Updates from March, 2012 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Ven 9:01 pm on March 3, 2012 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: microsoft, virtual machine, Virtualbox, VM, windows, windows 8   

    Windows 8 Consumer Preview – Brief Impression 

    Not my screenshot, just so you know.

    Downloaded the 32bit Windows 8 Consumer Preview last night and gave it a spin on a VirtualBox VM. Initial impressions were pretty good but also pretty limited.

    I don’t overly care for the Metro UI one way or the other.  I’m sure, if subjected to it outside the terrible, in my humble opinion, Xbox dashboard update, I’d get on with it well enough.  The operation of the interface was smooth enough to use, even on virtualised, and it was straight forward enough to understand what everything did.

    (More …)

     

  • Ven 1:06 pm on January 16, 2012 Permalink | Reply  

    Windows 8 Tablets Now With Added Bootloader Locks! 

    Unlike the desktop and laptop markets it seems tablets are being increasingly treated like smartphones when it comes to locking down the system.  Of course many smarphones and tablets that have locked bootloaders have been successfully busted open by community developers and hackers but when it comes to Windows 8 things are looking concerning. (More …)

     

    • Tim 1:22 pm on January 16, 2012 Permalink | Reply

      What are ‘bootloaders’ ?

      • Ven 1:25 pm on January 16, 2012 Permalink | Reply

        The process on a PC / tablet / phone that starts the device up and initiates the operating system. Often the bootloader can be modified or replaced to allow loading of alternative software – most commonly on Android phones and tablets to scrub off the default flavor of Android and replace it with something like Cyanogenmod of MIUI.

  • Ven 6:40 pm on July 12, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: copyright, , , , Google Plus, Mobypicture, photography, ,   

    Google+’s Photo Terms of Service (a.k.a. Picasa Web Albums) – better than Flickr not as good as Mobypicture 

    I’m something of a Terms of Service nazi when it comes to terms of service for online photo gallery systems (see my Why I Won’t Use Flickr warning). With folk getting very friendly with Google+ I figured should best glance over their terms. (More …)

     

  • Ven 2:29 pm on July 10, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , social networking   

    Dear Facebook, do not want your email 

    Facebook,

    When I signed up to you’re once genuinely interesting and good service I was required to have an email address. So I think it’s safe to say that you know I have an email account my own. Kindly explain to me why the dogs I would want to complicate my increasingly muddy online communications by adding an @facebook.com email address into this?
    (More …)

     

  • Ven 12:56 pm on May 16, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: AMOLED, Apple, DJ, iMac, iPhone4, keyboard, samsung   

    Foldable Screens, iPhone Vinyle DJ and Apple Oddities 

    Samsung have demonstrated a working foldable AMOLED screen, an iPhone has been used to use a real turnable in virtual DJing and Apple have further locked out users from new iMac hardware while also creating a keyboard that literally sucks.  Read on… (More …)

     

  • Ven 2:38 pm on July 30, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: android, , iphone 4   

    Two iPhone 4 Tests In One Post 

    Very quick update testing both the WordPress app for the iPhone and the camera of the shiny fourth iteration of the beastie.

    Thus far I’ve been very impressed. Still very much a fan of the Android system but the over all quality of the iPhone 4 is undeniable. It’s taken them a while but I think Apple may have finally gotten it right. Of course time will tell.

    For now enjoy a dusk snap from a nearby park taken yesterday from the in-built camera :)

     

  • Ven 5:18 pm on May 8, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: FLAC, Ogg   

    Music Sync and auto-convert (FLAC to Ogg) 

    Ever encountered the hassle of archiving music in one format but needing it in another for your portable music enjoyment?  I have and spent this afternoon sussing out the most sensible way to do it (under Windows anyway).  Read on you, like me, faff with things like FLAC but need something a little more robust for on the road… (More …)

     

  • Ven 12:38 pm on April 27, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: aac, cd, mp3, , , wma   

    Lunchtime Musing: CD Is My Generation’s Vinyl 

    El Reg posted a piece yesterday on the surprising health of CD sales in the growing age of online music downloads and streaming services. It’s hanging on a lot better that was thought in the face of retailers closing and the easiness of buying through services like iTunes and zapping straight into your portable music player of choice *coughSansaFuzecough*. This got me to thinking that more so than occurred to me before the CD is my generation’s Vinyl. (More …)

     

  • Ven 1:29 am on March 24, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: camcorder, digicam, Flip HD, Samsung U10   

    To Camcord or not to Camcord 

    Shiny for £100?

