So the Apple TV and iPhone are finally announced and visually impressive with a very refined user interface — but some of the technical specifications aren’t quite there.

First off the Apple TV tops out at 720p high-def — what!? For less than Apple TV’s $299 I can get an Xbox 360 that does video & audio streaming at 1080p. Sure the 360 is missing HDMI and the slick software but it does play state of the art 3D on-line games.

I’m a big fan of the Web Application type that was previously available as an add-on to Visual Studio 2005 but thankfully got promoted to a standard citizen with Service Pack 1.

So with a little more time on my hands lately I’ve been delving into the wonder that is LINQ — part of the forthcoming Orcas release of technologies.

I loved my trip to Japan and thought it would be fun to reflect on what I’ve learnt.

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The Xbox 360 enjoyed its second year and titles continue to impress although the count is still a little on the weak side. The addition of 1080p output was a great bonus but one many people (myself included) can’t take advantage of without a HDMI cable and nobody seems entirely sure if the 360 can pump out a digital video signal (I doubt it).

On-line support is blooming although can get very expensive if you want all the extras for games you’ve already paid for — come on guys we put £40 down gives a few freebies!

Envy Code R has been updated since this post.

Here is the Envy Code R programming font I’ve been working on as it currently stands:

I placed eleven items this year into my Amazon wish-list for my family and girlfriend to pick from and all were quickly purchased.

A few days later my mother asks if I can put some items to buy because after purchasing one or two the others have now gone.

As anyone who’s been reading this blog for too long will know I’ve been taking a degree in computer science (well, the closest the Open University had) in my spare time since 1999.

Yesterday the results came through for my final year where I managed to achieve a grade 2 pass (which requires 70%+ on both assignments and exam).

Envy Code R has been updated since this post.

I’ve been back less than 36 hours but have managed to spend a little more time working on Envy Code R.

Will only be a short one as I’m pretty tired from all the walking and traveling around.

Got into Fukuoka and spent a few days exploring and a few evenings being entertained by Jo who also gave me some pointers on Japanese culture etc. I also subjected his friend Hidori ? to my incredibly poor attempts at Karaoke although my rendition of Franz Ferdinand’s Take Me Home almost veered onto the side of not quite making ears bleed.

Parallels have released a beta build of their excellent virtual machine for the Mac and it’s loaded with cool new features. Once out of beta it will be a free upgrade to existing owners.

The feature list runs something like this: