Schmadget

iPhone observations

2008-03-26T17:44:00.002+00:00

I've had my iPhone for just over three weeks now and as expected, I love it. More than I thought I would actually. As my wife likes to tell people, it's pretty much an extension of my arm.

I'm not going to bother doing a full review, it's been around long enough for thousands of those to have already been written, but I thought I would offer up a few observations from my time with it.

I use it a lot

Yes, this seems like a silly thing to say but I really do use it a lot. Mostly for surfing the web, reading my RSS feeds in Google Reader (which is awesome on the iPhone by the way) and email. I seem to get between 5 and 6 hours of mixed usage out of it, which actually means it needs charging almost every day because it won't last 2 full days with that level of usage. I use it much more than any other mobile device I've ever owned.

People love it

Everyone I've shown it to also thinks it's awesome. It's one of those things that you don't fully appreciate until you see it in real life and play with it. They seem to be particularly impressed by photos and videos (my wedding video has been watched a lot!). People just love flicking through photos with the multi-touch screen.

My Google Reader stats have tripled

Or maybe even quadrupled! Since I have it with me all the time, any spare moment I get I find I'm checking my feeds. I've gone from reading less than 100 items a day on average to reading somewhere in the order or 2 or 3 hundred items a day with peaks of 4 or 5 hundred! Below you can see my Google Reader trends graph showing usage in the last 30 days, the first week being pre-iPhone.

I recommend an anti-glare screen protector

I got a Power Support anti-glare protector and I much prefer it to the normal glossy screen. This gives a nice feel with more traction and also doesn't show greasy finger marks at all.

Using the touch keyboard is fine

It takes a little bit of getting used to but once you do, you'll be typing pretty much as fast as on a Blackberry or other QWERTY mobile device. The auto-correct and other clever things sort out most of your typos.

I don't need 3G

I'm happy with EDGE and where that's not available, GPRS is actually not too bad either. As long as you're not using heavy sites they'll load just fine with a little patience. I use Google Reader a lot on GPRS and as it's optimised for mobile, it loads in a reasonable time. Wi-fi is obviously the best connection though and is fantastic when you have it.

There are loads of iPhone optimised sites

A surprising number of sites have iPhone optimised interfaces and look great. I love Facebook, Google Reader and BBC iPlayer in particular. Expect a more in depth post about the best web apps.

Sometimes it replaces my laptop

I don't need my laptop with me nearly as much as I did before. I can do my email and keep up to date on my feeds, facebook and loads of other things perfectly well from the iPhone. There are even good IM apps.

A few frustrations

Not everything's perfect in iPhone land, there are a few frustrations. For example, you can't use landscape mode in every application. It would be particularly nice to be able to compose email and text messages in landscape so you get the wider keyboard. It would also be nice to have a signal in my office (!) but that's more of an o2 issue and the fact that we're in an old building with thick walls I think. My old phone didn't work in the office either. I'd also like to be able to view a unified email inbox and be able to switch between them more quickly rather than trudging through the hierarchy of my mail accounts. These are fairly minor niggles to be honest.

It's amazing

Generally, it's an amazingly well thought out and extremely usable device. It's leagues ahead of anything else and if you do truly want a multi-functional, multi-media, all-in-one device then this is for you. Don't even bother looking at anything else because it won't match up. Put it this way, almost everyone I've shown it to wants one, even non-techie, non-geeky people. Very, very glad I finally got one.

HD DVD is dead.

2008-02-17T00:01:00.002+00:00

Here at Schmadget we've been watching with interest as the next generation video format war played out. It's been a bitter, tit-for-tat affair but it seems the end is finally nigh for HD DVD with Reuters reporting today that Toshiba are on the verge of conceding defeat to the Sony-backed Blu-ray and are planning to wind down the operation, set to cost them a few $100 million.

Support for HD DVD has been slowly ebbing away over the last few months as major studios and distributors withdrew their support for the ailing format, with Netflix and Wal-mart putting the final nails in the coffin this week.

Looking on the bright side this is great for the consumer as it means the uncertainty and confusion is now over. You no longer have to worry about backing the wrong horse. Of course, those that did and bought HD DVD players will now be left with an obsolete piece of technology. The curse of the early adopter.

The PS3 has to be credited with significantly boosting Blu-ray's market penetration and credentials, it was a big risk for Sony but it appears to have paid off, at least on this front. Although you could argue that is has cost Sony dear on the gaming front with the high price of the PS3 with integrated Blu-ray player allowing Nintendo to steal a massive lead with the less sophisticated and much cheaper Wii.

