when writing about or thinking about the future start by writing these words ‘in the future’ or maybe ‘Wouldn’t it be cool, if in the future’.

Remember back at school doing free writing or projects on people in space. Teachers would always get you to write about the future and using the phrase ‘in the future’ sets you directly to writing about that.

So thinking about the future is not about tomorrow, next month or next year. The future is a bit further away. Like 5 years or 15 or 20.

Writing about the future as it will be next year is alot easier – thats what trendsetters are doing. Watching what’s happening today, not looking at whats going to hapen in 15 or 20 years is the difference between a trend and the future.

In a few years time, many of us will want to retire … what’s going to happen to us and our communities we live in if suddenly todays 20 and 30 somethings are 80? What music or digital entertainment will there be? Remembering also that as we start ‘age’ we will have to work later in life beyond today’s retirement age.

If, the aging population is bigger than the younger generation – does that mean nightclubs, discos and places like Ibiza will become the place for the 70+ age group? At what point will content like music, film and even mash-up user generated content have to retune to support either the stay at home ‘clubbers’ or OAP (old age pensioners) clubbers?

Today’s 30+ set are starting to appreciate that if old rockers like the Stones are still on the stage – what will it be like for us to be 60 and going to see Depeche Mode, U2 or artists like Bjork and Portishead. Will we all need to exist in a silent disco with the volume down low to not affect our ears?

What does that mean for the clubs, their management and the artists?

So this follows an earlier post of mine about Virtualbox and running Windows XP on a Macbook Pro. Virtualbox is a great piece of software for running virtual operating systems on another machine (like runing Windows 7 on a Mac OSX).

Today’s guide shows that you can be up n running with Windows 7 RC in about 15 minutes … thats got to be good ??

So Grab your Windows 7 RC1 ISO file from the Windows website, grab a copy of Virtualbox for Mac and get going. Please keep your Microsoft Windows 7 product key handy.

• Virtualbox – Setup a new Windows 7 Guest OS

The latest version of Virtualbox already has an option for Windows 7 so just select this.

Set your RAM to at least 1GB as recommended by Windows

You can use an existing Windows Virtualdrive if you wanted (as an upgrade) but I prefer to create a new one

Then go to your Settings and mount the Windows 7 ISO file which is what you want to start when you ‘turn on’ your virtual PC.

Now just run that Virtualbox Windows 7 guest and it will start the installation process.

• Configuring the Windows 7 and Virtualbox Guest Additions

Guest Additions is the nice little Virtualbox package that allows seamless inter-operability between Windows Guest and the Mac OS for the Mouse and also for cut n paste for text.

But when you are setting up Windows 7 guest in the mac osx, you will need your Product Key that Microsoft gave you … and you can’t cut n paste it …

The latest version of Virtualbox fixes issues in previous releases where the internet wouldn’t work if you were using a Macbook .. nice one thanks

also in the latest version, the Virtualbox Guest Addtions are back in the menu .. so once Windows 7 is running go to Devices menu > Install Guest Additions

So that’s it … you’re now setup with a Windows 7 guest with a Mac OSX host using Virtualbox … go enjoy those new Windows things

see also … how to setup Winxp guest on mac osx

.

The HTC Magic came out recently, so far its a exclusive to Vodafone. As a phone it has all the features you could desire, but its music player needs an over hall – first problem is the volume, its just too quiet.

In a crowded room, on the London Tube or just working out at a gym the volume from the HTC Magic’s is just a whisper of what it should be – or am I going deaf?Critcally I’m one of those people that always has the volume set to full – to drown out the outside world and I use in-ear headphones so you don’t listen to my stuff.

I put the HTC Magic through its paces using the standard in-box headset, a bluetooth stereo headset and using my top end Sony headphones plus an HTC USB to 3.5mm adapter.

Thats right the HTC Magic only has a USB port for power and accsories, HTC says this might change in the future. The phone’s media player also only has a volume control and no equaliser tools – and no Android apps as yet have this.

