It's no big secret that HMV is a struggling retailer. It's suffering from the double-whammy of a declining high street caused by the economic situation and a declining market for music on physical media.

HMV is for many towns, the last place the consumers can visit in the high street to buy music. The other big names have gone - Our Price, Virgin (later Zavvi), Woolworths - and independents stores are in decline leaving many towns with none. Sadly I wonder if in five or ten years time this last bastion will also loose its physical presence.

Despite the obvious impact that the above points must be making on the business, I wonder though if HMV are doing themselves any favours. It seems that with each passing year, the amount of space given to the humble CD is declining, being taken over firstly by DVDs, Blurays and Games and most recently by technology. Not only that, the stock on offer has some very interesting pricing options.

The trouble with the pricing is that it's impossible to go in to the store with a budget and a list of albums. Each disc being priced differently (ranging from £7 to £15 or more - excluding sales) makes it impossible to know beforehand exactly how much will be spent. Indeed, it encourages price checking - if I see a disc that I want on offer at, say £12, I will be checking Amazon to see if it can be had for significantly less. Looking at a DVD set of the television series 'Black Books' today, I saw it available in store for £30. Amazon will sell me the same for £17.99! Much as I enjoy browsing a shop, I'm not putting myself out of pocket by an additional £12.

Of course, the price only comes in to play if what the customer wants is available. So often I go into the store with a list of albums in mind only to find that not one of them is stocked. Sometimes I can check a few stores if I'm traveling around but I find the situation the same everywhere. Although a physical store cannot stock everything, the problem is exacerbated by the diminishing range of CDs and although the sale of physical albums has fallen significantly thanks to downloading, it is by no means dead yet.

As for technology, whilst I understand HMV branching out into this area and in particular digital music players, headphones etc., I find it bizarre that they also see fit to stock tablet computers of various makes and models. The technology corner is starting to look like a section of Comet more than a music store and HMV certainly isn't the first place I'd think of to buy such equipment. If their opinion is to sell these devices because they can play music, well I wouldn't be surprised to see full computers making an appearance and perhaps a range of mobile phones too!

I understand the need for the business to diversify but I think it may be going too far. I find that as a music customer the store is not catering for my needs and there are plenty of times when I walk out empty handed. I think they should re-think the deminishing stock of CD albums, better focus the technology section, and bring in standardised pricing. All of this would encourage me to visit the store more often, spending my hard-earned cash which as a business is surely the most important thing.

With the launch of the on-demand video streaming service Netflix in the UK and the offer of one month's free trial, I decided to give the service a quick test.

More than the selection of programmes and films available on the service though, I was curious to see if instant streaming would work on my Linux computers. In short, it does not.

I tested the service in both Firefox and Chromium, with default and altered user-agents without success. I was mildly optimistic that whilst it wouldn't work straight away, that perhaps by faking the user agent it could be forced to work but unfortunately it was not that simple.

My optimism came about because Netflix should work on a Chromebook (running Google's Linux-based cloud OS Chrome OS). Unfortunately though, it seems from the error page that Google's system has some software specifically to allow it to use the software. Unless this software is available outside of Chrome OS then it seems that general Linux usage is futile.

The only alternative would be to resort solely to streaming using an XBox or Android phone but for me, the latter has a screen size much too small and the former is a hassle to use thanks to the TV only having one HDMI socket which is generally occupied by my Sky box.

So less than 30 minutes after starting my trial, I have canceled my membership. It's no great loss - I watch more than enough TV via Sky - but I think it's a shame that a service which obviously technically can run on a Linux system (proven as it's on Chrome OS) is not widely available for any Linux system.

Just after Christmas I decided to buy myself a portable DAB radio. I'd been meaning to buy one for a while and having been browsing in John Lewis, I stumbled across this tiny little radio that was, for such a product, relatively inexpensive.

The radio in question is a Sansui DB-100 DAB/DAB+/FM receiver. It's a tiny device measuring just 125x73x23mm containing a single speaker and a small number of controls. This is a pocket set but it's features make it useful in a wide range of situations.

