Techzi

We've moved!

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 12:17:00 +0000

It's Official - Techzi.net!

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 09:31:00 +0000

Goodbye blogger, hello spiffy new Wordpress!

http://www.techzi.net/

The layout's still having some teething problems, so if you suffer any turbulence, don't worry!

http://www.techzi.net/

More info on the competition that is due to launch today too. Of course today could mean next Thursday at the rate the website's been going... ;)

http://www.techzi.net/

And here it is again...

http://www.techzi.net/

Typical...

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 18:28:00 +0000

Just as we thought we were about to launch Techzi, we ran into a whole host of bugs, errors, issues, browser incompatabilites, and general bad fortune. This included me going down with the "24-hours sickness bug". Supposedly this lasts 24 hours.

I've had it since Tuesday evening. It's not Thursday evening. I hereby re-name it the "48 hours and en-counting sickness bug". Far more accurate in my case.

Nasty stuff anyhow... Sorry about the delays. Anyhow, I can confirm that we have got ourselves the first set of sponsors for the Techzi Re-Launch competition. We expect this to get hundreds, if not thousands of entrants. So how do you win? Simple!

More details coming soon, but at current, there's several hundred dollars worth of merchandise up for grabs. Some great news I suppose.

Techzi.net going live!

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 20:30:00 +0000

Guys! We're on Wordpress!

This blog, is no more, but heck, the new one is everything this one is and a heck of a lot more! Snags? Why has it taken so long? Well admittedly we're not finished doing this yet, but have you ever tried to single-handedly copy and paste 680 posts onto a blog? Not a clue how many we have done at the moment... The New Blogger to WP importer didn't work though. Neither did the Old Blogger to WP importer. Suckage...

Anyhow, Techzi.net is going live! Probably tomorrow, which is Tuesday the 6th! Gimme a high five guys!

TECHZI IS RE-LAUNCHING! STAY TUNED FOR EXCITING NEWS, REVIEWS & COMPETITIONS!

(Yep! Competitions! With prizes!) ;)

But yeah... We're not done till tomorrow. Even then, we can't promise that our uber design will be 100% glitch free... It's not up yet because we're still working on the finer aspects of it. Stay tuned... Changes are happening!

February 4 - Wiimote Hold On!

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 19:14:00 +0000

A superbly animated non-superbowl advert, showing the all to unpleasant consequences of not strapping yourself on to the wiimote.

Gizmodo caught up with Super 78 aswell...

"I really love the Wii and I had been reading these stories about Wii controllers flying out of peoples hands. We had some down time at the office so I got together with one of the animators and I sketched out a storyboard of the spot. In the board the controller is this high energy maniac and the nun-chuck just wants to get away. So our most talented animator Michael Smith created this fun spot there is a lot of character...This was done by us, Super 78, using our own resources, no agency was involved, no money changed hands."

Great sound effects too. ;)

February 4 - Innovation & Originality

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 19:04:00 +0000

I'm not one for taking sides, but even as a Windows Vista Ultimate buyer, after watching this video, it's hard to score Microsoft any points on the innovation scale.

50,000,000 lines of code? Sheesh... They really are branching out!

Sourced from THW.

February 4 - French Dalek

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 18:54:00 +0000

A French dalek? Instant hit... Check it!

I can't stop snorting with hysterical laughter now. Seriously, this is killing me! 'You don't frighten us, English pig-dog!'

February 3 - Web 2.0 In A Nutshell

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 19:50:00 +0000

A superb video, highlighting what Web 2.0 is!

Afterall my countless efforts spent writing about it, I think this does a much better job. Don't you think?

February 3 - Great news!

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 19:36:00 +0000

After my very sarcastic 'Great day!' post earlier, it turns out that actually, today has been great! With the help of 22-year old entrepreneur, Nate Whitehill, I now have my own Media Temple hosting, courtesy of InfinFX! Wordpress has now been set-up there fully, and you can see the test page anywhere at Techzi.net! Now just the Wordpress/Layout/PHP integration to go!

