Keep an eye on this site and on my Twitter, Facebook and Google+ feeds for more information nearer the time.

The theme for this year is: Light Your Fire!

We can watch it together online and chat online.

More soon, make sure you follow me on any of the social networks and I will post more soon.

The Philips AirFryer with Radid Air Technology says it can cook fries (chips) without oil, and this is true for most oven chips, but to get the best results you need to add the tiniest amount of oil if your cooking fresh home made fries, in my case I use one teaspoon of olive oil and give this fries a mix before putting them into the Philips AirFryer.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9eA9IHdtzs

What you get is a reasonably large unit, taller than an average deep fat fryer, just under twice the height and maybe a little larger around, but not unwieldy at all. It is also very nicely designed as most Philips products are, they have a good eye for design so if your looking for something that looks as good as it performs, this is definitely for you.

It comes in a huge box but all the parts are recycled paper/cardboard. Once unpacked you just sit it on the counter top and plug it in, there is built in cord storage, excess cable pushes back inside the main body. Once plugged in choose the correct temperature, there is a guide on a sticker on the unit, in a quick start guide, in a laminated card and in the manual, so if you miss all that! LOL Now you have the temperature set, set the timer for 3 minutes (I suggest 5 minutes) to heat the AirFryer up. Once heated up, pop your fries inside, slide the drawer back into the body of the unit, set the cooking time and leave to cook. You need to give the fries a shake around every 5 minutes of cooking time, but if you had a real fryer you would be doing that anyway.

In operation the Philips AirFryer does start off sounding a little like a jet engine as the fan spins up but fear not its nowhere near as loud, LOL, there is some noise but to be honest in my opinion its background noise in any normal room unless your particularly into pin-dropping

A delicious smell does permeate from the unit as the fries cook, but its not a burning or hot oil or greasy smell that you would normally get where you would have to decontaminate the kitchen from the airborne oil slick that would come from a normal deep fat fryer, rather its just a nice cooking smell, not overly powerful either.

Once done you get a pleasant ping, though you would miss this if you were in another room, the unit then turns itself off. That sounds like a small fact but the Tefal I had before did not turn itself off and would carry on frying and frying until things were totally black charcoal and burnt, so its great this turns itself off. The residual heat in the unit will keep things warm for a good few minutes, so no worries about cold fries if you do miss that ping.

I took my fries out, gave them a small dusting of salt as that does help keep them crispy. They were all beautifully cooked, I like my fries a little on the brown side, not too pale and they were wonderfully crisp and crunchy and hot. The centres were soft and fully cooked. To think these were fresh home made fries cooked in one teaspoon of olive oil is amazing. They were delicious and certainly not a compromise for the loss of the oil.

Cleaning, the pan comes to pieces, you can take the inner pan out, clean it, and clean the base pan (which has a swirl raised design to move the air during cooking), other than that, the machine just needs a wipe down with a damp cloth to keep the outside clean, which never became hot during cooking. Air intake is around the top and air exhaust is via a filter on the top rear.

The unit came with various bits of paper including a user guide and a beautiful recipe book. Suggestions are fries of various sorts, Saute potatoes, Roast potatoes, Fish, Potatoes au gratin, Croquettes, Meatballs, Empenadas, Vegetarian foods, Chicken, Meat loaf, Quiche, etc, etc. This machine can also cook most ready meals that can be done in an oven (turn the temperature down and watch closely the first time), as essentially it is a fan oven, though the close proximity of the fan and heating element makes this work better than a regular fan oven for fries and crisping foods up, so its still a very worthwhile purchase even if you have a fan oven, this will work better for fries, etc.

So great results and I look forward to trying other things such as Chicken wings and nuggest, really looking forward to roasting vegetables as that is something I love but never do as often as I would like, this looks like it will keep moisture away and really roast the veg.

You can get yours at Amazon, click here.

Mine was White, you can also get the unit in Black, click here.

UPDATE: Of course being a new toy, I have to play with it So today I have also cooked some oven ready items and they came out MUCH crispier than my normal oven does them, actually they were like I was trying them for the first time, the difference was that much!

Also I popped some frozen sweetcorn into a bowl, one teaspoon of olive oil, mixed it all together and popped it into the Philips AirFryer for less than 10 mins and the kernels came out cooked, slightly browned in parts and absolutely sweeter than ever, chewy and delicious, a nice new twist if I get bored steaming my sweetcorn. Excellent results all round.

I forgot to mention in the box comes a card that offers you a 60 day money back warranty, yes you have 60 days to try this machine, if you don’t like it you send it back to Philips and they send your money back, whatever the receipt price was, now that is confidence in your product! Add to that the 2 year warranty, wow!

UPDATE 2:

Now I have had some more time to use the Philips Air Fryer I thought I would post another update, as there are some worthwhile things to update.

Firstly the Philips Air Fryer is pretty much a mini-fan oven but the results are way above what you would expect from such a device. I notice that in operation the unit releases hot air from the back of the unit and this air does feel very moist, so somehow the design allows the air to circulate then only the warm, damp air is released, which obviously has a major effect on the crispyness of items being cooked.

The pan also has a large swirl embossed on its base below the basket that holds the food. This ensures the air coming down from the heating element goes over the food, down to the base, is swirled and then directed back UP so the food is cooked on BOTH sides, very clever. You do still need to give items a shake, but that is mainly to avoid white patches where foods are touching each other, think tan lines, LOL, shaking avoids those (In food, ROFL!)

So foods are cooked on both sides, great for Fish Fingers (Fish Sticks) and the like and shaking is great for chips (fries), etc.

Foods come out MUCH more crispy than any oven I have ever used and things like sausages and onion rings do not overly dry out inside either.

I am really impressed with this and would definately recommend it much higher than the Tefal. I think the Tefal seems to win because it stirs fries when cooking…great if your super lazy, but to be honest if you were making ANY food in a fryer you would need to shake it at least once or twice, so the same applies here, but obviously no oil and much more crispy than an oven. As there is no stirrer it also means you can cook MANY more food types than the Tefal so its a win, win, win really.

Definitely recommended. Glad I bought this now and once the 2 year warranty runs out….in 2013 (WOW) if it goes pop, I will have to get a replacement, its simply a revelation in frying.

P.S. If you love crispy bacon…OMG, this thing does that SO well..naughty but nice! LOL

P.P.S. I forgot to say, the pan and the basket just pop in the dishwasher, making it SO much easier to clean than the oven or a deep fat fryer!

When I moved into my new apartment I had less space than in my last and the space was saved in the Kitchen, so I have very little space to store away all my many kitchen gadgets.

The JML Star Chef is designed to rid me of some of them and save space as well as bring those tasks more into this century than the last.

I will be getting rid of my slow-cooker (crock pot), rice cooker and steamer. Two of those are getting older and one of them was damaged in the move, so its a good time to look out replacements.

The JML Star Chef performs a multitude of tasks in one small compact unit. It comes pre-programmed for the following tasks:

• White Rice
• Brown Rice
• Rice Express
• Cake / Oven
• Soup / Stew (Slow Cooker)
• Porridge
• Pasta
• Meat (Steam/Fry)
• Fish (Steam/Fry)
• Vegetables (Steam / Fry)
• Reheat
• Boil

It’s pretty much pop open the lid, drop in the ingredients, select the function, select either steam or fry if required and choose a time, hit start.

The JML Star Chef has a large 2.8L bowl (96 fl.oz) that is coated in a tough ceramic non-stick surface and resembles a large saucepan without a handle. (A lifting tool is supplied for lifting the pot if it is very hot). This sits inside the main body of the unit and the heating element is underneath.

It’s great having the multi-fuctions in one unit. This way I have done things like browned meat on the meat frying option prior to adding liquid and then starting off the slow-cook function, this means it can all be made in the one place and means less washing up for a start.

I have made rice and pudding rice which came out particularly well, though there is a mis-print in the manual that would have you attempt to boil the rice for one and a half hours. The alarm bell rang when I found the timer only went up to one hour on that option, I Googled it and found out about the misprint and it should have been on the slow-cooker option, not the white rice option. This option does allow the one and a half hours to be set, and the rice came out just perfectly.

I have also made soup and a slow cooked chicken dinner as well and I was delighted with the results.

Its great that you can cook so many things and even use it as an oven.

This will save me a ton of space and washing up and I would imagine it would be just perfect for students as it gives them the ability to cook almost anything and its all done on a timer so if they forget, it will turn itself onto keep warm, then off.

The keep warm function is the best I have see so far on any kitchen gadget, as the unit retains steam (unless the pressure builds, then there is a valve that releases it) moisture is retained, this means that the unit can keep items warm for up to 24 hours, which is amazing.

You can also preset some programs and you set the end time, so if you plan to come home at 6pm you set it to 6pm, pop in the ingredients and maybe let your food slow-cook or a rice dish and meat/veg steam ready for you coming home, if your late, it will keep it warm until you get home.

Very useful and I plan on using it a lot.

At the time of writing this the JML website was out of stock but they are available in many stores and online via Amazon, eBay and places like Betterware.

UPDATE:

The manual that comes with this machine is to be honest, truly awful. It only gives min and max times for each mode of operation and no instructions on how to actually use each mode.

So here is what I have deduced so far:

• Don’t cook the pudding rice on any of the rice settings, keep it on Soup/Stew so it slow cooks it instead of boiling it. This is a mis-print in the recipe book.
• Pasta, pour about 750ml of BOILING water into the unit, or use cold water and the boil function, then drop in your salt and pasta, set the pasta mode, 12 mins for the time should be enough for al-dente pasta.
• Same applies for the steamer, pour in about 750ml of BOILING water or use the boil function first, then set the timer for meat/fish/veg and select steam and then set the time, about 25 mins is fine for potatoes or a frozen chicken breast, about 10-15 for most other things. Make sure food is cooked before removing!
• When frying always leave the lid open, otherwise steam drops from the lid into the pan and makes it splatter more when you stir it

I’ve been trying out Graze.com and their Graze Box recently, the Graze Box is a recycled cardboard box, designed to fit through your letterbox.

