2011 has been a rough year and I’m glad to see the back of it. Many things haven’t gone as planned this year and at the end of the summer I lost a beloved family member, a loss which I feel every single day.

2011 has had a few good moments. The 8 days I had in New York City with my best friend were amazing. We crammed in so much: Top of the Rock, New York Public Library, Bryant Park (and chess!), Times Square, Liberty Island, Ellis Island, Battery Park, Wall St, New York Yankees vs Texas Rangers, Hershey’s, Museum of Modern Art, American Museum of Natural History, The Met, Central Park, the Upper West Side, comic book stores, 5th Avenue, Grand Central Station and lots of Starbucks. Great times.

I digress. Here are my resolutions for 2012:

• Get fitter. Specifically, I want to build up more strength in my hip. The Durolane is slowly wearing off (but I’m ok just now) and I think a little more muscle would provide a but more support for it. I just have to be careful and stick to my limits.
• Try and get a full-time position- I love my job at the moment but it’s a temporary contract. If I could get the same job permanently, I’d be ecstatic.
• Attend more gigs and performances- what can I say? I’m always up for seeing more shows.
• Spend more time with friends- actually, I’ve already been working on this. I’ve seen my friends more this year than I have in previous years. There’s still some I haven’t seen in a long time though!
• Improve my photography- do I need to explain this one? I feel I haven’t been out with the camera much this year so I need to rectify that. I’m seriously considering another 365 challenge like the one I did in 2008 (see my 2008 challenge pics ).

So here’s to 2012. Let’s hope it’s a good one (and that the world doesn’t end!).

One last thing, since I’m watching 30 Rock as I write this, I’ll leave you with a Liz Lemon quote- “One of my New Year’s resolutions is to say yes. Yes to love. Yes to life. Yes to staying in more!“.

The AECC was where I saw my first Bryan Adams concert, back in October 2004. I was only 16 at the time and was still in High School. I loved it. I distinctly remember arriving home quite late after the concert, being in awe of Bryan and the band and telling my mum that I “just HAD to see them again”.

Flash forward to the present day. 7 years later I found myself back the AECC eagerly awaiting my 7th Bryan Adams show. There was a tiny queue at the west entrance so when the doors opened at 6.30pm, I had time to buy a t-shirt, get some water and get a good spot in the 2nd row, in front of one of Bryan’s mics.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Waking Up The Neighbours (WUTN) album. To mark the occasion, he decided to do a tour in the UK. I’d been looking forward to the gig since it was announced at the end of March. Back in 1992, I was way too young to attend the original tour dates for the album.

Highlights of the show….

House Arrest- What an opener- It got everybody going. It also happens to be a favourite of mine from WUTN and it was the first time I’d heard it live.

Here I Am- I’ve only ever heard this played live acoustically (in Dundee and Glasgow). Great with the full band too.

All I Want Is You- Another of the songs from the WUTN album and it rocked. Again, I hadn’t heard this live before.

Thought I’d Died And Gone To Heaven- Also from WUTN. Yet again, this was another tune I hadn’t heard live. Fantastic to hear.

Hearts On Fire- The guitar solo battle between Bryan and Keith Scott. Need I say more?

Do I Have To Say The Words?- I first heard this live in Glasgow last year, but that was on acoustic guitar. Very powerful with the full band.

Summer of ’69- This song is always in the highlights of any gig I go to. It sends the audience wild and you can feel the energy in the room.

Is Your Mama Gonna Miss Ya/ If You Wanna Leave Me / Touch The Hand (medley)- First off, the medley was fantastic. All 3 songs were from WUTN and they are rarely/almost never played live. What made it even better was the way it was arranged. Mickey Curry came to the front and played the drums on buckets, pots and pans. Keith joined in on a plastic bucket (and looked like a kid who was enjoying himself) whilst Norm Fisher played “bass” on another bucket. You couldn’t make this stuff up. Sorry to use the phrase but it was epic. I don’t know how it worked but it just did.

It’s Only Love- Keith Scott and his fingers of fire- wow. How he manages to play the way he does is beyond me. The solo was amazing. I still remember the first time I saw Keith play the solo at a gig- my jaw literally dropped. He’s a legend.

Depend On Me- Another WUTN tune and another first for me.

When You’re Gone- Kerry from Laurencekirk was chosen as the WYG and she did a fantastic job- no nerves at all! I was really pleased someone from Laurencekirk was chosen as that’s where I went to High School.

There Will Never Be Another Tonight- This just happens to be one of my favourite songs. In the past I’ve seen it used as an opener. No matter where it is in the set, it still rocks.

