tell application "System Events"
	set MyList to (name of every process)
end tell
 
tell application "System Events" to set appList to ¬
	name of application processes whose frontmost is true
 
set activeApp to item 1 of appList
if (MyList contains "Spotify") is true then
	tell application "Spotify" to activate
	tell application "System Events"
		tell process "Spotify"
click menu item 3 of menu 1 of menu bar item 6 of menu bar 1
		end tell
	end tell
	tell application "System Events"
		set visible of process "Spotify" to false
	end tell
end if
 

Play Previous

 
tell application "System Events"
	set MyList to (name of every process)
end tell
 
tell application "System Events" to set appList to ¬
	name of application processes whose frontmost is true
 
set activeApp to item 1 of appList
if (MyList contains "Spotify") is true then
	tell application "Spotify" to activate
	tell application "System Events"
		tell process "Spotify"
click menu item 4 of menu 1 of menu bar item 6 of menu bar 1
		end tell
	end tell
	tell application "System Events"
		set visible of process "Spotify" to false
	end tell
end if
 

Play/Pause

 
tell application "System Events"
	set MyList to (name of every process)
end tell
 
tell application "System Events" to set appList to ¬
	name of application processes whose frontmost is true
 
set activeApp to item 1 of appList
if (MyList contains "Spotify") is true then
	tell application "Spotify" to activate
	tell application "System Events"
		tell process "Spotify"
click menu item 1 of menu 1 of menu bar item 6 of menu bar 1
		end tell
	end tell
	tell application "System Events"
		set visible of process "Spotify" to false
	end tell
end if
 

For the vegetarians amongst you, there is a very easy analogy the iPhone is a quorn burger, where as the iPad is a full blown New York strip steak with steak sauce, fries and whatever else you care to have on, or with your steak. Yes it doesn't multi-task, and yes you are limited to the apps that apple approve - but what you do get is a fantastic piece of hardware with some fantastic apps.

The ultimate role of the iPad is neither to be a laptop nor a giant iPhone, it is to be the device you goto on a morning to get your news fix, or when you are sat down and having an argument over who made the engines for the Blackbird. It's instantly on and instantly there, unlike any device I have ever used you click it happens.

The keyboard is surprisingly good and like the iPhone, it will learn your common mistakes and correct them. Unlike the iPhone however there is built in spell checker, which seems to be apart of the OS so is available to any application that supports it; it's the simple touches that make life easier.

As far as battery life goes I expect it to easily last the 6hour flight to San Francisco that I am on now, which will involve watching at least 3 episode of FlashForward, and multiple tweets.

All in all I think it may well turn out to be a good buy.

So has the vegetarian cult found its saviour in the most unlikely of places, Linda McCartney? Well not really, unlike the Cult of Qorn eaters who insist they are vegetarian but have to have meat substitutes that look and taste like meat. Linda McCartney's range of Super Substitute foods, offers the meat eater something that tastes good and more importantly doesn't pretend to be meat. Best of all they do taste rather good, even without a large dousing in HP sauce.

So ends Day 9, of my epic struggle with not eating meat till easter - so far so good, and don't forget I am suffering so you don't have to.

You may not know, but during the cold snap over Britain at the beginning of this new decade - Hell Froze Over. Yes, thats right Hell Froze Over completely. How do I know this? Well its quite simple, I decided to disregard 19 years of teaching and go VEGETARIAN. Any rational human being such as Gregory House MD, would immediately declare me insane, and probably have me certified if I was to add I would keep the game up for 3 whole months. So a New Years Resolution was made.

So far so good I am already at Day 4, of what is sure to be a flatulent, green eating, tree hugging, hippy portion of my life. Observations are coming thick and fast:

1) Vegetarians don't have a stereotype do they?
This is something that made me laugh at the supermarket, practically every vegetarian product has a "Save the {Insert Animal Here}" or some high moral statement. Way to go and dispelling the stereotype to the novice vege.

2) Tesco Express is rubbish
Every little may help, but there is such a poor selection of vegetables and meat substitutes in even the biggest Central London Tesco's its a joke. Also involved me going under nourished on Day 3, because I really wanted some courgettes.

3) "Captain, We appear to be detecting a gaseous anomaly on the starboard side"
Now we get to the toilet humor. I am guessing that everybody kind of guesses this one, but nobody really wants to talk about it. Well fear not jack is here, and let me tell you eating all that hey and lettuce makes you fart like you have never farted before, it also causes a small weather nexus of high pressure around you. I think this was the inspiration of the Travis Song - Why Does It Always Rain On Me.

Wait there is yet more to come.
In my next installment, I am going to cover Whole Foods, Dietary Balance, What on Earth to do with Tofu, and why does Linda McCartney make Vegetarian Pseudo-Sausages.

I am suffering so you don't have to people.

