haniblog

We’ll be going on holiday in a little under a month and I really want to keep using my iPhone in Bahrain. So I’m going to QuickPwn it today and see how it goes. If successful, I’ll write a post with full instructions. Stay tuned!

Forget iTunes Music, forget Amazon MP3. Spotify is revolutionary.

When I first installed the free app I was underwhelmed. Another iTunes clone, I thought. But as I dug around Spotify I was more and more impressed. It lets you instantly stream any music you want, for free. You can also create collaborative playlists, and by collaborative I mean other people you share the playlist with can add tracks and it all streams, again for free. I also like the fact that Spotify is platform agnostic… Mac, PC or Linux. Just download the app, click on the link your friend sent and listen.

I know Spotify mimics some of Last.fm‘s features but to me it feels more complete. If it keeps going as is, I don’t think I’ll be buying much music from iTunes.

Apple updated it’s desktop line yesterday and finally gave the Mac Mini a new lease of life. The new Mini is significantly faster with a 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo and a 9400M NVIDIA graphics processor. All of these specs make it a perfect media hub… almost. The only missing component is a BluRay drive, which I suspect isn’t long coming.

A long(-ish) term plan is starting to form in my head: a stellar home cinema system. This new Mac Mini with an Elgato HD satellite tuner, connected to a DisplayPort LED, possibly Apple’s rumoured 30″ Cinema Display screen running one of my favorite apps, Plex.

Right, time to set up a Dream Machine fund.