During the storms in January the aerial got blown off our roof leaving us without any telly for, as it turned out, a month. This allowed us to to try out the iptv service from Channel 4 called 4OD. This allows you to download programmes from it’s catalogue and watch them on your PC. During the month we watched probably eight downloads, all of which costs us 99p a go.

My verdict? Well it still has some way to go yet. For a start the software was pretty flaky regularly crashing when searching for programmes and, on one occasion, … Read the rest

Multiple remote controls are the bane of any gadget lovers life. In our house we have the usual remotes for the TV and DVD along with others for the TiVo and Freeview boxes. It was all getting too much for us trying to keep them in one place and find them when you needed them. So I took a look for an all-in-one remote that would not only deal with all the devices we had but any we might get in the future. It was while surfing the net for something suitable that I came across this beauty:

The Logitech … Read the rest

Spotted on the FAQ to the fabulous program anagram was this answer to the question “Why isn’t there a Macintosh version of anagram?”

The quite brilliant response was “Our overworked developers are kept in cages at night and fed gruel. Morale is low and we’re having trouble convincing them to take on the project.”

Enough said!… Read the rest

I’ve been running the IE7 beta on both my work and home PCs for quite a while now with no problems. So when my home PC offered to download and install the release version I was happy to allow it to do so. What a mistake that proved to be.

One of the very first things that I did was to listen to a programme on Radio 4 using the Listen Again feature. This brings up a pop-up screen from which you can adjust the volume, change the programme etc. This was all fine until I closed the pop-up window. … Read the rest

I am a big fan of Skype and have been using it more and more recently both for my contacts with family and friends but increasingly also for work. I have invested in a decent USB phone – one that actually looks like a phone rather than a plastic mobile with a USB cable on the bottom, and have been making business calls to clients both in the UK and abroad. To a small business such as AppSwing even the relatively small savings made by switching to Skype can make a very positive difference to the cashflow.

I was therefore … Read the rest

I’ve had some problems recently with diary entries in Outlook appearing one hour later than I thought I had created them. This caused much head scratching until I came across the following on the Microsoft support web site: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=910268.

It seems that Exchange has been hard coded to believe that there are only four weeks in the month of October and that the clocks go back one hour on the fourth Sunday of the month. Problem is that this year there are FIVE weeks in the month and this leads to the time being set incorrectly.

So what does … Read the rest

I’m told that if I include this link (Technorati Profile) in a post and “release the spiders” I am able to claim my blog on Technorati, so here goes…… Read the rest

You will no doubt have noticed the lack of website over the last couple of weeks. This was caused, initially, by my site being hacked (again). Normally it would have been a matter of ripping down the rogue code and plugging the gaps. However, this time my ISP (Easily) blocked the site and refused to give me access to make changes. Worse than that they were completely unresponsive when I requested assistance. There followed something of a Mexican standoff with Easily suggesting I move onto their one hundred pounds a month dedicated server solution and me telling them to get … Read the rest

At AppSwing we had an idea for an information and education website based around mobile applications, devices and peripherals. This required a new website design as we didn’t want it to look like the existing corporate site. While we have a very good designer that we use for the majority of our design requirements I was looking for a more cost effective way of achieving this.

During a previous net surfing session I had come across Template Kingdom who, as the name suggests, provide website templates. The twist here is that the designers are based in India and the price … Read the rest

I have long been frustrated by the Search capabilities of Windows XP. In particular I hate the multitude of hidden options, that stupid dog, so reminiscent of the hated paper clip, and most of all it’s seeming inability to search for something I know exists. The latter problem is exacerbated when trying to find text within a file. I have resorted in the past to opening each file by hand to find something that I know exists but Windows Search tells me is not there.
Today I decided enough was enough and did a search on a proper search engine … Read the rest