The Way You Make Me Feel- Bryan wrote this song for Ronan Keating but last year, he included it on the Bare Bones album. This was my first opportunity to hear it live myself.

Other thoughts about the show?

I for one was really glad to see Keith Scott back. The acoustic shows were great with Gary Breit and Bryan but I missed Keith. Not only that but I’ve missed his solos- he’s a heck of a guitar player.

Also, the lighting set-up for the show was spectacular. By the looks of things, lasers were used and when they were blasting around the arena towards the end, it was really pretty. The giant screen at the back of the stage showing various graphics (and the Twitter feed) brought the whole show together. It was impressive.

Finally, the setlist (see the bottom of the blog post for the complete list). Wow. It was a storming set. Rocker after rocker. As you can tell from the gig highlights, there was a large number of songs which I hadn’t heard live before. Brilliant.

My final thoughts on the gig? Every time I come back from one of Bryan’s shows, I say “oh, it was amazing!”. This time is no different. It really was amazing. The most rockin’ show I’ve seen for a long time.

I took a few pics (but not many) and you can find them on my Flickr page

Setlist from the show

House Arrest
Somebody
Here I Am
All I Want Is You
Can’t Stop This Thing We Started
I’m Ready
Thought I’d Died And Gone To Heaven
Hearts On Fire
Do I Have To Say The Words
18 til I die
Back To You
Summer Of ’69
Is Your Mama Gonna Miss Ya/ If You Wanna Leave Me / Touch The Hand (Medley)
Everything I Do
Cuts Like A Knife
It’s Only Love
Depend On Me
When You’re Gone
Heaven
The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me Is You
Run To You
There Will Never Be Another Tonight
Cloud No. 9
The Way You Make Me Feel
Straight From The Heart

iOS 5 was released to the public on the 12th of October, following the announcement at the Apple event in the previous week. Such was the demand for iOS 5 that Apple’s servers struggled to cope and many users received the dreaded 3200 error.

I myself had been eagerly anticipating the new software. Now that I’ve had time to play around with it, I thought I’d give my views on it from the perspective of an iPhone 3GS user.

Speed
First things first, iOS 5 is definitely faster than iOS 4. If you recall, there were issues when iOS 4.3 was released. When I ran it, my phone seemed to lag and the graphics weren’t as smooth. At the time, iPhone 4 users were also affected and soon after, Apple released an update to rectify the issue.

Notification Centre
People are saying that the notification centre has been ripped off from Android. I haven’t used an Android phone so I can’t really make a fair comparison. Whatever the case, I think the notification centre in iOS 5 is a useful feature. It’s handy to have one central place to view new messages, emails and events. The new badges/alerts system is nice too- better than the standard popup which was used for everything.

Siri
This is not a feature which is enabled on the 3GS so its not something I’ve used yet. From what I’ve read, I have mixed feelings about Siri.

Sure Siri is a great feature- its practically a personal assistant. Who needs to type a message when you can dictate it to Siri? All joking aside, it does seem to be useful for finding out information. Since it uses voice recognition, I’m also thinking it would be a great tool for disabled users.

The downsides? First off a security flaw has been identified where the phone can be accessed by Siri when locked (Tech Radar article).

Secondly, Siri appears to have a problem with Scottish accents, as reported by the media (zdnet article). Now I can understand this to a degree. I’m a Scot and even I have trouble with some Scottish accents, after all, some of them are really strong.

This isn’t the first time voice recognition has caused problems in the past few years. Hands up if you’ve ever played the Brain Training games on the Nintendo DS. Did anyone encounter any issues (well, apart from being told that you had a brain age well above your actual age)? The games seemed to have a problem with my accent too so it’s not just an Apple issue. Think about the way Scots generally pronounce “seven”. It comes out as “sivin” doesn’t it?

Anyway, my first thought when Siri was announced: ” jeez, this is going to encourage more people to talk to themselves on trains”.

Location-based Reminders
This is a feature I was looking forward to using the most in iOS 5. Beside a shop? Pick up milk. Approaching your destination on the train? Send an alarm to make sure you haven’t fallen asleep. Sounds great, doesn’t it?

Well it’s not so great if you’re the owner of an iPhone 3GS because the location part of reminders has been removed. Why? The iPhone 3GS is more than capable of running this feature since it has GPS. It’s worth noting that the feature was enabled in beta versions of iOS 5. Honestly, why have Apple done this? Your guess is as good as mine (read: making people upgrade to a new phone equals money).

