

My early thoughts: it’s awesome :)

Good Quality Headphones to Match

To round off my move into ‘excellent’ quality audio, by the way, I also wanted to buy a pair of quality earphones.

I ended up getting the HiFiMan RE0 In-ear Earphones Headphones (i.e. canalphones) from Headphonics:

2008Nov17220821re0-4_334_241

[Source: HiFiMan]

FYI: If you’re interested in quality headphones, by the way, check out Headphonic’s Top Picks in headphones.

These haven’t arrived yet because I ordered them a day after I ordered the S9 but I trust they’ll be awesome, too.

UPDATE: The headphones arrived this morning and they are, indeed, awesome. First off, they’re made of lightweight metal and not plastic, which is brilliant. They also have five different eartips of different lengths (i.e. both single and double flange) and diameters. Finally, they come with a detachable clip (to clip the cord to your shirt) and five pairs of fabric mesh filters (i.e. covers) for the micro-speaker bit of the earbud. For much more on these these earphones, check out this awesome review by ClieOS.

Post Script: Being an Audiophile

So, now that I have excellent quality music equipment (and most of my music is encoded in high bit-rate MP3 format), I can go back to being an active audiophile.

I’ve actually been an audiophile – though not of the insufferable variety – since I co-produced an album for the band I used to be in back in 2004. During that period I trained my ear to listen to music much more deeply and I haven’t looked back since. So much so that badly produced, over-produced, or over-mastered music now really irritates me.

So, while I’ve had this love of quality music for a while, I haven’t always had the equipment to enjoy my music to the fullest. Well, with the Cowon S9 and the HiFiMan RE0, my situation has changed: I’m back :)

FYI: If you’re interested, here are some articles for your inner audiophile (with a focus on MP3 compression, modern music mastering techniques, and the loudness was):

Tags: Life, Music, Technology by Ameel
No Comments »

Data Backup Plan: Phase I Complete

I’m done with the first phase of my comprehensive data backup plan.

In this phase I backed-up all of my data (about 180GB of it) and all of Nadia’s data (about 60GB) to our network attached storage drive. That got completed last night.

For those of you who missed it a few blog posts ago, I bought the awesome 1TB My Book World Edition hard drive from Western Digital to do our our local backing-up. The best part of this solution is that it comes with Memeo’s WD Anywhere Backup software which automates backing-up over the network. Not only is this software really easy to use, you get five licenses for it so it’s a great solution for networked, multiple computer households (it works on both PCs and Macs).

The next phase will be to organize online backups for both me and Nadia using Carbonite. I’ll probably start that over the coming weekend. I won’t backup all my media online, of course, so hopefully it won’t take more than 2-3 months to get done. (It’ll take this long because my Internet upload speeds isn’t all that great and, besides, I don’t want to use more than, say, half my monthly bandwidth cap on this initial backup.)

The final phase — which will kick off once I get a tablet PC — will be to use Live Mesh to sync my tablet PC to my desktop PC. That way I won’t need to install any backup software on my tablet PC since all its data will always be replicated on the desktop and, thanks to Phase I and II, all that desktop data will be automatically backed-up both locally and online.

I feel safer already, but there’s still more to do. On to Phase II…

Tags: Internet, Life, Technology by Ameel
No Comments »

Rest in Peace, Asim Butt

I heard just now that Asim Butt (1978-2010), my friend and classmate from LUMS, committed suicide on Friday. (I’ve been offline for the last couple of days.)

I didn’t know Asim as well as I would have liked to but…well, I had always assumed I’d meet up with him some time in the future. My most recent contact with him was last year, in the months after I blogged about him, but I did try to keep up with everything he was up to.

I don’t know what led to his decision. Indeed, we may never know. It’s just incredibly sad that it had to come to this.

That’s about all I can say right now.

Other have said more:

Tags: Life, Pakistan by Ameel
2 Comments »

Danger of a Single Story: TED Talks, Africa & Stories from Pakistan

My favourite TED talk used to be ‘Benjamin Zander on Music and Passion’ (a.k.a. classical music with shining eyes).

It is now Chimamanda Adichie taking about ‘The Danger of a Single Story’:

You can find out more about Adichie on her Wikipedia page.

How Not To Write About Africa

Speaking of the “single story of Africa”, you must also watch Binyavanga Wainaina’s ‘How Not to Write About Africa’:

 

If you have the time, do watch Wainaina’s follow-up video (which is rather long, unfortunately) in which he explains why he wrote ‘How Not to Write About Africa’: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

You can find out more about Wainaina on his Wikipedia page.