Tuner Specifications and Digital Standards

As a tuner, it is well specified. It will (of course) happily receive DAB transmissions used in the UK but is also compatible with the superior DAB+ format. As a point of interest, this is actually stated on the box. Unlike many other sets that are capable of receiving the newer format, the feature is not hidden away in small print, technical documentation or website specifications. It does not need a firmware upgrade to do this - out-of-the-box it is DAB+ compatible.

Why do I make such a big thing about this feature? DAB+ isn't used in the UK but I hold out hope that perhaps one day it will be. I know a full scale switchover is very unlikely but perhaps a new multiplex will be launched containing DAB+ services. Perhaps it's wishful thinking but at least I know my radio is future proof.

Not only that though, having the additional digital standard aboard means that it has some compatibility with digital services around the world. The tuner will receive signals in Band III blocks 5A (174.928MHz) to 13F (239.200MHz) depending on settings (the UK only uses a small subset of this band for DAB transmissions).

Bedside Radio

So, thanks to it's size, the radio is suitable as a pocket radio and a travel radio. The unit also features a sleep timer and alarm clock. Here's it's third use - as a bedside radio! There's only one alarm that can be set and no breakdown by days (so you have to remember to switch it off for the weekends). The option is also only available after a couple of clicks through the menu so it's obviously not it's primary intention but for me it fulfills the requirement.

Interface, Controls and the Aerial

In terms of the radio's interface, it's fairly straightforward. A button on the right serves as power on/off (by holding for a few seconds) or as a mode changer (a quick press). A large scroll wheel on the front panel allows users to move up and down through stations or menus which can be selected with a button in it's centre. A back button is found at the top of the unit. Volume is controlled by a smaller wheel embedded in the top right corner and works in the traditional way although it is a digital control moving in steps. Two other switches are available, one which mutes the internal speaker and another that locks the controls.

A socket is found on the right of the unit which accepts headphones which double-up as the aerial in the usual method of pocket radios, Walkmen and mobile phones. If you're not using headphones, a short wire aerial is provided. Whilst this works, because it has no rigidity it can be difficult to position.

Other Features

This little unit doesn't just stop at being a receiver of analogue and digital radio. At the base of the unit is a flap that when removed reveals not only a micro USB port, but also a slot to accept a micro SD card - this unit can record!

Actually, for short recordings that SD card isn't needed. There's a small amount of onboard memory (around 128MB) that can be used for short clips. However, using a card will allow larger recordings to be made. DAB stations are recorded in the MP2 format indicating that this is a straight copy of the de-muxed digital signal without being re-encoded.

In addition, the unit can playback those recordings and also any MP3 files found on the card. That makes the Sansui DB-100 a basic MP3 player as well!

Files can be transferred to a computer via USB using the aforementioned socket. Memory appears as a computer drive so there's no issue with installing drivers on modern machines. Linux enthusiasts can rest easy.

Summary

This is clearly a radio thats primary purpose is for slipping into a coat pocket and using when out-and-about. Thanks to its feature set though, it can be so much more. It works as a desk or kitchen radio thanks to the built-in speaker, or as a bedside radio thanks to the alarm and sleep features. I've even jerry-rigged it to use with the hi-fi using a roof-top aerial or a 'rabbit ears' aerial configuration (but I'll write more about that in another post).

The only issue I've noticed (that may be a DAB issue more than a radio issue but I've not been able to check) is a slight glitch on the audio from time-to-time that can only be described like a skip - like the audio has fallen behind schedule and it needs to catch up. It could be very brief forms of interference but without having had the opportunity to test it, I think it's worth noting here.

Other than that, for the few weeks I've had it this has been a great little radio.

The Sansui DB-100 is available from John Lewis for £59.95 (at the time of writing).