Heck... Today has rocked! Thanks for making it all happen Nate. I seriously owe you a big one. Put it there man! He stayed up till 3:50 AM last night helping me! Not to mention the fact that he got back up again six hours later! Customer satisfaction? I'll give him an 11 (That's out of 10)!

Looking to setup a website? Looking to get hosting? Want a new layout? Want a fully customizes Wordpress theme? Nate's the man!

He also showed me this rather amusing cake too... Very nice. Apple lawyers, you on standby?

I present to you, the Apple iPhlake! (Sorry for the chocolatey pun... Ya' know. Cadbury flakes? Gee... Nevermind. iPhone, iCake, so iPhlake? Oh forget it...) Bet it was strawberry jam sponge though... They don't do all that much Apple jam round my way. ;)

February 3 - Inka Pen

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 12:21:00 +0000

Today, I went over to my local post office and picked up my free 'commercial sample' Inka pen, courtesy of InkaCorp president, Greg Adelman, who agreed to send me the Titanium Pen free of charge! Pity about silly EU customs though. I ended up shelling out over $20 anyway. No matter... I'm so impressed with the product though, $20 seems a small price to pay, for this top-notch Titainum-Inka! Shipping?

Impressive stuff. Global Priority Mail! I'm glad to see that Inka treat journalists like myself with the same respect they give their customers. So what was in the package? The usual... Oh, ya' know.

One commercially packaged Titanium Inka Pen with instructions on use.
One Inka Pen mini-poster with full details of the product.
Greg's spiffy little business card (very swish)!
Oh... and one purple paperclip!

"But David! This is a tech blog! Surely a pen is a pen, no?" I have to admit that I would have agreed with you before trying out the pen myself, but seriously, this thing is fancy! To show what I mean, I've included photos. The pen can write upside-down, underwater, and even in my freezer... Crazy stuff!

How's that tech related? Aside from being geeky in it's own-right, the pen also converts into a stylus, which works brilliantly on my PDA, Nintendo DS, and other devices I tested. Although you may think that this is just an un-needed fancy addition, believe me, it's not! How many times have you gone on holiday, then realized half-way over the Atlantic that you left your DS stylus at home? What I've done, is clip the pen onto my keys, using the handy keyring provided. The stainless steel pen comes with a standard yellow Delrin stylus nib, but the titanium version is a pale, mossy green. Now I know that I have a spare where-ever I go. It works darn good too, sliding glossily over surfaces with ease and precision. "Won't it be hard to take it everywhere?" It's not exactly hard... Afterall, the thing only measures 8CM (Just over 3"!) when slotted together! Of course, if that's too small, you can quickly switch around the ends, and you have yourself a fully functional, full length, quickly adaptable 12.7CM (5") pen!

What do I like most about it though? The fact that I know I can still jot down notes for my latest entrepreneurial adventures when I'm drowning upside down in sub-zero temperatures. It's a comforting thing to know... Really. You wouldn't understand unless you'd been in that situation though. ;)

Borrowing pens is a thing of the past, and having tried out the pen for a while now, I've found it invaluable. If I had one gripe with the pen though, I'd have to say it was the fact that you can't have yourself a full-length stylus, like you can with the pen. Kudos to the guys at Inka Corp though... I never thought I'd fall for a pen! Below you can see me having fun, writing with the pen underwater, in my own private coral reef scuba tank (aka. The bathroom sink).

And finally, that paperclip I told you about earlier...

February 3 - Dragon Naturally Speaking 9

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 12:18:00 +0000

This is a totally honest review, of what happened when I received Dragon Naturally Speaking 9 to review... Not quite what I'd been expecting!

First Impressions
Brilliant! The spiffy box arrived at my house just a few days before Christmas. On opening the box, I was greeted by another brown cardboard box, this one more tightly sealed. Inside lay a bubble wrap bag containing two CD pouches with the installation discs inside. A users guide and ‘Quick Reference’ book were also included, along with a wired headset. So far, so good! In goes the disc. Okay, okay… I got through the installation process till the ‘Select a drive to install your copy of Nuance Dragon Naturally Speaking 9 on’, or something like that. I had lots of trouble installing the software, as it was claiming I had insufficient space on my main hard drive. Infact, I had “22.6 GB of free space” on my computer, and I finally got it up and running, after repeatedly retrying to install the software. The installation itself time took a reasonable amount of time and I quickly registered my product with Nuance. (Nuisance! Ahem...)

