Saturday, January 05, 2008
Merry thingie and happy new whatever :DIt's been a while since I've blogged, mainly coz I just can't be bothered.
I used to blog on a daily basis, as back then, it was the easiest way to talk about whatever was on my mind. These days though, having obtained one of those elusive "life" things, I find I've pretty much said everything I feel like waffling about, in the real world, so blogging has become fairly redundant.
But anyway...
Christmas was cool. I cooked for Andrea, her son, mother, and myself, and no-one died, which qualifies it as a successful meal.
Among my many pressies were a new bike, a new mobile phone, and a radio controlled Dalek.
Much fun.
Now bikes and Daleks are pretty much self explanatory, but the phone is a funky thing which deserves a little more mention here.
It's a Samsung E380... a mid-price phone even when it was first on sale, but compared to my old phone, and ignoring my MDA Pro, which is more of a palmtop computer anyway, I can't help being impressed with what it does.
All the usual features are present, games, mp3, camera, WAP etc, but today I added something to it which brings it up to a whole different level.
The Opera Mini browser works on pretty much any mobile, is completely free, and releases you from the confines of the crappy WAP protocol, allowing you to surf the real internet.
It has a very clever method of getting around the dificulties of fitting large pages onto a tiny screen, and though I can't be bothered to go into the details of how that works, I have to say, if you have a gsm, gprs, 3G or whatever enabled phone, but are restricted to WAP with your standard browser, you really should try it.
Just point your WAP browser at http://mini.opera.com and click to download.
Labels: phones
Steve 12:28 AM [+] (0) comments
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Testing 'Pocket Blogger' on my MDA Pro.The trial version of Opera I used to blog on this thing expired, and I figured rather than go right ahead and pay for the full commercial version, I'd give this free blogging program a try... especially since The built in version of IE works fine for most other sites I may want to use while on holiday.
So here goes....
Testing, testing....
Labels: gadgets, MDA Pro, phones
Steve 1:40 PM [+] (0) comments
Saturday, May 13, 2006
Following up from yesterday's post, I've found a really cool piece of software for my MDA.I haven't tried it yet, but if it works, it would enable a potentially very interesting/popular feature on my new website.
What is it?
Mobile webcam!
Eh?
You've seen my home webcam. Imagine something similar, but outside... wherever I happen to be. How cool would that be?
More details as and when I've tested it.
Labels: gadgets, MDA Pro, phones
Steve 3:37 PM [+] (0) comments
I have a new toy... probably the ultimate toy for your everyday gadget freak.
The T-Mobile MDA Pro... this thing is a 3G videophone, a camera, a sat-nav unit, a movie and music player, and an entire internet connected pc in your pocket. It's actually easier to list what it doesn't do than what it does.
So it doesn't make toast or do the laundry, but it's got pretty much everything else covered.
I bought it for 3 main purposes, largely related to the frequent siteseeing trips and short holidays Andrea and I are going on lately.
The Sat-nav will get us there without getting lost, and then I can blog our visits and journeys, including photos, while we're still there, instead of having to wait till we get home.
I also wanted to be able to go into irc chat from wherever I feel like... such as in the middle of a field out in god knows where. So when I get my new chatroom set up, you may find yourself chatting to me while I'm sitting at the top of a hill out in the peak district... assuming I can get a signal.
The only faults I can find with it are the backlight, which has an annoying habit of not turning on when you power up, so you have to go into settings... and the browser. Pocket Internet Explorer may look nice, but it has no java script support, which makes it impossible to use blogger. Duh!
Obviously I found a way around this. I installed Opera.
I could go on all day about this thing but bleh. Just go out and buy one. Your internet usage will never be the same again.
Labels: gadgets, MDA Pro, phones, photos
Steve 11:41 AM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, December 12, 2004
So...er...
Finished Half Life 2. Some bits I didn't like, some bits I absolutely loved. Overall... good game, and worth every penny.
This phone continues to impress. It's still only on it's second charge. 7 days on standbye and two short calls, and its still 3/4 charged. How cool is that?
Anything else to report?
er...
umm...
I guess that's a no.
Stay tuned for our next exciting episode, blah blah blah....
Steve 6:08 AM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, December 05, 2004
I have to say, I'm seriously impressed with the battery life of this new mobile phone.They quote a maximum life of 400 hours, which I take with a pinch of salt, and also say that it has to be charged and run flat several times before it it gives its maximum life.
So... it's still holding a quarter of it's first charge after almost 5 days on standbye, including one hour of talktime. Now that's no-where near the theoretical 16 days maximum, but hell... I'll take it.
