martinlittle.com:thinkThin

The Web is quite literally alight with iPhone stories, mostly based around the three big names who've reviewed it. What is truly staggering from those reviewing it is the lack of knowledge of the current mobile industry. A number of phones already do everything the iPhone does and a lot more besides.

Darla has had some great graphics and videos on her site, comparing the iPhone to a true powerhouse: the Nokia N95. This one in particular had me laughing out loud, especially the comment about Opera Mini.

The whole iPhone experience really does go to show what a bit of marketing and hype can do for a product that is essentially, bringing fairly old hardware specs in a fancy case with a nice operating system.

When you look at the number of devices expected to be sold, Apple will perhaps capture about 1% of the total market in a year or two, assuming further distribution deals with network operators. The way it's being marketed, you'd think everyone is expected to have one within six months.

Friday 29th is going to be an interesting day, for sure. The marketing firm working with Apple are sure to have plenty of Champagne on ice.

Over the last few weeks I've become fully immersed in the social networking pool. Let me know if you're on Facebook or any site ending in an 'r' (flickr, dopplr, groovr, tumblr) where you should be able to guess my username.

Radio 4 has two excellent comedy shows on air at the moment:

• The Now Show is back -- Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis, along with others.
• That Mitchell and Webb Sound is David Mitchell and Robert Webb on great form. Much better than a lot of their TV output.

Hazel-o-rama and I are heading to Madrid for a few days. Please pass on any recommendations for restaurants, things to do or see, bars, clubs... Merci. Grazie. Danke. Gracias!

From somewhere, an iSkoot application has appeared for the Sony Ericsson P990, which has so far let me log in to Skype and start a text chat session. As soon as I have access to wifi, I'll see if I can make a call. Has the revolution finally started?

This week is Bike Week in the UK, encouraging people to (re-)discover the joy of cycling. I'm aiming to cycle to work each day this week, in some kind of attempt to regain a level of fitness. It's only a 10 minute ride door-to-door, which is a blessing and a pain. It's great to get there quickly, but it takes as long to me to get my bike out, and then get showered and changed once I make it to work.

It is good fun zooming through the traffic though. :->

There's a short documentary-style video on YouTube about the last Edinburgh flashmob. It's all about the preparation (or lack of ;-).

After missing out on Smashing Pumpkins tickets for their London show, despite being on the Web site *before* tickets were available, I've now missed out on ticket for the Glasgow show too. Arghh! If you know of anyone who might possibly have a spare ticket for a lifetime fan, please let me know.

Garmin have released a handy plugin that connects Garmin devices straight to the Web. It allows direct downloading of GPS tracks to Garmin devices. I'm not sure what it actually does for my Forerunner 201, but it does work despite using a serial connection.