Training
I did about 30 minutes of training no problem. I was told to read the sentences that appeared on the screen so that the software could ‘calibrate’ my voice pattern. Thinking that everything will be fine, I opened up Dragon’s special dictation software, ‘Dragon Pad’. In the English language, there are a couple of things that are considered ‘standard sentences’.

The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over The Lazy Hen.
You want to see what Dragon Pad thought I was saying? No, you really don’t… But for the purpose of providing an honest review, I have to post the results. ‘My thick round ox jumped over my daisy’s pen.’ Hmph... All in all, I can type a lot quicker and more accurately than that anyway. Since I was delivered the software, I’ve used it over 20 times. I must have done the training that many times too. The software crashes every single time I use it. I’m kind of fed up now, after many unsuccessful attempts. Okay, my PC isn’t state of the art, but it’s only a year old, and has twice the recommended amount of RAM, and a 3.3Ghz P4 processor, far more than needed to run a program like this.

Overall Impressions
I’m sure that the software really is a good product, and I know it’s had outstanding reviews from many top-class websites, but for me, it’s just not worked out. I’ve had heap loads of problems, and only a few sentences of garbled text and a new Skype headset to show for it. Maybe next time I’ll have better luck...

David Wilkinson, 12-year old geek, signing out!

February 3 - Great day!

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 09:42:00 +0000

The blog's had a great day! I've lost my e-mail account, the blog has been down for several hours, and I've succesfully mashed up pretty much everything! If you don't get a response to any of your e-mails, you know why... They haven't actually come. They won't come either... Pretty poo, huh?

Please excuse the incredibly large, melodramatic 'Red X' too.

NOTE: Google just informed me that there will be a power outage on my blog server at 11AM PST too... Brilliant.

February 2 - Optional Brakes

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 18:42:00 +0000

There are smart things to do in business, and not so smart things to do. Ford? Well... See for yourself. An easy mistake to make, but surely a car without brakes would cause an increase in accidents?

What a pity that the engine wasn't optional either... Would have made a great birthday present, no? On the plus-side, it would have been street-legal for me to haul the thing up and down the road.

February 1 - Vista Ultimate

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 19:52:00 +0000

I'm all over Vista Ultimate, but I can't help laughing at this great cartoon I spotted on Nate's spiffy new blog. Check it out, and while you're there, let him know that I sent you. ;) Through Nate, I've recently uncovered a whole load of new sites, The Daily Domainer included!

Nate has an interesting blog, which regularly covers everything from cars, domains and entrepreneurship to Macs & prioritizing your online life. Recently, Nate quite his job at Apple, and in the space of one week, has earned the same amount he would have made working there! Who said self-employment sucked? That's the net for you!

February 1 - Wiki Wrangle

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 18:47:00 +0000

What better way to kick off the month than confusion? The world of wikis has provided just the right atmosphere...

The world of Wikis sits in utter confusion after this past weeks weird developments at Wiki.com . Let's start right from the beginning though.

Bought by John Gotts in 2006, Wiki.com went for an incredible $2.86 Million. The world of feed flares, XML divas, and XHTML validation is hip and cool. After purchasing the domain, Gotts contacted, and eventually partnered with Wiki vendor, MindTouch. The domain name came with a humongous price tag, but Gotts was convinced that over time, his investment would pay off, as the domain simply drew direct hits, and was a natural collector of mainstream traffic.

"With its easily identifiable name, thousands of people are visiting the site daily without the aid of a search tool, signaling increasing interest in the technology and the value of a domain that drives natural traffic."

All was fine, till earlier this week, when a public relations representative from Wikia contacted Read/Write Web, regarding a rumour that had been circulating the blogosphere recently. According to the un-named PR person from Wikia, "all wikis on wiki.com will be removed", and that Wikia had it's own plans to salvage "those wiki.com customers". Wikia, is the orignally Florida based startup, co-founded by Wikipedia main-man, Jimmy Wales.

