I went to the Australian Nokia Music Store launch last night at the Oxford Art Factory. Great venue, made more appealing by the fact that it’s walking distance from my place and there was free booze and nibblies.

Oddly, there were hardly any other tech journos there. I spotted two that I didn’t know well enough to attempt small talk with, so I secreted myself into one of the stairwells and played with my non-Nokia iPhone. My state of friendlessness would’ve had me leaving immediately after the presentation and a couple of beers if not for the promise of The Presets performing, one of my favourite electro brands.

I left the event with a nice little goody bag from Nokia containing a set of portable mobile phone speakers and a $10 voucher for the Music Store. As a bit of background, the Australian Nokia Music Store launched yesterday with 2.5 million tracks in its catalogue. Individual tracks are $1.70 each, albums start at $17, and you can stream unlimited tracks from your PC for $10 a month.

I decided to give the unlimited streaming thing a go on my Asus Eee PC (which is still running the default Xandros Linux OS), and was greeted by this window.

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Got a Canon point-and-shoot? If the answer’s yes, you might have a more powerful camera on your hands than you realise. Wired How-To Wiki has a great article today on how to apply custom firmware on a Canon camera to super-charge its capabilities. The Canon Hacker’s Development Kit (CHDK) can add new features to your camera - like adding the RAW file format and the ability to run scripted actions - as well as enhancing the existing hardware (such as boosting shutter speed from 1/1,600 to 1/60,000 of a second).

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I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about social networking and online presences. I’ve been blogging for over five years, and I’ve loved the whole interactivity of it all, with people providing feedback and comments and contributing to all the various social microcosms around the Internet - a phenomenon that’s certainly accelerated with the rapid growth of social networking communities like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

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I’ve been using an iPhone exclusively for just a little over a month. Do I miss Windows Mobile? No, although in the early days of using it, I missed having a full-fledged PIM manager like Pocket Informant to keep track of my calendar and tasks in one place.

But because I like to shake things up every now and then, I fired up an old smartphone over the weekend - the HTC Artemis - and decided to see if I could possibly go back to using Windows Mobile after having sucked at the teat of Apple. Read on for my findings!

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Ever wonder what goes on behind the scenes of the world’s two most popular gadget blogs, Engadget and Gizmodo? In an industry where having a ten-minute scoop on a particular gadget or new technology can drive thousands of additional page views, the cut-throat competition between these two power brokers is quite extraordinary to observe, as detailed in the excellent Wired article Gear Blog Rivals Engadget and Gizmodo Turn the Competition Up to 11.

And like a couple of rival hometown newspapers, Engadget and Gizmodo have seen their competition develop into a full-blown feud, complete with charges of malfeasance and sabotage. Engadget rarely links to Gizmodo, and often it’s to ridicule the site for faulty predictions; Gizmodo’s publisher, blogging impresario Nick Denton, has accused Engadget of being “amateurish” and “gullible.” “I don’t think we are nice or decent to each other,” Lam says. “There is so much animosity, so much pettiness.”

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Twitter account? Guilty. Jaiku account? Guilty. Never update those two microblogs after getting a Facebook page? Guilty.

If you haven’t yet discovered the fun world of microblogging, it’s a great way of keeping tabs on what your friends and online acquaintances are up to without having to make the effort of actually contacting them directly. And vice versa. Depending on the service you’re using, you get a certain number of characters (usually 160) to do with as you will, and the usual style of posts ranges from what you’re currently doing, to how your day’s been, to what mood you’re currently in.

What surprised me is the number of emails I’ve gotten in the last couple of weeks informing me that so-and-so is following my Twitter feed - despite the fact that I haven’t updated it in months! Hmmn, this makes my Internet self feel guilty for not making more of an effort. So I decided to do a bit of research and see whether anyone had come up with a microblogging aggregation service that would let me post one status update that would be pushed out to all of the microblogs. Okay, I lie, I actually just read about said service in my RSS feeds, but it makes me sound more proactive if I say I went out and looked for it!

