It is a given that Logitech make good Keyboard/Mice and the webcam range is second to none. Microsoft got better at Webcams of late compared to the earlier models (which were terrible). Checking the prices of the two, you can get a Microsoft Lifecam Studio for £52 while the Logitech C910 can be bought for £54, so about the same price. They both started life closer to £90 and on paper they both seem to handle HD, have good optics and a very good picture.

 Old Versus New

Just a few days before I was watching a live stream showing the difference between the C920 and the C910 and in fact the C910 looked better quality. It was noted that on a Mac, there was no way to control the webcam and it looked a LOT better on Windows due to the control you had (rightlight and such). I was asked about pricing and I explained how the C920 retails at  £85 while the C910 can be bought for £54, a bargain right? At this point I had planted in my head the idea that the C910 at £54 was a good buy even though I had in front of me the Microsoft Lifecam studio.

Giving into temptation

I was walking around the local tech stores (in search of a new mouse as it goes) and spotted the C910 for the given price. I knew I had no need for this piece of electronics but convinced myself that the quality was good, the low light was good and I use a webcam a lot plus I could wire up the Mac and use the Microsoft one for my Windows machine. I parted with the money and headed back to try this new toy out.

Example of a Laptop Webcam (Low Quality)

C910 on the Mac

I plugged the c910 into the mac (very limited number) USB port and it could now be selected from the list in most applications such as PhotoBooth for example. Behind me on the Mac is a window with blinds and the camera struggled with that aspect at first. I found it odd that the Logitech 9000 Pro and the built in iSight could handle this large amount of backlight yet the new c910 could not.

The only way to let the mac have some sort of control of the camera was to install iGlasses and now it started to look a bit better. The Logitech software was a joke and kept crashing. The most it gave was the ability to take a photo and video plus be able to select what resolution to use. One thing I did notice at this stage was once 720 or 1080p was selected, the picture became a lot better light wise, so I guess at this stage RightLight was activated.

Switching to Windows

At this stage I thought I would give Windows a chance and see how well it looked when used with the proper software. Using the in-built Logitech software enabled me to take a picture at full HD and the quality was second to none. At this stage we shifted to Google Hangout to further test the picture quality and the end result was that while it was slightly (and by a hair margin) better quality than the Microsoft Lifecam Studio, the lighting (even with RightLight on) was not so good. I turned off RightLight and adjusted the settings and it looked a lot better.

Once it got darker and I switched to a room light, this is when the camera got worse in fact and it could not cope very well at all with the lack of studio lighting. Pretty much all the ‘decent’ cameras that I own can cope with the so-called low light in the room (I can see perfectly well, it is not dark at all). Of all the webcams that I expected to handle Low light, the C910 was on the top of my list.

Verdict

If I had moved from an iSight or a built in Webcam to this model, I would have been amazed by the level of detail and happily give it a 10 out of 10. Having a collection of already good webcams meant that this was not as good as I expected it to be. The Microsoft Lifecam Studio (which can be bought for as low as £40 now) is just as good and works well on both the Mac and Windows. I never really had a chance to test the Microphones on these cameras but I expect them to not be as good as I wanted them to be.

Given the lack of Mac Support and the fact it says quite clearly on he box PC/Mac – I plan to take this model back to the local store for a full refund. If you are listening Logitech, time to employ some Apple Programmers on your team.

The last update on training was the Christmas rest period (the gym was closed) and this was a perfect time to change my routine, a change is a good as a rest they say. There is a lot of information online with each one claiming that this is the routine of choice, instead of this, I just did my own thing.  To remind everybody, I started training in March 2011, so we are approaching the one-year marker.

 The routine

I am still doing a 4 day split, this been Mon, Tue, Thu & Fri with the others days been rest days of course. Monday consists of Chest and Back, doing two major muscles groups in one day is looked upon badly in some circles but I make sure that I either do a heavy Chest workout or alternatively a heavy back workout. The reason for this is time; I do not want to spend too long working out, so this way it works.

Tuesday is still my legs workout day, I do quads, hamstring and finally calves, if I have time I also like to chuck in some ABS as well just for good measure. Wednesday been the rest day (and much needed), I still take the required protein mix as my body still needs it for repairing the muscles.