As consumers, we can only hope that the big electronics companies will learn from this and avoid such 'wars' in the future. This is sure to be the last big physical media format war but the new frontier is digital of course and, unfortunately, I'm sure we'll see many more formats, wars and interoperability issues as long as there are big, greedy companies around trying to control the markets in which they operate, without first considering the consumers that buy their products.

Apple release stunning new iMacs, iLife '08, iWork '08

2007-08-07T22:38:00.000+01:00

At an event in Cupertino today Steve Jobs announced brand spanking new iMacs as well as significant updates to their iLife and iWork software suites.

The new iMacs have been completely redesigned and are available in 2o or 24-inch glossy screened varieties. They are now clad in brushed aluminium and glass, with a black trim. Not a dissimilar look to the iPhone and Pro Macs.

The new iMacs include the latest Intel Core 2 Duo processors configurable up to 2.8 GHz with 4MB of shared L2 cache and up to 4GB of 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM memory.

The top of the line 24-inch version features ATI's next generation Radeon HD 2600 PRO graphics card with 256MB of GDDR3 memory and the 20-inch version features the ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT with 128MB of GDDR3 memory.

They can also be configured with up to 1TB of hard drive storage and are compliant with the stringent new Energy Star 4.0 requirements.

Not content with redesigning the iMac, Apple have also introduced a super-thin new keyboard to match. Drawing heavily on the design of the MacBook, the new aluminium clad keyboard features low profile keys for a "crisp, responsive feel". It also has dedicated function keys for features like dashboard, expose and media controls.

Both the keyboard and the iMac are incredibly slim and look stunning on the desktop.

They come preloaded with the new iLife '08 software suite which includes major reworks of iPhoto and iMovie as well as updates to iWeb, GarageBand and iDVD.

Of note, iPhoto now supports online web galleries and automatically organises your library by events. iMovie has had a major overhaul and now, importantly for me, supports the popular new HD camcorder format, AVCHD.

iWork also saw a significant update with new versions of Pages and Keynote as well as the introduction of an innovative new spreadsheet app "Numbers".

Click on these links for more on the iMac, iLife '08 and iWork '08.

Is the Panasonic 42PZ700 the ultimate plasma?

2007-08-04T14:44:00.001+01:00

For quite some time now I have been holding out buying an HDTV until I could get a full 1920 x 1080 resolution 42" plasma. There are loads of 40"+ LCDs that have that high resolution but I am not a great fan of LCD, I much prefer the picture on a plasma. So I have been waiting.

Getting the 1920 x 1080 resolution into a 42" screen is a challenge for plasma technology but Panasonic have managed to achieve it with the TH-42PZ700 - and it's pretty special.

So is it the holy grail of plasma TVs? It has all the benefits of native 1080 resolution and the ability to display every detail of a 1080i or 1080p picture without having to scale it to fit. And if you connect a PC up to it you're going to be able to use a much higher resolution.

Certainly, from the reviews I've read so far, people seem to think it's a great TV. This is from HDTV.org's review:

Combine Panasonic's latest 10th generation screens with Vreal processing and Full HD however and in the TH42PZ700 you have what is possibly the best High Definition (HD) performance available today from a 42in screen. The level of sharpness and detail is absolutely stunning, showing every possible nuance of detail imaginable.

So it's good then. Deep blacks, high levels of detail. Cool. But do you really need 1080 resolution?

After all this time waiting for it, I'm now questioning whether, in the real world, it's necessary. You see, for my eyes to even be able to perceive the increased resolution, I have to be sitting about 5 feet away from the screen.

In my lounge I would be sitting about 7 feet away from it when sitting on my sofa. So will I see the extra resolution? Well probably not. But that's hardly the point is it? Gadget freaks need the best and I think I would always regret it if I didn't buy the full resolution set.

Anyway, I can just about justify it for gaming when I will be sitting about 4 or 5 feet away and for the extra resolution when connecting a PC :-)

But for most people who just want an HDTV in their lounge, I really don't think the extra £1000 or so over a Panasonic PX70 is probably worth it.

Panasonic only made the PZ700 for gadget freaks who insist on the best, normal people need not apply.

iPhone on sale, reviews and videos

2007-06-29T22:24:00.000+01:00

The queues are growing and the reviews are flooding in but the wait for the iPhone is finally over today as it goes on sale in the US.

If you want to see it in action, Apple has posted up a whole load of really cool videos that show off all the features. Highlights include the full 20 minute guided tour and the keyboard demo.

