29/08/2008 by Gavin.

Live Mesh

There is an update to Live Mesh available.  Mainly seems to be reliability issues but a key change is the ability to sync file sizes greater than 2Gb.  Just need that 50Gb online storage space now!

Posted in Cloud computing | Print | No Comments »

29/08/2008 by Gavin.

GottaBeMobile - Cheap Calls From Your iPhone : Tablet PC & Mobile PC News & Video Reviews, and Tablet PC Forums

Surprised to see something like this on the App store given the tethering app being removed!  Looks like it’s lso available for Symbian. Off to give it a go now.

Posted in VOIP, S60, Sony, Apple, iPhone | Print | 1 Comment »

25/08/2008 by Gavin.

GottaBeMobile - Resolve Some of Those Vista Annoyances : Tablet PC & Mobile PC News & Video Reviews, and Tablet PC Forums

Warner Crocker over at GBM posted a great link to a 5 page article on resolving issues with Vista.  I honestly believe Vista is dumped on by people purely out of habit or based on the sensationalist and inaccurate opinions they read on the Net.

Anyway, here’s my response below:

Great article!  Love how they’ve used Charlie Demerjian from the Inquirer as an example, as he typifies the type of journalist/blogger that is so anti Vista/MS that he’s no better than a typical forum troll, except he’s got a bigger platform to spout his FUD.

At the end of the day we’re only talking about software here, performing a task, and again the author has a telling phrase ‘An operating system is no ordinary piece of software - it’s the platform upon which a potentially limitless combination of hardware and software operates’.  I actually think it is remarkable that Vista works at all given the huge permutations of hardware out there, and let us not forget that the biggest issue Vista had from day one was hardware drivers, a situation which has improved greatly since launch.

I installed Vista 64 on an old 3500+ AMD system with a Gig of Ram and it had 5 exclamation marks in device manager.  Got the PC online and did a driver update on Windows Update and it found everything it needed.  Job done, and it ran rather well too!

Now, we know Vista doesn’t like low powered PCs.  I had it on an HTC Shift I owned for a while, and it certainly worked but wasn’t what you’d call snappy.  On my Core 2 Duo M700 or Quad Core desktop with 4Gb it flies, and this is what I’d call a normal spec now for a modern PC.

I too remember the wailing and gnashing of teeth when XP was released.  It needs 2 Gig of HD space!  Don’t even bother getting this if you’ve less than 128 Mb Ram!  What goes around….

Now, I quite like Vista, and OSX for that matter.  They’re both good, modern OSs (but then I’m going back to the days of TOS on the Atari ST) and so my perspective maybe different because of living through such amazing advances in computing.  I think however, the biggest challenge facing the modern OS is where to go in the future.  Even Microsoft is confused.  They would love to rent Apps to you.  Remember the introduction of the Active Desktop on Windows 98SE?  That was the first stages of the idea of being online all the time and getting information sent to you.  If this is seen through to its logical conclusion then where is the need for a full featured OS.  Why not have the stripped down linux OS of an Eee, or a ‘dumb terminal’ approach where everything is spooled off a server.

Things are about to get very interesting I feel!

Posted in Vista, Microsoft | Print | No Comments »

25/08/2008 by Gavin.

The Register has a review of the Advent 4211 AKA MSI Wind.  They seemed to quite like it and have some inevitible comparisons to the Asus Eee 1000.

Advent 4211 mini notebook | Register Hardware

Posted in Eee and Clones | Print | No Comments »

21/08/2008 by Gavin.

I’ve been having some fun with a free bit of software from Instamapper.  I’ve been using it with the iPhone but it also has versions for Symbian, Blackberry and Windows Mobile.

Effectively it tracks your phone as you drive/walk/cycle along a route and uploads your location at set intervals to the website for later viewing.  Here’s my route to work this morning:

Only downsides really are the battery life hit (Instamapper say 5 hours on iPhone) plus it can’t run in the background on the iPhone until/if Apple change the SDK.  Other devices don’t have this problem.

Posted in GPS, Blackberry, S60, Windows Mobile, Phones | Print | No Comments »

18/08/2008 by Gavin.