A Message for Peace From Pakistan

Continuing with the single-story theme, check out Asher Hasan’s short TED talk called ‘A Message of Peace from Pakistan’:

You can find out more about Asher Hasan on his LinkedIn profile. Also check out his non-profit, Naya Jeevan.

More Pakistani Stories

This is why blogs such as these – which are written about Pakistan or by Pakistanis – are so important because they tell you much more about this country and its people than what you would normally hear, see, or read via global media outlets:

For many more Pakistan-related blogs, take a look at these lists:

Tags: Blogging, Life, Pakistan by Ameel
No Comments »

Recent Life Recap

My blogging has been sporadic of late (I’ve been very busy at work) so here’s a quick catch-up on all the exciting things that have been happening in my life recently. This works quickest as a Q&A.

Q: How’s life?

A: It’s going well:

  • We’ve moved apartments so we’re closer to the city. Nadia can now walk to university and my daily commute to work is shorter by 20 minutes each way.
  • We now have high speed, large bandwidth broadband Internet (ADSL2+) at home thanks to awesome iiNet. This also means we have a land line telephone, which is nice.
  • We have a bigger TV (inherited from my sister) and Foxtel have added new channels to their line-up. I’m particularly enjoying SciFi+2 (which is the SciFi Channel time-shifted by two hours) because I can now watch shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Star Trek: The Next Generation at more convenient times. I’m also watching a lot of Inside the Actor’s Studio, which I’m really enjoying.
  • Work is going really well. Melbourne Water is an awesome place to work and I love my job (I’m the Websites Manager there). Importantly, I’m having lots of fun.
  • Over the last six months I’ve had much dental work done from the excellent dentists at East Melbourne Dental. And, though this had hit my wallet quite hard, it has made me a much more pain-free (and, therefore, a much happier!) person.

Q: What have you been up to?

A: Plenty!

Last month Nadia and I visited the Gold Coast for the first time.

Beach at Surfers Paradise

We stayed at the excellent Watermark Hotel & Spa in Surfers Paradise and, though were only there for three days, we had lots of fun. Our trip to Sea World was particularly enjoyable.

Polar bear at Sea World Underwater life at Sea World

 

I’ll upload a photo gallery from that trip to my PicasaWeb account some time soon. We hope to go back for a longer trip in the future.

Right after the Gold Coast trip we attended the Australian Skeptics National Convention in Brisbane (hosted by the Queensland Skeptics) which was both exciting and hugely inspiring. More on this in a later blog post.

We also saw the fabulous Tim Minchin (official site) perform at the Palais Theatre in St Kilda. In a few days’ time (3 Jan), I’ll be going to see Moby (official site) perform at the Palace Theatre on Bourke Street! :)

Q: What else is happening in your life?

A: Well, starting with the geeky side of life, I’ve made a few excellent purchases.

For backup and media storage, I bought Western Digital’s My Book World Edition external hard drive:

WD MyBook World Edition Home NAS

This gives us 1TB of storage and lets us do daily backups over the network. It’s a fantastic network attached storage solution for the home.

I bought a 7” digital photo frame (via the brilliant Catch of the Day website) which we’ve placed in our living room.

I downloaded and installed Amazon’s Kindle for PC software, though I’ve only bought one book for it so far (‘Groundswell’ by Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li). I’ll probably buy more once I get myself an actual Kindle device (which I hope to do some time in the near future).

Finally, I went ahead and bought two pieces of software I’ve been meaning to get for a long time: WinAmp Professional (my favourite media player) and Webcam Saver (my favourite screen saver).

On the music side of life, I joined the Melbourne Water Choir (which was lots of fun) and I bought myself a drum kit. That drum kit is the really basic Roland HD-1 V-Drums Lite:

Roland HD-1 V-Drums Lite

I bought an electronic kit because an acoustic one, no matter how muffled, would be too loud for the apartment. I bought this particular one because it’s the quietest, most acoustic-like in its price range. It’s also one of the cheapest electronic kits available :)

I have discovered since that not playing the drums for about a year makes you a little rusty!

Q: What else?

A: That’s about it, I think (though I will probably remember more later). Well, other than the fact that we’ve been watching lots of movies, listening to lots of music, hanging out with lots of friends (including one who was here from overseas), and generally doing stuff we enjoy.

All in all, life is really busy (mostly because of work) but it’s going well and we’re having fun.

Tags: Australia, Life, Music, Skepticism, Technology, Television by Ameel
No Comments »

My Thoughts on ‘Avatar’

I saw James Cameron’s ‘Avatar’ last week and I liked it.

The Cinematic Experience

I liked it because it was entertaining, immersive, and beautifully shot. I loved the 3-D effects and did, eventually, get used to wearing the 3-D glasses for that long a time (once I figured out how best to place them on my nose in relation to the glasses that I already wear).

