3 mifi with OLED screen

August 21, 2010 | Comment

Received my new 3 mifi dongle yesterday. This one is basically the same as the previous module with a few important differences:

1. It has an OLED screen giving much more information than before, including the amount of data this session.

2. It now has a web interface that allows you to both configure and monitor the device. This save you having to flash the device yourself with the worry that you will brick it.

3. There is now only a single button. You switch it on. It connects. You’re good to go. Much better

4. It’s now a trendy … Read the rest

Cheap and Cheerful iPad Stand

August 3, 2010 | Comment

Yes, another iPad post. I’m sure that I will get it out of my system eventually…

So I saw this post about a cheap and cheerful iPad stand a while back which suggested using a desktop business card holder. What a great idea, I thought! Except that it was only available from Office Depot in the States and no amount of searching either online or in bricks and mortar could turn one up. Then a colleague of mine went on vacation to Florida and so I asked her if she wouldn’t mind spending some of her precious holiday time in … Read the rest

iPad on Tour

July 24, 2010 | Comment

So I am away on annual leave in beautiful Tuscany but the big question before we left was what tech to bring? In the recent past I have always taken a laptop of some description but this time I decided to go with the iPad alone. That meant also taking Apple’s camera kit in order to get my pictures off my camera in order to do anything with them.

The camera kit is interesting as the name suggests it is for connecting cameras, which it is. However, I was also able to successfully attach both a USB headset and a … Read the rest

iPad Backing up – please wait.

July 20, 2010 | 1 comment

Is your iPad taking forever to backup? Mine is. After several aborted attempts I finally got a full backup done taking a massive three hours and that was after I had deleted off some large apps. Three hours for a device that is less than half full.

Feeling that there had to be a solution to this once again took me to the net and I quickly discovered that I was not the only one with an issue, but nobody had an answer. There is, however, what I consider to be a workaround and that is turning off backups altogether. … Read the rest

The Shocking Price of eBooks

June 30, 2010 | 1 comment

So it seems that content producers still haven’t learnt the lessons from the music industry’s move from physical product to electronic equivalent. Below is a great example of how they just don’t get it.

Juliet Naked is the latest novel by Nick Hornby. I’ve read it (in paperback format) and it’s a good book and a return to form for Hornby in my opinion. However, I would rather have read it on my Sony Reader but is it really worth £11.10 to have it in an electronic format? I think not. More to the point does it cost the content … Read the rest

Hands on with the iPad

April 23, 2010 | 1 comment

So, yes, I know that the web has been full of this over the last few weeks (with only a minor diversion for the next iPhone) and I am late to the game but I only got my first opportunity to get my hands on an iPad today. To be fair there aren’t that many of them in the UK at present. So here it is – my thoughts and pictures of my next gadget.

On seeing it it really does look like an overgrown iPhone. The two are almost identical in design and anyone that has an iPhone … Read the rest

Rule 1: Don’t Call Your Product “Unbreakable” If It Is Not

January 12, 2010 | Comment

My advice is never give a live demonstration if you can possibly help it and never, never, never claim a property that the product doesn’t actually possess. Advice that Sonim would have done well to have heeded before handing over their “unbreakable” mobile phone to a reporter from the BBC.

The reporter, Dan Simmons, looked pretty embarrassed about having smashed the screen of the device and Somin’s CEO laughed about it and everyone is blogging about it but “unbreakable” it obviously isn’t.

You can see the video of destruction here.… Read the rest

Top tech of 2009

January 7, 2010 | 3 comments

For the last few years Michael Arrington has been producing a list of the top tech that he has regularly used in each year and I thought this year I would give it a go. So this is the technology that I used day-in, day-out in 2009 and could not do without.

Google Chrome

A lot of my life is spent in a browser and this year I changed over from Firefox to using Google’s Chrome. Why? Because it is fast. In fact it is the faster browser I have used and speed is important to me. I don’t … Read the rest

TweetNotebook

December 24, 2009 | Comment

In what must be one of the greatest acts of egotistical self-indulgence a couple of weeks ago I ordered a TweetNotebook.

For those that aren’t familiar with it the TweetNotebook is a notebook with a random selection of your tweets printed at the bottom of each page and with your Twitter icon printed on the front along with a customisable quote. A selection of pictures of mine are left and below.

Well mine arrived this morning and I have to say it is just fantastic and much better than I expected it to be. Why? Well for a start … Read the rest

My “other” USB Key

October 7, 2009 | Comment

Following on from yesterdays post the above is what I carried around before the “Key” key.

While it did have the advantage of being credit card sized and so would fit into my pocket and did have some sort of geeky street cred (or so I like to think), it was when I pulled it out at a business meeting that eyebrows were raised.

I can’t quite give up my Tardis USB key just like it would be difficult to give up my Tardis 4-port hub…… Read the rest