So now we just have to wait for the European release later this year. 3G anyone?

Jobs unveils new Leopard features and Safari for Windows

2007-06-11T22:06:00.000+01:00

Steve Jobs let us in on the so-called 'secret' features of Mac OS X Leopard today in a slightly lacklustre keynote without the big surprise announcements that we've come to expect from an Apple keynote.

There were really only 3 new features unveiled in Leopard today; a new desktop, finder and Quick Look. The rest was more or less a rehash of what he demoed last time around.

New Leopard features

The new desktop features a semi-transparent menu bar and reflective dock. The idea is that it better compliments the high resolution photos that people put on their desktops these days.

The dock also gained a new 'stacks' feature that allows you to keep groups of files easily organised on the dock, rather than cluttering up your desktop. When you click on the stack of files, they fan out so you can easily see all the files contained within.

The finder has had a fairly significant overhaul, clearly heavily influenced by iTunes. It now features a redesigned sidebar with iTunes-like collapsible folders, other computers that appear automatically on the sidebar for easy file sharing, Cover Flow browsing (like flicking through album covers but with documents and files) and an upgraded Spotlight that allows you to search shared computers and network drives.

.Mac members will also now be able to easily access their home or work files from another machine, including searching for files remotely.

The last of the major new features is Quick Look which enables you to preview a file within finder without actually launching its native application. It allows you to see live previews of the content of the file including video and flicking through pages of a document. It also works in combination with Cover Flow allowing you to flick through files, previewing them as you go.

Other features including Time Machine, Spaces and iChat seemed to be largely unchanged since they were first announced.

Also worth a mention was the confirmation, as widely expected, that the UI will be changed to a new unified look, with brushed metal being dispensed of completely.

In keeping with the new UI theme, apple.com has also been updated with a new, heavily redesigned look.

Safari for Windows

Perhaps the one true surprise of the keynote was the announcement that Safari 3, Apple's excellent web browser, will be made available to Windows users. The Beta is available to download immediately from Apple's site.

I'm a big fan of Safari and would suggest any Windows users reading this download it and have a play. The Beta download is naturally available for Mac users as well.

More games for the Mac

Jobs also announced a significant increase in support for the Mac as a gaming platform from EA and id software. EA will be releasing some of their biggest titles this summer such as Command and Conquer 3, Battlefield 2142, Need for Speed Carbon and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

This additional gaming support can only be a good thing as it's one of the weak points of the Mac platform and more developers supporting the Mac are always welcome.

No new hardware

So, that was pretty much it, no hardware announcements (to be fair the MacBooks have all recently been updated) and no massive revelations. By Jobs's standards, a pretty average affair.

Having said that, Leopard looks to be shaping up to be a superb operating system and I am looking forward to getting my hands on it in October.

Wi-Fi enabled SD cards coming to a camera near you

2007-06-11T08:59:00.000+01:00

While digital cameras with Wi-Fi built in haven't exactly taken off, it makes sense in this ever-more wireless world that Wi-Fi will become a standard means of connecting a digital camera, eventually. However, Eye-Fi have come up with a solution which might be a bit nearer off and save you the trouble of updating your camera yet again. They plan to incorporate a Wi-Fi chip directly onto the standard SD card format, so you would get storage and connectivity in one. However in addition to easily sending photos to your personal computer you'll also be able to share photos instantly with online photo and social networking sites.

New MacBook Pros with LED displays

2007-06-05T22:28:00.000+01:00

Apple today updated the MacBook Pro line with the latest Intel Core 2 Duo processors, 2GB standard RAM, bigger hard drives, faster graphics cards, LED-backlit displays on the 15" version and an optional ultra high-resolution screen on the 17" version.

The new processors are based on the latest Intel Santa Rosa chipset that offers a faster 800Mhz front side bus and 2.2 or 2.4Ghz processors. Apple claim they are up to 50% faster than the original Intel MacBook Pro using the Core Duo chip.

The new laptops also feature the 8x SuperDrive that we saw introduced with the MacBooks recently and they now support up to 4GB RAM (up from 3GB). They are also 802.11n wi-fi enabled out of the box.

Perhaps the most significant changes are in the displays though, with both 15" models now using LED-backlighting, offering anywhere between 30 and 60 minutes extra battery life. The brightness levels and viewing angles remain the same.

The 17" version still uses the CCFL backlit displays (not the new LED ones) but it does have an optional upgrade to an ultra high-resolution 1920 x 1200 display.

Overall, a pretty decent upgrade and worth it for the better battery life on the 15" LED versions alone, not to mention more standard RAM and hard drive capacity.

