I was doing a search of domain names that included “neilthompson” in them and found that neilthompson.mobi had already been registered. Nothing too surprising about that but what really surprised me was that I had registered it and it was pointing to my (this) blog! It was at this point that I probably ought to do an audit of domain names that I have registered to me and was shocked to discover that I had fifteen. True some of these are variants of the same thing but nevertheless it still seemed to be a shocking amount for an individual to … Read the rest

I have recently been trying out version 2 of Orb. I really like the idea of being able to get access to music/pictures/videos etc. held on my home PC anywhere in the world and on pretty much any device. While I ran my trial I was able to get access on other PCs, my iPod Touch, my BlackBerry and a Pocket PC. It all worked like a dream when I was away from home. However, all was not good when I was actually sat at my desk trying to use my PC. Everything seemed pretty sluggish and the root … Read the rest

Google has launched a new version of its popular mobile maps application. The most interesting feature is its ability to show your position without the need for a GPS unit. It does this by triangulating your position from the available mobile phone cells you are in. This is then presented as a flashing blue dot and a larger shaded circle to show the margin of error.

In use pressing 0 moves the map and blue dot to your current position and a message at the bottom tells you the margin of error. So far this has ranged from 500 to … Read the rest

The company that I work for, AppSwing, have today announced support for the Apple iPhone allowing access to corporate applications from the browser. This means that back office applications can be accessed on the move, something that wasn’t previously possible due to the closed nature of the device.

We have put together a micro-site with further details and a superb video put together by Magic Bullet. You can see a smaller version of the video below or visit the site at www.iphone4apps.com and register to access the demo applications on your own device.

Upgrade your Flash Player to … Read the rest

This has simply got to be the best gadget for gadget lovers. A portable battery pack that you can carry around with you to recharge your gadgets when you are away from a power supply. No longer do you have to carry a variety of chargers unnecessarily filling up your bag with unneeded items. But which to choose the Recharge4 or the Proporta USB Mobile Device Charger? Well, I have used both and this is the definitive test…

Both devices are simply a high capacity battery pack that come with a generic lead onto which you can attach a … Read the rest

Over the last few weeks I have been making more and more use of Google Docs firstly out of curiosity to see how rich an app you can build in a browser but more recently for business and home use. I would be the first to admit that compared to Microsoft Office or even OpenOffice the level of functionality is limited but Google Docs has something that the others don’t: the ability to share and collaborate on a document and this has proved invaluable. Yes, I know you can email documents from Office and turn on tracking but Google Docs … Read the rest

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am a gadget mad and like to have the latest and greatest toys to play with. So imagine how I was when I saw this device – the Asus Eee PC 701 – a 7″ laptop running a variant of Linux with 16gb of memory and “only” £200? I got myself into a right lather reading through the review in Stuff magazine. However, I have been brought somewhat back down to earth with trying to find the device at the stated price. Nowhere (in the UK) seems to have the … Read the rest

Is it just me or does everyone have problems with Outlook closing? I have started trying to put my laptop into Hibernate mode as it takes soooooo long to start-up. However, I have found that on nine out of ten tries Windows refuses to hibernate as Outlook is still running and connected to Exchange. A quick look at Task Manager shows that although there is nothing showing in the Applications tab the OUTLOOK.EXE process is still running and consuming huge amounts of memory (300mb+ on some occasions).

Sometimes if I am patient enough the memory will slowly comedown and the … Read the rest

I have been playing around with Windows Live Maps today and doing a comparison with Google Maps. On a pure mapping front there doesn’t seem to be much between them but the aerial views are much, much better on WLS. The quality of the view for our house for instance is just stunning. It was clearly taken a couple of years ago at least but the clarify is almost frightening.  It’s not as good for every area but is still pretty good. As an example of the level much seems to be at take a look at the aerial of … Read the rest

The BBC has finally released it’s iPlayer, albeit still in beta form. The iPlayer allows users in the UK to download and watch programmes from the last seven days. Officially launched yesterday but the BBC are still limiting the number of people who can download the player – I registered in the morning and receive my invitation at 10pm, not sure how many are being allowed through at any one time.

My initial reaction was how similar to was to channel 4’s 4OD and the reason for that is that they are both based on the same underlying third … Read the rest