The box is specifically designed to fit through your letterbox so that the postman can just pop it through without you having to be in to take delivery, inside are four heat sealed plastic containers full of delicious goodies.

Items are chosen by the system based on your past selections, your likes and loves, freshness and availability.

You don’t know what you will get but that is half the fun and you can take out anything you think you would not like, so there is no real disappointment, unless you get something you don’t like. So far I have loved everything and I am now on my third box from Graze.

For example today I had in my box:

Black Pepperdoms – Fruity mango chutney with black peppercorn rice crackers
Bakewell Tart – Cherry infused sultanas, cranberries and almonds
Golden Honey Nut Cashews – Decent amount of these nuts
Apple and Cinnamon Flapjack – Three small flapjacks

These were chosen from a large array of snacks, the range includes:

• dips & dippers
• breads
• crackers
• flapjacks
• olives
• natural treats
• dried fruit and nut mixes
• nuts
• dried fruit
• seeds

You can choose to remove items if they are not to your taste via the website and you can also tell Graze that you love an item to get that choice included more often.

There is now also a ‘Send Soon’ option if your particularly interested in any option. This is particularly useful when they bring out new items, so you can sample them sooner than having to wait for the system to add them to your box.

So, you get a random-ish selection of four plastic boxes, it arrived in a recycled/recyclable container that fits through your letterbox, included is a napkin and if required a bamboo skewer (for olives, etc).

There are lots of healthy options, most if not all fruit and other ingredients are organic and sourced with great care for the environment and health.

These boxes can be delivered to your home or office and make a great healthy way to eat lunch or just for a treat. I am getting them over the weekend but if I can afford it I may change to this full time for lunch, its a great way to get variety, some good healthy foods and couldn’t be easier.

I definitely recommend it.

If your in the UK and want to try it, you can get a box for only £1 by clicking any of the graze links (like that one) on this page. If you do I also get a £1, so that would be good for both of us, give it a go, its worth trying out, even if only the once, although I think you might continue once you try it.

If your image is too dark or light I apologise as I am trying to find the best settings and sometimes the images are going to be bad when its dark or when its light until I find the perfect setting.

I am assuming this will all be resolved once I get the new HD camera but I am waiting for some info from the manufacturers before I order one to ensure its going to do exactly what I want.

Stay tuned and try out the new gallery, new pics every 30 mins day and night. Click on any image and it will take you to the full gallery that will store many, many pics as time goes forward.

Hope your enjoying this, let me know your thoughts, leave a comment.

Yes, the webcam has gone live today!!!

If you want to view the current image, click on Webcam from the menu above or click here

Plans are afoot to upgrade the image to HD to show more detail, give better low light response and remove noise from the image.

I also plan to add a gallery of images so there is something to view, even when conditions are poor.

Thanks to EVERYONE that donated, you have both helped make this happen and spur me on to do this and other projects, so the effects will be felt much farther than just this webcam, thank you so much.

and it has just arrived as I was typing this update!!!!!!

I now need to set it all up and test it again, but hopefully in a matter of hours or days I will get the thing up and running and make it all public so you can actually see the thing!

As I said in an earlier post, this will probably just be one of up to four cameras that I put online, as i’d like to share my whole view with you eventually.

More news very soon!!!!

The radio is shaped pretty much like a rugby ball, it has some weight and sits on a plastic base although it has a fitting to allow it to sit atop a tripod or some other camera style base if needs be. It has a large colour touchscreen, a touch sensitive on/off button on top and two side firing speakers.

PURE has been around for some time now, I remember my first foray into the world of digital radio was with a PURE box for my hi-fi, things have moved on since then and PURE often come up with some truly innovative and stylish products.

The radio itself will receive DAB (Digital radio broadcasts) and DAB+ (which links to pictures and ads over the internet), Standard FM and internet radio via the PURE Lounge service.

The radio is very easy to setup, it connects to your home network via Wi-Fi although an ethernet adaptor is now available if a wired connection is preferred. Then you get a number from the PURE Lounge and pop that into the radio and it syncs with your PURE Lounge account. I also have a PURE Chronon iDock in the bedroom and pop my iPhone into the dock and use the PURE Lounge software for iPhone to listen to internet radio on that device. As both sync with the same PURE Lounge account I have only had to setup and manage my internet radio station favourites and custom stations in one place, it syncs to both or any number of PURE devices.

The one criticism of the PURE Sensia is the speed, it is pushing the technology to the max and it does suffer from slow response time, but once you get used to that, its not so bad.

The PURE Sensia now comes with apps, Facebook, Twitter, RSS Feeds, Weather, Picasa and more are meant to be on the way. It is getting firmware updates frequently which is comforting to know.

The sound from both the PURE Sensia and PURE Chronon is excellent, PURE are known for tweaking the audio to get the most from the speakers in the devices they manufacture and they sound great.

The Sensia benefits from having a substantial antenna, so it won’t snap in two the first time you use it, that is a major plus as I always seem to snap them in two! LOL

The PURE Sensia also comes with a remote control, this is a wireless not an infra-red remote, so it works around corners and through walls which is great but they forgot to allow you to switch up and down stations when in internet radio mode, which is a major minus in my book as it means you have to get up and goto the radio to switch stations. I have complained about this so maybe they will consider it for a future firmware update.

The PURE Sensia also speaks to your mac or pc using a version of Twonky Media Server to serve out MP3 files to the unit, if you want to play your own music. It also has an auxiliary input for iPod or iPhone or any source.

The DAB radio works well and many stations now provide DAB+ integration so you see pictures of who is on air, or ads, the current song is also displayed and PURE have an option where you can purchase songs being played. There is also an option to identify songs on other non DAB+ or internet radio stations, strangely this is a subscription service, strange as there are many apps now that do this for free. They need to update that if possible to make it a free service as after all they are selling you the track so they should be able to recoup the cost that way.

Both devices feature multiple alarms, I know the Chronos has four and sleep and snooze timers, not sure on the total amount on the Sensia it should be at least four, but it also has a kitchen timer, Sleep and Snooze timers

I love the PURE Sensia, its on nearly all day at home and I listen to the PURE Chronos iDock at night and in the morning. I tend to use the PURE Chronos on DAB and the PURE Sensia for internet radio but its nice to have all the options available on both devices.

There is now a new version of the Chronos, the PURE Chronos iDock II as seen below:

Get a PURE Sensia from Amazon, Click Here

Get a PURE Chronos iDock Series II from Amazon, click here

Internet, well every time the number is changed the internet dies a death for a couple of days until all the various systems are in sync again, so that is not yet reliable enough to run the camera on.

I have also had some issues with the placement of the camera that I hope still to overcome, although I will be honest and say that the issues may stop the project all together, although I hope not. (If I have to abandon the project, anyone that donated will get a full refund, but I think it will still go ahead, so dont panic yet!)

We are almost two months from the date I expected to have the camera up and running, which is very annoying for me but for those that helped me out, it must be even more frustrating and for that I do apologise, but as you maybe can see, things are out of my control.

The good news is that things are coming together and I expect to finalise this in the next few weeks, so not much longer and thank you for bearing with me.

I will update you again soon, hopefully with good news!

Thanks again

SteveINtheUKok

When its an unconfirmed appointment…. SCREECHING OF CAR TYRES!!!

Hold up, isn’t an unconfirmed appointment, just a date on the calendar? And then it isn’t an appointment at all, its just a date?

Well my telephone company have just moved my install date back ANOTHER two weeks, f****ers!

Just got an email this morning to tell me, no call, no letter, just an email, out of the blue.

I had to call up to get the “unconfirmed appointment” story.

Thankfully I copied to a PDF the seemingly confirmed date on their system just the other day, so I have proof to back me up.

I will be taking this one all the way and feel I am being taken for a ride so I want some kind of financial recompense.

I not have to try and get all the people I had arranged to be here to give them access to the equipment they require again. NIGHTMARE!!!

I have complained and they are trying to get yet another, hopefully confirmed, date sometimes sooner but what a flurking nightmare!

Thank you British Telecom what a bunch of idiots.

AND if I call them up, go through the auto-bot (or maybe its a Decepticon! LOL) menu system on the phone you hit a dead end and have to choose a department you don’t want, who then has to transfer you to the one you do want, so that means telling the WHOLE story twice! aaaaaaaaarrrrggghhh!!!!!!!

This will be nearly six weeks without a phone or internet service.

Apologies for not having updated this sooner but as with many moves things have not gone as smoothly as I would have liked.

I had everything for my internet connection planned and I was meant to be connected the day after I moved but due to some problems accessing some equipment it was postponed almost a month which has been nothing short of a major disaster, being so reliant on the internet for my daily work far less anything else!

I have access to a flaky wireless connection which is costing me a small fortune, add to that the cost of mobile phone calls and many calls made via Skype which is less than perfect at the best of times you can see things are not that easy at the moment.

There was a great response to donations and to each and everyone that donated a big thank you from me, I can never say thank you enough times, its great to have such support and I really do appreciate it.

I have ordered a camera and I am waiting for it to be delivered as it is on back-order.

Now everything being well I should have an connection and a camera here and ready to setup in the next couple of weeks and I hope to then make the camera available to everyone very soon after that.

I do apologise that it was not instantly available, but as you can see it did not go exactly to plan! sigh!

I will update this page again soon to keep you updated on the internet situation and when the camera arrives, etc.

Thank you again and wish me luck

SteveINtheUKok

P.S. I am totally behind on listening to podcasts as I just don’t have the bandwidth to download any at present. So I am around a month to two behind on all of my podcasts, so if you have said hello or wished me well, thank you and I will get to you….eventually, LOL

It overlooks part of the town I am going to be living in and out over the countryside to the hills in the distance.

As I have not moved in yet, I have no photos to share yet, sorry!

I thought it would be fun and cool to setup a web cam so I can share my view with you 24/7.