GottaBeMobile - Throw Away Technology : Tablet PC & Mobile PC News & Video Reviews, and Tablet PC Forums

A thought provoking post over at GBM!

Here’s my comment:

Good article Matthew.

I work in the Environmental sector and am acutely aware of how my love of gadgets (and cars!) can be at odds with my profession.

In Europe we have the ‘WEEE’ regs, http://www.netregs.gov.uk/netregs/275207/1631119/?version=1〈=_e,  which will hopefully go some way to reducing the amount of electronic waste that finds its way into the Environment, and I am a strong believer that it is manufacturers who must take more responsibility for the ultimate disposal of their products, be it TVs, computers or phones.  And that doesn’t mean farming off disposal to the cheapest bidder who ships it to a developing country to contaminate THEIR environment.

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/press/reports/recycling-of-electronic-waste

I was also reading an interesting article earlier about recyling of mobile phone screens in Japan http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/08/15/mobiles-recycled-palm-sized
So it’s not all necessarily about having enforced legislation, the market can develop workable solutions too.  There are also a number of ‘freecycle’ groups here in the UK where you can get rid of items to those who need it.  You’d maybe struggle to sell an old printer but someone is likely to take it for free.

Remember however, that all this tech will eventually have a real end of life.  Even by donating and giving stuff away, we’re only postponing by a few years the inevitable.  If you’ve an old 386 PC in the garage, nobody is going to take that off you!  Therefore it’s important that there are genuine, easily accessible disposal routes for this stuff.  Where I live our recycling center has an area for PCs and other electronic waste.  I’ve recently asked our local Council for information on where they then dispose of this waste under the UK freedom of information act and await a response.

Posted in Environment, Gadgets, General | Print | 2 Comments »

15/08/2008 by Gavin.

Palm lets slip Treo Pro piccies | Register Hardware

Palm briefly leaked details of their upcoming Treo Pro handset on their website.  more details over on The Register.

Palm was once synonymous with personal organisors, with many people still referring to any such device as a ‘palm pilot’.  I can’t see this making many ripples, being as it is a fairly standard spec (wifi, BT, GPS, 320×480 display) handset with an unmodified Windows Mobile 6.1 rom.  I guess the Palm name may still carry some weight with people in business but apart from that there’s nothing to get excited about here.

Posted in Palm, Phones | Print | No Comments »

14/08/2008 by Gavin.

Live Mesh : The potential of Live Mesh is limitless…

I’ve been using Microsoft’s Live Mesh for over 2 months now and I love it.  I have three PCs I use to work on.  My home desktop, my Toshiba M700 tablet PC, and my small and light Fujitsu P1610.  Previously to sync all my documents I used an SD card and Synctoy.

This meant remembering to run Synctoy and I was always paranoid of syncing an older file.  Live mesh means my documents are all kept in Sync ‘in the cloud’, my devices are always up to date without having to remember which machine has the  SD card.

Another great bonus is I can access documents from any Web Browser, and yes, that means document access from the iPhone and Windows Mobile.  Access to all your docs from anywhere, all backed up online.  Lovely!

Very excited watching Live Mesh develop further.

Posted in Cloud computing, Live | Print | 1 Comment »

14/08/2008 by Gavin.

GottaBeMobile - Apple and AT&T Need To Come Clean on 3G Issues : Tablet PC & Mobile PC News & Video Reviews, and Tablet PC Forums

My response:
Have you got your iPhone 3G yet Warner? If so, given the reported issues will you still be getting one or holding off?

I certainly don’t regret mine, albeit I’ve held onto my N95 for certain trips/situations where I wouldn’t take the iPhone. 3G has been pretty good on it although I panicked yesterday when there was no data connection. I thought it was my upgrade to 2.01 the previous night but turns out it was the O2 data network down in Central Scotland.

Posted in Uncategorized | Print | 1 Comment »

14/08/2008 by Gavin.

Fake MSNBC news alerts push spam - The INQUIRER

I’ve been getting a load of these, fortunately filtered into my junk email.  I can see these catching out the less tech savvy.  PITA!

Payload seems to be trojan injection via visiting the links.

Posted in Spam, email | Print | No Comments »