I'm having fun with optical media. Well, maybe fun isn't the best way to describe it. I'm rediscovering the joys of optical media. It's been too long since I experienced the pain of just how finicky optical media can be when you're burning it.

I've always tended to buy decent CD-ROMs, on the basis that the cheap and nasty ones tend to become coasters (Yes, Tesco, that's you I'm talking about with a 100% failure rate). As a result, I've tended to use Memorex (which have always worked well) and Verbatim in more recent times. Now, I'm discovering the same issues with DVDs. Memorex and TDK work fine, but I've just tried 3 DVD-R Verbatim disks and they all give error messages. Slot a TDK, the same spec, and the problem returns. I've no idea why, but it's really frustrating, especially when you've got 8 copies of a presentation made and video-ed at work to get done for tomorrow and it takes 9 min per disk to burn...

I've been watching the iPhone bru-ha-hah with interest. Yes, it looks excellent, but it seems to be somewhat limited for my needs. Firstly, all the reports I've seen say it needs iTunes to sync (and I can't have that at work), and secondly, it seems to have some interface quirks that need to be ironed out before it could give any true advantage over my Palm Treo. Silly things like no one-touch dialing, and no full-stop on the basic keyboard page for email and SMS. The touch screen is the way to go (and is why I've rejected getting something sexier to replace my Treo 650), but the whole package matters. I'm guessing I can hang on until 2008 and see what Apple and Palm deliver (as the new Linux based Palm OS is due in 2008). And at that point I'm guessing justifying a £300 phone may be a challenge anyway!