Prices range from £1,299 to £1,799 for the standard models. Check out the Apple store for more details.

The iPhone cometh

2007-06-04T22:42:00.000+01:00

If you live in the US, June 29th is the day you'll be able to get your hands on an iPhone, the most anticipated gadget of the year, if not ever. Apple announced the date in some new ads that aired yesterday on US TV.

The hype machine is in overdrive and some rumours suggest that even Apple themselves are worried the device won't be able to live up to the massive buzz that has been generated since Steve Jobs announced the breakthrough device at Macworld in January.

Having watched the ads, I still think the iPhone looks pretty amazing and I can't wait to see the first reviews from people that get their hands on one. But will the touch screen be as good as it looks, will the battery life be decent enough, will it even work well as a phone?

Don't forget this is Apple's first attempt at a mobile phone and they don't always get things right first go. Look at the first few generations of iPod for example and their battery problems and more recently with the iPod nano screen scratching debacle.

But they've had a pretty long lead time with the iPhone and haven't had to keep it secret since January, so they should have been able to iron things like that out by now.

Nevertheless, I expect there will be some kind of backlash/disappointment but it won't stop it from selling shed loads and I still can't wait to get my hands on one.

Roll on the European release later in the year.

Jobs and Gates fascinating interview

2007-05-31T14:39:00.000+01:00

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates did a rare joint interview at D: All Things Digital yesterday. It's a really fascinating and interesting video and the Wall Street Journal has the whole thing for you to watch.

You should definitely check out the Prologue and the Highlight reel, they have some great nostalgic moments with both Steve and Bill reminiscing about the early pioneering days of the PC and software industry.

It's amazing to think how much shared history there is between Apple and Microsoft which people often forget. When you watch the video you'll see that actually the two men have great respect for each other, their companies and achievements.

Check out all the videos here or you can get the transcript here.

Halo 3 coming to UK on September 26th

2007-05-16T22:25:00.000+01:00

Microsoft took the opportunity of the Halo 3 public Beta launch today to finally announce the date fans have been waiting for so they can get their hands on the final release of the game.

It will be 25th September in the US and the next day for Europe. As a big fan of Halo 2, I'm definitely looking forward to this one and it will finally give me an excuse to buy a 360.

Check out some videos of the multi-player Beta here and here.

Macbump

2007-05-16T22:11:00.000+01:00

The MacBooks got a speed bump, bigger hard drives, faster SuperDrives and 1GB memory across the range yesterday. Nothing special, just a minor update really.

Funny thing is, they're pretty much up there with the lower end of the Macbook Pros now, they even have faster SuperDrives! So that must mean that the Pros will be getting an update soon too.

The middle of the range white MacBook is now really great value at only £829 for a 2.16Ghz Core 2 Duo, 1GB memory and a 120GB hard drive. Go get one.

Plasma vs LCD - Plasma best?

2007-05-06T14:31:00.000+01:00

I have to admit, I've always had a preference for plasma over LCD. Every time I've gone into any large retailer and looked at all the sets, plasma has always seemed to produce more realistic colours, deeper blacks and much less blur in fast moving scenes, in my opinion.

In recent years, however, LCD has considerably closed the gap and the top manufacturers are consistently producing sets with better contrast ratios and lower response times.

So it was with much interest that I found and read a piece of research on the subject that looks at the views of 603 people in London, Paris and Cologne directly comparing the two technologies in a controlled environment.

The research was commissioned by Panasonic, Pioneer and Hitachi, some of the largest and most respected plasma manufacturers, so clearly their objective was to highlight plasma's superiority. Having said that, Panasonic and Hitachi both also manufacture LCD.

The research was conducted by a completely independent and well respected research company, Synovate. Having checked them out, they do seem to be completely legit.

Onto the results of the research then, this is taken directly from the executive summary:

The results reveal a strong preference for the contrast, black tone, resolution, image depth, sharpness, colour and response speed of plasma.

More importantly, opinions among those who had some prior knowledge of the two technologies swung dramatically toward plasma once they viewed the content side by side in an environment similar to their homes.

Some specifics from the report:

65% favour Plasma over LCD for best Colour Quality
61% say Plasma delivers the best Sharpness Quality
62% indicate that Plasma has the best Response Time
72% deem Plasma to have the best Black Quality performance

So, the results of this survey seem very clear then, plasma is superior in almost every way. I have to say, I'm not particularly surprised, as I said, it's been my feeling for a long time.