    When digital cameras made their baby-steps to mass market they were pretty good but a little light on some features and depth of quality. Now, of course, even a cheap digicam can take a snap that compensates for even the poorest lighting.

    I’ve been musing over the idea of getting the video equivalent of early digicams – pocket HD video recorders popularised by devices like the Flip HD. I know this line of consumer technology is in it’s youth but given that pocket camcorders are now around the £100 (such as the Samsung U10 I’ve been eyeing up) I’m thinking it might be worth a punt to see if they’re up to the chatter I hear about them.

    Figure worst case scenareo I’ll get a couple of YouTube giggles from it!

    Thoughts, comments?

     

  • Ven 6:00 pm on February 23, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Broadband, Broadband Tax, ISP, Tax, UK   

    UK Broadband Tax branded Unfair – rightly so 

    The BBC, among others, are reporting today that a proposed tax of 50p (0.5 GBP) per month to be levied against any (presumably residential) fixed telephone line has been deemed unfair by MPs.

    Oddly it seems the MPs have gotten this one right, in my opinion at least.  This tax would be used to fund ‘ultra-fast’ broadband along the lines that is already seen in more technologically advanced countries.  Problem is that ISPs, along with all communications companies operating in the UK, are lazy and greedy.  Why shell out for better infrastructure when they can still sell poor quality horrifyingly limited connections over copper-wire?

    Better communications infrastructure is badly needed in the UK but tax is not the way to pay for it.  Government intervention is needed to kick the ISPs up their ethernet and force them to pay to for the upgraded.  ”BUT”  I hear you cry “then they’ll pass on the charges to us!” – quite right!  Problem is this:  if the Government via tax were to foot the bill they’d still charge us more for their “improved and faster service, because we care about providing the best facilities possible”.  So anyone paying for their internet connections will be stung – but if improvements were to be funded by tax we’d be stung twice >__<

    Comments, thoughts?

     

  • Ven 12:56 pm on January 7, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , environment, hard drives   

    Save the planet, don’t print your email! Um… wut? 

    I get a lot of emails with long-winded speeches in the footer about how terrible it is to print the email that’s just been sent – think of the trees wasted!  There’s two problems with this (ignoring that wasting paper is actually good for the environment – higher demand for paper = more trees planted to meet demand):

    Firstly that adding all this at the bottom of the email wastes more paper in the event that the message *is* printed.

    Secondly that adding all this to the base of each email adds to the amount of hard drive space required to store the message on mail servers.  Hard drives use power to run, the more data there is to be stored the more hard drives are required.  The more hard drives that are required the more power will be used.

    On a side point all this including the body of the email you’re replying to has the same impact.

    I know it seems petty but if people are going whine about printing emails at least be brief about it!

    Thoughts, comments?

     

  • Ven 11:24 am on November 14, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

    Big-screen Shiny 

    My housemate got a shiny 42″ HD tellybob. Originally we were going to go halves then two things happened: his parents offered to put towards as Christmas pressy and I got all nay-sayer about HD.

    Thing is… now it’s here… and it’s a bit shiny. Still got my awesome Sony trinitron old-style telly in the lounge for my Wii and when I want to watch a DVD & The Shiny is in use (& because in a house with two gamer geeks being able to fire up more than one console at a time Is worthwhile). The Xbox 360 looks immediately better – suddenly there’s details before unseen *gasp*. DVD up-scaler does a fine job of making standard-deff video looks very good and there’s still a plot to hook my lappy up to it ;)

    May have to dig up the HD version of Transformers movie for a watch… Could see that being pretty nice.

    So, in short, I deal myself a slice of Humble Pie and admit that it is’ in fact, pretty good stuff this HD lark.

