iPhone is Child’s Play
My 16 month year old is turning out to be quiet the technology wizz. Changing TV channels was one thing but taking photos on my wife’s phone and sending them as a picture message to me was quiet another. Today she showed me that she is perfectly capable of unlocking and using my iPhone. Apparently she has been doing this for months but this time it was caught on film. Can’t wait to see what she does when I get her an Eee PC next year.
Filed under Newsflash, Tech news | Comments (2)ReadyBoost or ReadyDrag
There has been a lot of mixed feedback on Vista’s ReadyBoost feature. Some say they have noticed significant performance boosts, some no seeing any real difference and others finding a drop in performance.
The problem appeared to be with (1) Their system setup (2) The tasks they were performing and (3) the quality of the memory stick/card being used.
Out of these I’ve found the most significant factor to be the memory stick. I tested 6 different memory sticks/cards on my laptop and the difference in how effective ReadyBoost is huge.
Starting with the bottom of the scale I had an old 2GB SD memory card. I inserted this into the built-in memory card reader and found a major reduction in system performance. Opening Apps or even switching between Apps would often cause lock-ups and pauses. At the time I had no idea what was causing the problem and began to think my system was under performing. I remove the memory card and things return to normal. The speed of the memory card was far too slow for ReadyBoost causing delays while data was read/writing.
I next used a 512mb SD card with “x66″ boldly displayed across the front. This didn’t have the major performance dips caused by the first memory card but I also couldn’t say I noticed a performance boost. After doing a little research I found that memory cards are designed for sequential writes like storing photos as they are taken on a digital camera. Hard disk drives sequential read and write speed is significantly faster than anything you will get on a memory card and so using a memory card provides no real benefit.
ReadyBoost relies on memory sticks faster random access speed. The hard disk has to physically move parts to access data across different parts of the harddrive. The Solid State memory on a memory stick has a faster response time, doesn’t have to spin up from idle and accesses random data significantly faster. So would the memory sticks fair better.
This time I got 2 ReadyBoost logo’d memory sticks for about £17-20 each. The first was a 2GB one from Argos from a brand I hadn’t heard of or remember. The performance increase was noticeable especially in memory hogging programs like Photoshop and games. The 2nd stick was a 4GB Sandisk cruzer u3. There was no notable performance improvement. What was the difference?
I looked up what was the requirements for a device to be classed as ReadyBoost capable. It was a read speed of 5mb/s and a write speed of just 3mb/s. The sandisk must have been pretty close to the bottom end as every now and then when I’d insert it I wouldn’t get the option to use it “to speed up my system” (not you have to diable ReadyBoost or delete the ReadyBoost file and reinsert the stick for the option to show up otherwise it will automatically use the stick for ReadyBoost). When you compare this to some of the better memory sticks like Corsair’s GT range that read at 34mb/s and write at 28mb/s you can begin to see why there is such a difference in how effective ReadyBoost is. I lost the former 2 memory sticks and so I’m now on to a Corsair Flash Voyager. Not the super-fast GT version but still a lot faster than the average memory stick. It isn’t even ReadyBoost logo’d but according to the specs it should be a lot better than the sandisk cruzer I was using. If you live in the US Kingston do a memory stick called HyperX that is exclusive to Amazon.com and is super-fast and good value.
The good news is that the speeds and capacities of these memory sticks is improving all the time so ReadyBoost will continue to be more and more effective.
The bad news is that 1) the ReadyBoost logo is given out too easy and consumers could end up with inferior memory sticks that don’t help them 2) with Solid State Hard drives getting closer to usable capacities will we even need ReadyBoost?
For now check out some of the fastest USB flash drives here:
everythingusb.com
Have Apple got it wrong with the iPhone?
At this year’s dconstruct conference Peter Merholz explained how just packing more features is not a good way of evolving a design and how the iPod and Wii are examples of that. Not the most technically advanced or feature packed compared to rivals but got the user experience part right and is a success as a result. ( here his lecture in the dconstruct podcast here)
The idea of not feature stuffing a phone seemed to be a great idea then. Especially when you consider 80% of people only use 20% of the features of their phones. However, at the price point Apple have launched with you would have to say the that it likely only the 20% elite/pro users that would pony up the record-breakingly expensive fee and contract combination.(see prices here)
Surely early figures will show great sales but hype and a shiny interface will only get you so far. Users that had basic handsets before will love the iPhone as it does the basics incredibly well. But if you have a top-end pocket-PC or symbian phone you’ll be hugely under-whelmed and may see you’re upgrade as a bit of a downgrade.
