Author Archives: GEEK!

[UK] Live TV on iPhone/iPod Touch is here!

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Big news iPhone and iPod Touch users – you can now get live TV in the UK on your Apple devices.

Before I explain and you explode in excitement, you need to head straight over to http://iphone.tvcatchup.com to get the service.

The service is in beta so you only get some of the Freeview channels, but all the big ones are up on there.

I’ve just tried it now and it’s absolutely brilliant. The service is apparently optimised for 3G and Wi-Fi, but I’ve just ran it through on Wi-Fi and it streams in harmony. I’m on a 2MB connection here and it loads up really quickly, and hasn’t buffered once in the last 15 minutes. Perfect!

This is another brilliant addition to the TVCatchup service. Perfect if you’re in need of some TV and you aren’t at home.

Great work TVC, I’m really looking forward to the final version, but for now the beta is way more than I need!

A little legal note: Remember you need a UK TV license to watch TV while it is being broadcast. For your own legal safety, make sure your license is up to date before using the service. Thanks!

Spotify updates iPhone/iPod Touch software – the fixes are in!

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Great news Spotifyers! The good people have posted up an update for their software on the iPhone and iPod Touch. I’ve just got my iPod Touch updated with the latest version and I am very pleased with the new release. It’s a big improvement on the last version and has fixed loads of bugs and niggles.

Here’s what has been fixed…

  • The volume control within Spotify now only shows on the first gen iPod Touch. It now does not show on any other iPod Touch or iPhone.
  • The app now does not allow you to see artist and album view when offline (I actually don’t like this fix – liked it before)
  • The app will ask you to turn off “Offline Mode” when wi-fi is on – it’s optional but its a handy feature.
  • There are loads of bug fixes which means crashes are much less frequent.

Overall I’m very happy with the update. The only thing I want now is to have the ability to run Spotify in the background, but that’s down to Apple more than Spotify really.

Find software market shares online – great website!

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This website has been around for quite a while (I think, anyway) but I only recently came across it from another tech blog I was browsing through. I find it really useful for determining the most popular software as well as search engines, ISPs, and more!

It can be found here (http://marketshare.hitslink.com/) and it is really worth looking at if you are interested in market shares in the technological world!

It can also show you trends – so you can see where browsers (for example) are going in terms of how popular they are. There are some handy graphs and charts.

It doesn’t cost anything and be extremely handy. I shall definitely be referring to it in future posts as I think it can be very useful.

[Review] Spotify for iPhone/iPod Touch absolutely fantastic!

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I finally got some funds into my PayPal account, and since Spotify recently started accepting PayPal payments for subscriptions, I decided to get my act together and buy a month of Spotify Premium.

I have to say, it is the best £9.99 I’ve spent in a hell of a long time. The premium subscription not only scraps the ads, but gives me unlimited access to the iPhone and iPod Touch app. I had to try it out, especially with the “Offline Playlists” feature.

And take my word for it, it is brilliant! I can save up to 3,333 tracks onto my iPod Touch, and listen to them anytime I want – no matter whether I’m connected to the net or not. So if I’m on the train, in the car, or sitting at the bus stop, I can listen to all my favourite tracks over and over without any connection to the internet.

It is absolutely truly and utterly worth the £10 it costs per month. I also get the new offline playlists for PC, but I doubt I’ll use that half as much as on the iPod. The loss of ads on the PC will be cool too. I don’t have to buy music anymore, and it’s 100% legal :).

If you have £10 a month available, and you love music, Spotify Premium is worth every penny!

Microsoft Security Essentials – hands on…

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It was in tech news today that Microsoft has let loose its new free security system to replace Windows Live OneCare. It’s been expected for release for quite a while but we didn’t know an exact date.

So, GEEK! decided to have a quick go with the new software and see whats up.

You can download it for free here, providing you have genuine Windows software. The download is under 5MB, so you don’t have to worry about a large download. Once it is downloaded and you run it, it will do a verification of genuine Windows software, and then it will install. Installation is remarkably quick, and before you know it the software will be downloading updates.

Surprisingly, this took a very long time. It took nearly 10 minutes for my mid-spec laptop (dual core, 2GB RAM) to download the relevant updates.

Once it had finished, I did a quick scan. This wasn’t too bad actually. I was quite pleased at how little resources this used. While it was scanning, my computer told me it was using about 7MB of RAM and very little CPU power so I was very impressed at how quietly it runs.

I also did a couple of hours of browsing around the software. I have to say it is extremely simple to use and navigate.

I’d like to see it become popular because I’ve always had my views that paid antivirus is a waste of time.

In my case, I won’t be keeping it because I like Comodo Personal Firewall a lot, but if you’re a novice computer user and you need a simple way to get protected, this might be for you. It will work on Windows XP, Vista and 7 and as long as you have genuine Windows software you can get it for free.

I have to say I like it, but I’m looking forward to seeing if it gains any form of popularity.