Buying ...

... Something old, something new, something discovered, something expensive (not that expensive), something the same.

Got a few things on my To Buy list at the moment. If you'll forgive me, this will be kind of an aide-memoire for me so I don't forget things I want to get !

Something old - already got this one, after hearing Nouvelle Vague on an advert, I just had to get their best of album. It's similar with Daft Punk, I heard their new album running in a shop and ended up walking out with one of their other albums. I want more. It's weird, they've been around for quite a while but I've only just discovered them.

Something new - this will be the Rachel Sermanni album. I've been after this for aaaaages, after hearing Waltz over the iTunes single of the week. Gorgeous. There's also a new KT Tunstall album that I haven't bought yet.

Something discovered - while listening to the Eve alliance tournament, two artists came over the airwaves - Waldeck and Parov Stelar. Both of them rather different to the norm, both highly interesting. Could quite happily chill out to these.

Something expensive (pardon me if I digress here !) - I'll get a new laptop before the end of the month. My current one is suffering due to running out of puff early for video (it overheats) and the keyboard has been a victim of my skin problem with the keys now missing keystrokes. It's done ok for a laptop, it's a good few years old now. But ... I'm looking for something newer and shinier. I have a few points for the new one which are being ... frustrating :

I'd like it to be an Acer but have you tried searching their site for specific laptops ? It's worse than the search system at work (which got disabled if you can believe that).
It could be a Dell - they have an interesting collection on there ...
... But I don't want to be at the mercy of unknown and unstated delivery lead times.
It may well come from PC World, as they have a £100 cashback offer going.
I'd kinda like to ditch Windows ...
... But having iTunes on Linux seems problematic
Not many of the 15" laptops have the display resolution I want.

I'm sure I could get iTunes working correctly, even if I sync devices on my desktop. But there's a few things like Homeshare which I find essential for backing up my library. It seems crazy that Apple don't produce a version of iTunes for Linux, as Linux is much closer to Mac OS X than it is to Windows. By forcing people to use Windows to run iTunes, they keep people locked into their main competitor's product.

I'd have thought Apple would want to try and wean people off Windows by encouraging them to use the cheap alternative to OS X ? Wait ... this is the same company that actively stops people from doing Hackintoshes, despite the typical Hackintosh running off a bought copy of OS X.

Apologies - I'm getting on an old crusade there. The next laptop will be : Intel powered with one of the 3000 chips. It will have over 4GB of memory. I'll hopefully get an SSD speed booster with it. It will be 15" or bigger and it may have a touchscreen.

Something the same ?

There's a lot of music coming very soon from :

Goldfrapp - since hearing It's Not Over Yet, I've been collecting. It's an outstanding cover and the rest of their material equals or betters it. Hoping that Tales of Us is a classic.
Arctic Monkeys - mixed feelings but I enjoy their albums.
Mindy Gledhill - I get the new album on Monday !
Katie Melua - still wondering who's Shy Boy I am. (there's a B-Sides album I want too)
Franz Ferdinand - another of the "curious, not awesome but worth a listen"
Morcheeba have an album coming ? (I'm peekin' at Amazon !)
(I'm sure there's even more I've forgotten)

And I'll leave it there - I hear the Dell and PC World websites calling ...