I’ve been using the iPhone since it launch in the UK a few days ago and the novelty has already begun to where off and I sorely miss my
XDA exec. It’s not just the big features like video calling, 3G Internet, and picture messaging - it’s even little things like being able to select text/numbers on a webpage and paste them into a word doc/email or being able to delete music/video/app without a computer. Also the camera seems to be such an after thought. The quality is so low - not just resolution but sharpness too. There are also no settings to adjust, or support for recording video.
These issues may cause iPhone sales in europe to reach critical mass sooner than Apple may have planned for. Once the mac fans that would buy a brick with the apple logo on and then those that are caught up in the hype/fashion statement of owning one have all purchased the price will have to drop to sub £50 for the real target audience - the 80% that like to use the basics - will start to lap it up. By then I am sure the novelty will have worn off for the serious phone users that like their features and so many will be looking to get out and buy a more feature rich phone. Perhaps by then the Apple iPhone 2 will be out - but will it be too late. Will the pro users be once bitten twice shy? Will Google Andriod be a serious rival by then? Will the next generation of windows mobile have surpassed the iPhone interface?
With all these questions hanging over the iPhone I wouldn’t put money on the long term success of Apple in the mobile market as readily as some who seem to think they will take it by storm like the iPod has with the portable music industry.
The current kings of mobiles remain symbian and windows mobile based smartphones - watch out for the new 8GB Nokia N95 (black) and the XDA Exec if O2 still let you buy them now that they do the iPhone.
Filed under Browsers, Newsflash, Tech news | Comments (6)Holiday Gadgets
On the outbound journey it was a mad dash to the catch the flight so I can’t comment on the comfort/wifi of Heathrow terminal 1 as it went past in a blur.
In flight:
I was travelling with LOT who fortunately allow you to use electronic gadgets during the flight. I pulled out my laptop and watched a movie with my wife. This is where the Dell m1210’s dual headphone sockets really come in handy. Each of us could have our own headphones and not disturb (or be disturbed by) other passengers.
While in Poland I picked up Creative’s noise limiting headphones (EP – 630). They work by completely sealing the ear creating a vacuum. As soon as you put them in surrounding noise seems muffled – I can only compare it to being underwater. Then when you play music you hear nothing but the song. This has many benefits – You can drown out outside noise without cranking up the volume and deafening yourself. Playing at a reduced volume also means you also can save battery life and everyone else doesn’t have to listen-in to you blaring out the latest Arctic Monkey’s album. They also have superb bass. It is rare to find headphones or even speakers that can handle the bass on Ashanti’s ‘Only You’ without distorting. I cranked up that song as loud as I could bear and the bass remained smooth and deep. 
This is also testament to the sound quality of the Sony Network Walkman. Despite it’s many flaws sound quality is fantastic – as is battery life – I used it most of the holiday and battery is still full.
For the inevitable shopping trips it was impractical to lug around the laptop – although pitched as an ultra compact it does weigh over 2kg and when you include the bag and extras it’s quite a millstone to have around your neck. This is where the PSP came in handy. Not only extremely portable but designed to be stop/start friendly. One minute I can be running along a wall over a pit of spikes and net second I can be giving my opinion on a pair of shoes the wife is modelling (not that my opinion will sway the decision in anyway).
While on this trip we were checking out wedding dresses on behalf of my sister for her fast approaching wedding day. Before I knew it my wife is wearing it! As I didn’t have the laptop with me I couldn’t make use of the built-in swivel cam. However, I did have my old faithful XDA Exec phone/PDA with me. I took a few 2MP photos and a short video clip to send to my sister. In hindsight I should have video called her as she now has the Nokia N95 which supports 3G features like my XDA. In this case I stored the images and video on the 2GB SD memory card on the XDA and later plugged this in to the built-in memory slot on my laptop.