Problem

MI Retail stores are fast failing in the UK, and its been happening for years not just because of the 'recession'. The common held wisdom that if you build a music store they will come and sample the wares and buy - bricks and mortar is good. However, as history is consistently showing the MI Retail sector isn't making much out of this philosophy. Maybe there are exceptions to the rule, but at large retails stores with their inherent overheads of staff and upkeep as well as stock - its a complete non-starter.

Lifestyle Business

These issues are further compounded by the shear number of 'lifestyle' business, where the owners have made their money elsewhere and have the music store as a play thing. At the end of the day the balance sheet doesn't matter its all about something todo. Therefore you have a market that fosters a race to the bottom, rather than quality.

Aversion to new things.

For an industry that is so often at the forefront of new technologies, such as the MOOG and the Roland V-Piano. We are also terrible bad at adopting new technologies into the industry. The internet is still seen as a threat (even though many wont admit it), as such many reputable retailers have little to no web convincing presence see JG Windows, Reverb and even Chappels of Bond Street. These are supposably some of the respected flag bearers of the industry. The trade has always had an arms length relationship with internet, leaving the market wide open for newcomers such as Dolphin Music, and they have seen explosive growth.

Solution?

Taking the Dolphin Music model, they were an internet startup. The brain child of Rob Williams and Jason Tavaria [more] whilst still at university. They grew amazingly fast and basically dominant a huge chunk of the internet pie, not just because they were first to market and saw the value of online, but also because there is nobody else who can contend the market.

What about Demos?

The lack of a demonstration equipment I think is the motivation for Dolphins Music push into retail (Bricks and Mortar) you will see prominent links on all Dolphins pages that let you see if that item is in stock at your nearest store. Despite there prime locations Dolphins stores work, because of the user base it generated online. This is we the key under estimation of the internet comes, it isn't less personal but more personal.

I as a web developer can tailor search results and product recommendations uniquely to each of my visitors, I can also because the time taken on writing an email is much less than face-to-face contact write personal responses to each enquiry whether there be one or a 1,000. You can easily build a rapport with a customer and a community online that reaches a much larger audience online than you can simply with a small local store or even a chain.

So where do Bricks and Mortar Sit

Bricks and mortar stores, sit in the sweet spot. Much of a catalog of instruments/accessories can easily be served online with fast delivery and good service. However you do have the items such as Pro-Keyboards and Guitars that do need demoing before you can decide that is perfect for me. However, traditionally and especially for stores without a reasonable web presence, you quickly find that a potential customer will come into a store and demo a guitar for a considerable amount of time, not buy and buy online later. By having an online store something amazing happens, you can filter customers. Easily decide between sales leads that have a good potential and leave the ones that don't.

Even if you have no contact between you and customer before they enter the store, they can know whether you have stock where you are when you open. So the chances of converting that business is extremely high as they have already chosen you. You already have a connection with the customer and you have effectively done nothing for it, as such even a relatively small company can appear as a large trading enterprise and also carry the expertise that would imply for a fraction of the cost.

Trailer Tracks:
Randy Newman – Losing You

Play Next

 
tell application "System Events"
	set MyList to (name of every process)
end tell
 
tell application "System Events" to set appList to ¬
	name of application processes whose frontmost is true
 
set activeApp to item 1 of appList
if (MyList contains "Spotify") is true then
	tell application "Spotify" to activate
	tell application "System Events"
		tell process "Spotify"
click menu item 3 of menu 1 of menu bar item 5 of menu bar 1
		end tell
	end tell
	tell application "System Events"
		set visible of process "Spotify" to false
	end tell
end if
 

Play Previous

 
tell application "System Events"
	set MyList to (name of every process)
end tell
 
tell application "System Events" to set appList to ¬
	name of application processes whose frontmost is true
 
set activeApp to item 1 of appList
if (MyList contains "Spotify") is true then
	tell application "Spotify" to activate
	tell application "System Events"
		tell process "Spotify"
click menu item 4 of menu 1 of menu bar item 5 of menu bar 1
		end tell
	end tell
	tell application "System Events"
		set visible of process "Spotify" to false
	end tell
end if
 

Play/Pause

 
tell application "System Events"
	set MyList to (name of every process)
end tell
 
tell application "System Events" to set appList to ¬
	name of application processes whose frontmost is true
 
set activeApp to item 1 of appList
if (MyList contains "Spotify") is true then
	tell application "Spotify" to activate
	tell application "System Events"
		tell process "Spotify"
click menu item 1 of menu 1 of menu bar item 5 of menu bar 1
		end tell
	end tell
	tell application "System Events"
		set visible of process "Spotify" to false
	end tell
end if
 

Lets not lose sight of the reason why these public spirited workers are taking action, they are being asked to "work the hours they are paid for".

Commentor Guardian Website

The end of an era is finally here, Labour tried to Privatise the Royal Mail and failed because of Union opposition. Now out of greed and short sightedness the very same union are painting themselves into a corner the business will never recover from.

