The One Thing I Want From iOS 6

June 9, 2012 | 2 comments

So Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference begins on Monday and as ever the blogsphere is all aglow with just exactly what will be announced. So far this seems to include a refresh of every MacBook and iMac model, iOS 6 and, of course, the long awaited TV which just has to be called iTV. Most of that leaves me cold for now but given I have both an iPhone and an iPad any improvements that are made to the operating system are going to have a pretty direct impact on me.

Lots of other blogs have been drawing up long … Read the rest

iLapse iPhoneography

June 7, 2012 | Comment

Occasionally I stumble upon an interesting iPhone app that I think is worthy of keeping. Today, as part of AppAdvice‘s daily Apps Gone Free feature, an app called iLapse caught my eye. This, as the name suggests, allows you to record time lapse videos on your iPhone. The options are pretty simple, choose how often you want an image to be captured from half a second to every 20 seconds and the output frame rate. Stick your iPhone on a tripod and, if you are going to be recoding for any length of time, put it on charge too … Read the rest

I’m all of a Quiver

June 6, 2012 | Comment

I have mentioned a few times before my love of Moleskine notebooks and even though for the most part I have gone paperless with a combination of my iPad and Evernote I still cannot do without my Moleskine notebooks.

However, that’s not to say that they are perfect. For example I might want to be able to keep a pen with the notebook, a not unreasonable request. In the past I used a bit of tape stuck to the inside back cover with a loop to hold a pen but that was a pain to move between notebooks and didn’t … Read the rest

What I Don’t “Like” About Facebook Marketing

June 2, 2012 | Comment

It seems quite popular at present for companies to ask me to “Like” their page on Facebook. In some cases you are asked to do this in order to receive something, maybe an entry to a competition or perhaps a free download. Sometimes I will purchase an item and when the order confirmation email arrives it will have a line asking me to “like” the company or product. Either way this makes me pretty uneasy.

I have no issue with exchanging my details in return for something but what I don’t want is to have some sort of implied endorsement … Read the rest

Why Does my iPad Still Make Notification Sounds When the Volume is Down?

May 31, 2012 | Comment

One of the things that has really niggled me about my iPad is that it continues to be bloody noisy even if you have the volume turned right down. While any music is silenced notification noises, bleeps and bings continue to come through at full volume – not good when you are trying to sleep.

It seems that because, as daft as it seems, notification noises are not controlled by the volume control. Notifications are either off or on.

All is not lost though as there are two ways (at least) of turning off notification noises – the first is … Read the rest

Yum! Raspberry Pi!

May 28, 2012 | Comment

Over the weekend my Raspberry Pi arrived and there was much excitement in the Thompson household.

For the uninitiated a Raspberry Pi is a cheap (c. $25) computer designed for schools and hobbyists that is about the size of a credit card. It comes as a bare board with all it needs around the edges, so there is a couple of USB ports, an SD card reader, power input, HDMI output, ethernet etc.

The fact that it is a bare board could be a little daunting given that over the years you kind of get conditioned that PCs are delicate … Read the rest

The Gomite Tiltpod for iPhone

May 22, 2012 | Comment

I’m a big fan of Kickstarter (although my credit card is less keen!) and this little beauty is the second item that I got through the crowd funding site. This is the Tiltpod from Gomite a small, portable tripod. The picture left shows it with the iPhone 4/4S adaptor but it is also available for “normal” cameras.

The great thing about the Tiltpod is its size, it really is small enough to slip in your pocket or clip onto a keychain meaning that there is no excuse for not having it with you when you really need it. The Tiltpod … Read the rest

Cregle iPen for iPad Review

May 14, 2012 | 1 comment

A while back I posted a brief note about the Cregle iPen, a result of my first foray into Kickstarter. At that point I hadn’t had much chance to try out the pen and said I would come back and do a proper review at a later date and this is it.

I was attracted to the idea of a pen for my iPad in order to be able to take notes in meetings and have a permanent electronic record, rather than to bring out any artistic side in me. So this review is very much biased to the … Read the rest

Pebble Watch for iPhone Passes $10M on Kickstarter

May 10, 2012 | 1 comment

Already the most funded project ever on Kickstarter the Pebble Watch for iPhone and Android has now passed the $10 million mark – 100 times the amount it was aiming to raise. Kickstarter is a great platform and I have backed a number of projects on it and will continue to look out for innovative things I can be an early part of.

Looking forward to receiving my watch too – glad I got my backing in early!… Read the rest

Hack Attack!

May 1, 2012 | 1 comment

You may have noticed that the site was off line for a period of about a week early last month which was the result of an attack by hackers. I have no idea why they would be interested in my site in particular other than it was there and it represented a small challenge. The attack was ultimately pretty devastating as several MySQL databases were deleted. The hacker then contacted me to try and get me to pay to sort out the problems that he had caused. But as they didn’t have the files they had deleted they had nothing … Read the rest