Thursday is a mixture of Shoulder, Traps, Lats (Yes I know these are a back muscle but I cannot fit it in on Mondays) and once again ABS. Friday is the almighty Arm workout day. I start with Biceps and with this I also do the rowing machine (50x 3) to get the arms fully pumped up and the move onto Triceps. As arms do not take as long as the major groups, this is a good excuse to hit the ABS one last time.

Supplements

I have tried a good handful of protein powders, weight gain, creatine, post-workout, pre-workout and even all-in-one’s. While creatine for example worked for me at the start, I read about how it was not regulated and people suffering from liver failure and on top of this only really proving an extra 5% at best increase.

I found the cheapest brand worked just as well if not better than the brand that was twice the price. The Pre & Post workout stuff did not work for me at all, in any shape or form and the only thing it did was wake me up a little more when I was tired (much like redbull). I recently bought some Weightgain by mistake while looking around online, the reviews were great and I bought it. I will probably just take it like normal drink and not the three scoops three times a day as directed.

Is it working?

I took some measurements when I first started; remember that I am not the tallest or fattest person on the planet:

 34” Chest

13” Arms

28” Waist

14.5” Neck

Most of the clothes that I bought were the Small size.

One year later (almost)

 40” Chest (and growing)

15” Arms

34” Waist

16” Neck

Now wearing Medium BUT these are becoming too tight, shame as I just bought a load at xmas as well. Next post I promise some pictures

I Currently run a collection of Windows 7 machines and the Apple iMac 27”, until recently I was always on the PC more than the Mac, why you ask? Windows 7 for most part just works just fine and I most of the software I need is on this platform. Not wanting the iMac to be just a mere second thought, I started to use the machine a lot more. I decided for example it was easier to have all my media into MP4 format and this is were the Mac comes into play using Elgato Turbo.264, ripping through media files faster than any PC can. Everything worked just fine, until some updates come along.

Updates Galore

The first update that came along was Lion 10.7.3, quite a large update (over a Gig) and this welcomed, many things should be fixed and working now. Chrome went up to version 17, Firefox went to V10, what did not move at all was Adobe Flash, staying at the same version.

Issued started to arise

The first problem I noticed straight away was when I clicked a YouTube video and instead of the video showing up, we had white space. This only seems to affect Chrome, working fine inside the other two browsers.

 I am a great lover of Google Hangouts and you would think a browser made by Google using a service ran by Google (as is YouTube) would work best? I had a mixture of either no video at all (total white space) or only seeing the thumbnails on the bottom. I tested across the other Browsers and got mixed results. Quite frankly the bad state of play in regards Google Plus on the Mac is putting me off the entire ‘Plus’ Experience.

 The Way Forward

I installed the Beta version of Chrome to see if the issue was fixed, the same problems arose. I could use Safari as the main browser but the adblocker is not so good and I just HATE random popup adverts. The other thing with Safari is every link I click opens a new instance of Safari, yes I can CMD Click to force a new tab but why should I have to?

I am not about to stop using the mac just for the few sites that are bugged, maybe I shall use the Windows box a lot more or see if Firefox can provide me with a better experience? For a platform who’s motto is ‘it just works’ – this is not so true anymore.

The Motorola Xoom is a 10.1” Tablet that runs Android 3.2 (honeycomb) with Ice-cream Sandwich  (4.0.3) coming to the UK Soon. This started life as a £399 device competing again the iPad 2 but came with a default of 32GIG storage instead of 16GIG. It first dropped to £329 (which it currently retails at) but for a short period of time, a couple of stores had it for £249, which made it somewhat of a bargain.  I managed to get the last on in stock while passing Carphone Warehouse, would this have the same issues as the Blackberry Playbook or would I end off keeping this device?

 Hardware

 Some people love 7” tablets (hold it with one hand, lighter etc) while some people prefer the much bigger 10” tablets. I have tried both now and think I am more of the 10” camp. The device has MicroUSB on the bottom; this can be used to transfer data across. There is also a Micro HDMI connector to allow you to connect your Xoom to your TV / Monitor and this requires a cheap cable, I bought one for £3 and this worked just fine. Finally we have the power connector, the cable from the plug is very long for placement anywhere.