Specifications Summary

Dimensions: 125x73x23mm
Weight: 167g

Battery: Built-in, non-changeable 1250mAh Li-polymer
Battery life: 10Hrs (DAB)
Charging Time: 5Hrs (via USB)

Standards: DAB/DAB+/FM (RDS)
Frequency Bands: VHF Band II (87.5MHz - 108MHz) / VHF Band III (5A - 13F)
Presets: 30

Recording: MP2 (DAB), AAC (DAB+)
Playback: MP3, MP2 (recorded), AAC (recorded)

Speaker: 2W
Headphone/Aerial socket: 3.5mm stereo jack

Yesterday's setup of Linux Mint 12 KDE Edition went very smoothly.

From running the system via a live USB boot disk through to complete installation; the problems were few and the impression has been largely positive particularly in comparison to the Gnome 3 edition of Mint 12. It has been so much better in fact, that the boot of the system via the USB stick was significantly faster than the boot of the old installed OS. I think that says a lot about the speed of the Gnome system.

I was particularly pleased to discover that dual screen support exists without issue and without needing proprietary drivers from NVidia. Little features like independent wallpapers for each screen are a nice touch. I'm also quite the fan of KDE's widgets system. To the best of my knowledge there is no equivalent in Gnome and if there is, it wasn't as obvious as here where a right-click on a panel or desktop is enough to reveal their presence.

So far - and it has been less than 24 hours since the installation, so it's hardly a thorough test - I've had no major issues on my desktop machine. The only very minor niggle is the appearance of Firefox which visually, doesn't sit as well in KDE as it does in Gnome. It really is a minor issue though and doesn't affect the usability of the browser. If it really starts to bother me, I can always use Chromium as an alternative.

Following such a success, I decided the netbook should also be upgraded. I like to run the same systems where possible just for consistency so I downloaded the 32 bit version and went through the same process of installing via USB.

This was more tricky. At the moment, I'm not a particular fan of netbook versions of traditional interfaces. I didn't like Unity and I don't like Plasma-netbook that KDE used by default on my machine. Not being particularly familiar with KDE, I had to research how to revert to the traditional interface which took some time and some clicks but I got there.

Oddly I've also experienced a few crashes, one of which resulted in a Kernel Panic requiring a battery pull to resolve. That was during my configuring phase though and now I've settled down on that front, I'm hoping it'll be fine.

Assuming the desktop machine remains stable, I think I'll be keeping this for a while. My last experience of KDE was right after the launch of version 4 and I remember being less than impressed. Now is a different story. It's come on a long way.

For the netbook, if it doesn't seem stable enough then I'll have to investigate other options. One of which is a minimal Linux OS designed purely around using the internet. I can't recall it's name but it only takes something like 100MB and considering the netbook is mainly for internet use, it could be fun to try.

A few months back, the latest release of the popular Linux distro Mint was released. Since then, I've been running it on my two machines - a 64 bit desktop and a 32 bit netbook.

Linux Mint 12 was a significant release as it was the first time that the distribution adopted Gnome 3 as it's GUI. This latest version of the interface has itself been controversial because of its significant departure from the its traditional experience.

Mint's release did a reasonably good job of trying to tame the new beast by incorporating theming and extensions in an attempt to try and retain some familiarity but I don't think it's quite worked yet. The repositioning of the taskbar, duplication of functionality (with Gnome's launcher and the Mint Menu) and the noticably slower performance have left me with a poor impression. Not of Mint necessarily - moving on from Gnome 2.x was a necessity - but of what Gnome 3 is at the moment.

Since installing the new system, I've experienced a number of bugs and annoyances from a slow boot, laggy Gnome Shell, GEdit lockups, full system crashes and difficulty with shutdowns and restarts. For this reason, I'm now downloading the release candidate for the KDE edition of Mint 12.

I've used Gnome since I adopted Linux back in 2007 and although have briefly played with KDE; I've never settled down with it always preferring the simple interface of Gnome 2. Now though, I wonder if things will be different. KDE 4 is well developed compared to the recent release of its rival. Perhaps I'll find it a better option. If not though, my third option is to try the Debian edition of Mint - or something else altogether!