Posted by Ub3rG33k on Sep 23, 2009 in
IPod Touch As some of you may know, in just over 2 weeks I’ll be heading to the Holiday Inn in Birmingham for Dimension Jump
XV, this year Red Dwarf Convention, and as we do a Red Dwarf podcast (ScutterCast), I thought it might me a good idea to record some footage while I was there.
I’ve been looking at a number of solutions and came up with the idea of using Audioboo from my iPod touch, then picking up the Audioboo feed using WP-o-Matic, which will then post the audio on the Red Dwarf Forum homepage, which will then tweet this out.
One major downside to using the method, was that the iPod Touch doesn’t have a built in microphone, although I do have the “earbud with built in microphone”, which would be find for recording my own voice, but probably a little intrusive if I wanted to record anyone else.
After a couple of days of looking at different mic solutions, I read a review over at iLounge and they did a mic comparison, the audio from the iPill sounded awesome, so decided to go with that. After an evening of trying to buy one, it seemed that these are only available in the states, and they seemed to be out of stock, having heard the quality difference, I was adamant that this was the mic I wanted, in a bid of desperation, I decided eBay it was. Luckily, I found a company in the Republic of Ireland that had these in stock, and instantly bought.
This morning the mic turned up, and I’ve got to say, I’m really impressed. The first thing I noticed was the packaging, and the look of this thing. The plastic container is in the shape of a petri dish, with a small clip holding the pill shaped microphone in place.
The iPill itself pulls in half, to review the 3.5mm jack plug, that plugs into the bottom of the iPods headphone jack, and the other half has a small loop where you could potentially add some string so you don’t lose this thing.
So, the audio quality…what’s it like ?…pretty awesome ! I plugged it into the bottom of my iPod Touch, and it was instantly recognised, and I gave it a quick test in Apples “Voice Memos” software, and attached my recording below
So, the audio quality…what’s it like ?…pretty awesome ! I plugged it into the bottom of my iPod Touch, and it was instantly recognised, and I gave it a quick test in Apples “Voice Memos” software, and attached my recording below.
iPill Test
Final thoughts ?, granted this isn’t the same quality as my M-Audio mixer, and my condenser mic at home, but think it will do an awesome job, of getting some footage at Dimension Jump.
I can highly recommend this microphone to anybody who want to turn their iPod Touch into a decent dictating machine, and for £13 delivered, it’s worth every penny !
Tags: Apple, dimension, dwarf, ipill, ipod, jump, microphone, ozaki, red, touch
Posted by Ub3rG33k on Jul 21, 2009 in
Apple Well another week goes by, and I break something else. This week it’s my iPod Touch again.
Over the past couple of days, it’s just been hanging and I’ve had to manually restart it a number of time, however tonight it finally broke…big time !
While syncing my podcasts this evening, it flash on and off a few time, and then all I got was the Apple logo…and this is how it stayed for about half an hour…oops.
So, as I’ve locked up my iPod before, I knew that if it locks up, all I need to do it hold the power and the home button down for about 10 seconds, and this will kill it….I did…and it did !
I fired it back up again, and again, for another 3o mins or so it stayed on the apple logo ! Doh !
Finally I decided, “Recovery mode it is…”, fired it up, kept my finger on the home button, plugged in the cable and waited….and waited, and waited. Previously when I’ve put it in recovery mode, it pops up with the “plug into iTunes please” logo within a matter of seconds, but no, a minute later, still the apple logo !…I was just about to give up on it, and book myself in at the apple store, then the happy “please plug me into iTunes popped up ! Phew !
Plugged into iTunes, and it recognized I’d plugged in my iPod in recovery mode and wanted to wipe it…which was fine as I’d only synced about an hour before.
It got half way through the process, only for me to be met with a Error 1604 !, After doing a little reading it seemed something to do with the downloaded version of the OS..
Anyway, me being me, ignored everything I’d just read on how to fix it, and gave it another try…this time it worked !!!
I had to leave my iPod for nearly an hour to sync everything back up, copy across my apps and music, but we are now all back up and running.
One thing I have noticed with version 3 of the OS, it now remembers where all your icons were when it restores a backup ! Finally !…there’s was nothing worse than restoring a backup, only to spend the next couple of days moving your icons back to the places you like them.
Tags: 1604, ipod, itunes, recover, touch
Posted by Ub3rG33k on Jun 9, 2009 in
Apple 
As some of you may know, the new iPhone 3GS has been announced, and due for release on the 19th of June 2009.
Currently I have a 32Gb iPhone Touch 2G and a Nokia E90 running JoikuSpot so I have an internet connection wherever I go, however this does mean carrying 2 devices around with me.
So I’ve been eagerly awaiting the new iPhone announcement as it’s been rumoured for months now.
The new hardware specs are for the 3GS are
Improved performance
3-megapixel autofocus camera
Video recording
Voice Control
Digital compass
Cut, Copy & Paste
MMS
Spotlight Search
Landscape keyboard
Voice Memos
Compared to the below for the 3G
2-megapixel camera
Cut, Copy & Paste
MMS
Spotlight Search
Landscape keyboard
Voice Memos
Now I’m happy that I feel I need one in my life, to minimise the amount of hardware I carry, however below are the pro’s and cons
Pro’s
New Shiny iPhone
Contestant Internet connection
Only have to carry the 1 device
The E90 is quite an ugly phone
Con’s
£180 to pay off my existing contract
Another £187 for the iPhone on an 18 month contract.
No 3G signal in my home on O2 (but I would have wi-fi, so wouldn’t really matter)
Would loose my Vodafone Stop the Clock
Would have to pay for tethering which I currently get free with JoikuSpot
Would have a redundant iPod Touch
There is another dilemma, currently the iPhone is exclusive to O2, however I’ve read many rumours, and even been told by a guy at Vodafone this morning that O2 loose exclusivity of the iPhone this month, so expects them to be on all networks within the next couple of month, which if correct, I’ll stick with Vodafone. However, the clock is ticking, and in 10 days I could be holding in my hand an iPhone….
Although the Cons do seem worse than the Pros, it is a shiny new device, and over the past 6 month I’ve come to love the iPod Touch, and couldn’t imagine life without it, so I’m assuming having this in phone form would just be perfect.
Tags: 3gs, iphone, ipod, o2, vodafone