LIFE UPDATE: Croft Sessions & Wino Janoski Pickup

Wow! It's been a very long while. I hate to use the old jaded excuse, but I've been so busy lately to even begin to start putting pen to paper (Is that outdated now?) fingers to... keys? It's just coming to 8am now, I arrived home about 45 minutes ago after Charlotte heading off to Paris so I have some time to kill before my day officially "begins" so here we go.

Filming

In the past 2 years; I'd like to think Croft Sessions has really took off. Since my last blog post, so many things have happened! The first main thing is that we finally have an active running website. I made it from scratch with Photoshop & Notepad++. As of now; the website is fairly primitive. It's more of a gallery at the moment - with extended write ups for each artist. I love it; it's simple and efficient. Also, check out our randomizer! (This is what I'm most proud of).

We've also hit a massive 20 sessions, with 52 individual songs on our YouTube page. As of writing this, we're actually at 24, yet to be released! For #20, Chris and I rode up to Leeds to film The Coopers - an energetic and very friendly band who made the best biscuits I've ever had. It was my first time in Leeds and I loved it; I wanted more time to explore and ahem shop. We rung around in some coffee shops - Laynes Espresso and Mrs Athas where I met sneaker legend and all-round nice guy Warren Jones. I'm planning to head to Leeds again later this month, so that should be nice.

In other Croft Session news; Chris was lucky enough to head to Green Man & 2000 Trees this year; where he captured so many great stuff. I'm gutted I was trapped at work, but I'm incredibly humbled and proud of the work he's done for the project.

I'll be joining him at Moseley Folk Festival this weekend - continuing with SoFar sounds that was last night in Birmingham! We filmed for Songs From A Room again in a lovely garden in Moseley. Talent played as the sun set in a wonderful atmosphere and it was just great. It's so nice to be surrounded by so many people with mutual aspirations & interests. I'd definitely recommend going to a SoFar show if there's ever one by you.

Pickups:

Nike SB Stefan Janoski Wino / Terra Brown

I finally got what I consider to be one of my grails - The Wino Janoski. I've been looking for these for so long it's unbelievable. It's ridiculous how hard it was to get these shipped to the UK for a decent price (a little over retail + shipping!). These came from a nice guy in Thailand from N-SB.org - I'd recommend that website for sneakers if you're hesitant on Facebook groups. I think I prefer these over the Digi Floral Janoski. Safe to say that I'll be taking extra care of these.

Going on from that, apparently I'm into sneakers now? My "collection" is minuscule compared to those I know - considering that a year ago I was the type of person to buy and wear one pair at a time for months on end, I've branched out a bit. At the moment, I have a few Janoski, Jordan 4, Roshe & Air Max 1's - I'm looking to branch out to Asics, New Balance and maybe some Saucony's in the coming weeks, though.

On the Supreme front; I picked up a 2012 Comme Des Garcons x Supreme Polka dot Pullover for little over retail - another Supreme 'grail'. I think that's me mostly done with Supreme for a while - the new season and characteristics of the community treating the brand like a religion is irritating, So I'd only really look for older 'preme.

- Jon

6 months with the raspberry pi - a reflection

In January, I posted about picking up a Raspberry Pi, and touched on what I planned to do with it - since it's been 6 months since that purchase & post, I've decided to check in on how it's going.

If you don't know - the Raspberry Pi is a credit card sized micro-computer built with the intention of teaching basic programming to kids (and new programmers). As it's intended to be fiddled with, there have been a wave of great projects for it - networked hard drives, mini-robots, LED signs, home automation, theatre PC's and much, more.

When I purchased mine, I only really had one main intention for it: a multi-purpose Home Theatre PC that was cheap and had a variety of options. I wanted it to make it easy to have quick access to media that had a nice interface ("girlfriend friendly", if you will). I think in a lot of aspects the Raspberry Pi has fulfilled this request, although I have come across a fair few downsides & limitations.

The Positives

It's Cheap.

