Due 2 February 2011

Batman Odyssey #6 (Of 13)
Brightest Day #19
Gotham City Sirens #19
Haunt #13
Ultimate Comics New Ultimates #5 (Of 5)

A fairly quiet week. In the news, the Fantastic Four becomes 3, there is a new Venom And there are some exciting teasers on Flashpoint. 

Batman

Batman. So we know it is called ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ and is due to be released in 2012. We now know some of the extra characters. Anne Hathaway (The Devil Wears Prada) plays Catwoman and Tom Hardy (Inception) plays villain Bane. So the film version of the story arc 'prey' is not true. Shame! I re-read it and thought it was very good.

Favourite Apple iOS apps

I like to think of myself as someone who really gets good use out of his gadgets and for the most part I think this is true. In the last few years the word 'app' short for 'application' has become the term of choice to describe 'software'. This of course is thanks to Apple. Now I am not the biggest App downloader but I do enjoy good software when I see it. So I thought I would highlight some really useful apps that are maybe overlooked by the mainstream websites that regularly run this kind of column.

Appshopper. (iPhone and iPad) This is an alternative view of the App Store. Now there is nothing wrong with the App Store as it stands, but what this little bit of software does is shows you in a neat way prices and price discounts. So, you can very easily choose ‘Lifestyle’ let's say and view all free lifestyle apps and those that have come down in price. Most times I have used it I have downloaded an app for free that previously cost at least .59p. It all adds up. Sweet!

Lovefilm. (iPhone) As a site and a business model, I'm a pretty big fan of Lovefilm (now majority owned by Amazon). Other than a few missing rental DVDs, there is a pretty good selection that for the most part arrives pretty quickly. What I love about the free app is that I can access my lists on my phone. This is great for those moments when you are out for pint (or two) with friends and someone says 'oh I checked out The Third Man' and you think damn I must watch that. A few finger clicks on your iPhone and the film is added to your list, ready to be shipped out. Put a 'high' priority on it and Robert is your father’s brother. I like it.

Litenotes. (iPad) The very program that I am writing this blog draft on. This was a free app I picked up a few weeks back and it is nothing more than your most basic note taking program but I love the way you can enlarge the text with the pincer movement and with a flip of the page as if it is a book leads to the next note. It's so simple yet works so well. In addition one touch and it is saved into your email drafts. The simplicity makes this program.

Dryncwine. (iPhone) This is a fantastic little app that I have been using on the iPhone for a good while now and in fact I have been banging on about it a lot. Two great things about this. You can record any wine you have drunk, wanted or owned in this app. You can rate it, chastise it or simply expel your love for it. You can also access a very large pre-existing database and search your wine to see what others have been saying about it. Take a picture of the label and add it to your virtual cellar. This app is perfect for anyone who has ever tried to remember a wine that they have drunk far too much of. Genius.

Due 26th January 2011

Avengers #9
Deadpool Corps #9
Deadpool Corps #10
Detective Comics #873
Green Arrow #8 Brightest Day
Justice League Generation Lost #18
Secret Avengers #9
Ultimate Comics Avengers 3 #6 (Of 6)
X-Men #7
Zatanna #9

Don't put two spaces after a full stop. Just don't. It's wrong.

This is only peripherally a "tech topic", but it's one dear to my heart so I'm going to post it anyway. Slate have helpfully published a piece detailing why I'm right about something I feel like I've been arguing for years: Don't put two spaces after a full stop. BECAUSE IT'S WRONG.

I worked in publishing after finishing university before deciding that I wanted to be a lawyer and working in a law firm was the way forward (it' s not, BTW). I'm showing my age but this was in 2000, the beginning of electronic publishing and use of SGML (Standard Generalised Mark-up Language) to format text. Put somewhat simplistically, SGML means that the same copy can be used for physical printing and web publishing. Publishing houses have very strict style guides and a lot of inflexible rules on things like spacing, and this is when I first learnt that you should only insert one space after a full stop.

Back in the olden days when typewriters were in use, all characters were monospaced - ie. the typewriter allocated as much space to place (say) an "m" as for an "i". Monospaced type makes text look messy and uneven and it can be difficult to spot spaces between sentences. For this reason typists added a double space following a full stop.

