So, yes, I know that the web has been full of this over the last few weeks (with only a minor diversion for the next iPhone) and I am late to the game but I only got my first opportunity to get my hands on an iPad today. To be fair there aren’t that many of them in the UK at present. So here it is – my thoughts and pictures of my next gadget.
On seeing it it really does look like an overgrown iPhone. The two are almost identical in design and anyone that has an iPhone … Read the rest
Since getting my mifi device last October it has become an indispensible device going everywhere with me. It also recently kept my son connected on a three hour car journey, so is worth the small amount I paid for it for that alone.
But one of the things that has always puzzled me about it is the software that is supplied and the relative lack of options available with it. Actually, I guess I am not that puzzled. Three are taking the sensible approach that in order to keep down the number of support calls the device should be as … Read the rest
So I have joined the ranks of people that are ebook readers only in my case not Amazon’s Kindle but Sony’s Pocket Reader – you can see it in the picture on the left on the top of the pile showing MacBook, Netbook, eBook (can you see what I have done there?).
Anyway rather than give yet another review of the device (which I love) I thought that I would put down some of the things that I have discovered since getting the device at then end of last year. Some of these will be obvious, others not so, I … Read the rest
My advice is never give a live demonstration if you can possibly help it and never, never, never claim a property that the product doesn’t actually possess. Advice that Sonim would have done well to have heeded before handing over their “unbreakable” mobile phone to a reporter from the BBC.
The reporter, Dan Simmons, looked pretty embarrassed about having smashed the screen of the device and Somin’s CEO laughed about it and everyone is blogging about it but “unbreakable” it obviously isn’t.
You can see the video of destruction here.… Read the rest
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
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
Getting pictures off an iPhone can be a bind, particularly if you don’t have a sync cable to hand. The most reliable way is to email yourself the pictures but if you do this directly from the Photo app it reduces the size of your pictures. The only way round this is to cut and paste the image from Photos to the email which preserves the quality.
However, now there is another way with WifiPhoto which, as the name suggests, allows you to get access to your photos over a wifi connection.
The app is very simple to use. You … Read the rest
For a number of years now I have been using mobile broadband with my laptop using a usb dongle. I have taken service from mobile provider 3 and it has been a pretty reliable and cost effective way of getting web access when I have been out and about. My current contract gives me 1gb of data for only £5 per month.
When I got back from holiday recently I noticed that 3 had released their “mifi” device. This is a small unit that allows you to share your mobile broadband connection with a number of local users over wifi. … Read the rest
I decided this week that I would make the only simple upgrade to my netbook and double the memory it has in it from 1gb to 2gb. For this I bought a stick of memory from the ever reliable Crucial for £12.64 delivered. It arrived within a couple of days of ordering and took less than 10 minutes to install (full instructions can be found here).
You can see in the picture on the left the memory in place between the fan and the hard drive. Since then I haven’t had much of an opportunity to have a … Read the rest
I attended an event today, hosted by the Thames Valley Innovation and Growth team, on developing iPhone applications. A couple of Apple employees were on hand to walk us through the process and answer any questions.
When I have attended these sort of events in the past I have tended to take notes in my notebook in the form of a mind map. I thought that this time I would try doing the same on my iPhone using the SimpleMind application.
SimpleMind is a mind mapping application that comes in two versions, free and paid. The only difference between the … Read the rest