On the top we have a slot that pulls out exposing the SD Card slot and the shape of the piece of plastic you pull out allows you to fit an full sized SIM card in there but I tried it myself and no 3G came forth. They sell a WiFi Only and 3G+WiFI model. The only other things on the tablet are the volume up/down on the left hand side and a power button on the back of the device (near the camera).

Android 3.2

We have now a bar (software) on the bottom, this includes back, home and running tasks along with a clock and notification display on the right hand side. Honeycomb gives you 5 screens to add icons, widgets and apps to suit your needs. As an example of this, you could have one screen that displays the info (Twitter updates, email, Google+ etc) while another contains shortcuts to your most used applications and so forth.

As far as multitasking goes, it was quite easy to jump to running programs and testing say for example an IRC Client, this stayed logged into the channel even while jumping around different programs.

Video & Audio

 One of the main things I wanted to do with tablets is to communicate with other people, so we set about testing a broad range of applications. Skype was an obvious choice and it was not until we entered video mode that it did not display any video but could not end the call have to force quit the program. After some research it seems the latest version (currently 2.6) does not work with a whole range of tablets while the last version (2.5) worked 100% fine – we have a video call going and the quality was quite good.

The next program was Tango and this took a bit of getting used to, it uses your contact book I think to find other people. Eventually the other person popped up and we had a video chat, quality was workable but not as good for some reason as Native Camera mode and even swapping cameras did not make much difference.

The final test involved Google Hangout and Google Talk, I had no issues myself and was able to join hangouts and do video calls in Talk but on Android 2.3 (the test subject) it was having issues. Quality was not that hot on the video again and I can only imagine that it has to do with the software and not the actual camera.

Playing Videos

 I have tested video playing including 720P across the wireless network on the iPad, Windows 7 Phone, iPhone 4S and the Playbook and every single one of them can play a video without slowing down. I tested non-HD videos on this device and it played just fine – along with MX Player and ES File Manager, I can play any format that is out there. Playing 720p or 1080p was a mixed bag. It can only support Baseline Profile HD encoding which means that most of my HD movies are not going to play on the device properly. I do not want to re-encode my entire collection that’s for sure.

Odd Quirks

 Since using it, there has been the odd thing that stops it working properly, such as slow down, a white screen when opening browser and other odd stuff. I assume that this is honeycomb at fault and will all be fixed in the next update. I know that if the device is playing up big time, a swift reboot generally fixes the issue. The boot time is not too bad, when comparing to the Playbook, which took well over 3 minutes to boot (roughly) – this thing is a lot quicker.

My Overall impression

 While I was eager to return the Playbook before even a week had run out, I am more than happy with this device and what it does. I feel that for £250 it was a good deal and I already bought a Gel Case and the HDMI lead. I cannot see myself buying the Bluetooth Keyboard (£50) or the stand (£30), at the moment I am using an old plate stand I found and this does the job just fine.

If you have been following my blog of late, it has a Tablet slant and the reason for the sudden need for me to buy a tablet is the various companies dropping prices of the said items. I had already written about the Motorola Xoom dropping in price to £249 and how I struggled to actually buy one from a bricks and mortar store. I was out and about yesterday and thought I would try my luck at buying a tablet, any issues and I was happy to walk away – I just do not need a tablet that urgent.

PC World

My First port of call was PCWorld/ Curry’s based in Grimsby, quote a large store and in theory should have stock of ‘things’ right? While I was there I had another look of the Logitech Mice (I need a new one) and sure enough the items they had on offer they had zero stock of- how handy was that (my local store also carried zero stock). I looked at the Motorola Xoom and sure enough the price was £329. I asked a local sales person about this pricing and they have either been briefed on what to say already or have many people asking. What did the person say? Well first that they had zero stock (this is without checking any computer – straight from the top of their head). The next piece of propaganda was that the price of £249 was ONLINE price online and not in store. Once again I stated that you cannot buy it (when I checked) for home delivery and you can collect form store BUT no local store (within 45 miles of me) had any in stock. I seriously think PCWorld need to change their attitude towards the customer or they will go the same way as Comet.