Since computer type-setting came into general use (according to the article sometime in the mid-1970s), proportional fonts have meant that this extra space is not necessary. More than this, "typographers", those international guardians of what is write* in typesetting have decreed that TWO SPACES AFTER A FULL STOP IS WRONG. Publishing houses (and Universities, and smart people) do what experts in a field say.

I left to become a lawyer because while this was all very interesting the pay was rubbish and coding in SGML and having arguments with nerds about typography felt like a waste of a borderline LLB degree. In my first legal job I used to correct my secretary and ask her not to insert two spaces after a full stop. She complained to the office manager and I got a telling off. I knew I was right but didn't have any evidence, and I wish I'd had this Slate article back then. Not that I'm bitter, but in the end we'd all rather be proven right than wrong, wouldn't we?

Here endeth the lesson.

* See what I did there?

Stop doing that, it's lame. Top 10 bad habits to drop in 2011

More from V3.co.uk - Top 10 bad technology habits to drop in 2011. I haven't read it yet.

If you're a transgressor please post admitting guilt in the comments and promising to cease and desist in '11.

Due 19th January 2011

Having made a decent attempt at catching up with various story arcs over the New Year break, I find myself half way through January and no comic shop visit. Alas, I am completely behind again.

Mental note: look out for 'Grim Hunt' trade.

Batman #706
Batman Streets Of Gotham #19
Black Panther Man Without Fear #514
Brightest Day #18
Daredevil Reborn #1 (Of 4)
Green Lantern Corps #56 (Brightest Day)
Spawn #200 (maybe)
Superior #4 (Of 6)
Turf #4

Thoughts at altitude

I'm currently several thousand metres up over Australia and due to a very poorly planned schedule I'm jetlagged already and not 100% sure what day it is, so I hope you'll excuse me if this blog is a little discursive.
I'm also blogging offline from my iPhone and will probably post when I land in KL without checking so please excuse any errors or inelegance.
I want to cover several things so I'll list them to remind myself:
•the Social Network - just watching this during dinner on the plane. I saw it in the Cinema (by myself as everybody I asked apparently had gone to it together, bastards); and damn, it's a good film. Apart from anything else it makes me want to go to Harvard, and/or be Mark Zuckerberg (but without the misanthropic autism). A highlight - one of the twins explains why he doesn't need to get the Sopranos to beat the crap out of Mark Z: "I'm 6"5, 220lbs and there's two of me".
•iPad - I like how predictive text automatically parses iPhone and iPad correctly and I'm sure Apple's TM lawyers do too. I had a long play on an iPad at my last ridiculously long wait at Sydney's international terminal.
At about AU$900 for the top spec 64gb wifi/3g version (roughly £600 at current rates) I don't need one but yes, ok: I want one.
•Malaysia Airlines - highly recommended. Good food (just had probably the best airline meal ever; a properly spicy chicken biryani); decent movie selection and friendly, attentive service. Like Singapore Air but less totalitarian.
•WIFI availability - why is free wifi so rare in Australia/NZ? In Europe it's rare to find a hotel/airport in a major city WITHOUT free, accessible WIFI; when will the antipodes catch up?
On that note, Harvard's network just crashed on TSN so let's see if this blog has saved itself offline...

Due 12th January 2011

Batgirl #17
Batman And Robin #19
Birds Of Prey #8
Black Panther Man Without Fear #514
Daredevil Reborn #1 (Of 4)
Green Lantern Emerald Warriors #6
Justice League Generation Lost #17 Brightest Day
Red Robin #19

Missing Comics

Avengers #8
Carnage #2
Deadpool Corps #9
ultimate comics avengers 3 #5

Not all the comics arrived from Marvel last week, so this is what was missing. Hopefully they will be with 7 January batch.

Happy New Year

So another new year and so a new template for the blog. It looks fresh I think. 2010 wasn't a bad year insofar as techie and geeky stuff goes. But what about 2011? Well there is a lot of cool stuff coming. On the film front there is Thor, Captain America and Green Lantern. On the comic front there is a ton of new Batman lead stories, Daredevil Reborn, Batwoman and some exciting new takes on the X-Men. There will be a new iPad and probably an updated iPhone. Cloud computing will become commonplace. The battle between Android and IOS will really heat up and the netbook market will disappear. Oh and there is Batman Live and the Kapow Comic Con. That is just a snapshot - looking good.