- The actual board --- ~£25
- Spare 8GB SD Card --- Free!
- USB WiFi Dongle --- £5
- USB Hub with power supply --- £10
- 500GB USB Hard Drive --- £40

Total: £80

While £80 is obviously higher than the initial "Wow,a £25 computer!" excitement - £80 is still very good for a PC that can playback full 1080p HD without a hickup. Which brings me next...

It's played every file I have
My biggest annoyance with having a PS3/360 has a Media Centre is that it could only play certain filetypes - to play I had to convert them - which can be very time consuming and a tricky split for my aging PC. The Pi pleased me by playing any format I've thrown at it without a problem. 1080/720p HD .mp4 & .mkv without an issue - leaving me very pleased with the quality. As well as the older (and bigger) .avi files - no issue. XBMC automatically scales each video to supply the best quality. A lot of older content does look very pixelated on my 40" TV, though.

Wireless Drag and Drop

I have linked my Raspberry Pi to my home network - making it accessible via my main PC where I obtain my media. Meaning I can obtain media, access the Raspberry Pi's file-system & copy it to the Pi from my computer, without having to fiddle with the Pi's setup. What's great about this is that the Pi will scan new content and automatically organise & attach information to the media such as cover art & synopsis.

Add-Ons

I have installed software called XBMC - Xbox Media Centre. software designed to be installed on the modified original Xbox's with the intent of having a home theatre. XBMC's since been ported to other systems, but the name's stuck!

Anyway, third party developers are able to create and upload their own add-ons. So far, I only installed Project Free TV, 4oD, iPlayer & TVCatchup. There are plenty more available in a variety of genre's - but I do like that these addons are free available.

- It's easy to use once configured
- It uses low power
- It's silent
- It's very small
- I can control it with an app on my phone
- I can send YouTube videos from my PC to play on the TV
- It supports AirPlay

Negatives
There are a bunch of negatives which I have come across - some understandable - (it is a £25 PC of course), some which are irritating - and some which are down right embarrassing when you have company!

It can be very laggy
I'm running RaspBMC on a 512MB Rapberry Pi - initial bootup takes ~30 seconds; which is fine - I want to leave it on all the time anyway so I can instantly add media. But the menu's can often be quite laggy depending on what theme you have. I'm currently running "Quartz Light" which is a mimic of the Apple TV interface optimised for the Raspberry Pi. There are so many beautiful, convenient skins out there, a lot of which are simply too much for the Raspberry Pi to handle, I tried some.
There have been times where I've been navigating to watch something and the interface simply freezes, before responding after a bump. It's something that isn't too annoying but after it repeatedly happens...

The WiFi Drops
This is something that never used to happen - and it's not something I'm specifically blaming the Pi for as it could be some settings I've changed myself, or how my internet is now configured - as I control the Pi with my phone over WiFi - if I leave the Pi inactive for a certain while, the WiFi seems to sleep and I'm unable to wake it up with my phone - so I have to reboot the Pi and it tells me off "The Pi was not shut down properly!"

Of course, this leads to another wait while the Pi reboots, then scans my media etc. - it's something that is irritating if I want to come home and watch something without fuss - or even worse when Charlotte and I want to watch a film, I feel very awkward!

It is obviously, limited

While the Pi is open to so much, it does have it's limitations. as mentioned the user interface lagging - streaming TV from TVCatchup has been iffy (my actual freeview box is a pile of crap...) and streaming seems to be very hit and miss from Project TV. A lot of the graphic intense stuff seem to hold it down everywhere but the actual video playing.

Conclusion
It's a great device, I'm not going to fault that. I think with every flaw it has I do have to take in consideration it's cost & admire how much it can do for how little I paid. When I brought it I wasn't expecting it to be an absolute powerhouse of a PC but it has done what I originally wanted it to do.

Whether I keep it as my main Theatre PC or replace it with an Android box - or maybe even buy a small "conventional" PC to use as a Home Theatre PC, the Raspberry Pi is going to continue serving me very well.

Although, I do like the idea of turning it into a retro gaming station...

iOS 7 is hungry for Ice Cream Sandwich

This past week, Apple unveiled to the world their long anticipated iteration of their mobile software, iOS 7. The software update comes with new features as you'd expect - but also the first major design overhaul the iOS has seen since it's launch in 2007. A pretty big deal for Apple - considering it's taken 6 years for a change.