It's a very interesting read though and even if you don't agree with the results, there are some excellent explanations of the differences between the two technologies and various myths are also dispelled.

I definitely learnt a lot reading the report and I consider myself pretty knowledgeable on the subject.

If you're in the market for a new big screen HDTV, you should definitely read the report thoroughly and then go and make your own judgement on all the sets in your nearest big retailer. The best judge will always be your own eyes.

You can read the report here.

New TomTom ONE XL

2007-04-17T22:26:00.000+01:00

TomTom have announced a new in-car GPS unit, the TomTom ONE XL, with a larger 4.3 inch screen and sleek new design. The screen is actually slightly larger than its big brothers', the GO 510, 710 and 910 (but it is only .3 of an inch!).

The ONE XL is also now capable of getting traffic data and speed camera locations along with the other TomTom Plus services.

TomTom ONE XL will be available across Europe, the US, Australia and South Africa from May 2007. The UK variant comes with two map options:

- TomTom ONE XL for UK & ROI at £249
- TomTom ONE XL for Western Europe at £279

Pretty pricey considering the existing ONE is £179.99 with UK maps and a GO 510 is only another £20 more than an XL with UK maps! And as far as I can tell the only difference between a GO 510 and an XL is that there is no bluetooth handsfree or iPod control on the XL.

The new screen and inclusion of Plus services is nice but are they worth an extra £70 over the old ONE and only £20 less than a GO 510?

Maybe not if you just need directions and none of the extra stuff. I donno, it's all so confusing.

Fancy an 8-core Apple?

2007-04-07T17:54:00.000+01:00

The megahertz race turned into the gigahertz race and now it's turned into the core race. How many processing cores can you fit into one computer? The latest from Apple is 8.

The new 8-core Mac Pro has two 3GHz quad-core processors from Intel that are currently exclusive to Apple. That makes it one of the most powerful desktops money can buy.

The quad-core option is still available as well in 2GHz, 2.66GHz or 3GHz options. It's also just as configurable, with over 33 million possible combinations, including up to 3TB of storage and 16GB of RAM.

These are not your run-of-the-mill computers for home emailing and web surfing though, they are for serious professionals that require the most powerful machines possible. For example, it's easy to spec one of these up with everything and have it come out at 7 or 8 thousand pounds.

So if HD video editing or something equally CPU taxing is your game, you need one of these. For the rest of us, I think an iMac will do ;-)

Elgato Turbo 264

2007-04-03T09:22:00.000+01:00

As someone who often has their Mac churning away all night converting "things to watch on the way to work" into H.264 format, this sounds like an ideal little device to help lighten the load.

Essentially a video encoding/decoding specific chip on a USB stick to help your processor out and take the strain. Out in Europe for 99 euros, seems like a bargain if it saves as much time as it says.

Not much english language info available at the moment, but if you're German's good you might want to check out Macwelt's test report.

Is this the beginning of the end for DRM?

2007-04-02T21:58:00.000+01:00

Today EMI and Apple announced that high quality DRM-free music will be available from the iTunes store as of next month. A potentially momentous move that consumers have been waiting for ever since the iTunes store was launched 4 years ago.

Finally, you will be able to buy the music you want from iTunes and not worry that it won't work on a non-Apple device and the bonus is it will be higher quality as well.

EMI's catalogue will be available DRM-free in 256Kbps AAC format for an extra 20 pence per track. The existing 128Kbps DRM-crippled files will still be available to buy at the same 79p price point for those people that don't either know or care what any of this means.

But what does it mean? Is it quite as pivotal a moment as people are making out? Well, I think it could well be because hopefully this will spread. First, to the other big music labels, then to the indies and eventually to the big one, video. Once consumers get a taste for DRM-free digital downloads, they are going to demand it across the board.

For me, video DRM is a much worse problem than music DRM. There is a horrible trend in the UK at the moment to offer downloadable video in Windows Media Player, with DRM of course.

Unlike iTunes, Windows Media Player isn't available for anything other than PCs, so as a Mac user and regardless of the fact that it's crippled with DRM to restrict its use, I can't download and watch any content on Sky Anytime or 4oD anyway.

This really annoys me. I hate not being able to get that content on my Mac, especially in the case of Sky where I am paying through the nose for their content already and now one delivery channel is completely closed to me. So video is doubly bad. But without the need for DRM, they could distribute video content in multiple formats, for multiple platforms.

And that must be how people without iPods have felt all this time. And that is why DRM in all forms, for all content, is evil and completely unfair for consumers. DRM-free music may even lead to increased iTunes sales from non-iPod users because now they will be able to join in the fun as well.