Carphone Warhouse

I spotted a Carphone Warehouse a short walk away and as I knew these also offered the Xoom at £249, I thought I would have a quick check. The person who greeted me was polite and was happy to tell me that the Xoom was indeed £249 in-store and while they had none in stock, the one located in the town centre had 3 in stock last time he checked. While I was there I noticed they had an Archos Tablet for £150, this was a 10.1” device running Android 2.3 with 8GIG Storage. It did cross my mind that this might be enough of a tablet to suit my needs and been £100 cheaper than the Xoom, would it be as well to buy this instead? I knew from experience that if you pay cheap, you get cheap and it will never been as good as the better Xoom Tablet.

Stay Tuned for the full review of the Motorola Xoom.

 The initial starting block

Once you have created a character, you go through a level that eases you into the game and you have to fight you way off a ship using your various powers. As you achieve various tasks, you get points to spend on your skill tree and this gives you some extra powers. Along the way you also get stuff in your inventory which pays to put on as it helps you kill the enemies quicker.

Quests 

You get tasked with various jobs and this in turn allows you to fight enemies of your own level, start to level up and get other items along the way. It felt different from say World of Warcraft type MMO as you can level up just by killing monsters, this seems to be quest based on getting to the next level.

Free to play

While the game is free, it does have the shop and you can buy extra stuff. One is a monthly fee and this can cost £8.99 (if you pay monthly) or £71.88 for a full year membership. This gives you DLC packs, more slots, bigger inventory and so forth. Another option is to buy as required, such as the lightning pack for $9.99. The last method is to add cash to your in-game account to buy thing from the shop in the game, such as better helmets and so forth.

The Motorola Xoom started life as a £399 10 inch tablet, competing against the iPad 2, the theory was it had double the ram for the same price as the baseline iPad 2. Sales were bad and soon they dropped the price down to £329 and in November 2011 brought out the Xoom 2. Recently a few retailers have slashed the price down to £249, such as PCWorld & Carphone warehouse (the same people who also slashed the prices of Blackberry Playbook). I thought I would pop along to local PCWorld and see if they had any in, online stated they had none in stock.

Selling the lie

I asked a sales woman about the price – she stated that the price was only available on-line and I had to buy the product (and have it delivered) on-line also. I went on to explain that it gives you the option at the on-line price to pick up from a store, so the only Online bit was me actually choosing it online. She went on to say that she has no stock and this was without checking in any form, we can assume that she has already been asked about these today or is in fact guessing. She went on to tell me about the brand new Xoom that is coming soon and this is why they have reduced the price, when I asked about which model, she was unsure but as soon as I mentioned Xoom 2, she said that was the one.

I went on to inform her that the Xoom 2 came out in November 2011 and can be bought anywhere and is not ‘coming soon’. The last bit of info she shared was the fact that PCWorld was the only retailer that is selling the Xoom at £249, once I explained Carephone Warehouse have the same model and price – she walked away, almost annoyed I guess.

Tablets going down in price

It stands to reason that as CES 2012 has been and gone, there will be a whole bunch of new Tablets coming out, these are faster (Quad core), better GPU (Tegra 3) and features Ice Cream Sandwich (V4 of android OS). The tablets that are left in the stores have two options, reduce the price to attract the impulse buyer / looking for a cheap tablet or not sell any more of them.

Let us not also forget the Apple iPad 3 is due out soon and this may be a game changer on what to expect in tablets. I am no hurry to buy a tablet and it seems its hard to get them anyhow, maybe the staff bought them all as they did with the HP, at least I have saved myself £250 once again.

When you first install it, Spiceworks scans your network. It checks Active Directory, does a NetBIOS scan and pings the addresses in your specified IP range. It took us a fair bit of fiddling with the firewall to get all the devices on our network inventoried, and even then our locally attached printer wasn’t found. This was a bit odd, given that it was attached to the PC Spiceworks was installed on.

Once it has its inventory, though, Spiceworks is refreshingly intelligent in the way it uses your information. For instance, wherever it can it will identify a client PC’s make and model. It will then automatically link that PC’s entry to the driver download page on its manufacturer’s website. It will also show you the machine’s spec, the programs that are installed on it, the amount of disk space free and so on.

