Posts Tagged ‘gadgets’

Is this the most pointless gadget since … well, Apple TV?

I don’t understand what it is. I realise it’s a jack of all some trades but it’s a master of none from what i can tell. It just looks like a watered down keyboardless (and usb portless!) netbook. As a gadget freak i was really looking forward to the iPad coming out but i was left totally underwhelmed:

Music player? It’s nowhere near portable enough.

eBook reader? Not unless you want to burn your eyeballs out – Kindle replacement it aint.

Video player? Why not just use your cheaper netbook or your current iPod or Smartphone…?

Web surfer? Well it’s much better to have a physical keyboard which Apple must realise because they have created a physical keyboard you can dock with … which makes it more cumbersome than a netbook!?

No multitasking, no camera, only install apps from iTunes, no USB port without purchasing an add-on, not upgradable…..

Ten things netbooks do better than iPad

So again, what’s the point? What gap is it trying to fill?

Or maybe not. As a self confessed gadget freak i’m always excited about the next new toy. My Vodafone contract will be up this December and i will be due an upgrade to a new phone. At the moment i have a Blackberry Bold. Vodafone have just announced that they will be getting the iPhone 3Gs. Oo joy! Or is it?

I’ve been playing with my iPod touch, using it to try out typing because i do a lot of emailing and texting from my phone and i just don’t like the keyboard at all. It’s nowhere near as accurate as my Bold. Plus it feels flimsier, i can slide my Bold into my jeans pocket and i know it’s not going to get damaged, it’s a tough old gal. But the iPhone/touch? My Touch is already looking very scratched and rough and i have been very gentle with it.

So, for the first time in my life, i’m not going to grab the newest shiny toy for the hell of it, and i probably won’t upgrade to the latest Bold either if they really are making it smaller. For me, it’s going to take a hell of a phone to compete with BB Bold!

Well finally the office transformation is complete! Me and t’other half have matching desks now, we put down a wooden floor, got some filing cabinets, repainted the walls and i had two photographs of Eiko and Pip blown up to poster size. Oh and had a wooden blind. It’s a much nicer room now and we love being in there. Just need a couple of new office chairs and a nice new rug and we’re all set.

Whilst we were at it i’ve got us a NAS drive (networked storage) meaning we can have one big itunes library on the NAS drive which can be accessed from any pc in the house wirelessly. Can also stream videos from it, stream music to my Pure Evoke internet radio and there’s also a printer connected to it so we can wirelessly print from any pc in the house too. Fabulous. I do worry of course that one wrong move or setting will have the whole lot come tumbling down! I’m not convinced networks are the most stable of things so i’ll make sure i have a complete itunes backup on a separate drive just in case.

What i wouldn’t mind finding out is, can you run World of Warcraft on a NAS drive because it would be very handy to be able to play from any PC in the house. At the moment it’s installed on my main big laptop in the office but sometimes i’m on my smaller laptop in the bedroom and wouldn’t mind a quick game of WoW. I shall find out!

Anyway, here’s how the room is looking now (click to enlarge).

I read this funny little entry from the blog of Belle De Jour (Yes, the one that spawned the ITV2 series and novels), it’s about technology, have a look. Anyway inspired by that, here’s mine:

5 things i HATE about technology:

• Youtubers. Now i don’t mean Youtube itself because being able to upload your movies and have them seen by the world is a brilliant thing. No. I mean the stupid bastards that comment on Youtube. Allow me to demonstrate: “OMG U FUCKN SUCK DUDE!!!!111!!!!!” and “GTF OFF UTUBE TWAT!” etc, etc. Will somebody please go and happy slap those little fucktards (and upload said slap to Youtube where we can all go and comment “OMG GET OFF YOUTUBE FKN LOOZER!!!”…)
• Microshite Micro$oft. Specifically Windows Vista. Oh God. Where do i even begin? This is more shit than can ever be expressed in a bullet point but i did touch on the subject in this post. But if you’re a MS user then surely you don’t need me to tell you what an unstable, unreliable, crashing, computer-taking-overer piece of shit it is?
• People who don’t use the latest Web Browser. It doesn’t even have to be the magnificent Firefox or Opera. Even the latest IE is fine. But what really irks me when i’m trying to design a website is having to make it compatible for people still using antiquated web browsers! I no longer pander to them. My motto is, if the site doesn’t work in your browser, CHANGE YOUR FUCKING BROWSER! Seriously how can the web evolve and move on when people don’t?
• Status Updates. Or rather people who update their status updates with nothing but drivel. Sure we all make the odd update like that but i’ve seen some who do nothing but! For example: “I woke up LOL” … “I’m drinking tea LOL” … “Just had a shite LOL” … “Going to bed LOL”. Jesus fucking wept.
• Pointlessness. Or technology for technology’s sake. In other words inventing and selling useless shit and ridiculous applications. Such as USB-Powered Gyrating Hips [Your Very Own Desk-Sized Shaking Ass] or iBeer [make your iPod touch look like a glass of beer] – Why!? See www.rubegoldberg.com for examples of over-engineering.