Apple had always taken baby steps when it comes to design revisions and feature additions when it came to the iPhone - for instance video recording being added in iOS 3 and being able to set a background in iOS 4. This is because Steve Jobs had been quoted in saying that 'customers don't know what they want until you show them' - a business philosophy to which Apple stays loyal to - however, it does intrigue me as to why these simple features weren't available on a premium phone from the get go.

For context, I had the original iPhone, back in 2008 I think - then the 3G; until I moved to Android. I've since worked closely with all sorts of phones from all sorts of brands. I did love my iPhone, I really did. The design is sleek, the build is solid and it did feel good owning one. After a while however, limitations did show. I couldn't do many things without needing to jailbreak (gaining root access to the phone to be able to truly modify it to your own needs) the phone.

Back when I had an iPhone; here's how it went. The jailbreaking community would always stay 2 steps ahead in terms of offering tweaks and features in which Apple did not want to include. Many of the official iOS updates generally started to include these features. Video recording? Bluetooth Transfer? Tethering, Quick Settings? Jailbreak beat ya to it. If it wasn't for Cydia and the third party apps, I wouldn't have enjoyed the iPhone experience as much - and this brings me to iOS 7.

SBSettings - the original "control centre"

I am very happy that Apple is progressing and finally adding such features into their OS - it's a good step. The thing that bugs and irritates me is that they will introduce these things as 'revolutionary' and 'amazing'; but the fact is that hell of a lot of these features have been lifted directly from Android (lockscreen anybody?) and have been available many years before the iPhone even came to be.

The lockscreen has been taken from Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4) - the multitasking interface taken from HTC's Sense - the 'control centre' has been deemed similar to Android's quick settings (but look at SBSettings above..) and AirDrop is rivalling NFC transfer and Samsung Beam  etc. etc.

I feel like at one point - Apple was at the top of the game in terms of smartphones - hell, it is literally because of the iPhone that we had the influx of smartphones and the true innovation & progress we've seen from our handheld devices within the past half-decade. I think that now every other company has played catch-up and, inevitably overtaken Apple in terms of out-of-the-box features (not including third party apps) - Apple seems to be the one who need to catch up. In doing so, the mass redesign is seen as a radical move in hopes of breathing new life into iOS - without forgetting the irresistible force of Apples dominate marketing team.

The icons are ugly, though.

pick up: nike air max 1 FB yeezy

Just a quick post on my phone while my girlfriend showers.

Picked up the Nike Air Max 1 FB Yeezy colourway last week. The very clean design takes inspiration from Kanye West's Air Yeezy packs with its subtle pink on the sole and mint green borders and even the swoosh is 3M.

I preferred these AM1 FB to the Yeezy Roshe Runs - which would have sold me but I think the swoosh placement is really poor. Though my Roshe are comfy as well, the AM1s look a lot neater.

I do love these things, gotta keep them clean though...

"i got a blackberry and all i got was this lousy messenger service"

Earlier today, Blackberry announced that BBM would be available for free on Android & iOS - this is a pretty big deal (or at least I think it is).

I see this as the first step towards the end of Blackberry as we know it.

It has been rumoured for a while that Blackberry would turn BBM cross-platform; but I didn't think they'd actually do it. I think there's no doubt that Blackberry are getting desperate to retain their customers - the whole 're-imaging' of the brand via the Blackberry Z10 & dropping the 'Research In Motion' title for 'Blackberry'. Not to mention that they literally paid Android developers to quickly port their apps over to Blackberry.

There was a time where Blackberry's were the top dog in the smartphone industry (hell, they're the original smart phone manufacturers); targeted at business environments due to the how secure it was. Since the iPhone, however - the smartphone has become a mass consumer point and frankly, Blackberry are falling behind as the alternatives have rocketed ahead. It appeared that Blackberry's one major selling point was the BBM service; exclusive to Blackberry's and from the people I've spoken to overtime was the one thing keeping people owning a Blackberry.

