Occasionally I stumble upon an interesting iPhone app that I think is worthy of keeping. Today, as part of AppAdvice‘s daily Apps Gone Free feature, an app called iLapse caught my eye. This, as the name suggests, allows you to record time lapse videos on your iPhone. The options are pretty simple, choose how often you want an image to be captured from half a second to every 20 seconds and the output frame rate. Stick your iPhone on a tripod and, if you are going to be recoding for any length of time, put it on charge too … Read the rest
I’m all of a Quiver
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
What I Don’t “Like” About Facebook Marketing
It seems quite popular at present for companies to ask me to “Like” their page on Facebook. In some cases you are asked to do this in order to receive something, maybe an entry to a competition or perhaps a free download. Sometimes I will purchase an item and when the order confirmation email arrives it will have a line asking me to “like” the company or product. Either way this makes me pretty uneasy.
I have no issue with exchanging my details in return for something but what I don’t want is to have some sort of implied endorsement … Read the rest
Why Does my iPad Still Make Notification Sounds When the Volume is Down?
One of the things that has really niggled me about my iPad is that it continues to be bloody noisy even if you have the volume turned right down. While any music is silenced notification noises, bleeps and bings continue to come through at full volume – not good when you are trying to sleep.
It seems that because, as daft as it seems, notification noises are not controlled by the volume control. Notifications are either off or on.
All is not lost though as there are two ways (at least) of turning off notification noises – the first is … Read the rest
Yum! Raspberry Pi!
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
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
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
Pebble Watch for iPhone Passes $10M on Kickstarter
Already the most funded project ever on Kickstarter the Pebble Watch for iPhone and Android has now passed the $10 million mark – 100 times the amount it was aiming to raise. Kickstarter is a great platform and I have backed a number of projects on it and will continue to look out for innovative things I can be an early part of.
Looking forward to receiving my watch too – glad I got my backing in early!… Read the rest
Hack Attack!
You may have noticed that the site was off line for a period of about a week early last month which was the result of an attack by hackers. I have no idea why they would be interested in my site in particular other than it was there and it represented a small challenge. The attack was ultimately pretty devastating as several MySQL databases were deleted. The hacker then contacted me to try and get me to pay to sort out the problems that he had caused. But as they didn’t have the files they had deleted they had nothing … Read the rest
Why I’ll Not be Using Google Drive (and it’s got Nothing to do With Terms & Conditions)
So this week Google finally got round to releasing its cloud storage option, Google Drive. Within hours of them doing so the internet was ablaze with outrage over the terms and conditions and just exactly what they could or could not do with your files once they are uploaded. Many used this as the primary reason for not using the service and instead sticking with Dropbox, Box, SkyDrive etc. I have, for me, a much more compelling reason not to use Google Drive – app support.
I have just over 20gb of storage with Dropbox, all of which I have … Read the rest