I need to get a camera that I can connect up to the net, there are a couple I am looking at but with all the expense of moving I thought I would ask my friends to help out, if you can. The camera’s are not too expensive around $100-200. It means I can hook it up to the internet and keep my computer free for doing my work, etc. Also means your not bugged by re-boots, etc.

As you know I do a lot of work on apps for our little community and I never ask to be paid for that, so if you can help I thought this was a fun way to let people say thank you and still use that help to give something more back to you all.

If you can help there is a donate button below, you can fill out your own amount, the more I have the better the camera I can get and the quicker I can get it.

Thank you in advance if your able to help, if your not able to help then I hope you will enjoy coming over from time to time to check out the view or just watch the weather in the UhK to see the sun or watch it snow.

Thanks

SteveINtheUKok

P.S. If I fail to receive enough donations I will try and make up the amount myself, if its too far of the mark I will refund everyones money. Either way I will let everyone know what is happening.

You can circle me or whatever the hell it is you do on the new Google+ ….it’s so new!!!!

Find me here:

http://gplus.to/steveintheukok

I used to be a podcaster, I did it for 5 years and learned a lot. I went from a basic mic up to a reasonably professional setup and learnt a lot about the technicalities of making your own podcast as well as how we all take it for granted. We turn on the TV or radio and hundreds of channels appear, all filled to the brim with shows. And most of us just don’t realise how much work goes into creating a show, creating content for a show, recording, editing and promoting a show.

That’s why I wanted to put something back, if I was a millionaire I guess I would send everyone a cheque…sadly…I am not, so I offer my time, even if that is just a moment to send an email to say, hey, hi, I love your show, that can make such a difference to the person on the other side of the mic, knowing there are people out there that appreciate them, so that is how SteveINtheUKok came into being.

As for before well I am in the UK, I originally hail from the tartan encrusted land that is Scotland. I am related to a famous football player from the past. I came very close to hosting a national TV show back when I was a bit younger. I ran a tech magazine as a kid, long before the internet appeared, it came in print and on tape (showing my age! LOL).

I have been in studios for the BBC and local radio stations, and once I accidentally walked into a radio show while it was on air, very red faced I left quickly! LOL

I have been to the top of the Forth Road Bridge, the Eiffel Tower and the Empire State building. I have been in a nuclear submarine, I have worked in a nuclear power station, I have worked on a nuclear bomb armoured command centre and a bomb disposal robot.

I have been down mines and worked on what was at the time, the worlds largest mining machine. I have been in courts and prisons, though I have not committed any crimes (It was through work, LOL). I have met a number of Lords, Ladies and Dames in my time. Similar to my radio boob, I walked into a doorway…little did I know it led to behind the judge and a trial was underway and there is me facing the court and gallery..again I turned on my heels and ran…oopsy!!!

I’ve bumped into Sigourney Weaver in London and met a lot of stars of UK cinema and TV.

I’ve been into computers since I was a young kid and got my first computer in 1982, the Sinclair ZX-81, since then I have had many, many computers, web sites including one I sold to a large american corporation, sadly I did not become a millionaire then either…sigh, LOL

I love films, especially the older films, black and white is 100 times more colourful to me than a colour film and silent films don’t scare me I have recently just bought the complete works of Laurel and Hardy, Abbot and Costello and Harold Lloyd to name but a few. I also love comedy and again love ‘classic’ comedy series, especially UK comedy with its naughty seaside postcard rather prudish nature.

As for music my tastes are pretty wide, I can enjoy almost any form of music and I think I am nearing 20,000 tracks in my iTunes and could easily double or treble that if I could afford it. And yes I do have the latest Lady GaGa

Hows that for starters, if you have any questions, please let me know either here or on Twitter or Facebook and I will do what I can to answer them and post them here too.

I thought I would write a little about this as I did it a month ago now and I thought it might be interesting to those that would be interested in doing the same thing.

Now, I live in the UhK and have an absolute hatred for the monopolistic tv provider Sky and how they screw you over for their channels, packages and set top boxes. Now as I write this Sky is about to be bought by Rupert Murdoch and personally I feel that is a bad thing for the UK and I am totally against it. It was NO surprise when the current government first cocked up the investigation and then HAD to allow the sale to go through, mainly because they cocked up the investigation but that is another issue

I ceased my Sky Satellite TV subscription and now only have access to the free channels available via the Sky digibox. I also have access to pretty much the same channels via Freeview which is the system that is replacing the old analog TV channels here in the UhK with digital ones, we are doing a staggered switchover, unlike the USA which changed all at once.

Now I do have a plethora of boxes! I currently have:

Sky HD Digibox which I use to access the free to air HD channels such as BBC One HD, BBC HD, ITV HD, Channel 4 HD, Channel 5 HD, etc
It does not record as this costs £10 ($16) per month from Sky…total rip off as I already bought the box!

A Hitachi Freeview+ recorder, basically a DVR for free over the air digital channels, my main recorder. No charge for recording and records up to 2 channels at once.

AppleTV, I have two of these one for the living room and one for the bedroom. Let me rent movies and watch movies I have stored on iTunes and also watch video podcasts.

Sony Blu-Ray Player, again I have two of these, let me watch DVD and Blu-Ray but also let me watch BBC iPlayer and Five on Demand on both my TV’s. They also allow me to access movie rentals via Sony’s Qriocity service.

Both TV’s are also Freeview compatible and can receive the free to air channels on their own.

So LOTS of options.

I tend not now to watch a lot of broadcast television, to be honest, in the UK at the moment there are many, many, many repeats and not a whole lot of new shows either homegrown or imported. Those I do watch will be recorded on the Hitachi freeview+ DVR, if they are in HD I will watch them live on the Sky HD box.

For the most part I am watching content on my AppleTV, there are a ton of great quality video podcasts and I have enough to keep me entertained. The rest of the time I find myself using the BBC iPlayer and finding things I have missed.

I would recommend that anyone gets an AppleTV and try’s it for podcasts, etc. I also stored hundreds of movies in my iTunes library and use home sharing to make those available on the AppleTV so I don’t need to keep swapping DVD’s, etc.

Now I am saving a fortune every month, I used to pay around £45 ($73) a month for Sky TV and now I pay zero, thats a big saving every month.

I do spend some of that, around 15-20 a month on DVD’s from Amazon, but the DVD’s I buy have been in the £3 ($5) range and have found some excellent bargains there including a boxed set of over 85 movies for only £21 ($34), so my movie watching has soared and I am loving some of my purchases on Amazon.

I can definately say with the combination of AppleTV and Amazon the quality of my viewing has not dropped but actually gone up and I have found a new love in French comedy and drama films.

I am watching movies I would NEVER have considered before and that is definitely expanded my world. This applies to movie rentals via Qriocity and AppleTV, although I often find it cheaper to buy via Amazon than rent, but sometimes something catches my eye.

So I recommend at least try cutting the cord, I won’t be going back, i’m enjoying myself too much.

Now I don’t always use an electric razor, sometimes I live to wet shave, I just tend to find I cannot wet shave all the time as it irritates my skin. I did used to use another brand of shaver and that also used to irritate my skin. This is my second Philips electric shaver, the last one has lasted for a good few years but still works ok, althought the battery is failing a bit, hence why I wanted a new one.

One thing about Philips is their stunning designs, even my old shave ‘looks’ new due to their futuristic designs. No one can beat them on this I think and its always nice to have a nice looking product, as long as it also works well, which thankfully they do.

The RQ-1180 is one of the SensoTouch range and has the shaving head, almost in a pod that sticks out of the shaver. This allows full freedom of movement of the head left/right and up/down so it tracks the shape of your face. As if that wasn’t enough the shaver has three round shaving ‘elements’ I shall call them and these also move in and out towards the centre, basically you can push the centre and they all tilt inwards I assume to catch the shape of your chin, cheeks, etc.

The shaving elements are self-sharpening, something Philips has perfected over many years and I can testify to that actually working as my last shaver is as sharp as the day I bought it and no horrible bloody messes when a foil breaks as with the other brand I used to use.

This particular model comes with a nice carry case to protect it and a very stylish charging stand. Other accessories include the power supply for the stand, a cleaning brush and another head for the shaver that lets you trim sideburns or shape beards.

The unit charges in less than an hour and runs for 50 minutes which they say is enough for up to 17 shaves, but even at 14 that would be two weeks worth from a single charge, which is amazing for such a light and stylishly designed unit. There is not a straight edge on the thing, this takes ergonomic to new levels.

I have also just registered the warranty online, which extends it to a full two years, which is a very long time for an electric shaver, some other brands only do 90 days, so two years is excellent.

As you can tell I love Philips shaving products, they work for me, they look and perform outstandingly well and I thoroughly recommend them. (Could I gush any more LOL)

P.S. The unit does a Knight Rider thing with the charging lights initially when you plug it in to charge, now who doesn’t love that

Find out more about the Philips RQ-1180 click here

MAJOR UPDATE: I made a mistake, the shaver comes with a 2 year guarantee, when you register online they extend it by a further year to a mind blowing 3 years, WOW, does any other company do this??? Not that I know of! Lucky me! LOL

Find this product on Amazon, click here

I just took delivery of a Tefal Actifry.

The Tefal Actifry enables frying but with just one spoonful of oil, even olive oil so it it much healthier than deep frying.

The unit comes in a typical Tefal box, white and glossy with a picture of the enclosed product on the front.

Upon opening there are a couple of bits of polystyrene one on the top, one on the bottom.

The unit is fully assembled and ready to go, all you need to do is remove it from the box, plug it in, remove the oil spoon, which is attached to the top of the centre spindle of the paddle / stirrer and off you go. Though I would recommend a quick wash down to remove any dirt or debris left over from manufacturing or shipping.

The Tefal Actifry is mainly made from plastic and has a pop-up see through plastic lid that reveals a non-stick pan with pop up handle and paddle assembly.