Since data messaging services such as Whatsapp, Kik & Facebook Messenger have emerged though; is it too late to save BBM? I see making it available on iPhones & Android as a move of desperation on the companies behalf to simply keep customers. If they're not buying their phones then at least they're using a Blackberry service, right? Right?

It might be a little too late, though. I think BBM was popular in it's prime but a lot of people have moved on. What I'd like to see in the Android version though; is unified messaging; similar to iMessage but with BBM and Google Chat integration  I don't think it'd happen - in reality it's just going to be yet another data messaging with Push notifications.

I think that the Z10 hardware is gorgeous, similar to the HTC One but a huge step up for Blackberry. The OS is pretty nice, but not quite there yet. If I had to make a bold prediction it would be that eventually Blackberry will go the way of Nokia & start focusing primarily on hardware (& software services?). Judging by the lack of Windows 8 BBM - I'd be sure they'd manufacture for Android.

In a sick way, it'd be nice to see Blackberry evolve and become legitimate competition in the smartphone wars again - however, I think they've missed their opportunity window. The Blackberry name has become an unreliable joke, meanwhile customers are sitting comfy in the world of iOS & Android.

birthday recap (+ pickups)

It was my 20th (!!!) birthday last week, which I guess marks the end of my teenage years - which is sad, but now this could be considered "the next part" of my life. University in September to study Media & Communications. I'm thankful I'm going, this year has really taught me a lot and made me more introspective about what I want & what I'm doing.

But really though, It's not different at all.

My birthday was great, though. Best birthday I've ever had. On the Friday, Charlotte cooked me a 3 course meal & made me a Dr Pepper cake. It wasn't even my birthday yet and it was going off! Seriously though, that cake was amazing, as was the meal, it's definitely a sign that she should cook for me more often, but hey - that's just wishful thinking.

The Saturday night, a few of us went to Drop Beats Not Bombs 10th Anniversary, at Q Club, Birmingham. The venue was moved there from Rainbow due to "a catastrophic power failure;" which I thought would suck, as they were closing the entire street by Rainbow for this.

Luckily though, the converted chapel was probably one of the more surreal arenas I've been in, I just remember looking up & thinking I was in Hogwarts, shit was amazing, even if it was £4 for a can of Red Stripe.

I'm not gonna recap the entire night (partly because I can't) - but it was easily one of the best nights out all year, set a pretty high standard. I felt blessed to have such people around me.

Supreme x Kermit

I finally acquired one of my grails!

Picked it up from a guy on Reddit for a good price (a birthday present to myself...).

It was a good week clothes wise - new jeans & shirt from Charlotte as well as some Nike Roshe Runs (Light Bone colourway). It'll be nice to add a bit more variation to my wardrobe





It's still early in the morning and I'm still very tired, So I think I'll publish this, re-read it and think 'what the fuck?'

I'm writing a post about Hype Clothing, so that should be up soon.

Peace

nike digital floral stefan janoski pickup

Digi Floral Stefan Janoski

I've been waiting for these since the design was leaked a few months ago; expecting an exclusive release - they landed in the UK last Friday, I managed to pickup a pair from Prime Delux before the availability switched to 'In Store Only'.

The Digi variation of the full camouflage print has been seen as an alternative to Supreme's Power, Corruptuon & Lies Vans. The Supreme PCL retailed at around £114, with resell from £150+; this pair of Janoski however, retail from £65.

They are very nice in person. I loved the design from the leak; however the official capsule image made me skeptical. But good thing is that they're a helluva lot nicer in person. What did disappoint me was that the shoes come with 2 pairs of black laces - if it were me, I'd have offered white as a variation. Looks Like I'll have to pick some up off eBay.

Digi Floral Stefan Janoski - another view

It does seem to me that the 'digitalisation' of these full prints - floral, camo, leopard (soon?) are an attempt to rehash a trend that has been ongoing for at least a good 2 years now. While I do think that a bit of originality in print is necessary - the digital variations are a good step towards that; whilst maintaining a reflection of the current digital age we're currently in.

I believe these drop in the US next month.