This brings me on to wifi. A great feature of the m1210 is the wifi catcher. Even while the laptop is off you can pull on the wifi catcher slider and it search for a wifi signal and indicate if there is any in range. This was really handy when trying to find a spot to get online as I didn’t have to pull it out, start it up and then put it back to sleep/shutdown just to check coverage.
These are the services I found in Warsaw.
Era blue connect. Era is one of the main mobile phone networks in Poland and they offer wifi hotspots in most of the major hotels and restaurants. They have teamed up with T-Mobile so if you have a hotspot account with them you can use Era hotspots. They also allow signup over their free to access wifi page. Paying by credit card works out to roughly £2/hour. A bit steep for my liking but if you just need to logon for a short time it’s not too bad. For more extended periods there are better value subscription packages.
Orange. Orange hotspots can of course be used by Orange hotspot subscribers from other countries. They also offer a prepay service which you charge up by SMS/text message. Unfortunately, the SMS service does not work with roaming phones – you have to have a polish mobile. They offered no way to pay by credit card so this was not an option for me. I only noticed these hotspots at the airport so I don’t know how practical they would be to subscribe to for use within the city.
Plus. Plus is another major mobile network in Poland. This is the wifi service I actually signed up for. It worked out to 15PLN (less than £3) for 900mins. I connected at the Warsaw airport (Chopin terminal). The signal was fairly strong and the coverage great. In fact where I sat I was in between 2 Plus hotspots so could pick up either signals. You can pay by credit/debit card, SMS top-up or a subscribtion. They didn’t seem to have partnered with any UK/international networks. Connection speed with 3 bars signal was equivalent to about a 2mb connection ( I got download speeds of about 80-90kb/s).
On the flight back I took advantage of the m1210’s 256mb Nvidia 7400 Go graphics card and played some games. There is something strangely liberating about playing Halo with an xbox360 controller at 10,000ft. I must be turning into a Microsoft fan-boy as I really loved having Microsoft’s Vista, xbox360 controller, and now the notebook presenter mouse 8000. Yes it finally arrived when I got back - full review to follow.
Not long into the game the in-flight food arrived. After a few glasses of South American wine I was more chilled out and ready to do some work. I wanted to see if I could actually do some webdesign work while on the go. I was concerned about buying the laptop I chose as it has just a 12.1inch screen. However, with a resolution of 1280×800 I found that I could readily work without too much difficulty. I tried to estimate how much time it would take me normally to put a page together to compare my progress and although it took me a but longer than usual on the laptop this was mainly due to the lack of a mouse rather than system performance or smaller screen. In fact the 2.13ghz Core2Duo processor and 2GB DDR Ram in this system make it more powerful than the system I use at work. Now I have a shiny new Bluetooth mouse I expect times to be very similar. With a 5hour battery life for coding or 3-4hrs if editing photos or video it makes the prospect of working on the move or even in the park a reality. The only thing I miss is dual monitors. While in the office my desktop or laptop both support dual monitors which reduces the amount of alt-tabing I have to do.
To Dongle or not? Wireless mice for laptops
I recently got a laptop and have fallen completely in love with it. The power of my PC on the move. That said most laptop users will agree however ingeniously the manufacturer has incorporated the mousepad/nub on the laptop it is never as confortable or accurate as a proper mouse. That being the case the 2nd most popular accessory for laptop owners to buy (after the laptop case) is a mouse.
The whole joy of a portable device is being free to move around so wifi is now a must and this extends to the mice - cables are out. There are hundreds of wireless mice to choose from but how to decide. For reliability and performance the top brands have to be Logitech, Apple and Microsoft (probably in that order). This cuts down the list of offerings somewhat but even with just 3 brands to consider there are still many variations to consider.
To Dongle or not to dongle
If your laptop doesn’t have bluetooth than this is a no brainer - your are going to need a rf/bluetooth dongle to link up with your mouse. In my case my Dell XPS m1210 has builtin bluetooth and so I have a choice. I can go for a bluetooth mouse and connect to the built-in bluetooth feature on my laptop (even if it comes with a dongle) or go for a mouse with a rf/proprietary transmitter dongle.