To get some chips (fries) going all you need to do is prepare your frozen chips (fries) or make some fresh ones, yes this does fresh home made chips (fries) with only a tiny amount of oil.

If prepping fresh you need to slice them up, wash them and dry them, as you would with a normal fryer.

Then all you do is pop them into the pan, drizzle over some oil and you can use almost anything vegetable, sunflower, canola, groundnut or as in my case olive oil. I used a little extra virgin olive oil I had already at home. Just one spoonful is all you need to make homemade chips (fries) and in the case of frozen oven chips (fries) you need no oil at all, as they already have a coating of oil.

Once your ready, you pop the lid closed. Set the timer on the top and turn the unit on.

The Actifry does not need pre-warming, it takes about 10 seconds to heat up and about 20-30 seconds to make any oil in the pan bubble, very fast!

It is not at all noisy, a little from the fan, but it wasnt as noisy as I had expected it might be, so that was a pleasant surprise.

Around 30-45 minutes later, depending on if your doing fresh or frozen your chips (fries) are ready.

I have tried both homemade and frozen and had excellent results from both.

They both come out with a fluffy inside and a really crispy outside, in fact crispier than I have ever gotten home made chips (fries) that have been done in a deep fat fryer, so that is amazing.

I have also tried vegetarian chicken nuggest which were delicious and crispy on the outside but soft and moist on the inside and only took 15 minutes from frozen to cook.

I did some tater tots and mixed some mexican seasoning mix (you know the taco mix!) into the oil before drizzling and they were just delicious.

Roast potatoes came out very well with a very crispy outside and fluffy inside.

You can do things like stir-fries, chilli con carne, and lots of other things in this machine so its not just for chips (fries) in fact I did some pears cut up and drizzles with honey instead of oil and they were delicious too.

Cleaning is quite easy, the lid unclips and washes out, the pan lifts out and can be washed in a dishwasher.

Now one thing to be very aware of, and this does sound scary but when these units fail, they do it rather spectacularly. LOL

They seem to last around one to two years, then the fan goes with a bang, sometimes some sparks. This leaves the heating element running at a very high temperature and no fan to cool it.

So what happens is, the plastic starts to melt and you get smoke.

Now there are safety devices and there have never been any reported actual fires, its just smokes a bit when the fan goes and people seem to be panicing. There have been millions of these things sold worldwide, and no one has gone up in flames yet Sounds bad doesnt it, but as I say people panic make good stories on the internet

I got mine for £99 ($150) and if it lasts the year I will be happy with that. I bought it from Amazon, so if it does go pop, they will collect it and send me a new one, so not worried about the first year.

If that seems dramatic, maybe this isnt for you? The horror stories you read on the net seem to be the very first devices out there and I understand were now on the third generation, so this may actually be a thing of the past and the stories are all from those very first devices. I’m not going to worry, they have been investigated here in the UK and nothing came of it, so they are pretty much safe in my opinion. Just be aware it might smoke if it pops

There is a black version available too:

Just found out you Americans call it T-Fal and we Europeans call it Tefal, who knew! LOL

Find out about the Tefal Actifry by clicking here

Order one via Amazon, click here

UPDATE:

The on/off button on my unit has gone faulty after one months use. Amazon have arranged a free replacement unit to be sent out and are collecting the faulty unit via courier free of charge. I hope this is just one of these things rather than the start of a long history of problems! There was an issue with Amazon and I opted for a refund…a month or so later I miss the Tefal actifry it was the best fryer I ever owned. I may purchase the latest design, family fryer as this will have been totally updated and also has an auto-shutoff after cooking finishes. Just need the cash! LOL If anyone feels generous they could send one to me via my Amazon wishlist! You don’t ask, you don’t get

UPDATE 2:

I have now replaced this with the Philips Air Fryer. You can find that on Amazon, click here

Felt good to just let it all go!

It’s also the first update I have done on this site in a long time, which is pretty bad of me, I really should try and do more.

Thanks to those that dropped by to read it!

SteveINtheUKok

There has been a discussion on Twitter tonight and I want to post some of my thoughts.

The issue is to do with Apple and App store policy and their recent change to ban single channel radio apps from the app store, something I both disagree with and more importantly for me, disagree with the way the change was implemented.

My main complaint, is not that Apple has made this change, that is their right to do so, although I feel it is still incorrect, more on that later, but more with the way they implemented this change and in fact MANY of the changes they make.

Apple is in a wonderful position right now, they have the world at their feet, they can do almost anything and they will make a profit. Even the iPhone 4 which has definite proven flaws has sold in amazing numbers, I have one myself and love it dearly.

I am angry that, company policy changes at a moments notice and appears as if it changes on a whim of Steve Jobs.

Some will say, he is the boss, that is his prerogative, but wait one moment. The choices and decisions he makes affect more than just him, more than just his company it affects single customers, it affects small and large developers and in fact entire micro-economies.

Take for example your phone bill, imagine if you got the bill and it was double the price, you’d be angry, right?

You would have expected to have been made aware of the change, ahead of time, so you could plan things, maybe change company, right?

Now see that Apple change their terms of inclusion into the store at a moments notice, in fact in this case, it was only when someone complained that apps were being barred that they were informed at all, no announcement had been made prior to or even after the changes were made to Apple policy. Who knew…Steve, Apple Staff…Who on the outside…no one.

Is that a problem? Hell yes!

There are people who are spending long hard work hours creating apps, in the same way as a builder builds or a baker bakes, real hours, real time, real costs.

Companies large and small are creating products for sale in this marketplace based on its terms and conditions, terms and conditions that change, in secret.

Nothing is without risk, but this risk is becoming unbearable.

Apps don’t pop into existence, they take time to create, and the level of quality demanded by iPhone users is getting greater all the time, that kind of quality takes time and money to bring to market.

Everything a company does comes with some risk, but that risk should be able to be managed, that is NOT possible if Apple are to continue doing what they do.

All I want to see is proper, written terms, that get changed as and when Apple require but with at least SOME notice, at the very least notice WHEN they change and not AFTER.

I could work on an app for a month and submit it and find out the terms changed three weeks ago, is that fair or even just?

I don’t think it is.

The app store rules are often mis-interpreted by Apple staff, I myself have had apps rejected for reasons that do not make sense, where I can show hundreds of apps that break the rules, and always there are some in the top 25 apps.

If Apple don’t even know their own rules, what chance do I have?

Recently Google has made some changes to their own Marketplace, they published plans before the changes took effect, I have even been sent follow up emails to remind me they were going to take place.

That sounds like GOOD management to me.

Now this isn’t an android / iphone bitch fest. I am lucky to have both and I choose to use the iPhone over the Android for my own personal reasons in the same way I chose mac over PC.

There does come a time when developers will say, i’ve had enough, I will develop for Android and X other platforms, iPhone demands too much and is too much of a risk.

That is when iPhone will start to slip and that slip will be a landslide, I guarantee it because I have seen it before.

You can only piss off so many people before those people walk, and when they walk, the often take others with them and so the landslide begins.

iPhone is a very small player in the global telecoms market, look at the numbers.

Everyone things iPhone is a HUGE seller, sorry, its not. Yes it is in the USA, the UK, Australia and a few other countries but globally its small fry.

Their bubble could burst before it even starts to take hold.

Why do I care?

Well I develop for iPhone, I want to create great apps, that continue to improve with time, that continue to look better, perform better and offer more and more useful and engaging features.

However I need a fair and honest marketplace to sell my fair and honest works.

I do not feel it is fair and honest by hiding your policies and changing them without warning.

I have a couple of apps with single radio tuners, they are for real stations that exist, that are even listed in the iTunes radio directory, they are REAL!

Why should those listeners be denied a branded app?

Sure, whittle out the crap, the fakes, the people out for a quick buck, but don’t just ban every single channel app.

Make a radio station section, so people that aren’t interested can avoid the apps they don’t want to see, increase the options, do not reduce them.

If people keep seeing apps they want on another platform, they WILL switch to that other platform.

By all means curate, but do it with the same style and beauty that all Apple devices have in their form, extend that to their function!!!

Train the reviewers properly, create a tiered review structure where reviewers can pass a suspect application uplink for further review.

INNOVATE!

Do I make sense?

It’s more than a personal anger you see, I am angry for the group of my fellow developers, I am angry for the users getting second best, I am angry that Apple has not thought this through and came out on top, that is very Un-apple!

Tell me your thoughts on this.

Comment or email me, twitter me, whatever, i’d love to hear what you think.

What has spurred me into action? Well this whole mess with Apple and the iPhone 4.

Now I have to be honest and say I do not own an iPhone 4 so maybe I should just shut up but this is about more than just this one issue and this one product. [UPDATE: I now own one!]

I feel it is more about Steve Jobs and his attitude and how that percolates down through the company.

Let us be honest, there is a problem with the iPhone 4, while I agree it is a problem for only a minority of users IT IS a problem none the less, it is a fault, an error of design. If it were were not, we would not be discussing the problem at all.

A free case for all, well that is a band-aid on a cut isn’t it, couldn’t be clearer in my eyes. It doesn’t fix the problem and if we are honest there is no fix, well none that does not involve a recall and Apple are trying to avoid that for obvious cost and embarassment reasons.

I think they will scrape by and we will have iPhone 4 and iPhone 4.1 which will have some modification to alleviate the worst of this issue, it won’t eliminate it, I don’t think you can with the current design but I do feel that small modifications can be made to stop the worst of it.

Now this news conference with Jobs, that I think will be seen as an utter disaster in time. There was an apology but it wasn’t a sincere one, if it were he would not have taken pot shots at everyone else, the press, the customers, the other manufacturers.