HTC’s own headset

This is not one to wear in public or at the gym, its big and bulky with its own rectangular volume controller. The high notes and vocals sound clean – its good for midrange but lacking bass notes. Listening to Underworld’s Everything Everything was nice – the downside was the noise leakage as I could tell people on the Tube didn’t like it.

Bluetooth Stereo headset

Listening to the same Underworld album was just upsetting. The same headset coupled with the Sony Ericsson W715 provides a great aural pleasure.  The HTC Magic bluetooth audio channel must have a volume limiter. I could hear everyone on the Tube and that annoying gym pump music.

USB to 3.5mm with Sony Headphones

This was the surprise winner … never using a USB to 3.5mm adapter, I thought it was going to impact the audio quality. Across the ranges, the audio sounds clear and vibrant. The volume passed through was also good enough to convince me to use it.

Ok I’ve been using an Android rom HTC for a few days now and I’m loving it … I’m so hooked I could almost get myself kicked out of the house, or have my ‘beautiful & precious’ phone smashed

Here’s what I love

there are so many free Apps in the Android Market that you can’t get bored. Given how much I use a phone and my focus on the mobiles and music, heres a choice selection

LAST.FM – its more a radio station here than the super Vodafone Last.fm Scrobbler (which you know I love)

NewsRob – it works for Google Reader – but I’m still not sure why there isn’t a GReader app?

Android-VNC-Viewer – once I got it working I loved it, but its a tiny screen, don’t use it for trying to control WinAmp or something, but its funny if you know how to use it to turn off windose

Toggle Wifi – its dead simple, but it still dont help if you then have to have a username or password for the wifi account

Barcode Scanner and Book Scanner – i love it … except when it goes beep in the bookshop (hehehe)

So whats missing?

a basic screenshot app like the s60 Symbian app

a VLC player for any videos

a WinVista fix as today I can’t mount the SD Card

a pdf reader and a word doc and docx reader

a music store client that I’m happy to use

The UK for along time has been a country full of honours and award systems — the most CCTV cameras comes to mind and from today it seems that the UK Government believes that for your safety,  they will need to record details and the contents of every SMS, email, voicemails and phone calls.

How afraid are we all becoming?

source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/apr/27/surveillance-data-protection

I’ve been using Nokia’s for a while now – N95, N95 8Gb and the E71

Here’s the top apps I put on any phone when I set it up

Vodafone Last.fm Scrobbler – gee I ‘made’ this .. but I love it so. Scrobble what you listen to while out n about, underground or overseas, check your charts and what your friends are up to. This s60 app is fuly symbian signed and tested on a number of Vodafone networks – and its the only scrobbler for the Nokia 5800 so far.

S60 Screen Shot – great for when you need that shot for the website, product reviews or whatever. Saves pictures as PNG, BMP or JPG and can also take them automatically every few seconds.

Google Search – works great once you install it you have a little Google Search box on your phone screen – its a killer ‘app’ or widget that will help drive mobile internet usage

Nokia Mail for Exchange – the E71 comes with a number of push e-mail apps, but this is the best so far. Really its let down as you can’t copy an email to a task or flag it for follow-up.

This covers basic settings on a Mac Laptop Intel running osx … Running Virtualbox, the freeware virtualisation software on any computer can be easy – and there are a number of internet based support forums. Getting your head around the settings for Virtualbox can be a bit harder.

Virtualbox is configurable from its GUI interface and also has a larger set of command line options, which are all covered in the userguide on the Virtualbox download site

The Edit Settings GUI has 7 sections with 3 sub sections. For first time users, in Virtualbox 2.2.0 the 7 sections are

1. General
2. Storage
3. Audio
4. Network
5. Ports
6. Shared Folders
7. Remote Display

You will be most interested in editing or changing the settings in Storage, Network and Shared Folders

Storage

How to mount the Guest Additions in MacOSX

The Guest Additions file is hidden inside the Application folder

Click Edit > Storage

Select CD/DVD-ROM and the options to Mount CD/DVD Drive and ISO Image File

Click the Yellow Folder icon

Now open the Applications folder in a Finder window

Right-click Virtualbox and choose Show Contents

Inside this folder click and drag the Guest Additions ISO to the Virtualbox Settings menu

Then in Virtualbox click once on the Guest Additions entry and choose Select

Now run the Virtualbox Guest and your Guest Additions disc will be mounted as your CD-Rom

Run the Virtualbox Guest Additions on the Mac so you have seamless integration of your mouse

Good Luck.