In other news... if you can call it that... I've been playing Half Life 2. As one of the 'big three' first person shootemups released this year, and considering I was so impressed with Farcry, I figured I'd give it a look.
Tricky one this. I dont think the graphics are quite as pleasing as Farcry... not quite sure why... maybe it's the lack of jungle. I find some of the settings to be a bit restrictive. Gameplay-wise, tricky again. There's more puzzle solving involved which doesn't really float my boat, but there's also a more thought provoking use of weaponry.... more specifically, the gravity gun really makes you consider new possibilities in methods of killing zombies.
There's certainly a lot of variety in terms of settings and situations, and the characterisation of the people you encounter is very impressive... especially 'Dog'. This bloody great big attack robot that behaves like a labrador puppy.... cute.
Is it a good game? Absolutetly. Should you buy it? If you have a meaty enough computer and like first person shooters... most definitely. Is it as good as Farcry? Tricky.... from my perspective, I'm not enjoying it as much, but from a design point of view, it has more depth. I guess the definitive answer would be 'maybe'.
Steve 2:22 PM [+] (0) comments
Tuesday, November 30, 2004
Bleh! Mobile Phones.I picked up a new one today, just coz the battery life on my old one is now so low as to be next to useless.
So this new one has a battery life of around 400 hours (nice). Thing is, even though this is one of the most basic phones out there (Sendo S360), the manual reads like War And Peace... just menu after menu after menu. No doubt I won't use a fraction of these functions, but I do feel I should know how to use all the features, just so I know how to fix it if I mess it all up.
It''s still charging at the mo (12 hours for the first charge) so I haven't had the chance to tinker with it yet. Should be interesting.
Steve 5:53 PM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, November 24, 2004
Yesterday turned out to be quite interesting.I went into town, just to pay in a cheque and do a spot of window shopping. So I was stood in the 02 shop and after chatting with a sales assistant for a bit decided bugger it... I'd buy an XDAII. All was fine right up till the point she needed proof of signature. They don't accept the card I use, and I didn't have any of the other things they'd have accepted. Talk about stupid. For the sake of some dumb beurocratic red tape, I couldn't buy my widget, 02 lost out on a regular income from the data tarrif, and the shop lost out on the sale of a not altogether cheap piece of kit. Idiots.
In a rather poor mood, I wandered off to a games shop and picked up a copy of Half Life 2. (Bitch to install, but it looks great. Haven't spent much time on it yet.)
Anyway... that would've been it, but I figured I'd do my usual lap of the shopping centre before going home, and in doing so I walked past...er... into a gadget shop.
Oops.
For the past couple of weeks I've been looking at this Rio 5gig MP3 player... and walked away every single time. So I was stood in the gadget shop and looking over the MP3 players in there... some that I'd not seen before elsewhere... when this sales assistant who really knew his stuff approached me and proceeded to explain in great deal the finer points of various of the MP3 players. Now this was very refreshing, coz in Dixons, you're lucky if the assistants even know their own name, much less any technical details about the stuff they're trying to sell (though it actually seems they aren't trying to sell anything at all, they're that disinterested in serving the customers).
Anyway... after about 15 mins of listening to the guy, being given demos of each one, I looked at the guy, chuckled and said "Right... I need to go to the bank. I'll be back in 5 mins."
5 mins later I was £200 poorer and in possession of a very nice Creative Zen Touch 20gig MP3 player. I struggle getting my head around the fact that this tiny little thing has the same storage capacity as my laptop, but there it is.
So most of last night and this morning has been spent transferring most of my MP3 collection onto the thing, and then working my way through ripping much of my CD collection. It's heavy going and my eyes are killing me now... but boy is it worth it. Nearly 2 gigs, and 426 tunes done so far. The idea of having *all* my fave tunes to hand wherever I go is very appealing.
Labels: annoyed, gadgets, games, music, phones
Steve 11:48 AM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, July 14, 2004
Well it's about bloody time.Tripod's been screwing around, so my blog's been down for at least a couple of days.
Mind you, now it's back up again, I don't think I have a single thing to blog about.
I've rather woken up like a bear with a sore head today. Too much sleep, lousy weather and no milk for my coffee... so I'm feeling kinda grumpy right now.
There's this 'widget' I keep looking at it town called an XDA II, basically a cross between a PDA and a mobile phone.
Now I have absolutely no use for a PDA and not much more for a mobile phone either... but both together in one self contained package... it makes the PocketIRC software I saw online a few days ago look very appealing.
I know, I know... what possible reason is there to want to sit in a field and chat on irc? It's the absolute ultimate in geekiness, but... I love the idea.
It can wait though, for now. There's other more worthy things to spend my money on in the pipeline.
Steve 10:16 AM [+] (0) comments
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