In fact by taking pot shots at the other manufacturers he has opened a Pandora’s box that will not close again. They were always looking for some chink in the armour and he has handed it to them on a plate. You only have to look at the statement from RIM, which is damming:

“Apple’s attempt to draw RIM into Apple’s self-made debacle is unacceptable. Apple’s claims about RIM products appear to be deliberate attempts to distort the public’s understanding of an antenna design issue and to deflect attention from Apple’s difficult situation. RIM is a global leader in antenna design and has been successfully designing industry-leading wireless data products with efficient and effective radio performance for over 20 years. During that time, RIM has avoided designs like the one Apple used in the iPhone 4 and instead has used innovative designs which reduce the risk for dropped calls, especially in areas of lower coverage. One thing is for certain, RIM’s customers don’t need to use a case for their BlackBerry smartphone to maintain proper connectivity. Apple clearly made certain design decisions and it should take responsibility for these decisions rather than trying to draw RIM and others into a situation that relates specifically to Apple.”

I think if that news conference had been handled better and less confrontationally Apple could have bought itself time to get a new model out there with a partial fix. Instead the tornado of hate is still there and I think is growing.

A total mess.

Now, what I think Steve doesn’t quite understand is that he came into this with the iPod, a truly innovational product and nothing could beat it for looks and functionality for a long time, many come very close today but the market has shifted to mobile. They realeased the iPhone again looks and functionality.

To be clear, I say looks, yes that is very important, but it MUST have the functionality to back it up or it is just a pretty thing, akin to the blond bimbo, nice to look at but pretty much useless without the functionality LOL

This is where the iPhone 4 is falling foul, it has lost SOME of it’s functionality and that is a REAL problem.

They are no longer alone in this market. The old guys your Nokia’s can’t compete yet they remain entrenched in their old worlds.

Other companies such as RIM and Android and possibly even Windows Mobile are looking to the future and coming up with desirable products (though I reserve judgement on Windows to be honest) that people want to own, enjoy using, have the desired functionality and usability.

There is competition, so if anyone falls down in this race, they risk falling to the back and that is what Apple are in a danger of doing here.

Why would I purchase an iPhone if I know it doesn’t work properly? I personally own an Android and it does all the iPhone does and 500 times more. It also works and I can hold it in any hand I want, with or without a case.

This is a mess for Apple and it is very damaging, though they aren’t admitting it for obvious reasons.

They have to get a new model out ASAP, a model that says, yes there always will be some issue with the antenna but we have re-engineered it to remove the worst of the downsides, if they don’t the competition will kill them.

Don’t think their little bubble cannot implode, it can and if they don’t act soon, it will.

Apple are NOT invincible, those that think they are need to realise they are being blinded by Apple PR and hype and wake up.

Now, am I just an Android user desperate to get a knife in? No, the iPhone has a place in the market and it should expect a big share of the market, though I see that share slipping.

iPhone sells simplicity and no-manual ease of use. That will always sell, many people will gravitate to such a product line.

On the flip there are those that want cutting edge with all the options and bells and whistles and for those I think Android will win, there are few limits on the platform and offers choice of manufacturer, network, design and fuctionality. Choice tends to win.

I think we will see a 42/38/20 (iPhone/Android/Others) split in the smartphone market for a while then it will become 25/60/15. My gut feeling.

Maybe this is just wishful thinking on behalf of my American friends (we in the UK have three networks that sell the iPhone, sorry!) but it might appear that the AT&T exclusivity deal may be coming to an end.

My first exhibit:


Why do this? Especially after the recent changes to data plans? AT&T are not generally known for their kindness and customer service So my only conclusion is that they have been pre-warned of a change and they are trying to get everyone locked into a new contract before that exclusivity contract expires at the end of 2010.

Now I cannot see AT&T being happy about this amount of data being fired over their network and that is based on past experience with things like Skype, Netflix and Slingbox.

So if that is the case, why is it going to change in 2011? Because someone less restrictive is going to allow something other than Wi-Fi?

Does seem that something is happening at the end of this year.

We Rule is a free game for the iPhone and iPod Touch, if your looking for a similar game on Android try the free game called Papaya.

They are all clones of the farming game on Facebook, or so I hear (I’m not much of a Facebook fan) and it is extremely simple and yet addictive.

You are given a plot of land, some cash and something called Mojo! Mojo, lets you build things faster and grow crops faster, it’s a bit like waving a magic wand over your crops.

The game is free but if you want to purchase extra Mojo to progress faster in the game then that will cost your from $2.99 for 30 Mojo points all the way up to $29.99 for 800 Mojo points. You don’t need a lot of Mojo to make a difference and as your progress in the game you get free Mojo, so you can enjoy the game for free.

If I make this sound difficult then I apologise as this game is not difficult at all to play, it does suck you into it’s world though.

You grow crops, which grow in REAL time(ish) (carrots take six hours, pumpkins three, Corn only takes 45 seconds, etc). Once you have grown your crops you need to click on them to harvest them and sell them, this gives you cash to buy more crops or other things like houses.

If you don’t harvest your crops in a reasonable amount of time they go bad and you have to clear your plot of land.

Houses, schools, businesses all generate incomes. They do this like crops on differing timescales. Schools in 24 hours, Gems in a few hours and houses in around three hours.

The came continues with you buying plots of farm land, building things, adding features like trees, ponds, fountains, lights, etc

Remember the game is completely free and you can play it totally in free mode, corn is free to buy and earns you five coins in the 45 seconds it takes to harvest it. On the other hand you can decide to go for it and buy yourself a little Mojo to progress.

So far I have a lovely castle with a fair amount of land (land size increases the bigger the building YOU live in) and I did all that with no purchased Mojo, though I did claim 5 extra Mojo points for trying out another of this companies games, offers pop up when you open the game if they are available, kind of cool in-game features are given for real world trials.

Anyway, it’s all very good and very addictive, give it a go, search for We Rule on the app store.

They took money from my PayPal account for a service that was renewed without my knowledge.

Now it may have been buried deep in some small print that they would renew this service but I still haven’t found out where.

Needless to say I have asked for a refund and they are playing some very annoying games with me, contradicting what they say from one email to the next and even though I am spelling out what I need done, they act as if they have never read one word of my emails.

I am giving them one last chance before I fire off one hell of a letter to their head office complete with highlighted emails, this will also be forwarded to the authorities in the UK to see if they can be dealt with under EU legislation.

Why must these companies give us such poor service when the amount of time they spend arguing with us costs more than the amount they are being asked to refund to me.

In fact I even asked them to pop the amount of my Skype account if it was easier, but still the answer is no.

So I have had money taken from me, without my authroisation for a service I do not want, no prior warning given that a charge was going to be taken and they refuse to refund me. Shocking!

If they persist with this, I will cease all of my Skype accounts and I will no longer be accessible via Skype, I will also then post the emails on my site as a warning to others!

I am so angry right now, yes Big Ricky ANGRY! SO ANGRY! LOL

I have had my new Android phone for around a week now and I know some of you including Veritable Virgo wanted me to write a review of what I thought of the phone, especially when comparing it to the iPhone so here it is.

Now to be clear from the outset I do not currently have an iPhone and the last one I did have was a 2G but I do have a latest modeller iPod touch so I feel the speed is likely to be similar for this comparison.

The phone I have is an HTC Hero or the G2 Touch as it is marketed here in the UhK and it came in a very small box which is obviously an environmental plus.

INSIDE THE BOX

Inside the box was a tiny charger with a slot in UK mains plug, the US version would come with the same adaptor and a slot-in US mains plug. Also included was a pair of headphones with remote control and microphone, these are 3.5mm and also work on the iPod Touch even for the remote which was a surprise though I have an in-line microphone adaptor and a nice pair of Sennheiser headphones for the iPod which of course now work on the HTC. A USB to mini USB was included but this was keyed so it ONLY works on this phone. Where the normal mini USB tapers in at the sides only one side tapers in, the other is squared off, unusual at the phone itself does accept and charges fine with a normal mini USB lead.

There were no driver disks but a manual and a quick start guide sheet was included. If you plug in the phone to your PC or Mac there is also a built in PDF version of both of these which was a nice touch and if your on a PC there is some sync software. The phone does not currently sync to a mac….though you don’t need it to sync to anything anyway, more on that one later!

VERSIONS OF ANDROID

The phone comes with Android 1.5 (Cupcake) all the Android versions are named after cakes or desserts Cupcake, Doughnut, Eclair, etc. which is kind of fun This is a very old version as they are on 2.1 with the Nexus One and Sony is promising a 2.2 later in the year. The good news is that I was in touch with HTC, whom I must say replied at a amazing speed to me to tell me an update is due out early in April to bring the phone up to 2.1, good news. I think this is something that Google is trying to stress to handset manufacturers that they need to provide upgrades in a timely manner going forward. Remember this is open source, even if Google provides an update there is no guarantee your phone manufacturer will do likewise. Again as it is open source many people build versions that you can install yourself via a process called Rooting which is not unlike Jailbreaking on the iPhone but without big brother breathing down your neck!

OK, as I say this phone is on 1.5 which is slow, so compared to an iPhone it does run slowly when browsing or moving to a new application, this is fixed in 2.1 and it’s only a few weeks away so I will be kind in my review about the speed, it’s not horribly slow, just not as nippy as the iPhone with 1.5 installed. Do not let that put you off though.

My phone comes with HTC Sense which is basically a menu that overlays the screen and gives direct access to the total list of apps installed, the phone and the ability to add shortcuts to the main screen.

SOME LIMITATIONS

There are two major limitations on Android right now and I feel these will be dropped such are the cries of the Android users, you are limited to 1-7 screens of program shortcuts, not that unusual as the original iPhone was limited to 10 I think and I expect that to change and to beat the iPhone. The second limitation you can only install apps to the phones built in memory which is not that large 256Mb in my case, doesn’t sound much does it but so far I have installed tons of apps and I mean tons of them and never run out of space so the apps seem to be less memory hungry to begin with. Again I expect that to change and remember this phone has SDHC card slot, mine has a 2Gb one and I could put in much more so it is expandable and it is expected that you will be able to pop apps in there soon, in fact there are apps that let you do that now, it’s just not an official feature yet, so it is possible.

Those things aside and as I say none of them has limited me in any way yet, so I am ok with this.

