Moving to Windows 7

October 4, 2009 | Comment

So I have slowly been getting my PC ready for the arrival of Windows 7.

I have had my existing machine for about four years now and it is beginning to show its age with it being slow to start and, at times, sluggish in operation. The underlying architecture of the machine is still fine (P4 3.4 GHz & 2GB Ram) and particularly when considering how my computing requirements have changed over the last four years. All of this has led me to believe a fresh install of Windows is going to give the machine a new lease of life … Read the rest

Datz All Folks

September 28, 2009 | Comment

Well, I can’t pretend that I am surprised – Datz have finally gone bust according to a story on MusicWeek. Having written about the problems with the service on a number of occasions (here and here) it seemed inevitable. Given that so many other companies have struggled with paying the fees to the music labels Datz were always going to struggle with their model – particularly as they couldn’t make deals with all the major labels meaning that there was only a limited catalogue available.

I have to say that the writing has been on the wall … Read the rest

Panoramic Pictures with Pano and iPhone

September 27, 2009 | Comment

Just got back from a long holiday, hence the lack of posts. However, while I was away I was able to road test a number of pieces of tech which I will be posting on over the next few days.

First up is Pano for iPhone which, as the name suggests, allows you to take panoramic pictures with your iPhone. As you can see from the shots below (Hong Kong, Cairns, Australia and Apollo Bay, Australia respectively) it produces some pretty impressive results.

Pano is simple to use and helpfully guides you through the process by showing a shadow of … Read the rest

Extracting Text from a Image

September 1, 2009 | 1 comment

On numerous occasions I have had a need to extract text from an image and have never found a way to be able to do so. Typically I want to get the text of an error message and while, sometimes, ctrl+c will copy the text to the clipboard, mostly it won’t.

I stumbled upon a neat solution the other day using a little know (to me) tool that comes as part of Microsoft Office. Microsoft Office Document Imaging is a tool to bring the paper and electronic worlds together by managing the scanning of documents. It also has another trick … Read the rest

Datz Not Good

August 16, 2009 | Comment

It’s been a while since I have written about Datz, the all you can eat music service. The last time I posted, back in May, it was to give a review based on my early findings looking for favourite music of family and friends. I found it to be hit and miss. I also bemoaned the clunky interface which was difficult and time consuming to use.

After reading the post Datz contacted me to say that a number of my points would be addressed “within the month or so”. That would have been sometime in June and it is … Read the rest

Getting Software onto your Netbook

August 7, 2009 | Comment

A friend of mine recently bought a netbook and was wondering how he could install software onto it that he had on CD.

There are a number of ways to achieve this: buy an external usb-CD/DVD drive to plug in, share the disk out from another machine and access across a network or create an image of the disk and transfer this to the netbook.

The former is probably the simplest solution but requires an additional outlay which, quite frankly, is probably not justifiable for the small number of times that you are going to have to do it. It … Read the rest

Services I use and Recommend

July 9, 2009 | 1 comment

In a previous post I talked about the freemium model and how it has affected my attitude to software purchases. I wanted to go through the services that I use regularly and pay for and highlight them.

This is obviously just a personal selection. Over the years I have tried out numerous applications that rival the one that finally made this list. In the end it is just personal preference as much as anything else. You may prefer something else but these are the ones that made me put my hand in my pocket and purchase a subscription

So in … Read the rest

Paid Apps and the Freemium model

July 1, 2009 | 2 comments

Over the years I have tended to avoid paying for applications because the up-front cost was prohibitive. So I either went without, used an older version that may have been given away with a magazine, or found an open source equivalent. However, I am now finding myself committing to a number of applications because of the small up-front cost and, quite often, after a period of using the service for free – the so call freemium model. The question is whether that is good value for money.

The applications below are all ones that I use on a regular basis, … Read the rest

Netbook as a eReader

June 2, 2009 | Comment

Always on the lookout for ways to extract the most from my Netbook and having eyed up the Sony’s eReader in Waterstones I thought I would see whether the former could act as the latter.

eBooks are all the rage at the moment, particularly in the states where Amazon’s Kindle seems to be doing a roaring trade. I have to say that I am not a particularly big reader and so to have the ability to carry and number of books around and dip in and out what the mood takes me appeals to me. Also I carry my netbook … Read the rest

Datz Music Lounge

May 2, 2009 | 4 comments

At the Gadget Show Live recently was a company called Datz who were offering unlimited music download for only £75 per year – discounted from £99 for the show. I love music and am a regular downloader and so this sounded like a great deal – it would pay for itself in less than 100 downloads at iTunes prices. It sounded like a deal that was too good to be true and so it turned out.

The way that the system works is that you are provided with a USB “dongle” and music can only be downloaded when this is … Read the rest