I also liked the way in which future technology and space travel were depicted. Though, funnily enough, future bulldozers make the same beeping noises that present-day ones do :)

Of course, Pandora was gorgeous and I really appreciated the depth of detail that Weta Digital and ILM went into when creating that world.

The Story

The story was pretty good, too. Though, as you would expect, it had issues.

Speaking of those issues, there are a number of lenses you can use to analyze both the basic plot and actual storyline of the film. And lots of people have, indeed, reviewed and analyzed the film extensively (see links to my favourite reviews/discussions at the end). The lenses they have used include race, colonialism, gender, the role of the military/militia in broader society, military strategy, the role of scientists/sociologists in broader society, capitalism/anti-corporatism, and disability.

What’s particularly interesting about these reviews is that everyone comes at the story from a different point of view. For example, I’ve found that many American reviewers and bloggers see parallels between the film’s story and what happened to the indigenous peoples of North America during European colonization. Non-Americans, meanwhile, talk about that as well as other colonialist movements from around the world.

I think that’s a testament to the screenwriters (and Dr Paul Frommer, who created the Na’vi language) because the situation presented in the film can reference any number of real situations from human history from around the world.

That said, the basic plot itself isn’t very original. And if you read ‘The Evolution of ‘Avatar’’ on the Reappropriate blog you’ll see how this film’s plot is somewhat similar to the plots of ‘Dances with Wolves’ and ‘The Last Samurai’.

Still, it’s an important story to tell and I think it was told quite well. For more, read the reviews I’ve linked-to below.

Overall, I’d give the movie a 9 out of 10 – both for its awesome cinematography & visual effects and for its timing & relevance-of-story to our present-day socio-political world. Oh, and also for Sigourney Weaver and the kick-ass character she plays in the film :)

Reviews Worth Reading

Tags: Film, Life by Ameel
No Comments »

Conroy Wants Australia to be a Nanny State

In case you don’t keep up with the news, there are two major Internet-related issues being considered in Australia right now. The first is the National Broadband Network (which I’m not going to talk about here) and the second is mandatory national Internet filter that Senator Stephen Conroy wants to introduce.

So what are people saying about the filter?

It’s Not Going to Work

Nina Funnell, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald (and quoting Kathryn Small), makes a very good point’. She says the proposed filter will not be censoring the Internet, it’ll be censoring the people who don’t know much about the Internet (i.e. the people who won’t know how circumvent the filter):

Small says anyone with a vested interest who knows enough about software design will be able to circumvent the system. “The real problem is Conroy will create a two-tiered system [with] a massive disparity between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ of computer literacy.”

The irony is that it is children and young people who will be most likely to get around the blocks.

Children are more computer-savvy and literate than any other generation, precisely because they have grown up with computers. This was demonstrated in 2007 when a 16-year-old, Tom Wood, took just 30 minutes to crack the Government’s super-filter that cost a whopping $84 million to develop.

What a shame the Government hasn’t learnt from that embarrassing bungle.

Funnell’s whole article is really good, by the way, and I suggest you read it.

It’s Politics, Not Child Protection

Another good article to read is Stilgherrian’s ‘Evidence-based policy? Not on this filter!’ on the ABC’s The Drum Unleashed website:

Politicians use the term “evidence-based” quite differently from police detectives or scientists.

Senator Stephen Conroy provided a glorious example earlier in the week when announcing that Australia will indeed get mandatory ISP-level internet filtering some time in…well, maybe in 2011.

For politicians, “evidence” isn’t something to be gathered with forensic precision and preserved through a documented chain of custody. Nor it is something to be compiled transparently, justified through meticulous research and refined in the purifying fire of peer review.

No. For politicians, “evidence” is something to be plucked from wherever it can be found and sprinkled to justify a previously-chosen policy like so much magic fairy dust.

The Rudd government’s internet censorship proposal is not about protecting the children. It’s about politics.

If the plan were really about protecting the children, and if it were really evidence-based, the government would have first have figured out what risks children actually face – online and everywhere else. They’d then figure out the best methods of countering those risks. Then they’d figure out the most cost-effective ways of implementing those solutions.

If we did that, we’d probably find that the risks are the very same ones that child protection experts keep banging on about. Bullying by their peers. Abuse from within their own homes and families. Poverty and its associated health risks. Obesity.

But this is politics, not child protection.

Google & Kirby Weigh In

Finally, two more opinions worth reading are:

What Next?

Well, Conroy has released a discussion paper on the topic so, hopefully, people will submit in response to that excellent, well reasoned reasons for not using the filter (of which there are many). Ideally, our policymakers will then look at those arguments, realize the filter is useless (indeed, it’s a case of minimal effect for maximal cost), and will stop wasting our time and money on it. More likely, though, they will forge ahead for a while longer. That’s politics for you.