BlackBerry Playbook

I currently own an iPad 1, wife has an iPhone 4S and I have a Windows Mobile 7 Phone, so I have enough devices to do what I need on the go. I have been looking at tablets for a while now and a few caught my eye such as Sony Tablet S, Blackberry Playbook and the Motorola Xoom. The end choice is always about money, splashing out £400 for an iPad 2 was too much money in my books and even the £329 price points of Android Tablets seem a bit high. The two machines that are at the £200 price point are the Blackberry Playbook and Arnova 9 G2.

Buying on Impulse

I had watched some YouTube videos already and was in two minds if this device would suit my needs or not, I was standing in the store and had they no 32GIG models in stock (as the online site told me) I would have happily walked away but they had 4 in fact. I bought the device on the grounds that I could take it back for a full refund, this would allow me to try it out fully and see what it can really do.

Packaging & Initial Boot

The box that it came in is very well presented and contains the Playbook, Neoprene Sleeve, Micro-USB Cable Cleaning Cloth and the Mains Charger. There is a piece of paper that tells you to make sure you have Wi-Fi Coverage, press the power button and follow the steps on-screen. The initial steps including connecting to a Wi-Fi, setting up a Blackberry account, country based settings and finally checking for updates. It took a while to download and update the device, nothing major but until this is complete, you cannot use the device. The last thing it does is take you through a guide on how the device works.

Specifications

• 7″ LCD, 1024 x 600, WSVGA, capacitive touch screen with full multi-touch and gesture support
• BlackBerry Tablet OS with support for symmetric multiprocessing
• 1 GHz dual-core processor (Cortex A9 Processor), w/ GPU
• 1 GB RAM
• Memory: 16GB, 32GB and 64GB versions to be available
• 5300mAh battery
• Dual HD cameras (3 MP front facing, 5 MP rear facing), supports 1080p HD video recording
• Video playback: 1080p HD Video, H.264, MPEG, DivX, WMV
• Audio playback: MP3, AAC, WMA
• HDMI video output
• Wi-Fi – 802.11 a/b/g/n
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• Connectors: microHDMI, microUSB, charging contacts
• Open, flexible application platform with support for WebKit/HTML-5, Adobe Flash Player 10.1, Adobe Mobile AIR, Adobe Reader, POSIX, OpenGL, Java
• Ultra thin and portable:
• Measures 5.1″x7.6″x0.4″ (130mm x 193mm x 10mm)
• Weighs less than a pound (approximately 0.9 lb or 400g)

The Device – Connectors

This is a 7 inch tablet, a lot smaller than the iPad (9.7”) and it runs the screen at 1024×600 which compares nicely to the iPad 1024×768. There are very limited connectors on this device; there is a power button along with volume up and down and a play button on the top. Underneath we have a Micro HDMI, no lead is supplied but you can get this cheaply online. Given the low cost of the cables, I am not sure why RIM did not include this in the box? Next this this we have Micro USB connector and I guess another connector for the Dock you can buy.

Hardware – Camera, Speakers & Microphone

The Playbook has a better front camera than most tablets have back camera. Both cameras can do full HD (that’s 1920×1080), the back camera of course been better quality. They are rated as 3MP front and 5MP back (2592×1944). The microphone is just amazing and can pick up very clear and loud audio. Finally the speakers, unlike most tablets, they have placed them on the front and they are loud and have good bass, perfect for playing music. If you want to think of this device as a HD Camcorder, then that is money well spent in this regard and of course it can do so much more.

The Web Browser

I have tested many sites on this device and I would say that just about all of them work as they would on a normal desktop web browser. I could happily view a stream on Justin.TV and access many of the file sharing sites. The one site that did not work was soundcloud, I could not press the arrow to start the music playing for some reason. I noticed a lot of the applications were in fact just a short cut to the web site, for example BBC iPlayer. Using TVCatchup website allowed me for example to watch TV live which was handy. The reason why most work? Simple, it has a fully functional adobe flash built right in and in no way did the device slow down because of this.

Application Store

This is where the device starts to fall down, there are a lot of applications that are just not there and a lot are things you have to buy. I failed to find for example a decent Twitter program, teamviewer, Skype and so on. One of the reasons why there are applications missing is simply the fact you open a web page and do the same thing, such as Tweetdeck.