Pros of no dongle
a) Battery life - the built-in bluetooth adapter is designed to work with your laptop and is optimised for efficient use of power. A usb dongle will require the laptop to power the usb port and will always be less efficient than a built-in option
b) Dongles sticks out. This means you probably can’t keep it plugged in when in the case and increases chances of it getting knocked potentially damaging it or your usb port.
c) Can’t lose the dongle. It is easier than you think to lose the thumb size dongles. They can fall out of the bag or get knocked out by passers by
d) Range. RF signals generally give you a range of 2 meters. Adaquate for most purposes but when you use your laptop with a big screen like I do at home having a 10-30m range really helps as I can sit on my sofa watch the big screen and my laptop quietly hums on my desk.
e) Price. You can save money by buying bluetooth mice without a dongle. Logitech and Microsoft both make these. However, this is not a real bonus as bluetooth mice are generally more expensive than RF versions anyway.
Cons
a) Bluetooth was designed to be versatile, a “jack of all trades” - from file transfer, wireless headphones, wireless mice etc. Most will agree it is a “master of none”. Using my Logitech mx5000 bluetooth keyboard and mouse at home I am repeatedly frustrated as it lags behind keystrokes, loses connection or just gets sluggish. It doesn’t happen all the time - in fact mostly it runs beautifully, but when it does happen in the middle of a game or while drawing a lasso shape in photoshop it can be aggravating. Logitech’s solution is to use bluetooth technology to keep the benefits or added range but to not comply to the Bluetooth 1.1 or 2.0 standard. This means the signal is optimised for the mouse and you get better performance, however, it will not work with my built-in bluetooth so I still need a dongle.
b) with a dongle you can hook your fancy mouse up to any computer not just your bluetooth enabled laptop. This is handy if you are going to an area with no wifi and you are forced to use an internet cafe with horrible mouseball mice that just make you want to scream. Or if you want to use it for both desktop and laptop. As most bluetooth mice ship with a dongle too you can probably do this anyway
If you decide to go the dongle route the ultimate laptop mouse would be the Logitech vx Revolution. It’s fast, reliable, has great range, lots of handy extra buttons and scrolling for quick navigation. If you want to avoid the dongle or want more features the Microsoft Wireless Bluetooth Notebook Presenter Laser Mouse 8000 is fantastic. It combines mouse and presenter features and it conforms to bluetooth standards so does not require a dongle (although it comes with one).
I opted for the Microsoft mouse in the end and got it for only £39 (from ebuyer - includes £10 discount for using google checkout). It still hasn’t arrived so I can’t tell you what performance is like but the features are truly impressive. As a mouse it has the usual buttons left, right button, a 4way scroll wheel which also acts as the middle button. It has two additional buttons on the sides (likely for back and forward navigation) an additional 2 buttons on the top which I guess one triggers flip 3D in windows vista. Nothing too special so far but then you pick it up and it becomes a remote control - it can be used to flip through presentations, control music/movies etc. As it is done by bluetooth direct line of sight is not needed and with 2.4Ghz technology it has a range of over 30ft. It doesn’t stop there, there is a laser pointer built-in so if you are hooked up to a projector in a meeting you can point with your mouse. The laser pointer is a great touch as I hate getting up in meetings and trying to point at something on the wall and then casting a shadow so it’s hard to see what I’m pointing at anyway.
Check out the Microsoft Wireless Notebook Presenter Mouse 8000 review at testfreaks.co.uk
I’ll try and add a list of links to the top 10 wireless mice here once I get to the airport (flying to Poland in a few hours). I’ll try and use atlarge.com to find me some wifi.
Filed under Recommended Sites, Service comparison, Tech news, Vista, reviews | Comments (4)YouTube killer tries again (vume/eefoof)
When eefoof originally launched it was tipped to be a YouTube killer. It offered most of the YouTube features (user-generated video content) with a twist. Rather than just having the benefit of free hosting and an audience for your work they actually pay you for your submissions. They divide up the income they get (from the ads on the site) to all the contributers. The amount you get will depend on the popularity of the video(s) you post. So if your videos are very popular and 2% of videos viewed that month belong to you then you get 2% of the advertising revenue - in theory.