And if, despite all reasonable counterarguments, the filter does get implemented then two things will happen. The first is the broader “epic fail” of not, for example, making any difference to the sharing of child pornography. The second is the creation of whole new industry devoted to providing filter-circumvention services to people living in Australia. Certainly the latter is a service I’d pay for and I’m sure many others will as well.

So, basically, we’ll be back to where we are now…though with a few key differences:

  • ISP costs will be higher (to pay for the filter)
  • Internet connection costs for most of us will be a little higher (to pay for getting around the filter)
  • Some third party service providers will be a little richer (for providing filter circumvention services)
  • The Internet will be slower (since we’ll be going through a filter and, most likely, a proxy)
  • The country will be about $40 billion poorer (to pay for the filter)

All so a bunch of politicians and self-appointed keepers-of-our-morals feel better about themselves and all the “good work” that they’re doing to “PROTECT THE CHILDREN!!!“.

Further Reading

Tags: Australia, Internet, Life, Technology by Ameel
No Comments »

My Tablet PC Plan Changes

I haven’t written about my tablet PC obsession for a while but three recent events and two technology lifestyle trends are prompting me to do so now.

The trends have made me re-evaluate my reasons and primary selection criteria for getting a tablet PC. These trends are:

  1. After five years of having a laptop as my primary and sometimes only computer I have recently started using a desktop. And I really like it. What with a good processor; lots of RAM; a huge, high-speed hard drive; a large, widescreen monitor (like I have at home) or two large monitors (like I have at work); lots of USB ports; and all my accessories close at hand…how could I not like working on one?
  2. With so much of my life in the cloud, an increasingly mobile lifestyle, and the ready availability of mobile broadband Internet, small and light mobile computing solutions like smart phones and netbooks are becoming increasingly interesting and useful to me.

As for the three events:

  1. Windows 7 is due to be released on October 22 and its tablet-specific features are really good.
  2. Both Lenovo and Fujitsu have announced that their flagship tablet PCs – the ThinkPad X200 and LifeBook T5010 respectively – now have multi-touch screens options. Till this announcement, only the Dell Latitude XT2 had one of those. 
  3. If I continue to consciously save money, by the end of the year (or the start of next year) I should finally be able to afford a tablet PC.

What Does This All Mean?

Two things:

  1. The end of this year is a good time to buy a tablet PC. Not only will I able to afford one, it’ll ship with Windows 7 and will have the latest touch screen on it.
  2. I’m not sure any more if I really need or want a high performance tablet PC. It might make more sense for me to get a less powerful one for mobile use and an upgrade to my home desktop (if I really need one in the future) for power use.

In short, my front runner tablet PC choices – and, in particular, the Toshiba M750 I was planning to get – are now no longer the ones I’m looking at.

Instead, I’m looking at one of these:

All three are less powerful than my previous choices (also, they don’t have optical drives) but, instead, they all have longer battery lives and they all weigh less. Oh, and they don’t cost as much, either.

Only the ThinkPad X200 has a multi-touch screen at this time but I’m sure the others will have one in time for the back-to-school or Christmas shopping seasons (particularly since HP is targeting the consumer market).

So, What Next?

My task now is to start the tablet PC comparison process once again and, over the next few months, keep an eye out for updates to these three systems.

Unfortunately, because these tablet PCs are very similar to each other (particularly the Lenovo and HP), it’ll be hard to choose among them.

Fortunately, all three are excellent and all come highly recommended. That means, regardless of which one I end up going for, I will be getting a great tablet PC.

Meanwhile, I’ll start the preliminary comparison process and will proceed to bore you with my ruminations and computing preferences :)

Tags: Life, Tablet PC, Technology by Ameel
No Comments »

District 9 is Awesome

Over the weekend Nadia and I watched Neill Blomkamp’s debut full-length feature film, District 9.

It’s a powerful and (sometimes) difficult movie to watch but it’s certainly worth the effort. And while there is lots that I can say about it, a number of others have already said it better, so I’m just going to recommend you read the following (all of which, unfortunately, have some spoilers):

What I will say, however, is that I seriously recommend you go watch it. It’s the best movie I’ve seen all year.

Oh, and for more general information about the film, check out its:

Tags: Film, Life by Ameel
No Comments »

Wow…

This video of Kseniya Simonova performing “Sand Animation” on Ukraine’s Got Talent is one of the most amazing things I’ve seen in a long time:

The phrase at the end is “You are always near: 1945″.

[Via Amanda Palmer]

Tags: Life, Television by Ameel
No Comments »

Next Page »