Up on the Wikia website, they have a wiki going, claiming that MindTouch, will be closing down for good, on or before the 25th January, this year. In a MindTouch statement, they said that:

"Wiki.com is not affiliated in any way with Wikia.com. Wikia has no control or ownership of the domain wiki.com. This rescued wiki was created following rumors that wiki.com was closing down. At the time, there was no indication whether wiki.com wikis would disappear or not, so Wikia made plans to migrate these sites to Wikia. Since then, MindTouch have said that they have begun migrating the wiki.com wikis to new servers and that the content of these sites will be made available on a new domain in future."

As if there weren't enough twists in the tale already, it seems that the website Wiki.com, is now redirecting to Wikia! RWW rightly asks how this is even possible, if like Wikia claim, they have no control over the domain wiki.com!

If anyone feels like helping me out here, or clearing a few things up, please go ahead… It seems that nobody quite knows where anyone stands on this issue. No news on John Gotts yet either.

My take? My opinion? The world of Wikis is going through a tough time, that will inevitabely shape it's future form. There's no doubt that Wikipedia will stand firm and strong, but what will happen to all of it's competiting Wikis? Will they run out of steam, as so many great ideas and projects have done before, and give up to the monopolising site in the industry? Or will these smaller sites stand firm, building their own, more closely knit communities, working together?

Personally, I'm a big fan of the smaller Wikis out there, but also like Wikipedia, because I know I'm almost guaranteed to find the information I want on anything, from the average number of spots on a ladybird, to the theory of relativity.

Sourced from RWW.

January 31 - Vaja Caddie

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 16:39:00 +0000

Here it is... I'm breaking the silence at last. I can officially reveal that Vaja, are about to launch a new range of cases! The 'Caddie' series, is great all round, not only for teeing off on the golf course. Like usual, Vaja are using the finest Argentinian leather, hand chosen for it's great finish, and natural aroma. I have it from an insider, that the product page will read as follows...

"Carry your gadget in style. The Caddie collection delivers an unique look and full access to main functions while keeping your device secure. Available only for Motorola Razr V3 & V3i, Palm Treo 700 series and iPod video 30, 60 & 80GB, this collection also includes a very stylish Caddie Leather Bag. Customize your own Caddie model by choosing among several leather colors and embossing your name or logo in the backside. Fully personalizable and made from exquisite high quality Argentine leather."

With any luck, these beauties will be in stock in the Vaja store within a month or so.

January 30 - Vista Roundup

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 18:58:00 +0000

What a day! The launch of Vista, and I didn't even manage to push out a post! Well, besides this one. Anyhow, I can confirm that my Vista Ultimate copy will be arriving on the 12th of February. Please note that I've included a little snapshot above, because the bigger image is 1.1MB in size, and those of you (0.121%) who are using dial-up may not wish to see the whole thing. But click on it to see the full thing.

The 'Wow' starts now. In theory... But seriously, Vista is set to be a hit. I'm all for early-adopting it, and in my opinion, Vista will decide the future of Microsoft. I'm hoping to work more closely with the company in future. They still have a great time ahead of them, and us kids need to be educated better, how to use the software, tools and services provided by them in a more streamlined, effective, productive way. At the moment, the only thing the whole of my class knows how to do without fail, is 'Copy & Paste'. Even then, they have trouble rendering the text/images correctly in MS-Word because of some 'table' element in the layout. Shame on you! CSS helps us kids steal your content for homework better. ;) Nope... I'm good. I don't steal stuff.

Anyhow... Vista. Well, as I can't be bothered writing a post today (too tired!), I'll include a list articles below...

Engadget - Vista Roundup
TechTree - Multiple Launches
Huliq - Washington Gets $3.5 Billion from Vista!
MobileTechReview - Interesting Factsheet
BusinessWire - Vista Dell PCs

Anyhow, I've been a busy man with Techzi.net, and am proud to announce that we're very nearly ready! We have some bugs to iron out, we need to finish Wordpress Integration, Tag some 670 posts, set http://www.techzi.net/ to point to the same place that http://techzi.net/ is pointing to, and then we need to finish all of the individual pages on the site/blog/thingy.

