Online EPS Viewer

December 11, 2009 | Comment

3mI love timesavers like this.

EPS files are great for high quality graphics and are essential for press ready artwork but viewing the files can be a real pain. Typically you need a high end Adobe product or a specialised viewer which I don’t want to have to install just for the odd occasion when I need to view EPS files.

Along comes 3M to the rescue with their online EPS viewer and it is just perfect. You locate and upload the file you want to view, press the button and seconds later you see it on screen. No fuss.… Read the rest

My Space? Your Space More Like

December 7, 2009 | Comment

Really interesting article in the FT yesterday about the rise and fall of MySpace drawing a (contrasting) comparison to the current web sensation Facebook.

I have to admit that while I really struggled with the point of Facebook but I have never got MySpace. Not at all. Ever. 

Potentially I can see Facebook being a real drain on peoples time (you need Responsinet to deal with that). I find the mindless games and quizzes that appear to be a waste of space and I still fail to see the business benefit but least people have stopped poking me. That said … Read the rest

Business Card Reader for iPhone

December 3, 2009 | Comment

photo (1)Like so many people I still get plenty of business cards and despite many attempts to replace them with something a little more up-to-date nothing has succeeded so far (and won’t in my opinion until there is a common standard). Actually I like business cards but entering the details from them into my contacts can be a bit of a drag.

In the past I have used a service called ScanR and, in fact, it made the services I use and recommend list a while back, however, that could be about to change with the release of Business Card Reader … Read the rest

TweetCloud

December 2, 2009 | Comment

I have covered word clouds before when I looked at the service Wordle. Another, similar, service has popped up over the last few days offering a similar service for your Tweets, tweet cloud. Having pointed it to my Twitter stream @spokenlikeageek (you are following me, right?) it produced the graphic on the left showing the most frequently used words over the last year. Oh and what a surprise! I love my iPhone!

The top six words were:

  • iphone
  • google
  • windows
  • apple
  • netbook
  • chrome

Does that scream geek to you? I would be interested to know what your top … Read the rest

2009’s Must-Have Device

November 30, 2009 | Comment

There has been a lot of talk in the press recently about Rupert Murdoch taking his news off the web and off Google in particular. Murdoch feels that content has a value and that we should be paying for that value. In a sense he is correct of course but unfortunately he is too late. If he puts News International’s content behind a paywall other free sources will still be available – the BBC for example, where I get 99% of my news from now anyway.

So it was nice to see this promotional video from the News International title … Read the rest

MacBook Pro

November 8, 2009 | 3 comments

Screen shot 2009-11-08 at 13.42.37 One thing that I particularly like about the MacBook Pro is its grunt. Even though mine is the bottom of the range model it has far more processing power than my old Windows desktop allowing me to rip DVDs in minutes rather than hours. This processing power has led me to make the MacBook my main machine, something that is possible with its excellent battery life.

I had intended to try and go completely Mac to the extent that I bought a copy of Office for Mac to ease that transition but there was one program that I found there … Read the rest

Windows 7 vs. Mac OS X Snow Leopard

November 5, 2009 | Comment

image Well to date I have upgraded two machines to Windows 7 and I have to say that the whole thing has been a pleasurable experience. Not only has it breathed new life into a couple of old machines but also I am liking the improvements that have been made. I particularly like how you can drag a window to one side of the screen and it will automatically resize to fill 50% of the screen.

However, there is been a bit of a change at Thompson Manor with the addition of the first Apple Mac machine, a MacBook Pro to … Read the rest

Installing Windows 7

October 23, 2009 | Comment

imageWell I am still on Windows XP despite having had two copies of Windows 7 for a couple of days now. The problem stems from the fact that the version of Windows 7 I want to install on my XP machine has been downloaded (legally) but I need to run it from a DVD as a fresh install. You would think that this would be no problem but the files arrive from Microsoft as an exe and a couple of box files. This are expanded out into the disk contents on your hard drive but that is useless if you … Read the rest

Isn’t this due on Thursday?

October 19, 2009 | Comment

image When I got home this evening there was a parcel awaiting for me. Much to my surprise it contained my copy of Windows 7. I had been told by the supplier (PC World) that they had been embargoed by Microsoft from delivering these before the official launch day of October 22nd. I’m not sure if this was a pre-emptive strike (every pun intended) to avoid any industrial action by the postal workers at the end of the week or just an act of kindness on the part of PC World. Either way it is gratefully accepted and expect me to … Read the rest

The Gadget Show Apps

October 15, 2009 | Comment

IMG_0670On the Gadget Show this week they had an interesting challenge. Suzy and Jason were pitted against each other to produce an application for a mobile device. The winner would be the one that got the most downloads.

After almost 30 seconds of deliberation they both chose to develop an application for the iPhone, simply because this was the most mature of all and was likely to give them the widest possible audience. And with a couple of billion downloads under its belt who can blame them for going this route?

Suzy elected to create a game while Jason wanted … Read the rest