The concept seemed great but the unusual name that was not only difficult to pronounce it was tough to remember or spell and so unless you bookmarked it or someone sent you a link you’d likely forget it soon after you visited. Also during it’s early days there wasn’t that much to look at when you compare the huge database of video on YouTube and Google Video.
Now eefoof is relaunching as VuMe and have built up a more significant collection of content a comeback maybe on the cards. So stop ‘giving away’ your content to Google and make yourself some dosh on the VuMe.
No I’m not on commission. No I have not submitted any video yet, but watch this space. 
Dreamweaver (and other XML editors) break Vista help and support
If you are installing a web design tool such as Dreamweaver be vary wary over making it your default editor for certain file types.
When I installed Dreamweaver it, by default, becomes the default editor for xml files. In previous versions of Windows this was not a problem. However, in Vista if you accept this you will no longer be able to view help or support pages.
If you’ve already screwed up help and support you can use this fix:
http://www.chris123nt.com/guides/RTM_Fixes/Fix_Help_and_Support.zip
This registry edit will restore Help and Support in Windows Vista.
Credit for this fix goes to Kristan - you can see the full thread on the Microsoft newsgroups.
Filed under Newsflash, Tech news, Tools, Tutorials, Vista | Comment (0)The Vista Experience
I’ve had Vista Ultimate installed for about a week now and feel ready to give feedback on the new Microsoft OS.
Installation
Having the full Ultimate 32-bit edition I had 3 install options - 1) Upgrade, 2) Clean install from within windows 3) Clean install booting from CD.
I used the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor to see if I could expect any hardware/software issues. While my hardware checked out ok there were several apps that were not Vista friendly. Two were flat out incompatible and required removal before an upgrade should be attempted. This was Norton Internet Security 2006 and Nero Burning Rom OEM.
This is where I think some people come unstuck with upgrades, they don’t check the software incompatiblies before attempting an upgrade. However saying that after removing the offending programs and a couple of the apps classed as minor problems my clean install from within windows failed.
I opted for a clean install booting from the Disc.
Drivers/hardware
After a fairly quick install I thought all my hardware had been detected as Windows looked so good. However, closer inspection showed a lot of missing drivers including my graphics, and sound cards. Without drivers the display was limited to 800×600 but still appeared clear and colourful. I still had sound, if only in stereo. Once the correct drivers were downloaded and installed I could get full surround sound, high-resolution graphics and the long awaited Aero enhancements.
Finding how to turn on the Aero enhancements wasn’t obvious but a quick search of the help solved that.
I thought I would have little use of Flip 3D other than showing off. However, as my Logitech mouse has additional buttons I found one of them activated flip 3D. I could then use the scroll wheel to skip through the open apps. Rather than waiting for the one I want to come to the front I could use the mouse to click any of the programs in the deck to go to it. This soon became a very quick and easy way to navigate between programes. I still use Alt-tab too but Flip 3D is defintely more useful than I imagined.
Ultimate Extras
The main reason I got the Ultimate edition was for the Ultimate Extras. So far it’s not earnt it’s hype. There have been no cool updates to speak of. Even the DreamScene and GroupShot extras demoed at CES are absent. I did manage to download GroupShot from the Microsoft research site (which works great) but this is available to all windows users (even xp I believe) not just Vista Ultimate. DreamScene is still unavailable as far as I can see.
Access rights
As I did a clean install of Vista on a different hard drive my previous XP installation was still intact. A problem I had in the past with dual boot systems was not being able to access some files on the alternate installation due to access rights. This is not a problem for Vista. When trying to view my windows XP documents folder I am warned I do not have Access rights, however, I am offered the option to “take over ownership” As long as you are logged in as an administrator on your Vista build you can take over ownership of any folder and then access it anytime. As to what happens to my XP installation when I try restarting that again I can’t say as I haven’t tried yet.
From the viewpoint of Front-end developer
Of course it wouldn’t be a good blog post without looking at Windows Vista from the viewpoint of a front-end developer.
The first change is of course Internet Explorer 7 being built in to the OS. This means if you were hanging on to IE6 for testing purposes you will need to get the stand-alone edition. I haven’t tested installing this on Vista yet but this worked fine on XP.