MUCH LESS LIMITED THAN THE IPHONE

I have possibly made the Android seem hobbled by some early mistakes in the planning of the operating system but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Take for example the iPhone, don’t like the browser, tough, don’t like the SMS, tough, don’t like buying the high priced iTunes music when you know Amazon has those same MP3′s cheaper, tough. Not so on the Android and this IS the killer thing about these phones, it’s all open source, nothing is barred!

I love the HTC SMS app but there is a better one….so I replaced it, simple as installing an app, easy. There is no standard music store so I installed Amazon, and there are others, just an app, easy. I wanted to try the new keyboard called Swype (swype.com) so I just installed the app, easy! Are you getting my point here, it’s YOUR phone and you do it YOUR way, not the way someone at the top of the corporation thinks you should be doing it, no, YOUR way that fits YOUR life and likes and desires. No apps being pulled here, want that Wi-Fi scanner, you got it!

I HAVE AN UNUSUAL PROBLEM

In fact I have an unusual problem (I listen to Big Fatty! LOL OK I have two unusual problems then hahaha) I cannot receive my WiFi signal in half of the house due to a couple of thick walls. I installed an ethernet over mains pair of adaptors to ship the signal from one end of the house where the router lives to the other where I installed a wireless access point. In effect I now have two wireless networks in my home. Great wireless everywhere but the signal from both never totally dies when you move to the other end of the house, so the iPod never drops it and picks the other up, in fact the Android doesn’t either. So I installed an app that finds the strongest signal and automatically switches to it, so very useful for me. It also finds free WiFi near me when I am out and about and automatically connects to it if I am in range, how cool is that. Does the iPhone do that? Is it ever likely to now they pulled the WiFi apps?

APPS, APPS, APPS AND MORE APPS!

But your probably saying, yes but I like the apps on the iPhone, I worried about that also and was surprised to find most of them are already on the Android platform, in fact things like Seesmic Twitter is getting rave reviews is only on the Android platform at present.

Lets see what kinds of apps I have, first off is Barcode which scans barcodes and can tell you what a product is, but it also scans those square barcodes you often see on UPS boxes and they are used a lot in the Android world, you can scan a barcode on your computer screen or in a magazine and you will be taken to the app store so you can install an app, or to a website and even to download contacts, amazing and so very useful!

I have a BBC News app, Huffington Post app, News reader that syncs with Google Reader (remember I said you never have to sync, it does it all through google!), Facebook which integrates with my contacts list and even imports facebook profile pics as your contacts photos!

Google Maps, which has a very cool mode on the Android called Compass mode, you hold your Android up and do a street view and the view follows your movements with the phone, its like the phone screen is a view into this virtual world, amazing! A similar app is Layar which gives you a 3D world, you hold the phone up and say look for restaurants near me, it shows you them in front of you, you just walk towards the marker and if you keep turning to follow those markers you will end up at the restaurant! OR you can view 3D objects and walk around them again your phone screen a view into this virtual world that is overlaid onto the real world pic from your camera. Mind blowing!

I have an internet radio app, a BBC iPlayer app (think Hulu for the UhK), XE Currency app, DropBox, Fring to do Skype and Voip, Google Mail, Google Talk, Google Translate (which can speak too!), Podcast app called Google Listen that syncs with Google Reader, Mail app, GPS Tracker app to record where you have been, PDF viewer, Twitter clients galore, Photoshop, Shazam, Office, SMS backup app that backs up my SMS conversations to Google Mail, I can watch or listen to TWiT via their app, If I loose or get my phone stolen I can do all those MobileMe things like lock it or wipe it, password protect it, send messages to it, find where it is (oh and this is all free!!!), Voice recorder and Wikipedia and YouTube and I will stop there because I am boring you but you get the picture.

FINAL WORDS

This phone is not limited, it’s far more unlimited than the iPhone and it keeps getting better!

If anyone has any questions i’d be happy to answer them, fire them over to my email address or use the contact form on the website and I will get back to you and maybe post them here if people send a few in.

TELL ME YOU LOVE ME!

Hope you like my review, there are more things to tell but I will have to wait and see what battery life is like, so far it looks fine, comparable to the iPhone certainly.

Reduction of entertainment and comedy on BBC Four – What it is with BBC Three, why is it so lucky at escaping cuts? Here is the deal. Kill BBC Three, take that content and put it on BBC1 and BBC2 to stop the repeats and hand me downs from other channels like Discovery so BBC1 and BBC2 have new original content, which IS being made, just not shown on the channels to bolster up an unwanted and un-needed BBC three. Don’t change BBC 4 too much, it’s working and is a great TV alternative to Radio 4.

Extending CBBC finishing time until 9pm. – Great, much needed and called for by parents, couldn’t agree more.

Half of the BBC websites will close, including Strictly Dance Fever and Street Doctor. – Not a fan of their pretty much useless extra content websites, setup in the internet rush to get SOMETHING online and really not needed, please just make these when they are of REAL use and REALLY needed, not just whenever a show starts.

Fewer bespoke programme websites. – As I say, great.

Defining publicly which areas of activity BBC Online will not undertake. – About time they knew who they were and what they were for!

Closure of 6 Music. – Yep, plenty of commercial competition, no need for it to exist.

Closure of Asian Network. – Outrageous, possibly the worst part of this whole package of cuts. This market is not fully covered by the commercial broadcasters and is much needed by the Asian community in the UK. There should be questions asked in parliament about this one!

Radio 2 must become more distinctive with at least 50% of speech during the daytime. – Well, that should kill the UK’s most popular station. REALLY, if it gets 50% more speech, what is Radio 4 for then? This kills Radio 2 and removes the reason for existing of Radio 4. Awful decision.

Investment in local radio breakfast, mid-morning and drive-time shows – but shared content at other times. – I have real questions about the usefulness and quality of local radio via the BBC, not sure a lot of it is really needed, plenty of local independants. I would make less stations and make them cover larger areas, it’s a difficult one but are they needed really?

1Xtra and Radio 7 to be aligned more closely with their parent stations (Radio 5 live and Radio 4). Radio 7 to be rebranded as Radio 4 Extra. – Radio 7 becomes Radio 4 with filler from old radio 4 shows. It’s dead.

The BBC’s commercial arm will move away from publishing magazines in the UK. – So what, they will publish magazines in the rest of the world but us, the people that pay for that original content generation that spawned these magazines will get nothing? Why the penalty to the UK? That REEKS of being political.

Will derive at least two-thirds of its revenue from outside the UK by 2015. – Great, lets have some money coming in, the more the merrier!

Spending on imported programmes and films will be cut by 20% – Strange as they seem to have increased it recently.

Take a read of this news report:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/8517726.stm

….We spent £40,000 ($63,000) on a drone to catch criminals…

…then we let them go…

…and it was illegal…

…and it was being used by the police…

Not a good day for anyone really was it

LOL

Was roughly right on the price too.

I would like one, I can see me using it a lot instead of the laptop for browsing, etc.

It is still a lot of money so I don’t know if I will actually get one.

Would be very nice though.

If I had the money I would get one right away for my mother who is technophobic but we could share emails, she could order things online and we could share photos, would be great.

Yes, the much rumoured iPad, iPod Tablet, iSlate, iGiveUp LOL is almost here folks!

I wonder many things right now before it hit’s us in all it’s glory. Was it over rumoured? Is it going to disappoint after all this hype? Will it truly blow our minds? Will it cost too much? Will it only be available to those able to take out yet another mobile credit account in these tough times?

And more to the point am I really going to care after all the fuss has died down?

We shall have to wait and see!

Let us pray:

Our Father, which art in Cupertino,
hallowed be thy name of Jobs;
thy iTablet come;
thy will be done,
in earth as it is in 1 Infinite Loop.
Give us this day our daily news or magazines.
And forgive us our jailbreaking,
as we forgive them that hack against us.
And lead us not into the temptation of Android;
but deliver us from the evil, that Google does.
[For thine is the kingdom,
the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever.]
Amen.

LOL

Two Thousand and Ten sounds, I dunno, so 2000 So I guess it’s twenty-ten for me!

I’ve been not so well over the holidays, not well at all, but I am looking forward to getting better and the start of a new decade as the last one was pretty awful for many people including myself.

Not that there weren’t some high points and some great things but it wasn’t the best decade to be honest. Too much death and destruction for a start.

No resolutions, I don’t do them, no point, who ever sticks to them, not me that is for sure.

I did get some nice things for Chrimma and of course my new iPod Touch 3G which will probably be obsolete in a few weeks LOL, I did miss it though. I can do so much now and pause a podcast and go back to it. Not to mention it just marking off the ones I have listened to which is SOOOO helpful. You don’t realise how much better the iPod is until you don’t have one anymore! (Take that as a hint to those that haven’t got one yet, there is a reason so many people get them!)

Anyhoo, I am laying in bed as I write this, no, not naked, awwww and I am about to indulge myself…oooh..in an episode of Big Fatty…awww, Archerr and see what the Little Aussie Battler has been up to and maybe a smidge of Wanda Wisdom or Madge Weinstein to top it all off. I love podcasters!

And no, this post has nothing at all to do with the United States Census 2010, Answer the census they’re counting on you! Just such a catchy tune! Blame Big Fatty for planting that tune in my head and I haven’t been able to shake it out since!

I can’t tell you how much I have missed my iPod Touch!

Just the ability to easily sync things and then do simple things like fast forward or rewind which most other players seem to struggle with even the basics.

Also the sound quality is 10x better, using headphones, than what I had to replace it.

It also means I can go back to listening to soothing background jazz music in my living room when I need to relax a bit as I will be able to move my internet radio back there again.

I am so happy to get this, just a great gift, even if I did make the purchase myself.

Arrived just in time, today, Crimma eve! Phew!

So I am now loading it all up, ready

You can find Kim over at kimbeaver.blogspot.com

Thank you Kim and all of us love you and the joy you bring to the podosphere with your wonderful and often just totally hilarious blog.

