My music habits

I love listening to music & have pretty varied tastes from Evanescense to Taylor Swift, The Who to A Fine Frenzy , Icon for Hire to Abba. This can get expensive buying albums, whether on physical media or CD, and single tracks just never get you into exploring the depth of what an artist is about, to understand the story  that the album is trying to put across - so inevitably there's a comprimise, and in the past that was inevitably to focus on a small number of artists.

Quite a few years back I digitised my modest CD collection, and added mp3/aac albums from a variety of (legal) outlets. I stored these first on a PC, but then on a home server in a way they could be accessed by a variety of devices around the house - and in fact streamed over the internet too.

I'd been a long running user of lastfm (take a look!) radio - I'd get music similar to that which I liked streamed to me, but with no control of exactly what I was listening too.

In early 2011 Google launched Google Music- in the US, but fairly easy to access in the UK with the right tools ;-). Google Music made it easy to access my own music collection - but it was really just that, making it easier.

Around this time I also started playing with spotify and we7 more, along with a few other services, more seriously. I'd used them prior to this but never seriously - yet after taking out some trial subscriptions I was getting somewhat hooked with the idea that I could listen to who I wanted when I wanted. Ok so some artist's material was withheld, but most was there.

After a few months in July 2011 I went with spotify & have stuck with my premium subscription ever since. It's one of my favourite services as it gives me access to content I love. It's uplifting, enthralling, emotional, fresh, comforting, exciting, brash, soft, gentle - anything I want it to be. As a premium subscriber (£10/month) access is unlimited and music can be streamed in amazing audio quality -- pretty much the best I've come across (vorbis v9)

During work time I frequently listen via my PC, but spotify also have a rather handy android app which shares the same playlists as on the PC, and can similarly stream via either 2G/3G/wifi or most usefully play playlists/songs that are saved offline. Since I'm not on an unlimited data plan this works out really well for me.  A single click, and a playlist gets downloaded & managed automatically.

This is how I listen in bed or when travelling -- but it gets better.

At the gym I can now easily listen to spotify via a bluebooth cordless headset - perfect for avoiding tangles, and most recently I've upgraded my car to the Nissan Leaf which supports bluetooth streaming. In fact I've never even used a CD or an SD card in this car in the 6 months I've had it. I simply leave bluetooth on, sit in the car, the phone connects and I can play my offline spotify lists

Spotify isn't perfect - but it's really very good & when combined with a flexible form of access such as through my SGS2 it can be accessed & consumed anywhere.

I love it!

How the Russians make the Samsung Galaxy S 3 even better

Having integrated GPS on the mobile is so useful -- my first experience with it was on the Motorola A925 back in 2003 - it suddenly became possible to know where on the planet you were with a device you always had with you. Just brilliant. Sure GPS was available before then, but now it no longer needed a seperate device

The global GPS, or Global Positioning Satellite network wasn't the first network to provide accurate location based information to a system on the ground -- in fact in the US who gave birth to GPS, the early work dates back as far as 1960 with a whole series of projects culminating with the first launches of GPS satellites in 1989 to the point where there was a solid network in 1994.

In the early days the US military didn't want civilians to have accuracy better than 100m, reserving the most accurate data for themselves, but by 2000 this was stopped making GPS ever more accessible and accurate

Over the last 9 years location based services have become increasingly popular, and all modern smartphone handsets now carry GPS receiver. For me despite all the location specific apps like foursquare it has to be google maps that is the one I use the most. Lost? Need directions? Easy - just bring up google maps. Job done. Forget the paper (as long as you have a spare battery with you....) Just brilliant

Of course for those in cities, out in the woods, indoors sometimes the fix isn't that accurate (in fact often the identity of the nearby wifi access point, or cell transmitter data may be used instead) -- the more satellites your handset can "see" the better

And guess what? Now there's more. Not wanting to rely on the Americans, in similar timescales the Russians were working on Glonass - offering similar function to GPS, but of course under Russian Control. Initially this was the preserve of the military, and in fact although becoming fully operational and accurate around 1994 the network suffered with the economic challenges of post war russia, but by the new millenium renewed efforts were made by Russia to revive the program and by 2011 a full network was up and running,  with global coverage open to anyone with a suitable receiver.

Many manufacturers have started adding support for Glonass -- my first experience of it is with the Samsung Galaxy S 3. So this device can now use both networks together to provide an even more accurate than for example it's predecessor the S2. In day to day use it definately seems quicker and more accurate. No doubt this isn't just glonass, but other improvements in the receiver, but remember that when you click on "GPS" that's not really the whole story, and we can at least thank the Russians for making our modern smartphones such as the S3 just a little better :-)

This is a screenshot from the GPS Test application in Google Play -- note the additional Glonass satellites on the right hand side (white background)

Glonass satellites shown with Triangles - GPS satellites are circles

Interesting - free galaxy tab 2 if switching from iPhone

I've just seen the following tweet

(original: https://twitter.com/SamsungMobileUK/status/242914017105027072 )

Now that is an interesting ploy from Samsung. Ok it's not the latest note, but the value is probably up there with a mid range iPhone4 at least

Win a Samsung Galaxy S 3

Ok I already have mine, but just wanted to pop in and point you to this competition.

I've entered anyway, I mean one S3 isnt enough is it ;-) !

http://www.engadget.com/2012/09/03/engadget-uk-giveaway-win-a-samsung-galaxy-siii-courtesy-of-expansys/