There's a long way to go yet, this is only the beginning, but hopefully the big content owners out there, whether music or movie studios, will closely watch what happens and if successful follow suit quickly.

Especially in the music industry, it's going to be hard for anyone to hold onto DRM; now that one of the big four has gone for it, the others will have to follow to stay competitive.

So, a good day for digital consumers. Hopefully there are a lot more to come.

Xbox 360 Elite is real

2007-03-28T23:43:00.000+01:00

So the rumours were pretty much spot on with this one. Microsoft today announced a new 'Elite' version of the Xbox 360. It has a new black paint job (and matching black accessories), 120GB hard drive and an HDMI port.

Sadly though, it seems it doesn't have any other new hardware like the expected move to 65nm, cooler processors. Hopefully that will come sometime later this year in another hardware update.

And there's no built-in WiFi either, unlike the Wii and PS3. But the good news is, it does come with HDMI and component cables, so you will be able to hook it up right out of the box.

It's been confirmed to ship in the States in April for $479. It has been confirmed for a UK release but no details about timing or price yet.

100% Mac

2007-03-18T19:59:00.000+00:00

Ever since I switched my home PC for a Mac in 2002 and bought a 17" widescreen "sunflower" iMac G4, I've wanted to use a Mac at work as well and do away with PCs altogether.

That long-standing ambition has finally come to fruition in the last couple of weeks because in my new job I now use a MacBook Pro.

It's great to have finally gone 100% Mac and I am seeing a new side to using OS X, it's not all about iTunes and iPhoto any more, now I have to use it to get important things done like proposals, presentations, business email, development and other work-related stuff.

So far it's been working perfectly and I've been pleased to see how easily Macs really do fit into the enterprise. Mail works with Exchange just fine for email and you have the option of using Microsoft's Entourage, which is just like Outlook and includes all of the same contact and calendar management tools.

But you can even get Entourage to sync with iCal and Address Book, so you can effectively not use Entourage at all and just use the built in OS X apps instead, which is my preference.

What's more with the company about to roll-out the open-source Zimbra platform to replace Exchange, it will be a piece of cake using Macs and PCs in perfect harmony for email and calendaring.

It has also shown me how powerful OS X's built-in sync services are - this is what allows me to sync Entourage with iCal and Address Book but it also syncs my calendar, to-do list and contacts with my mobile phone and back home to my iMac G5 via .Mac (which I finally now make full use of), all completely seamlessly and automatically in the background.

It's been a pleasant experience so far and I find it so much easier to get my work done, there aren't any of the instability, crashing, restart or security problems that have plagued every PC I have ever used in my previous jobs and dragged down my productivity.

The integration into the network is seamless, joining wireless networks, setting up VPN connections and printers is ridiculously easy. Example: finding and setting up the networked Lexmark printer took about 10 seconds. My Mac just found it automatically on the network using Bonjour (Apple's zero-config network protocol) and started using it - no installation of drivers required, unlike the PC I'd had to use for my first couple of days. Joining the wireless network and setting up the VPN connection for when I'm away from the office were equally easy.

OS X also has loads of great software to help you complete your business tasks, whether it's great RSS readers, instant messaging clients or Word, Excel and PowerPoint, they're all available. Not to mention the great mail, calendar and creative apps that come built into OS X.

Of course, it helps that I work for a small, progressive company that allows and encourages me to use a Mac but in fact, I think I could have done this just as easily in any company, had they simply allowed me to.

I hope some of the antiquated IT departments out there wake up and smell the coffee. The Mac is perfectly poised to make an impact in the enterprise. Because it has to be, it is the most flexible OS out there and it can effortlessly integrate into Windows networks, in a lot of ways it's a hell of a lot easier to integrate than PCs themselves!

If I ever have to go back to using a PC as my main computer, I'm going to find it very tough. I've gone Mac and I don't want to go back. Ever.

Finally, I have Sky+

2007-03-11T23:19:00.000+00:00

Oh it's been a long five years living in my flat with no Sky+, anyone that knows me can testify to that. You see, getting a second satellite feed into my flat through the central distribution system in the block has been hard to say the least. But I have finally triumphed through a mixture of good and bad luck and last Friday I finally had Sky+ installed.

The bad luck came in the form of a flood which destroyed all of the communal distribution system that led to me being without any TV at all for 2 weeks (well, I had channels 1-5 through terrestrial but that was like going back to the dark ages).