5 things i LOVE about technology:

• Blackberry Bold! Behold the most magnificent piece of technology on earth (imo). Seriously having had one now for 7 or 8 months i don’t know how i ever lived without it. I can email (push email no less), surf the web, update facebook, flickr, twitter, myspace, my blog, take and post photo’s & videos, use it as a sat nav, play music and movies on it, it has a proper qwerty keyboard, tons of applications, brilliant calender, weather station, my fave news and blog updates sent to my phone, google maps, instant messaging …. and that’s just for starters! Oh and it makes phonecalls too – and about that, they sound clearer than any phone i’ve ever had before.
• iPod & iTunes. I know a lot of people are anti-iTunes but it’s so simple to use and isn’t that what technology is about – making things better/faster/easier? For me iTunes ticks all of those boxes. And as for the iPod, i’ll be the first to admit it’s not the best sounding mp3 player but it’s good enough and coupled with iTunes it’s pretty fooking brilliant! I’ve had a classic, nano and touch. Classic probably my favourite from nothing but a music point of view because i use my berry for everything else that the touch can do. It’s so handy being able to carry around a huge music collection with you because you don’t always know what you’ll feel like listening to, remember the old walkman cassette players? Imagine trying to carry around a several thousand song collection with one of those! I’m a big music fan and so digital music is one of the things i’m most thankful for.
• Laptop/Internet. I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing how much of my life is devoted to computers and the internet but i love it. I love how the world has become smaller, i love how you can find out pretty much anything any time you like. I love how i can chat to a pal in Australia in one window, do a weekly shop in the next, pay the bills in another, sell something on eBay in yet another …. all of this in the space of half an hour. Freeing me up to … well, spend more time on my laptop :-p Which of course i can snap shut and carry with me anywhere i like. How much cooler is life with the web? Course it has its downsides, doesn’t everything but i think the good points are far more.
• Status Updates. Hmm, didn’t i just put that in my list of hates? Well yes but social networking has its pluses. Sure you find annoying people who friend collect (want to add you to their list yet never speak to you so you have to endure their inane drivel in your updates) but the thing is folks – just delete those fuckers! On twitter i just follow people that interest me, in facebook i only keep up with people i know in real life, find interesting, old school pals or chat with a lot. Everyone else is gone. And it’s great because i get updates sent to my phone so it’s nice being able to keep up with what people are doing without having to trawl through each of their individual sites. I just get a brief overview every day so i’m always on top of who has exciting news, who is getting married, giving birth, emigrating, getting a sex change … Best thing for me was catching up with old school pals, just knowing they’re there and that they’re ticking alone fine. And of course you can switch it off whenever you want peace and quiet. Marvellous.
• Sex. Ok there i said it. Porno. Totty. Don’t tell me you weren’t thinking it too.

This is my new radio. It’s a DAB wifi radio which is great because no only can it get the high quality DAB stations but it can also pick up thousands of internet channels. I’ve hardly used the DAB radio, i’m hooked on Internet Radio! My favourite channel at the moment is 1.FM Chillout Lounge.

The other thing you can do is stream music stored on your PC to your radio wirelessly. I just tell the radio where to find my Music hard drive and i can access it all on the radio. Hoorah! You also get to join The Lounge website, here you can organise your favourite internet channels (for example i have a folder called decades and within that the 80’s channel, 70’s channel, etc etc). Then when you switch your radio on it recognises the changes you made on the website and you can now access all of your fave organised web stations on your radio. Again – Hoorah!

Ooh and it’s also an alarm clock, the snooze button is cool, it’s the handle, just give the handle a tap and it goes into snooze mode. I bought the optional rechargeable battery too so it can come out into the garden with me especially on these lovely summer days. Very very pleased with it and i highly recommend it to anyone looking for a radio with a shed load of options!

UPDATE . UPDATE . UPDATE . UPDATE . UPDATE . UPDATE

Well i’ve been playing with it for a few days now and i am really pleased with it. The sound that comes from it is out of this world. I’m mostly using it as an internet radio and for streaming music from my PC’s hard drive. I wish there was a way of it grabbing music from an external networked hard drive though so i don’t have to leave the pc on all day.

For anyone who has googled the radio and found this article – if you bought the optional battery and are having problems, it’s not faulty! I found when i switched radio off whilst unplugged from the mains with the battery in it was shutting off completely rather than going into standby, and it wouldn’t turn back on. Well actually it will turn back on, you just hold in the on/off button for a few seconds. Gawd.

I might but the optional remote control next because the menu system on the radio isn’t the easiest to navigate. It’s not as nightmarish as some have said but it takes some getting used to and a remote control would speed things up a bit. Might save a few sticky finger print marks on the piano black finish as well! Anyway, I LOVE IT!

Then try this fabulous site called www.zedge.net. It’s free (i can’t get over people pay a fortune to these rip-off subscription thingies)! and you can download to your pc or straight to your phone. They have some brilliant ringtones! There’s also wallpapers and themes for certain phone models. Alternatively you can browse their mobile site straight from your phone/iPod here @ http://m.zedge.net and download stuff straight to your device. Very cool.