Have a very Merry Christmas and a Wonderful Happy New Year.

Thanks guys!

Have a great Christmas and a Happy New Year

A big thank you to Derek and Nessa from the Stars And Tartan podcast for their lovely Crimma card that I received today.

It’s so nice to get the love! Not like Tiger Woods, the non-touchy touchy love I meant LOL

Thanks guys, love the podcast, just so funny, keeps my spirits up and nice to hear a Scottish voice in the podosphere.

I wanted to say a very big thank you to a certain Scotty from the Little Aussie Battler podcast over there in Brisbane, Australia.

I spent a little time upgrading his website to WordPress so he could get access to comments and the like and he has sent me over a couple of gifts from my Amazon WishList.

Now, I wasn’t expecting it as I was just doing the work to help him out but the gifts are were a very welcome and unexpected surprise.

So thank you very much Scotty and everyone go and listen to his podcast, it’s a great listen.

Thanks

I had a surprise today!

A card and some Crimma happy’s from my BFF (Big Fat Friend), Big Fatty……Online!

Thank you so much Big Fatty!

Fingers crossed for the Podcast Awards announcements tomorrow (12th), though I think we all know who won…wap wah!

Named the Enterprise (Everyone under the sun will call their spacecraft this! LOL) it is soon to depart from a new spaceport in New Mexico and take, initially, the lucky few into space.

I doubt it will be very long, 20 years, before we all do this once in a lifetime holiday, probably to a local-ish spaceport in our own continent.

Now as I write these words I realise that very quickly they will become dated and in many ways seem ridiculous.

After all if you look at some of the images below, you will see them in the same light. What once was new and cutting edge has become quaint and in some cases just plain (plane LOL) ridiculous

London has the busiest airport in the world, Heathrow but once upon a time it was little more than tents in a field. Then came larger multi-propeller aircraft which were a revolution in themselves and of course the Jet revolution. London also became one of the few airports to surpass even the jet age with supersonic travel and Concorde.

So, New Mexico is the home of the worlds first commercial spaceport. One wonders if it will be a flash in the pan as space travel begins or if it will become the next Rotterdam or Singapore and one of the worlds leading ports as we venture outwards?

How ridiculous will these pictures seem in another 100 years time? Only two tiny 6 person spacecraft, what will be in the air then? One day even going to the moon will seem tacky and out of fashion. Maybe even travel as we know it will be out of date and we will be teleporting everywhere? Progress, exciting isn’t it.

This was all a long time ago, well a lot has happened in my life that is for sure since this story began.

I remember the buzz word on the internet was Blogs and to be honest it was something that had largely passed me by as I am not a great reader, well that isn’t quite true. I read all the time, nearly all day every day and maybe that is why I have never quite taken to being a bookworm, I guess my eyes need a rest

I had heard the word podcasting and it seemed to be popping up more often, then I read a news article on some prominent news site, maybe the BBC as that is where I got a lot of my news back then and I was determined not to miss out this time around. Now when I say back then it must have been 2004/2005ish, who can remember the exact date, someone will work it out form this posting no doubt Feel free to let me know.

I heard Adam Curry’s name mentioned and found the Daily Source Code and tuned in, I also must have been searching for the words podcast and gay on the Googles and found someone called Wanda Wisdom with a show called Lucky Bitch Radio.

I had tuned into Wanda’s 3rd or 4th show, as I write she is on show 947! WOW, told you it had been a while

Anyway, I fell immediately in love with this mad creature as she was just like me in so many ways. I too have that kind of crazy sense of humour that Wanda does and to be honest it’s not that easy to find people, certainly here in the UK, that share that, maybe there is a little American in me somewhere (oooh! LOL) that makes me kind of cookie in a fun way

I used to love those early shows, Morning Reflections where she put on a feux British accent tickled me for obvious reasons. Those meaningful stoop chats were so intimate and warm, just like two friends chatting. I miss those days as you can tell.

I almost died when Puffy Blubber Cunt (Yes podcasting is a place on no limits on language) appeared on her show, the two were like matches and kindling and the resulting fire almost consumed me I was laughing so much.

I started to expand my podcasting horizons and found people like Madge Weinstein, who were at times maybe even a bit too much for me to handle, so I floated in and out of subscribing.

I had a new job and was travelling a lot, this afforded me plently of time in the car to indulge in my podcast listening, so I listened to a lot of podcasts, though some did pass me by until much later.

I will leave my story there for the moment dear reader, this is just the start of my podcast listening and my involvement in podcasting. Lots more to come!

Do you want to hear more?

Contact me and let me know, leave a comment, it’s nice to know someone is out there. I am thinking of maybe returning to podcasting in the new year and would welcome the encouragement.

Oh and by the way, if you have a favourite podcast, send them an email, call their listener line, ask a crazy question or just share the love. Don’t let them slip away because they feel unwanted and unloved. Too much of that going on and it has to stop, so do your bit….lecture over

Hope to hear from you, part two of my tale sooon…

What a lazy swine and I don’t have the flu yet either

Ten days off from posting, what the heck have I been up to?

Not a heck of a lot, very windy here in the UhK at the moment again, lots of storms over the last week or so.

I’m safely inside my humble abode (It’s like a commode but bigger)

Added my Amazon Wishlist to the site in the hope that some kind soul donates something to a poor out of work genius

Getting ready for the Christmas holidays as we don’t celebrate the thanksgiving in the UK, not even a little teeny bit, just something that has never caught on here. So Christmas is the big time when family get together.

My family will be getting together, well me and my mother at least, that is almost all that is left of us these days.

Still it’s nice to be close at Christmas…until the arguments begin….estimating about 30 seconds this year LOL

I have my tree ready to go up and my other decorations.

I even managed to send out a lot of Christmas cards. Sent out lots to my podcasting friends, wished I could have done more but money is tight this year, so am sorry I couldn’t put in much of a treat for you after all your hard work for me this year.

I already have mince pies in the freezer and have stolen a few too

Hope you are looking forward to a nice time too be it thanksgiving or Christmas.

Until next time….

One man has been arrested for an anti-gay attack on two men that happened early Sunday morning in Lakeview, New York

The attacker said to police: “God made me hate gay people.”

HANG ON ONE SECOND

Your God told you to hate?

Wow, that’s some god!

Now there is a god I don’t want to believe in.

Now if that god had told you to love and understand, tolerate and share, maybe you might have convinced me.

I am not often political but this one caught my eye:

Imagine if you will this state of affairs:

I have said I will ban this seasons flu vaccine, sadly I am now unable to do that as they have been imported in bulk and available in doctors surgery nationwide.

However, in a desperate attempt to look like I am doing something, to placate the party members and to struggle to look competent, I guarantee to ban every other vaccine from now on without fail!

Ooops, didn’t see that H1N1 coming!

Yeah, not very clever is it?

Isn’t this just what the conservatives (right) in the UK have just done with their little policy on Europe.

My argument can be stripped of it’s Euro content, it’s the fact that in desperation you just impose a blanket ban to try and cover up the single thing you failed to ban. That just stores up a mountain of problems when you need to go ahead with something later and then realise, woopsy, we blanket banned everything, shit, how do we get out of that now?!

Dumb!

Just read this:

“There had been hopes that Beatles songs would become available after Apple Inc – which owns iTunes – ended a trademark dispute with Apple Corps in 2007.

Meanwhile, EMI and Apple Corps have announced they will be releasing a limited edition apple-shaped USB drive containing all 14 of the remastered Beatles albums as well as artwork, documentaries and other extras.

On 7 December, 30,000 of the drives will go on sale for £200 each.”

Why not just include the EMI bank account and PIN number while your at it…what you think that a digital version is not going to be distributed via P2P networks via BitTorrent?

ARE YOU MAD?!

Don’t you think you should have done the deal and released via Apple or Amazon or someone else first?!

CRAZY!

Not that I would ever buy it anyway.

1) The Beatles have more than enough of the poor peoples cash as it is for old tired re-worked tracks.

2) I’m not that much into them.

And the record industry wonders why people steal from them…your f*£$&^g stupid, that’s why! LOL

Oh jeez!

Anyone living in London, now is the time, just check the front doors at EMI see if they even lock them at night cos I am betting they don’t

(P.S. EMI if someone does steal everything from your offices, then that is your problem…..just in case LOL)

]]> http://www.steveintheukok.co.uk/2009/11/04/i-thought-i-was-stupid/feed/ 0 http://www.steveintheukok.co.uk/2009/11/01/im-getting-blown-something-awful/ http://www.steveintheukok.co.uk/2009/11/01/im-getting-blown-something-awful/#comments Sun, 01 Nov 2009 11:49:20 +0000 SteveINtheUKok http://www.steveintheukok.co.uk/?p=50

OOOOOhhh! It’s wild here in the UhK today!

The wind is a raging and a blowing and I had torrential rain all night.

Suddenly in the space of an evening all the trees have gone bare…Oooh!

Winter is setting in and the temperature is due to fall to around 8C (46F) tonight.

Had another one of those Windows users telling me that I should use Windows because over 90% of the world does.

That is a crap argument, if we all held to that we would still think the world was flat.

Just because lots of people use something in no way describes it as being ‘the best’.

Just for the record I don’t think the mac is ‘the best’ either, it’s just a little fraction ‘better’, although that lead is in some ways diminished by Windows 7 which I will say, I actually like.

I would never use it seriously due to all the malware and just heavy, heavy anti-virus crap that sits on it like lead weights on it’s legs…but I like it more than I did XP or Vista.

I personally feel that probably Linux is the future, where we are not forced to do things by big evil companies like Microsoft and Apple, they are both as bad as each other for that. I am sick of being told by Apple that I haven’t listened to podcasts and it is going to stop updating them, just because I don’t use an Apple iPod at present to listen to them. Much in a similar way to the fact I could not sync many Windows mobile phones to a Mac or Linux machine (without the purchase of yet more crap) because they aren’t running Windows.