HelloTxt is a free service that lets you update your status across pretty much all of the Web 2.0 services that offer this feature. The well-known ones like Facebook, Twitter, Jaiku, Plaxo, LinkedIn and Pownce are all on-board, but there are some I’ve never even heard of, like Gozub, Feecle, Fanfou and Meemi. All you have to do is sign in to all of the services you use through HelloTxt, then update your status message from the Dashboard. In my quick tests, updates are pushed out to all the specified services immediately, and there’s also a mobile version that’s optimised for small screen sizes.

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I’m guilty of not making the most of playlists and smart playlists on iTunes. I haven’t even gotten around to filling my iPhone with music. As it is, I’ve only got one full album and a few stray songs that don’t even have their album art added and all the ID3 tags filled. Tsk tsk. It’s all stuff that I’ll get around to eventually, but I could totally relate to Lore Sjoberg’s column on Wired entitled “Perils of joining an iPod nation“.

Most guides to Smart Playlists suggest you start by rating your own music. This makes me uncomfortable. Telling myself how much I like the music I chose and bought seems a little narcissistic. Normally I’m so self-absorbed that if you hug me hard you’re likely to get ego all over your sweater, but this is a bit much even for me. I feel as self-obsessed as a teenage ouroboros on Twitter.

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Part of the lure of a being on holiday is the ability to get away from all of your tech distractions. But if you’re reading this site, then you’re probably like me and derive an inordinate amount of enjoyment from having all of your toys and gadgets with you wherever you go. There’s a lot to be said for putting your smartphone, MP3 player, digital camera or laptop away in order to be able to fully soak in your surroundings, but when used in moderation, I think gadgets can actually enhance your travel experience.

There are all sorts of considerations to take into account when travelling with your tech toys. Will it have enough storage for all my photos and music? Is it durable enough to handle the rigours of the road? Will the battery last me until the next time I get to a power outlet? And what happens if my bag gets stolen?

Gadget insurance is something I’ll cover in another post, but the rest of the concerns are easily take care of with the right tech and accessories.

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I saw a pretty ugly crash scene a few days ago in front of my building. A truck had ploughed into the front of a flat across the road, and there was a lot of police and emergency crew milling about. Thankfully no one was hurt, but when my boyfriend asked for my camera to take a photo, I hesitated. Would we get in trouble for taking a photo?

(The photo we took)

This is probably a dilemma that many people face now that cameras are so ubiquitous. Are you allowed to take a photo of that interesting-looking chap at the park, or is it an invasion of privacy? Can you photograph the new donut place at the mall to show your kids, or will a security guard request to confiscate your camera/phone? And are you legally obliged to hand over your camera if someone states you’ve taken photos unlawfully?

If you’re based in the US, Photojojo’s 10 legal commandments of photography will clue you in as to what your rights are.* The law will vary in other countries, but I suspect the rules will be similar if your legal system is based on common law.

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I can totally relate to Jerry’s post about the iPhone being a gateway drug. I also bought an iPhone recently, only rather than it inspiring me to buy an Apple notebook (I’ve had a black MacBook since last year), it’s encouraged me to switch to using Mac OS 10.5 exclusively, as I’ve been mainly using it with Windows Vista.

I’ve been running Leopard as my main computing environment for the last week, and I don’t miss Windows Vista one iota. And now I’m looking at that 80GB Windows partition on my MacBook and thinking “Hmmmmnnnnn…” Do I dare delete it completely? The Vista install itself is a huge, plus there are all the files I have in the Windows partition that I should migrate over to the main Mac partition.

My only hesitation is that I may ‘need’ to use Vista for something, and I’ll regret not having it available on that other partition. (Although, that being said, I do have my Asus R2Hv that runs Vista in case I absolutely need to use Windows.) What do you guys think? Am I being prudent, or should I stop being a little old lady and throw caution to the wind? I’d love to hear your thoughts.