New Etymotic Earphones

When the iPhone eventually makes it to the antipodes, I'll need to update my current Etymotic ER6i earphones, since they obviously don't have a microphone.

Fortunately, Etymotic now have these hf2 earphones, which are designed specifically for the iPhone.

As one would expect, they're dirt cheap at $US179 a pair!

PC Magazine has a full review, giving them high marks for musical fidelity ... although not so much for the clarity of calls ... rating the product at 4.5 out of 5.

Tag Scanner

Thanks to Download Squad for pointing me to Tag Scanner.

It's a Windows tool that lets you update tag information for various kinds of audio and video files and to rename the files themselves, based on the tags.

I could have used this a couple of days ago, when I needed to rename some MP3s so that they played in the correct order on an MP3 CD player that didn't take notice of ID3 tags.

Of course, a small Ruby script sorted out that problem ... and provided a welcome distraction from my socio-babble assignment :-). However, not everyone's a hacker, so this looks like a useful tool.

Stephen Fry Audio

If, like me, you love the sonorous tones of Mr Stephen Fry, you'll be pleased to hear that he now has a podcast!

The first episode is all about the work he's done over the last couple of years, which may be an indication of what's to come.

That would be absolutely fine, but I'd love to hear him wax lyrical about his gadget fetish, too. We'll just have to wait and see where the show goes.

"Doors Closing"

Apparently, Emma Clarke, the lady who provides the voice for the messages broadcast in the London Underground has been sacked.

This has something to do with her having posted a number of humourous messages on her personal website (down at the time of writing, but maybe it will be back by the time you read this).

While I think they're idiots, here's an example of one I could imagine raising their ire ...

Here's another, whose message is totally accurate (ignoring her mispronunciation); I'd even go so far as to say understated :-) ...