£25? That’s Taking the Piss

September 13, 2012 | Comment

So yesterday was the big iPhone 5 launch day, somewhat of an anti-climax due to the fact that just about every aspect of the device and it’s accompanying accessories had been leaked in advance. What hadn’t been announced, however, were the prices.

As part of the “updates” to the iPhone Apple introduced a new connector to replace the existing 30-pin version that has been around nine years. While the rest of the industry has standardised on the microUSB connector Apple has introduced a new proprietary standard. Recognising that there are millions of existing cables and accessories that have the existing … Read the rest

Politically Expedient

August 8, 2012 | Comment

Steve Jobs announcing the Microsoft partnership at Macworld 1997 and that Internet Explorer was going to be the default browser on Macs:

“Since we believe in choice we’re going to be shipping other internet browers on the macintosh and the user can, of course, change their default should they choose to.”

Wind forward to 2012 and in June, when iOS6 was announced I said that the one thing that I wanted to be able to do was to pick what I wanted as the default browser. It seems that it is no longer necessary to allow users to have such … Read the rest

Jailbroken iPad

August 3, 2012 | 1 comment

Despite being the uber geek that I am for some reason I have always shied away from jailbreaking my iDevices. Partly it is because that despite some frustrations I have been happy with the standard functionality delivered by iOS and hadn’t felt the need to jailbreak it. However, of late I have become increasingly frustrated with the speed of my iPad 2 particularly when it come to web browsing which has always been tardy on my browsers of choice: iCab Mobile and Google Chrome.

So it was of immediate interest to me when I read that a new tweak had … Read the rest

Apple Branded USB Stick

June 19, 2012 | Comment

I recently wiped my MacBook Air and restored it to factory settings, a process that was necessary but added a few grey hairs to my head.

Delivered with my MacBook Air was a neat little USB stick that contained a recovery image for Snow Leopard, however, this was superseded with the introduction of Lion that creates a recovery partition on the hard drive itself. So I did the restore entirely from this recovery partition, at least that was the theory, something and I am still not clear what, went awry in the process and Internet Recovery kicked in. This simply … Read the rest

I’m all of a Quiver

June 6, 2012 | Comment

I have mentioned a few times before my love of Moleskine notebooks and even though for the most part I have gone paperless with a combination of my iPad and Evernote I still cannot do without my Moleskine notebooks.

However, that’s not to say that they are perfect. For example I might want to be able to keep a pen with the notebook, a not unreasonable request. In the past I used a bit of tape stuck to the inside back cover with a loop to hold a pen but that was a pain to move between notebooks and didn’t … Read the rest

Yum! Raspberry Pi!

May 28, 2012 | Comment

Over the weekend my Raspberry Pi arrived and there was much excitement in the Thompson household.

For the uninitiated a Raspberry Pi is a cheap (c. $25) computer designed for schools and hobbyists that is about the size of a credit card. It comes as a bare board with all it needs around the edges, so there is a couple of USB ports, an SD card reader, power input, HDMI output, ethernet etc.

The fact that it is a bare board could be a little daunting given that over the years you kind of get conditioned that PCs are delicate … Read the rest

The Gomite Tiltpod for iPhone

May 22, 2012 | Comment

I’m a big fan of Kickstarter (although my credit card is less keen!) and this little beauty is the second item that I got through the crowd funding site. This is the Tiltpod from Gomite a small, portable tripod. The picture left shows it with the iPhone 4/4S adaptor but it is also available for “normal” cameras.

The great thing about the Tiltpod is its size, it really is small enough to slip in your pocket or clip onto a keychain meaning that there is no excuse for not having it with you when you really need it. The Tiltpod … Read the rest

Cregle iPen for iPad Review

May 14, 2012 | 1 comment

A while back I posted a brief note about the Cregle iPen, a result of my first foray into Kickstarter. At that point I hadn’t had much chance to try out the pen and said I would come back and do a proper review at a later date and this is it.

I was attracted to the idea of a pen for my iPad in order to be able to take notes in meetings and have a permanent electronic record, rather than to bring out any artistic side in me. So this review is very much biased to the … Read the rest

Raspberry Pi Review

April 26, 2012 | Comment

Great review of the Raspberry Pi from PC Pro – can’t wait until I get mine!… Read the rest

Moleskine Addiction

March 31, 2012 | 1 comment

If my addiction to electronic gadgets is bad then my addiction to Moleskine notebooks is much, much worse. Despite being able to take notes in Evernote I still like the feel of paper and Moleskines look and feel great. What’s more they do a load of really great limited editions as you can see from the latest release, this Lego branded version that has a brick top embedded onto the cover. Neat!… Read the rest