Virtualbox is a dream freeware solution for anyone – novice to geek – who wants to run different computers inside their computer … virtual so to speak. Today I’ve been tinkering with getting Virtualbox working on a Mac laptop running WinXP. I’m doing this as I need to get some screen shots of PC based applications that I use.

Virtualbox from Sun is a freeware, open source virtualisation application .. it comes in a number of flavours – I’ve previously used it to run WinXP guests inside WinXP hosts for testing and at work it was the only way to install things without having to go to the IT helpdesk.

So today I was trying to setup Mac OSx with a Windows XP guest … something new this time … I knew I needed some patience, a copy of WinXP, and Virtualbox

To speed up today’s install process I thought I’d give TinyXP rev 09 a go … hmmm … I do have my personal copy of WinXP, but I’m afraid Microsoft don’t like you using the same serial number more than 20? times.

TinyXP can be found all over the net … Google it or get the Torrent …

The TinyXP rev 09 will save on your Mac computer as TinyXP-rev09.iso for Mac buffs an ISO is almost the same as a .DMG and can be mounted the same way.

Revisions to this post

14 Apr 09 – For now, I’ll assume you have used Virtualbox before and I have made lots of shortcuts in these notes which I hope to correct in the future

Lets get going …

Run Virtualbox, create a new Guest (winxp of course) -Then choose Edit Settings

Click on Storage > CD/DVD – and mount the disc image for TinyXP

Press Start …if you mounted the TinyXP image, then the WinXP guest will boot the image file and run the TinyXP Win installer

Choose the option with IE and OE … thats with internet explorer and outlook express

and so in about 15mins I was logged into WinXP – thats about half the time it normally takes.

BUT .. TinyXP and Virtualbox don’t like each other as

• TinyXP doesnt come with NIC drivers for the Virtualbox AMD network card so there was no network or no internet
• TinyXP disables many services needed for Shared Folders

How to enable shared folders in Virtualbox with TinyXP

In the WinXP guest … go to Control Panel .. Admin Tools … Services

I just sorted the column for status (running, manual, disabled) … and enabled the ones I need -

Routing and Remote Access
Network DDE
Network DDE DSDM

I got the list here

Reboot the Winxp guest

Now mount the discimage for the Guest Additions and run those

Reboot …

How to get Virtualbox and TinyXP network card working

Go here http://www.downloadatoz.com/driver/item_239216.html

… and download the VMWare Accelerated AMD PCNet Adapter

I found out about this here

BTW … the file I needed was on Ubuntu Forums but they make you create an account before you can get the file … doh

Make sure you save the file to the Shared Folder you setup

Start up your WinXP guest

a … go to your VMWare shared folders and copy that file you just downloaded to your desktop and run the installer.

b … the longer part

Now go to Control Panel > System or right-click My Computer and choose Properties

Choose the Hardware Tab then Drivers

You’ll see a little Yellow Question mark next to the VMWare NIC Card

Right Click this and choose update Drivers

Select c:/winxp/drivers/inf

Woo hoo .. 99% done … 1 more reboot

Shutdown this time

c…

How to configure Virtualbox Network Settings to work with Mac osX Airport

Goto the Network settings section … change it from NAT .. to Bridged .. then click the funny yellow screwdriver …. and select en1: Airport

Leave it set as PCnet-FAST III

Save your settings … cross your fingers

Start the WinXP guest … once you logged in your Virtualbox Network STatus lights will start flashing .. now just open Internet Explorer

Oh you did choose to install TinyXP with IE & OE didn’t you ??