27/09/2008 by Gavin.

Sorry for poor quality, done in a rush as I needed to use it the same day!  Will post more impressions soon.

Posted in Camcorders, Highdef, Video | Print | 1 Comment »

25/09/2008 by Gavin.

ASUS Eee PC 701 Surf Special UK Email Offer Description - eXpansys UK

Expansys are offering

Asus Eees for £125 delivered, but you need to be quick as the offer is only between 11am and 4pm tomorrow!

Posted in Eee and Clones | Print | No Comments »

25/09/2008 by Gavin.

Dell confirms 12in netbook? MID? Tablet? | Register Hardware

Looks like Dell is confirming a 12″ Atom powered version of the Mini 9.  Will it be touchscreen, a tablet?  They’re not giving too much away but let’s see and more info as I find it.

Posted in Netbooks, Dell, Tablet PCs | Print | No Comments »

24/09/2008 by Gavin.

BBC Internet Blog

Only on WiFi apparently and not streaming, i.e. you must download fully on WiFi before listening.

Hmm, OK, good to see but a slightly odd approach.  Possibly an agreement with O2 to minimise any impact on 3G data.

Posted in BBC, streaming, Apple, iPhone | Print | 1 Comment »

23/09/2008 by Gavin.

As per the site link on my earlier post the G1 has launched.  Here’s my scribbled notes.  It looks very nice I must say, and Google, T-Mobile and HTC are really pushing the ‘Open’ message, directly fired at Apple I’m sure!

T-Mobile

Exclusive partnership
Pioneering
Open up mobile internet
Move away from closed gardens
Dominant trend is mobile internet
Net traffic grown 250%, revenue 43%
Commitment to open industry platforms

Google, Andy Rubin

Founded on the internet
Collaboration, openess, bringing this to the mob phone
It is a platform and modifiable platform
Futureproof as openness built in.

Peter Chow, HTC

Congratulations and back patting
Android open handset alliance.
Googles drive for innovation
Unique applications, content that will be usable and enjoyable by people.
HTC worked closely to develop an iconic design unlike anything else in the market.
Impressive touch experience, and good keyboard.
Android is flexible and powerful.

T-Mobile

Lacking compelling applications and devices
Americans overconsume everything, we love them.
Only 16% consumers use mobile net
Mobile internet not compelling.
Open systems and standards, plus third parties to drive forward new devices and services on this platform.

Tada!  No more fuzzy pictures, unsubstantiated blog posts - 11  minutes in.

Swipe across
Long press to access features
Drag and drop applications
Music from Amazon store
Related material links
Multitasking
IM
Link to maps from contacts
Directions and traffic view/streetview
Email links from browser
Android market
Pacman!

T-mobile

3rd part devs
Openness will drive mobile internet
Change will happen as needs and tech changes, Android will adapt.
From garages to grad schools to small towns to big cities, change will come from 3rd parties.

$179 available today to some customers, full availabilty October.

$25 and $35 for ‘unlimited’ data.

Europe launch - UK, early November, rest of Europe first quarter 2009.

Q&A

No tethering (surely openness will solve this!)

Support for Office, PDF, no exchange compatibility but 3rd part can develop.

Simlocked

No syncing with desktop - all done in the cloud

Available beyond 3g markets - wifi included.

iPhone referenced as ‘the device you mentioned’ hehe

No a2dp yet on bluetooth

Browser is webkit, think of it as Chrome Lite

Phone will have mass appeal

Robust Gmail experience, Gmail front end can access other services.

Supports varied music codecs

Skype not supported at present

Device is Quad Band on GSM

Google Founders - Larry Page and Sergey Brin

Larry - Get ‘geek’ pleasure from tinkering, has written an app, throwing phone in air and measuring time to catch!

Sergey - Has enjoyed using phone, email etc.  A lot of fun.  Very excited at possibilities.  G1 is as good a computer as any from a few years ago.  Ability to search with computer like functionality on a phone.  Excited at Location based services.

And that was that…

Want one? 

Posted in HTC, Google, Android, Phones | Print | 1 Comment »

23/09/2008 by Gavin.

It’s not like the US to be getting cool phones before the UK but here’s the website for the T-Mobile G1, aka Google Android.

http://announcement.t-mobileg1.com/#

Posted in Google, Android, Phones | Print | 1 Comment »

22/09/2008 by Gavin.

iRex intros the 1000, 1000S, and 1000SW e-readers to a symphony of yawns - Engadget

I love reading on electronic devices for the convenience and pick up and put down nature of the reading I do.  I have enjoyed ebooks on devices from the Casio E105 up to my iPhone and HTC Advantage.  Now, there are compromises of course, screen size, differing ebook standards etc.

Now, what if you produce a device with very few compromises.  You might come up with this:

The units other specs are 10.2 inch screen, 16-color grayscale  with 1024×1280 resolution, an SD card slot with a 1gb card included and the unit is 570 grams and 1.2 centimeters thick.  Formats supported are unsecured Adobe PDF, TXT, HTML, Mobipocket’s DRM PRC files and JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIFF and BMP images plus “additional formats supported in the future.”

One interesting feature is that it sems to come with a print driver allowing you to ‘print’ to the device which on the face of it will allow you to print all your ebooks/docs to the device for taking with you on the go.

So, few compromises then……apart from the price -  The base 10.2-inch unit is $649 while adding a Wacom digitizer for notes and annotations adds another $100.  WiFi and Bluetooth pushes the price to $849.  Mind you, I can see some markets, legal perhaps,or medical, or indeed anyone who needs access to a large amount of documents (students with well off parents)!

Posted in ereaders, ebooks | Print | No Comments »

20/09/2008 by Gavin.

The Dell Netbook has a terrific dual display capability, either clone display or the more productive dual desktop.  As you can see from the pics below it has no problems driving my Dell 24″ Monitor at its native 1920×1200 resolution.  I’m really liking this device, although my partner Lisa has taken it for herself!

Posted in Netbooks, Dell, Eee and Clones | Print | 3 Comments »

19/09/2008 by Gavin.

So, you’re meandering down a lovely waterway on your barge when you realise you didn’t file that urgent report, what do you do?  A situation we’ve all found ourselves in!

Well, panic over if your canals of choice are in Scotland as, believe it or not, wifi goodness can be yours, for the usual BT Openzone fee.

BT: Speedy Wireless Surfing Now Open On The Scottish Canals

The Pic is the Union Canal in Linlithgow, near where I live.

Posted in BT, wireless | Print | No Comments »

18/09/2008 by Gavin.

I need some help.  I’m going to be expanding this blog over the coming months and to meet my needs would like to install the full version of Wordpress on my 1and1 hosted server.

Now, I found a great guide here BUT I would like to keep my existing content, comments etc. which because of the way 1and1 hosts their stripped down version of Wordpress, doesn’t look like it would be easy.

Does anyone have any ideas?  I’d happily pay reasonable expenses  for someones time on this one.

Posted in Uncategorized | Print | 1 Comment »