Should be great! If I don't post for a few days, you know why. It'll be worth the wait!

January 29 - £9 DVD Player

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 19:32:00 +0000

When major supermarket chains go and launch £9 DVD Players, you know that the industry has moved on... And so it has. ASDA, UK-based retailer, are offering the new 'uber cheap player' to anyone and everyone.

"Asda, which is part of the American Wal-mart empire, has launched a major move into home electricals, as have Tesco and Sainsbury's. Around 80,000 of the Durabrand 1005 machines will hit the supermarket's stores. The development is indicative of savage price cuts on gadgets, where prices are now so low that they can be thrown away and replaced." via ThisIsLondon.

I must admit, I had no idea Wal-Mart owned ASDA... I must have missed something major there! O_o

January 29 - MySpace Revamp

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 18:27:00 +0000

In this picture, you can see an enthusiastic DevianArtist got their hands stuck in and dirty, creating their own, Web 2.0 styled MySpace homepage. It looks brilliant!

Just click for the full-size version. How snazzy is that?

January 29 - History Of Tetris

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 18:24:00 +0000

Thrilling, I know... Here is an hour long History Of Tetris! I must admit, I've not had the chance or the time to watch it all, but the first half looks interesting...

I must admit, I had no idea...

January 29 - Hammond Crash Footage

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 16:56:00 +0000

We brought you the great video of a hamster re-enacting Hammond's crash a few months back, but this time, it's the real deal.

And that was Richard Hammond! Yeah, that was amazing! But truth be told, it wasn't half the 'bang' I'd expected. Still, he's one lucky guy!

January 28 - Mac 2006 Adverts

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 14:06:00 +0000

A quick roundup of the 6 Apple 2006 PC vs Mac adverts. Even if you're a PC fan, it's hard to resist liking these adverts.

Speaking of PCs, I'm getting a new one for my Birthday. Nvidia GeForce 8800GTS, 2GB RAM, Intel Core 2 Due E6600, Windows Vista Ultimate Edition, Office 2007, and a whole lot more... Weighs in at $3500!

January 27 - Web Developers

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 12:07:00 +0000

Sorry about no posts yesterday... Something major happened, which quite frankly distracted me from everything else. I'm still a little shocked about it, and my heart goes out to the family involved.

Anyhow, it seems bLaugh have the right end of the stick on this one...

Who else has arachnophobia?

January 26 - HDR Photography

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 19:42:00 +0000

In an ever advancing technological world, one of the new things that has started to become very popular in the wonderful world of photography lately, is HDR. There's a great tutorial over at SIC. Pity the skilled photographer has never heard of Klingons though... Perhaps it's not all that popular over in Bangkok.

January 26 - bLaugh Down

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 18:43:00 +0000

So it seems that bLaugh, the popular blogging cartoon, is currently down. DOOM ON YOU! But this seems to be something pretty major... All of the cartoons, are displaying in IE as 'little red Xs', which we all know means only one thing. Hosting problems, or the dreaded 'Server Maintenance' dudes! Well... This does suck. The latest comic out was the 'Modern Day Bully', which my daily e-mail from feedburner has pointed out. Else I wouldn't have realised... Check it! Doomed 'alt text', or in IE, a big, fat, red X! By the way, that's not a hot-link to bLaugh... All images there are down. 404 on the homepage too. Google cache is even having trouble rendering the site, because no external files 'exist'. It can't call images or style-sheets up as references, because they simply don't exist. bLaugh is gone... And we're hoping it's only temporary!

Your heard it first at Techzi.

UPDATE: Over 90 minutes later, and still no news from Chris, or any one from the website. We'll let you know when we hear some buzz.

SORTED: I woke up this morning to find the problem 'sorted' out. Glad that all that's been cleared up! Good going Chris, and according to MyBlogLog, you checked out my blog just last night. ;)