On a 3GS, I’m not sure that reminders adds anything more to the OS. I find myself continuing to use the calendar app. Perhaps the reminders feature is for small tasks like picking up items from the shop and the calendar should be reserved for appointments?

iCloud
Another great feature of iOS 5. Users are able to back-up and restore their devices wirelessly using iCloud. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to get iCloud back-ups to work yet as my computer seems to be confused about its identity.

iTunes in the Cloud is also quite a neat idea. Recently, I purchased a track on iTunes (Teardrop by José González if you really wanted to know- it was used in the House season 4 finale) and I quite happily listened to it on my laptop. I wanted it on my iPhone too. Did I have to connect my iPhone to my laptop and transfer it? Nope. If you go into iTunes on your phone, select “purchased” then select “not on this iPhone”, you will be shown a list of all the songs you’ve previously purchased and you can then download them directly to your device. Great for when you’re away from your laptop.

iMessages
iMessage allows you to send messages between iOS 5 devices for free and is basically an IM service. The joke has been made that it’s just like Blackberry Messenger except it actually works (referring to the recent BBM outage). I love the fact that it allows you to send text-like messages to non-phone devices like the iPod Touch. Add Skype into the mix too and provided you have a wi-fi connection, your iPod essentially becomes a phone.

Overall Thoughts
iOS 5 has made vast improvements to the iPhone 3GS. The phone appears to be faster and the notification centre is a nice, unobtrusive way of viewing various alerts and messages. iMessages makes it easier to stay in touch with others and iCloud negates the need for the the iPhone to be connected to the computer. All fantastic new features.

That said, I’m still a bit disappointed with it. I was hoping that iOS 5 might feature NFC support. Android announced support for NFC when Gingerbread was released at the end of 2010. Since then, Google has created a Wallet system to take advantage of the feature. In May, RIM announced a BlackBerry device supporting NFC and just a few weeks ago, Nokia announced some NFC-enabled games. In this capacity, Apple are seriously lagging behind.

Last night, I was sitting in front of the computer reading a few articles on web development. I got a bit caught up in what I was reading and lost track of time. It turns out it was after 1am. Just before I nodded off, I decided to check Twitter one more time. That’s where I read the words: “RIP Steve Jobs”.

Surely it couldn’t be true? After all, Twitter is usually crawling with death hoaxes. Still, my timeline was full of tweets related to Steve so I checked the BBC News site where they confirmed it: the Apple co-founder was dead.

Despite it being such a sad day, there have been some brilliant tributes to the man and I’m not sure if there’s much more I can add.

All I can say is that Steve Jobs was a visionary who changed the world. Thanks to him Apple devices have become ubiquitous. Look around you, how many Apple devices do you see people using on a daily basis? How many Apple products do you own? I was using my MacBook when I heard he’d died and this blog post was typed up on my iPhone whilst I was on the move. Think about how he’s changed the way we interact with the world.

What else can I say? RIP Steve Jobs. The world is a poorer place without you.

As the title of this post suggests, yesterday (Friday) I had a 3 month check-up at the hospital following the Durolane injection I had in June.

So, how did it go? Well. Really well.

My consultant asked how I’d gotten on post-injection and I was pleased to tell him that I thought it had worked. I was really unsure for the first few weeks, and I found it difficult to quantify how well it was working. He explained this is normal as the hyaluronic acid can take as long as 4-6 weeks to interact with the tissue and cartilage surrounding the joint.

I was also asked if the pain got worse in the week after the injection. This didn’t happen to me. I said that I had expected a rough week post injection (I had 1 particularly bad day after the steroid injection in Feburary) but it didn’t happen. My hip felt a little bruised but then again, it had just had a needle stuck in it.

Durolane appears to have been a success for me and has greatly reduced the pain in my hip joint. My hip isn’t perfect and it still has it’s off days where I need my painkillers. Thankfully, these days are few and far between. I think the real test will be how well it holds up over the winter as it usually feels more painful in the cold weather.

The only catch with the Durolane injection is that there’s no telling how long it will last. It could be 3 months, 6 months or even a year. It’s different for each individual. It has certainly lasted longer than the steroid injection I had: the steroid injection- 6 weeks. Hyaluronic acid: 3 months and counting. Apparently, upon multiple injections of hyaluronic acid, there can be a cumulative effect which is a huge bonus!

What does this mean for me? Well, it means I can delay my inevitable hip replacement surgery for a bit longer. Durolane was effectively my last shot at keeping my original hip and there was no certainty that it would work. Unlike steroid injections, there are no finite amount of hyaluronic injections a person can receive, since the substance occurs naturally in our joints anyway. When I feel real pain again, I just have to go to the doctors and I’ll be sent for another one.

For the first time in a long time, I left the hospital feeling much happier. Unfortunately, because I can delay my hip replacement, there will be no bionic Lynsay for quite some time. I know a few people were looking forward to that

PS- For more info on Durolane, visit their website or twitter account.