Amazon, Argos & eBay, The life blood of what is left of the Royal Mail are setting up to drop them like a stone on the back of any industrial action. Small businesses are up in arms and there is even a petition.

We are fighting for fairness and job security...

Well fairness is about as broad as it is long, so you can justify just about anything there. I was forced to wear the company uniform and walk around posting things through doors - it's just unfair. Jobs at the Royal Mail are now about as secure as the crew on the Mary Celeste, they were more secure before the CWU started bleating about unfair conditions and rushed modernisation.

The unions seem not to realise that if the modernisation isn't pushed through quickly enough (whether or not it is the correct course of action) there will be little of the business to save. Being that it currently continues to be in business, due to being owned by the government and heavily subsidised by the tax payer.

The Royal Mail is a business it isn't there for the social benefit of its workers. If a business makes insufficient money to make payroll well sadly some workers have to go. If there is duplication of workers duties well thats wasted money, either re-train or move on.

There is only one thing left to say - The Royal Mail is Doomed! Not because of the business itself even if the letters being shipped via the royal mail decline 10% each year. No, it will fail because once again the Unions put the big foot in the mix. Lions leading Lambs anyone?

PS: I really wish I was a stakeholder in any alternative shipping company, its going to be a bumper christmas.

Web pirates placed in 'slow lane'

The government has all but ruled out using a "three strikes" law to tackle persistent net pirates.
Using warnings and disconnection to tackle pirates was thought to be in the final Digital Britain report due to be published on 16 June.
bbc.co.uk/news

After years and years fighting the Music and Movie industries, still seem reluctant to change there business models. Still trying to convince government and ISP the only solution is to kick pirates off their respective networks, or divulge the users browsing habits so they can be sued.

The fact still remains that the industry in general still doesn't get it, see the pirate bay trial, and repeatedly shady operations for so-called piracy prevention. See

• Sony Rootkit (2005)
• MPAA Hire Hackers

There have been more problems caused by the industry completely and utter refusal to get with the times and stick to their, pay at every point model. Than if they had simply said lets follow the path of least resistance.

We live in a world were everything is online, the vast majority of people follow the path of least resistance to what ever they are searching for. For example if I was to search online for a movie for example something that may be quite old, you look on iTunes you find nothing, you look on LoveFilm.co.uk see they have it but you want it now, you have very few remaining options - Pirate.

On the flip side you may find the film you are looking for on iTunes, yet its priced at the same as the DVD or in some cases more than the DVD. This immeadiately makes no sense even to a technophobe, they already know that you can make a video clip and put it only for free on YouTube, BBC iPlayer also almost free (You still have to pay the license fee) but the fact still remains the user knows that it costs nothing (or very little) to distribute a film online, so therefore why doesn't the price reflect this - pirate.

Sony Corporation

"I'm a guy who doesn't see anything good having come from the Internet...(The Internet) created this notion that anyone can have whatever they want at any given time. It's as if the stores on Madison Avenue were open 24 hours a day. They feel entitled. They say, 'Give it to me now,' and if you don't give it to them for free, they'll steal it." - Howard Stringer CEO Sony Corp

Rather than embracing the technology that could see the Music & Film Industries revenues rise dramatically they are putting up road blocks at every turn, and don't seem to get that the vast majority of users will pay for content if its trivial and cheap to get to. However, by letting the piracy world fester and grow they are setting themselves up for a long term problem, the perceived value of content is dropping by the day, respect for the content producers and distributors is also dropping. So by the time that they really do acknowledge and start using the web the way it should have been in the first place, the price that they can charge for the content is not viable as a business

TalkTalk ISP

"It is more about education and allowing people to get content easily and cheaply that will make a difference. This idea that it is all peer to peer and somehow the ISPs can just stop it is very naive" - Charles Dunstone - TalkTalk

ISPs for the most part seem to get the role that they play in this system, they provide the pipe. As long as they can charge you for the data that you consume it is not their concern what you do with it. Nor, should it be.

BT, SKY, and Virgin have already started capitalising on the on-demand nature we now live, but they also make it difficult to get to, BT you need an extra subscription and a new Set-Top Box, similarly for Virgin Media and SKY you need a whole other subscription and a set top box. This is at an extra cost to the user and to the business would it not be easier, due to the growing number of people who use their PC as their TV to offer the content through a Hulu or BBC iPlayer like service and cut the cost of the set-top boxes.

When you boil it down to its very bare details the facts are this, the Media Producing Industries are damned if they do and damned if they don't. However if they don't act soon and make a good decision, long term they will never recover. They need to become smaller more agile companies that can easily cope with change and more important embrace it. If Sony and Universal had embraced the technology when it first appeared they would not be facing any problems now, in-fact I would guess they would be making obscene amounts of money, thats not to say they are now anyway.