Firefox installed seemlessly as always but I encountered a problem when trying to view online video. Although Windows Media Player 11 is installed as part of Vista the required dll files required by firefox and other browsers are missing. This means playing streamed windows media is only possible in IE7. This is quiet a sneaky move by Microsoft but easily remedied. Simply download the missing dll files into the firefox plugins folder (usually C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plugins) or better still in the windows media folder so it can be used by all browsers you may install.
You can find the missing files on dlldump.com
If this doesn’t solve the problem get more indepth help here: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=206213
What about the tools of the trade? The Adobe/Macromedia Apps -
You’ll be pleased to know Dreamweaver 8, Flash 8, Photoshop CS2 and Fireworks 8 all run on Vista. However, there are some compatibility issues. If you use the Windows Aero effects you will find they become disabled when you open Fireworks. Windows Vista will switch to “Windows Vista Basic” mode until you close the program. Flash also has issues. It will not force Vista in to Basic mode but you will probably want to do this manually as whenever you enter or exit a set of grouped items the usually near instant transition effect of entering or exiting the group is slowed to a snails pace. This means a 2-3 second wait every time you edit or exit a grouped object - nightmare.
If found no negative side effects in Dreamweaver 8. Photoshop I’ve only opened to see if it would run and haven’t done any indepth testing yet.
The Vista shadow versioning feature could prove useful. Often I make sequence of pages and use one as a template for the next page. In my absent mindedness I sometimes save over my template with the most recent work - trouble. With Shadow backup each individual file is backed up by windows so that I can get back to previous versions of a file if I save over it. Not actually got it to work yet as none of my files seem to have previous versions yet even when I tried a creating a test file. This works like a charm now.
I use a program called PowerDirector from Cyberlink to edit and export video in web friendly formats or for making home movie DVDs. This cannot be run or re-installed anymore. Tech supports solution is to upgrade to their new Premium edition which is Vista Compatible. I am still considering this. Other Apps not liked by Vista is Norton Internet Security 2007.
Filed under Browsers, Plugins, Tech news, Tools, Tutorials | Comment (1)Which Windows Vista (if any) is right for me?
With potentially a huge leap in performance, security and features it will be high on a lot of people’s wish list. However, picking the right vista edition isn’t as easy as it could be. This mainly because there are so many new features. To understand what is missing from a premium edition compared to the ultimate (for example) you have to try and find out what the features are, understand what they will do and figure out if you really need them.
First of the easiest one to explain is Vista basic. This is designed for low end systems or people that simply don’t have the budget for a superior version. It will run on pretty much any PC that XP did. I only recommend this edition to two groups of people
1 - You have a low end system and don’t plan to upgrade your hardware for a very long time.
2 - You have no OS for a new self built system and are on a tight budget.
Otherwise even if your system can’t handle all the features of a premium edition now, you can still use the premuim or ultimate editions in Basic mode until you upgrade your hardware. If you are really strapped for cash then it may not be worth getting Vista at all right now as XP isn’t going anywhere. The benefits are a more secure and possibly faster windows with the new intergrated search features.
Apparently, whatever edition you get you are provided with the same content on the disc. It is your license key that unlocks the features you have paid for. This means you will likely be able to upgrade you edition at a future date with just a code, but why pay twice, get the right edition now.
Firefox 3 on the horizon
You can download this blog post in audio format here (right-click and save target/link as..) or play it using the podcast player on the right.
Firefox 3 - code named Gran Paradiso is under development. It will use the Gecko 1.9 engine and the latest build released already is said to have passed the CSS Acid2 test. Although Opera, Safari have already achieved this it’s a big landmark for Firefox and a good sign of things to come.
Firefox 2.0 already features the most advanced CSS 3.0 support including CSS rounded corners and alpha transparency and Firefox 3 is set to have full support. Other features include improved graphic rendering and support for Javascript 2.
Of course we can expect there will be many bug fixes and tweaks making Firefox faster and more stable. It has been optimised to make better use of your systems hardware so if you have a good graphics card you should notice big improvements both in visual quality and speed for sites that take advantage of this.
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