Recently I have started to listen to music by an artist called Kai Warner, the brother of the famous German band leader James Last. His real name is Werner Last - Kai Warner is a stage name he chose so as not be confused with his brother James. His musical arrangements tend to be in the same style as James Last, although he has also arranged in the style of the famous American band leader Ray Conniff. Like his brother James, he was signed to the Polydor label (until 1976 when he signed for Philips), and released 2 or 3 records a year, including releases such the Go In series, songs in the same style as James Last’s Non Stop Dancing concept.
On many of his recordings, while using some of his own musicians, he also used musicians that played for James Last and other German bands, and below is a YouTube video of the song “A Hard Day’s Night” from his 1976 album “Dance To The Beatles” with his orchestra and choir.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Wednesday, August 04, 2010
Sunday, August 01, 2010
Android Mobile
Bought myself a new mobile phone last weekend, a ZTE Racer on the 3 network. This a fantastic little smartphone, that has the Android mobile OS installed on it. I paid £99 for it in a 3 store, which included a £10 topup. ZTE may not be a well known handset maker - they are Chinese and known more for there mobile internet dongles, but they have produced a great handset.
The handset features a Touch Screen, 3.2MP camera, Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, 3G networking and a microSD card, along with all the other features you would expect on a good mobile. One of the best features of this phone, due it having Android OS installed is OTA (Over The Air) synchronisation included in the phone, with your Google account. This made set-up easy, as once the phone had my Google account details, my Google Mail, Calendar & Address book were all automatically set-up on my phone.
Having GPS is a boon as well, as once I updated the Google Maps software on my phone, the update added the extra functionality of Google Navigation, turning my phone in to a Sat Nav as well - great for when I’m walking somewhere and need to know how to get there!
I believe that the Android OS is a great OS for a mobile phone, and one that can rival Apple’s iOS 4 on the iPhone, iPod Touch etc. Being open source means it features on a range of handsets. which is great as it means that developers are more inclined to write software for it etc. and it does not have the restrictions on software development that iOS does.
There are only 2 downsides to this phone, one of which is only really a downside in my own opinion, as switching from a Symbian S60v3 FP1 phone, i’m used to the phone asking me how I would like to connect when going online (Wi-Fi or Mobile Network), something I think should be in the Android OS, as sometimes my Android mobile forgets that there is a Wi-Fi network available. The second downside is that, I suspect due to the smaller screen size (320 by 240 2.8 inch QVGA screen), not all apps available in Android Market are available for my phone, something I hope is fixed, as there are some great Apps I which I could download. Maybe once more mobile phone makers release Android phones with this size screen, more apps will be compatible.
All in all for the price ZTE have made a cracking phone, and I hope it lasts me for a while to come.
The handset features a Touch Screen, 3.2MP camera, Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, 3G networking and a microSD card, along with all the other features you would expect on a good mobile. One of the best features of this phone, due it having Android OS installed is OTA (Over The Air) synchronisation included in the phone, with your Google account. This made set-up easy, as once the phone had my Google account details, my Google Mail, Calendar & Address book were all automatically set-up on my phone.
Having GPS is a boon as well, as once I updated the Google Maps software on my phone, the update added the extra functionality of Google Navigation, turning my phone in to a Sat Nav as well - great for when I’m walking somewhere and need to know how to get there!
I believe that the Android OS is a great OS for a mobile phone, and one that can rival Apple’s iOS 4 on the iPhone, iPod Touch etc. Being open source means it features on a range of handsets. which is great as it means that developers are more inclined to write software for it etc. and it does not have the restrictions on software development that iOS does.
There are only 2 downsides to this phone, one of which is only really a downside in my own opinion, as switching from a Symbian S60v3 FP1 phone, i’m used to the phone asking me how I would like to connect when going online (Wi-Fi or Mobile Network), something I think should be in the Android OS, as sometimes my Android mobile forgets that there is a Wi-Fi network available. The second downside is that, I suspect due to the smaller screen size (320 by 240 2.8 inch QVGA screen), not all apps available in Android Market are available for my phone, something I hope is fixed, as there are some great Apps I which I could download. Maybe once more mobile phone makers release Android phones with this size screen, more apps will be compatible.
All in all for the price ZTE have made a cracking phone, and I hope it lasts me for a while to come.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Calendar Sync
Just set-up a new calendar sync service on my mobile phone - syncme.se This service is designed to synchronise my mobile phones calendar, with my Google calendar, which then synchronises with BusyCal on my MacBook’s, thus ensuring that my home computer, my Google Calendar, MobileMe calendar and mobile phone have the same calendar entries in them. This is a great service, however on my mobile phone I have to load up the sync program to ask it to sync with Google, which means if I forgot to sync, then I might not have all my calendar entries, on my calendars, leading to duplicate appointments
This led me to thinking, if Apple can offer automatic “cloud” syncing via MobileMe on Mac’s, PC’s. iPhone and iPod Touch it was about time that either Apple released MobileMe sync clients for other mobile phone operating systems such as Symbian or Android etc. or mobile phone makers introduced their own service. Nokia has it own service Ovi and I would guess that that could have automatic sync services added to it, after all on a Mac there is the iSync program, which could probably be extended to sync with Ovi, if Nokia made a suitable plugin. I’m sure that on the Symbian OS there must be a way to program automatic sync with Ovi in the cloud, as there is Nokia’s Mail For Exchange tool, which could have additional programming to make it sync automatically, if it doesn’t have it already.
This led me to thinking, if Apple can offer automatic “cloud” syncing via MobileMe on Mac’s, PC’s. iPhone and iPod Touch it was about time that either Apple released MobileMe sync clients for other mobile phone operating systems such as Symbian or Android etc. or mobile phone makers introduced their own service. Nokia has it own service Ovi and I would guess that that could have automatic sync services added to it, after all on a Mac there is the iSync program, which could probably be extended to sync with Ovi, if Nokia made a suitable plugin. I’m sure that on the Symbian OS there must be a way to program automatic sync with Ovi in the cloud, as there is Nokia’s Mail For Exchange tool, which could have additional programming to make it sync automatically, if it doesn’t have it already.
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