I want choice and the freedom to choose. (US Corporations does, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness ring a bell?)

I think Linux offers that and I am slowly beginning to break the bonds as much as I can to steer away from the Microsofts and the Apples of this world.

I still love my Apple and at present will stick with them, though that may change, and they need to be aware of that, so they keep on top of their game and shaft us all a little less.

I have made the decision finally to something that has been hovering around for a few months now.

I am going to give up TV.

OK, that sounds like a big thing and to be honest I won’t give it up entirely.

I am however tired of chasing TV in a way I have never had to do in the past and it has become both frustrating and boring at the same time.

I have found myself just drifting away from all the shows I used to watch. Many of them were just boring rehashes of past shows that I do not need to see over and over again.

Others are 30 minute shows extended to 60 minutes with re-cap’s before and after every ad break so I end up being told the same things over and over with very little new content. I have stopped watching those and any I do watch I now fast forward, though as they annoy me, they are destined for the bin too.

I have issues with shows that pretend to be new, some have new in the title, some have new in the description, you watch them and you have seen them before, so they are NOT new. Why do the tv companies lie to me, what they think I will have forgotten?

Also the ones that truly are new either aren’t marked as new or get lost in the sea of shows saying they are new but are not, so they get missed.

I will watch the things I can find that are obviously new and interest me but those are becoming harder and harder to find.

All in all, its just too much hard work on my part, when it should be the tv companies doing the hard work and I have just had my fill of that. So they lost me.

On a more positive note, what I am doing is listening to more podcasts at a time when I see more and more podcasters stop producing their shows and that really saddens me.

If anyone has heard of me, it’s probably due to my mentions on various podcast shows. I am not out to seek the limelight, in fact if I wanted that I would have just kept doing my own show, which I did for four years.

No, what I have been seeking to do is to talk to the podcasters, show interest and a little bit of love so that they feel that what they are doing is worth something to someone out there, which all of them are, even if we don’t say it.

The trouble is, by not saying anything we are loosing them.

Please, make it part of your day to send a commment or something to your favourite podcaster, make them know, without a doubt, that you are there and what they are doing interests you, communicate with them.

Please!

That says SteveINtheUKok in Barcode (Code 128 to be exact)

Ooooh! It’s been a while since I last posted hasn’t it and it was such an angry one, well I have been sitting in a darkened room with a damp sponge on my head to keep me calm

Well today is the 57th birthday of the barcode, so someone remind me in three years

What is with the weird birthday reminders we seem to get a lot of these days?

It’s anything for a party isn’t it, which come to think of it, is not a bad idea, someone turn on the music!

Until the next time, bit of an empty post today, but there will be more, now I am back in the mood!

P.S. Does a barcode birthday cake come with lots of thick and thin candles? LOL

Well, after all that Apple rumour fest I am thoroughly disappointed.

Great news for potential iPod Nano users.

Yet once again us iPod Touch users are punched hard in the stomach and expected to like it.

No, no! No mam!

I am now tired of this and yes I have heard the rumours about camera issues and I don’t care.

The iPod touch should have come with a camera, there is no reason for it not to have one, none at all and no reason will excuse Apple for this.

If there was a manufacturing problem, again that is no reason not to launch the product, they launch plenty products with an advance shipment date.

And wait for one moment, how come the new iPod Touch update is free, I thought Californian law forbid that? OK its A 0.01 release, and maybe that is legal.

But I am in the UK, Europe. I am sold the product by Apple UK, not Apple in California, I live in the UK not California, I am billed by Apple in Luxembourg for iTunes NOT Cali-fucking-fornia, so why I am being ruled by Californian laws here? I would like the European Union to investigate that one for me please!

An FM radio, really. Well ok the US has fucked up their transition to digital for radio, but so have we Europeans. The US wins for TV digital transition (We in the UK started first and we wont finish till 2012/13 crap!), we introduced DAB which is low quality streaming over the air. Again, crap. But FM is being turned off in a few years here so not really that exciting news for us. FM is a dead technology, so not something I really want.

No new AppleTV which is now so overdue for an update it’s laughable, where the fuck do you buy those 40Gb drives from Apple, the local recycling yard? Support it or kill it. Make up your fucking mind!

No iPad, but that was hardly a surprise, though I do see hints of it.

More focus on gaming, which I absolutely expected. This is their next market to eat up.

Here is what I would like to see:

A camera in the Touch, sooner rather than later otherwise your just going to totally piss off everyone that just bought a Touch. Not that you care.

Dump the classic next time around, we don’t really need it if you can squeeze 128Gb into a Touch.

Drop the AppleTV as it is and re-launch. IT should be a new unit with an upgraded processor and graphics chip. Slightly more memory. Bigger hard drive, base would start at 120Gb. It would also have apps. It would work in conjunction with the iPhone and Touch initially and then have its own contollers. It would be a media player, movie rental device and a gaming machine!

Let the iPod and iPhone work like the Nintendo DS, portable games that talk to the AppleTV’s games. Maybe let their motion sensors control on-screen action. Basically replace the Wii.

I do want an iPad but I want a full computer with no drives, just USB sockets and an on-screen keyboard. Upgraded touch compatible Front Row. Comes with a stand. Use it on the move, go home and use your plug in or ideally wireless apple keyboard and mighty mouse and you have a reasonable though not top of the range home computer.

I guess I want a lot.

Just do me one favour stop kicking the iPod Touch users in the nuts with upgrades at a price and crappy feature upgrades, as you yourselves said, they are the biggest growing market for iPods, so why treat them like shit?

I’m getting the same feelings I did when things started to slide at Microsoft and I personally am getting pissed off.

Oh and don’t try the iTunes 9 Genius DJ Mixer, its totally crap. The playlists are better, the mixer just picks a song at random and generates a playlist from it, not exactly rocket science! Bit see thru that one! Like changing the colour of the box of washing powder and calling it NEW AND IMPROVED! I think not.

So angry today, so angry arent I, ooooh, just had to let it all out!

LOL

Oh yes, and Dear Beatles, make your fucking mind up, are you digital or arent you because I am so fucking sick and tired of hearing your going to someone or other I just don’t fucking care any more! It was 50 fucking years ago! GET OVER YOURSELVES (and McCartneys greed in my opinion!) Otherwise all your target market…….will be dead before they get to buy these things!

iPod has gone phut and died.

This is a disaster for me as I like to listen to podcasts and have done for years now, always had an iPod, lots of music that will only play on an iPod too.

I am not working at the moment and there is no way I can stretch to a new one.

So that really hampers my ability to listen to podcasts.

So I am putting a plea out to anyone that has anything spare, and I know that isnt many of you right now.

I have some iPods on my Amazon Wishlist, if anyone can help me out, I will return the favour later on when I can.

Amazon Wish List – http://tinyurl.com/kpe6gm

But not holding out much hope for that one! But if you don’t ask!

I’d be happy to sell you an internet radio station for the price of an iPod, get in touch if that interests you.

Failing that I am well and truly stuffed.

Bit sadzies, hasn’t been a good month or two.

I have home insurance but the excess would pay for the iPod so not much point claiming there. Just push my premiums up next year.

I’ll let you know if my knight gets here or if I sell a kidney

Big changed in Europe this week with the sales of old incandescent light bulbs being banned.

From Tuesday 1st September 2009 it will be illegal to sell opaque or pearl incandescent light bulbs, you will for a while still be able to purchase the clear ones, the candle ones, etc until they are phased out in a year or two.

There are a lot of people moaning about being forced to change but just look at the facts.

These new compact fluorescents last so much longer, often up to 8-10 years. That is a fact as I have had them since they came out, back then they were a lot more expensive.

Now you often get them for free from your local electricity company or at least for only a pound ($1-2) from most shops. Unless your unlucky or stupid enough to pay more!

Now the main point, who the hell would want to purchase a light that cost them so much to run?

I estimated that an average family would spend somewhere around £24.52 ($60) on lighting a year.

And if they simply switched their bulbs, a quick plug and go, they would pay only £4.50 ($10) a year!

I’m not a professor of mathematics but even if my figures are a bit out these are massive savings.

Not only to your pocket but to all that waste, all that coal and gas and oil that will be burned to fuel these idiots.

So get off your fat asses and change those bulbs now.

It will help all of us and you will save lots of money too.

You would literally have to be mad not to!

(Sure there are a VERY few people that are sensitive to the flickering, very few and those people will still be able to buy the old bulbs, that is a medical condition, so no issues there from me. As a medical product in a niche market of course the price will go up, but then that is to be expected)

I just get tired of those that try and play the King Canute role, the tide is coming in folks, get boots or get wet feet!

Microsoft was everyone’s favourite company, cast your mind back I know it was a while ago!

They innovated but most importantly they listened.

They listened to the people that bought their software, they listened to all the new things they wanted, all the changes their users thought needed to be made.

And they made that software and they made those changes, until….

….someone said, hey wait, we can make money by making it difficult.

And that was the end.

They realised that by making their software less intuitive, less responsive, less useable you would need to employ a Microsoft Certified Engineer.

And they could charge to train those engineers.

And they could charge for supporting companies, and they could charge for so many things.

And they forgot all about the user.

They forgot where their actual revenue stemmed from……the user.

And that was indeed the end.

Another company rose up and listened to their users.

That company was Apple.

So Apple, do you keep listening, with Snow Leopard you continue to add and update by listening to your users.

Sure sometimes you have to make a decision on something and some people won’t like it but if you seriously cockup and eventually change then thats ok, we are all human.

Only never stop listening or you will become the next Microsoft…..for sure!

Yes, I am an Apple WHORE!

The minute I knew that Snow Leopard was available I placed my order.

I have no shame!

LOL

Actually I have tried the Snow Leopard and it is noticeably faster than Leopard.

So my recommendation of course….go get it!!!!

I mean its £25 here in the UK after all.

Less than an evenings heartburn from the local takeaway!

LOL

Wonder if Archerr has his ordered yet?