The good luck was that when the whole system had to be replaced after the flood, I made sure it was capable of distributing two feeds to each flat. Hence I now have Sky+ and my televisual life is complete.

Well, for now at least. You see, now that I have Sky+, I am also capable of getting Sky HD which also requires the second feed. So now I have the perfect excuse to buy one of those 42" 1080p HDTVs I keep blogging about. Happy days.

Geo-tagging - another reason to upgrade your camera.

2007-03-09T11:25:00.000+00:00

In November I replaced my Sony DSC-P10 digital camera with a very nice Canon IXUS 850IS. This was quite a big step for me - to move away from Sony, I debated whether I should get a newer Sony and took quite a bit of convincing against it - but at the end of the day, I was replacing my Sony because it had failed, not because it was out-dated. The Canon had excellent reviews, was comparable in every way and I have not looked back since.

The research to find the right camera meant considering the specs and reviews - now I get the sneaking sensation that this spec search in future will need to take into consideration geo-tagging.

Geo-tagging, in the case of photography, is the process of including geographical meta data, usually latitude and longitude to your photographs to tie them to their position on earth.

JOBO have a device, photoGPS, which allows for geo-tagging to be fitted to your camera's hot shoe -like a regular flash unit. This unit captures the country, region and district, city, street, postal code, and even the point of interest (POI) which is closest to the captured image location and adds it to your photograph's meta-data.

This information can be used in a variety of ways. Google Earth allows users, through Picasa to match their photos to a specific location - this opens up all sorts of possibilities for travel writers, holiday makers etc. Or perhaps from a personal history point of view, a record through your photographs of where on earth you have stood - something your children and grandchildren might re-visit or yourself in later years.

Also geo-tagging would offer you a new search criteria, appended automatically to your photos - for those less keen on manual organisation. If you want to see all the photos you took at a specific place then you can.

So with this solution appearing as an add-on for hot shoe enabled cameras how long before it becomes a standard inside your camera? I think its certainly the sort of feature I'd love.

PlayStation Home confirmed

2007-03-07T22:15:00.000+00:00

Well no surprises that the rumour was true after the Kotaku incident but Sony confirmed it today and announced PlayStation Home. It's like a blend of Second Life, The Sims, Nintendo's Miis and Xbox's achievements.

Basically it's a virtual world in which you have your own customisable house (you can hang your own digital photos on the wall as pictures) and all of it can be explored using your avatar, which can also be customised like a Mii but in far more detail. But this is not just some ramshackle or cartoon-like world, it's full on PS3 graphics and looks pretty impressive.

See more photos in the Joystiq gallery here.

You can chat to your buddies, play in-built games like bowling and pool, or arrange online multi-player games. There are also loads of public places where you can watch move trailers in a virtual cinema, for example, or admire game trophies in great halls.

Sony are thinking of it as Game 3.0, kind of like Web 2.0 for games, bandying about terms like social, localisation and customisable. That's a bit odd, I'm not sure it's quite that ground-breaking, there are plenty of MMO games out there that offer a lot of these aspects already but whatever, this does seem quite interesting and certainly brings the PS3 much more in line with what Nintendo are clearly trying to do with the Wii.

Having said that, those people that want it (and I'm not one of them) have plenty of options for MMO already and if Sony has proven one thing it's that cramming every conceivable piece of functionality into things doesn't necessarily translate into a compelling experience; people tend to like simplicity and elegance. The PS3 needs to be good at games first and this sort of thing is a great added bonus second.

At the end of the day, we'll just have to wait and see. PlayStation home goes into beta in April and should be launched properly sometime in the Autumn. Now if Sony would actually just release the bloody PS3 over here, people might just have one more reason to go and buy one.

Sony release a whole load of new stuff

2007-02-28T12:14:00.000+00:00

Sony have announced new products in virtually all their lines. As I'm not interested in some of them, I'll only post about those that I am. So here goes.

New V-series HDTVs

Not their top of the line X-series sets but the respectable 1080p capable V-series are updated to accept 1080/60p and 24p signals and have the advanced Bravia EX engine, thus far found on the X-series sets, for super high-quality picture processing. They also have 10-bit processing for better colour gradients.

Also interesting is that the displays now use Sony's XMB Xross Media Bar interface, the same as used on the PS3 and PSP. I'd like to see for myself if that works well, it could be really interesting.

They did also announce one updated 32-inch X-series set that has three HDMI inputs and a 120Hz refresh rate (Sony call it Motionflow) to help reduce blurring and motion artefacts.