    Posted by Wordmobi

     

  • Ven 11:11 am on August 20, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Bookmark Sync, , Chromium,   

    Shiny Shiny Google Chrome Stuffs 

    Simon Says 'Use Google Chrome'

    Simon Says 'Use Google Chrome'

    So here I was, minding my own business, when thought I’d have a poke around with a Twitter search or two. First off I figured I’d search for Chrome so see if anything interesting had been spotted about Google’s shiny browser. Turns out very shiny things had happened, very shiny indeed.

    Namely the feature I’ve been waiting for… bookmark synchronisation! Great days :D I eagerly downloaded the dev version (up to version 4 already, crickey) and with great gusto I hammered in my login details and waited with baited (is that even the right spelling in this context? meh) breath for my Google Bookmarks to stream down.

    And I waited.

    And waited.

    Waited some more…

    Nothing. Oh. Suppose it must just sync between chrome and other instances of chrome. That’s still cool but was a bit of an anticlimax. But wait… the story doesn’t end here!

    Enter @chronarion! The fellow seemed to be interested in tails of bookmark fail, being involved in Chrome development an’ all. His words of wisdom told me that sadly Chrome does not sync with Google Bookmarks (which kinda makes sense – Google Bookmarks sucks.. sorry Google, it’s true). Oh woe was me, for how will I now access my bookmarks when not on one my own machines?! FEAR NOT, said @chronarion (disclaimer: not actually a quote), FOR SALVATION… is at hand. Turns out your Chrome bookmarks are also synced up rather nicely to Google Docs for web-based access where-ever you are.

    Well pleased. So export my Google Bookmarks I did, import them to Chrome I continues, and gasped I concluded as I watched with glee at my Google Docs as it filled up with my bookmarks.

    The only real down-side I’ve found so far is that you cannot edit your bookmarks within Google Docs but given the highly beta nature of the Chrome dev branch I really don’t feel like complaining about it.

    On a side point Chrome (well, Chromium to be accurate) for Mac is feeling more and more stable – I’m now using it side by side with Firefox as my two main browsers. Bookmark sync isn’t enabled in the Mac version at the moment but expect it’ll appear soon.

    Keep up the good work Google ^_^

    Note: to enable bookmark sync under Windows make sure you’re on at least version 4 of Chrome (FileHippo are always up to date) then follow the easy instructions here. Enjoy!

     

  • Ven 6:39 pm on August 17, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: gadgets, , rant, tomtom   

    One device or many? 

    Lots of gadgets make for disaster-proofing

    Lots of gadgets make for disaster-proofing

    The Tomtom app for the iPhone appears to have appeared in Americaland for $99.99. Tomtom app for the iPhone (or any GPS enabled phone for that matter) seems like an obvious win in terms of usefulness and carting around less clutter but the price point seems… well a little out of sync with my idea of reality. That said my idea of reality is far removed from that of the iPhone Brigade. For me having one all singing all dancing does *everything* device is great… but ultimately a fail. So there you are, merrily chattering away on your iPhone (in the event that the call actually connected), uploading your freshly shot videos to youtube, geotagging your auto-focused snaps, emailing your friends, Twittering to everyone else, now using the Tomtom app to get to wherever it is your going when DONK…

    …the unthinkable…

    it a) breaks b) runs out of battery c) you foolishly destroy it escaping from a hoard of rampaging chickens who have momentarily mistaken your for the Hero of Time.

    Well now you’re screwed. How will you take photos of this exciting place you’ve come to? How will you tell people on twitter how awesome it is? More importantly… how will you get home??

    I have my man-bag, laden with many exciting colourful badges as it is, in which I cart around work iPhone, personal Sony Ericsson phone, digi cam, sat nav, occasionally an EeePC, MP3 player, USB pen drive – none of these things are crazy heavy or excessively bulky but it does pretty much guarantee that at no point am I truly knacked by one device keeling over.

    On a side thought $99.99 is far too much for a Tomtom app for iPhone – for the benefit of everything in one device I can see the temptation but for the issue of battery life (without car charger of course), risk of one device failure and that Tomtom have zero hardware cost and next to nothing distribution cost it all smacks of taking advantage of the iPhone crowd’s “oooh look at me and what the walled garden of my iPhone can do” attitude.

     

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