Gaming

Battery Life

This is one area where I heard was not so good and it is claimed an 8 hour battery life. With general use throughout the day, I went from 100% to 56% and that was with using it heavily. I agree the iPad has a longer life which means it can last for a whole week without charging but maybe as the iPad does not fully multitask and has no flash is the reason why. I did not feel the battery life was an issue since using this device over the last few days, maybe as I was plugged in via USB half of the time and it trickle charging it?

OS2.0 Beta & Android Applications

I followed a guide online which was as simple as going to the Blackberry site, typing in your PIN number plus email address and I soon had an update flagged on my device (511MB) to the beta OS, which is due out Feb 2012. Before I went ahead with this, I wanted to make sure I could go backwards and again on the same site, it tells you how to do this. One major update here was the fact that wireless which was previously connecting at 11Mbps was now at 65Mbps. You can side load BAR files (Android apps) via a tool called DDPBInstaller. I tested a handful of Android programs and some worked 100%, some looked like they were working but did not function properly and finally some just crashed straight out.

Using this method I was able to get Citrix installed and connect to my work Citrix farm and access the desktop without any major issues. I tried Skype but that failed as well as teamviewer. DS File & DSAudio (both Android Applications to access files from my Synology NAS) worked 100% and I was able to stream any of my music or watch any movie on my NAS box (as long as the format was correct). Doing some testing as to what video formats it can play, it copes with MP4 just fine, it can also play WMV & MOV formats as well. AVI and MKV was a no-go and instead of playing them, just copied them to the device instead.

Bluetooth Keyboards

I used the Apple Bluetooth keyboard as a test and set it to search for devices. It found the keyboard (I held the power key on the right hand side until the LED flashed) and asked me to type in a number on the keyboard. I typed it and pressed enter and the keyboard was paired. I tested an IRC application and was typing away at full speed. Any Bluetooth keyboard would work of course as would a headset.

Comparing it to iPad

Before I compare devices, remember that a 32GIG iPad 2 is currently £479 and this device only cost me £200. The iPad is bigger (9.7”) but no much more screen estate (1024×768 vs. 1024×600). As iOS has a wealth of application, you can normally find just about anything you want but the reason it needs applications in the first place is due to the browser on the iPad not been able to do flash or air stuff. A good example of this is either Ustream or Justin.TV, both need an application on the iPad (which is the iPhone version) while the playbook can not only use the proper website but also stream using the built in camera & microphone. If we add the ability to use Android applications then this opens up the playbook to a more level playing field.

Conclusion

I bought this device with the express thought that I could take it back should it be a waste of my time and for the first couple of days, the “swing-o-meter” was edging towards “take it back”. In fact I almost put it all back in the box and took it back just the other day as I felt it did not do what I wanted out of a device, this was until I placed 2.0 Beta and side-loaded some Android application. Ask yourself this question; what else is out there that will cost you £169, £200 or £329 (16GIG, 32GIG, 64GIG) for so much hardware? I looked at the ‘cheap’ android tablets (Arnova 9 G2) and that cannot do half what this can do plus only has 8GIG ram and costs the same price (£200).

The plan is simple, I keep using this device for another week solid and by time Saturday comes around, if I feel this is just a mere toy and a waste of my £200, I shall flash it back to production OS, wipe it clean and take it back. If it lasts the full week then I shall keep it plus buy myself some much needed items such as a case (which doubles as a stand) and a mini HDMI convertor.

The one last thing to mention is this device has no GPS which means it cannot really function as a replacement SatNav in your car which is a shame as it wound have rounded the device off nicely.

****** UPDATE 10 Jan 2012 ******

I grabbed the device last night to sit down and chill out, I had problems, lots of them. The video player just quit half way through a movie, the browser would hang for a long time on flash related sites and the Android Apps would crash out for no reason. I followed the guide to bring the device back to 1.8.0, cleaned it up and re-boxed it “good as new”. I took it back to the store today and got a full refund. If you do buy one due to this review, the device might work out better for you but I cannot wait until RIM get the software working correctly, maybe this is why they are so cheap?