Solving Bad Request Errors on Google’s Gmail

July 3, 2013 | 4 comments

Google Bad RequestIf, like me, you have been seeing a lot of “Bad Request Error 400” messages or perhaps the yellow bad to the top of Gmail saying “Oops… the system encountered a problem (#400) – Retrying in” then, like me, you will be similarly frustrated.

This only seems to have been an issue in the last few months and I am not sure whether it is just an issue with Chrome but whatever it is a really time sapping problem.201307184_090781-CapturFiles

The details that I outline below aren’t a permanent solution, I suspect that is only in the gift of Google but … Read the rest

Two Way Communication on the Pebble

June 28, 2013 | Comment

IMG_6746Regular readers will know that I am a big fan of my Pebble watch, warts and all.

While there are still some parts of the basic functionality that don’t work as advertised (notifications for example) some of the promise that attracted me to the project in the first place is now beginning to be realised.

The Runkeeper integration works well and I have managed to compile the authenticator app and get that working (in parts) too.

However, to date, all interactions have been one way from the phone to the Pebble but now with an update two way communications are … Read the rest

The Death of RSS

June 25, 2013 | Comment

The tech press has recently been full of the demise of Google Reader and if you are going to transition to something else you now have less than a week.

If I’m honest I stopped using Reader some time ago preferring Twitter and iPad based apps such as Pulse and Zite and one suspects that this could well be the principal reason for Reader’s demise. However, RSS, the technology on which Reader is based, is dying a slow death anyway and these two images of emails I received recently prove that.

Both are from the service If This Then That … Read the rest

Evernote Quick Tip – Filter Out Skitch Notes

June 3, 2013 | 1 comment

Evernote is one of the most useful applications and I use it daily and with other apps such as Skitch, Penultimate and Hello it is becoming a real business powerhouse. However, while I like Skitch and welcome the Evernote integration to have all the random screen grabs I have taken showing in my notes timeline is really distracting.

Good news! It is possible to hide these as follows:

At the top of the note list select the icon to change the view. Hover over “Include” and then untick “Skitch Notes”. Simple as that. All the usefulness of synchronising with Evernote … Read the rest

ASUS WL-33NUL Pocket Router Review

May 29, 2013 | Comment

IMG_6649The Asus Pocket Router was first announced at the beginning of year but has only just become available.

The box proudly announces that it is the “world’s smallest router”, which I don’t doubt that it is – it just also comes in a disproportionately large box, which seems a complete nonsense.

As you can see from the image left it really is small and portable with a usb cable that folds back into the case so, depending on how you intend to use it you might not need to carry anything else.

From the images that I had seen I … Read the rest

Sloppy Development

May 17, 2013 | Comment

Screenshot_16_05_2013_10_51I spend all my working day dealing with software development and developers and have done so for the last 25 years. Over that time I have come across some interesting practices and learnt how to do things the right way. The five years I spent with Admiral Computing in particular was an invaluable education in delivering quality software.

So when I come across something like that shown to the left I find it both amusing and perplexing in equal measures. How can a menu item called “Test” make it through to a live system? Clicking the link takes you through … Read the rest

Netflix vs Lovefilm

May 13, 2013 | Comment

201305133_160566-CapturFilesI can’t remember the last time that I bought a DVD having moved over to streaming a while ago so I thought I would take a look at the two biggest services in the UK to compare their content. I decided not to look at streaming quality, price or any factor other than catalogue.

I order to be a little bit objective I decided to look for the top films of 2010 and 2011 as chosen by Total Film Magazine. The results are shown in the table below.

As you can see, in this very small sample, there was no … Read the rest