The existing line of Sony LCDs have had great reviews, so I'm particularly looking forward to seeing how these new ones fair. For me right now, if you're buying LCD, it's Sony vs. Sharp.

Cheap(er) Blu-ray player

This is good news for anyone looking to grab a Blu-ray player. Sony announced a much cheaper version of the existing trés-expensive BDP-S1 player. The new BDP-S300 will be $600 as opposed to $1000 (no word on UK pricing yet) and offer pretty much the same features.

The model also supports AVC-HD discs encoded with xvYCC technology, a new international standard for wide colour space, which Sony has branded as x.v.Color.

This will hurt HD DVD I'm sure as it will bring the Blu-ray players down to a much more comparable price level. Although I expect we'll be seeing cheaper HD DVD players out soon as well.

New Cyber-shot cameras

"Sony is introducing a line of slim and stylish Cyber-shot T-series cameras that are destined to be the fashionista crowd’s favorite party companion."

Sony's lovely marketing speak but they actually look pretty well featured. The 8 megapixel DSC-T100 has a 5x optical zoom and 3-inch LCD screen and is available in red, black and silver.

Also 8 megapixels, the DSC-T20 has a more usual 3x optical zoom and a 2.5-inch LCD screen and will be available in pink, white, black and silver.

At less than half an inch thick, the cameras are easily portable and you can even buy matching cases in pink, red, green, grey, crème, brown and black! Good for the ladies ;)

Bluetooth headphones

I like the sound of these (no pun intended) bluetooth headphones. The idea of wireless headphones appeals, tangley wires always annoy me. These look perfectly suited for using in the house maybe streaming music from iTunes or something if your computer (or any other bluetooth-enabled music device) supports A2DP, AVRCP, HFP or HSP stereo bluetooth profiles, which my Mac doesn't.

They've got a 17-hour battery life (200 in standby) and you can even use them with your mobile phone to answer and end calls with the press of button. Nice.

Panasonic announce "world's smallest" solid-state camcorder

2007-02-21T16:36:00.000+00:00

Panasonic has announced what it claims is the world's smallest solid-state camcorder i.e. it has no tapes or hard drives, just SD or SDHC cards to record onto, much like a digital camera.

This has several advantages, apart from the small size, including shock resistance (as the recording mechanism has no moving parts), fast start up times and efficient battery life. Other features include a 2.7” wide-screen LCD, 10x optical zoom lens and USB 2 connectivity.

A 4GB SDHC card allows up to approximately 100 minutes of recording and the supplied 2GB SD card allows about 50 minutes.

It also has impact resistance and can survive a drop from up to 1.2 metres. In addition, it's water resistant which makes it great for recording poolside, at a beach or while skiing.

It's designed for easy shooting and you grip it so that you can stabilise the shot by bracing your elbow against your body or you can shoot in pistol-grip mode, all comfortably in the palm of your hand.

I'm not usually massively into camcorders but this does look like a real carry anywhere device that would be great for holidays and special events (skiing and my wedding come to mind!).

The Panasonic SDR-S10 is expected to be available in Europe from May 2007. See more details on the Panasonic site.

New phones galore

2007-02-12T21:21:00.000+00:00

A bevy of new mobiles were released today at 3GSM 2007, the world’s biggest mobile telecommunications conference, in Barcelona. Among the highlights were new handsets from RIM, Nokia, Samsung and LG. Some pics and quick details below.

BlackBerry 8800

The Pearl's big brother (above), sporting a full QWERTY keyboard, GPS receiver to work with a mapping service, microSD slot, bluetooth 2.0, the usual email stuff and the now de rigeur 'pearl' trackball. And it's only 14mm thick.

Nokia E61i, E65, E90 and N77

Nokia released 3 new business focused phones (above): the E61i, their answer to the BlackBerry; the E65, a smaller, more stylish, slider phone and the E90, an old-style communicator flip phone. The E61i now packs a 2 megapixel camera and both it and the E90 feature 3G and WiFi.

The N77 (above) is a consumer phone which features a 2.4 inch screen, stereo speakers and the ability to pick up mobile TV broadcasts over DVB-H - a special digital TV format for viewing on mobile devices.

Samsung Ultra Edition II

Announcing a a whole new range of ultra-slim phones, ranging from 5.9-12.1mm thick, Samsung stole the show. The U100 (above) is the thinnest phone in the world at 5.9mm. Amazingly it features a 3 megapixel camera, bluetooth and 70MB of memory!

LG Prada

LG's pre-emptive, touch-screen strike against the iPhone. It's 12mm thick and features a 2 megapixel camera. Very slick and very expensive.