My favorite podcast, MP3 Insider, has been killed off by the iPhone.
The writing seemed on the wall when Jasmine was reviewing iPhone Apps (ack!) elsewhere on CNET.
I've listened to this podcast since the days of James Kim and Veronica Belmont (every geek's dream girl). I can't say that I've followed the "Buzz Out Load" podcast as closely. MP3 Insider will be sorely missed.
I wish Jasmin France and Donald Bell all the best in their future roles at CNET.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Saturday, April 10, 2010
iPhone multitasking
So multitasking is coming in iPhone OS 4. I must admit being disappointed that it is not coming to the iPhone 3G. After doing some research, I found out the simple reason why - the iPhone 3GS (and iPod Touch 3rd gen) have double the RAM of earlier models, as well as faster processors.
Multitasking has been available on jailbroken iPhones for a while now, with some really sophisticated Apps, a lot of them of them free. Unfortunately for iPhone 3G owners, although these run on the iPhone 3G, they don't run particularly well.
Multitasking has been available on jailbroken iPhones for a while now, with some really sophisticated Apps, a lot of them of them free. Unfortunately for iPhone 3G owners, although these run on the iPhone 3G, they don't run particularly well.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Blogging from my iPhone
My last blog posting to my alternate blog, Technofilez, was done from my iPhone. When I tried to repeat this posting to this blog (Techno Files), I ran into problems. Even though I have 3 blogging Apps on my iPhone, I just wasn't able to do this. I may have just tried two of them though, since I was a bit pressed for time. The biggest irony, was that I was unable to copy and paste into iBlogger, which is the Blogging App for the iPhone (and pricey too). When I started iBlogger up, it seemed to simply clear the iPhone clipboard!
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Don't Want an iPad
In the last few weeks I've seen a number of polls asking whether I was going to get an iPad, or wait for the next iteration. It just doesn't grab me though. My wife saw it's potential, but I didn't. I guess in my mind it is just an oversized iPod Touch, and I'm quite happy with my iPhone thank you.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
iPod, iPhone, iPad
The news has been buzzing today with the much anticipated release of the Apple tablet.
The one thing I like is the name - iPad -it really seems so right. The other names bandied about just didn't sound right - iSlate sounds old-fashioned, iTablet just too obvious and sounding like just another tablet.
The one thing I like is the name - iPad -it really seems so right. The other names bandied about just didn't sound right - iSlate sounds old-fashioned, iTablet just too obvious and sounding like just another tablet.
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
A Nexus for your Lexus
Today Google started selling their own "Google Phone", the Nexus One. It runs Android OS version 2.1 (Eclair), referred to in Google's blurb as "Android Mobile Technology Platform 2.1 (Eclair)".
The phone costs $529 unlocked, or $179 with a two-year contract from T-Mobile USA.
The phone costs $529 unlocked, or $179 with a two-year contract from T-Mobile USA.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Gaming machine
I didn't realize how long ago it was that I bought my latest (new) computer. March of 2008, wow. It still runs pretty fast, although that could have to do with the OS being Windows XP instead of Vista/Windows 7.
Anyway, because the machine was actually configured for Vista, it had a dedicated graphics card, something I would never have bothered with. Now I've discovered that it can handle PC games which are a few years old. Cool, because these older games are cheaper than PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 console games.
So back to PC gaming. I've started playing some of the GTA series. The operative word is started. The first "mission" in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (version 2), took me way too long, and when I finally got to saving the game, it complained about a cheat I'd forgotten that I'd used. Rats!
Anyway, because the machine was actually configured for Vista, it had a dedicated graphics card, something I would never have bothered with. Now I've discovered that it can handle PC games which are a few years old. Cool, because these older games are cheaper than PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 console games.
So back to PC gaming. I've started playing some of the GTA series. The operative word is started. The first "mission" in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (version 2), took me way too long, and when I finally got to saving the game, it complained about a cheat I'd forgotten that I'd used. Rats!
Monday, November 30, 2009
Something Fishy
I got this email today:
"Good Day
My name is Mr. Song Li. I work with the Hang Seng Bank. There is a sum of $19,500,000.00 in my bank Hang Seng Bank", Hong Kong. There were no beneficiaries stated concerning these funds which means no one would ever come to claim it. That is why I ask that we work together.
I do solicit for your assistance in effecting this transaction.I intend to
give 30% of the total funds as compensation for your assistance.
I will notify you on the full transaction on receipt of your response if interested, and I shall send you the details and necessary procedures with which to make the transfer.
Should you be interested? Please send me your:
1. Full names
2. Private phone number
3. Current residential address
You can email me at : { song_lilennn@yahoo.com.hk } (not the actual email address)
Kind Regard.
Mr Song Li"
Yes, very fishy, actually a Nigerian Letter from Hong Kong, see Advance-fee fraud at Wikipedia.
"Good Day
My name is Mr. Song Li. I work with the Hang Seng Bank. There is a sum of $19,500,000.00 in my bank Hang Seng Bank", Hong Kong. There were no beneficiaries stated concerning these funds which means no one would ever come to claim it. That is why I ask that we work together.
I do solicit for your assistance in effecting this transaction.I intend to
give 30% of the total funds as compensation for your assistance.
I will notify you on the full transaction on receipt of your response if interested, and I shall send you the details and necessary procedures with which to make the transfer.
Should you be interested? Please send me your:
1. Full names
2. Private phone number
3. Current residential address
You can email me at : { song_lilennn@yahoo.com.hk } (not the actual email address)
Kind Regard.
Mr Song Li"
Yes, very fishy, actually a Nigerian Letter from Hong Kong, see Advance-fee fraud at Wikipedia.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Playin' Games
Last night I played a side-scrolling flying game (Aera) on my iPhone until the battery gave a 20 percent warning. It must have been a good game!
Then I played on the Nintendo DS Lite for over an hour. Usually I get bored with Nintendo games quite quickly, but I was playing a 3D Duke Nukem GBA (GameBoy Advance) game.
Then I played on the Nintendo DS Lite for over an hour. Usually I get bored with Nintendo games quite quickly, but I was playing a 3D Duke Nukem GBA (GameBoy Advance) game.
Saturday, October 03, 2009
An update
Well I'm back (from where, cyber-wise, I've been instructed not to tell).
Much has changed since I last blogged here. Around a year ago I bought an iPhone 3G. This was after advising a friend in South Africa not to get one, but I was more concerned that he was going to get mugged, especially as he has already had several cellphones stolen.
I've also Jailbroken the iPhone, initially for some of the themes offered by Winterboard, but now I use apps which are simply not available from the Apps Store: SBSettings and mAdvLock. SBSettings allows me to quickly toggle Wi-Fi on or off, or reboot the iPhone. It also hides Apps - like the standard Stocks app which I'm just not wanting to see.
- Posted from my iPhone
Much has changed since I last blogged here. Around a year ago I bought an iPhone 3G. This was after advising a friend in South Africa not to get one, but I was more concerned that he was going to get mugged, especially as he has already had several cellphones stolen.
I've also Jailbroken the iPhone, initially for some of the themes offered by Winterboard, but now I use apps which are simply not available from the Apps Store: SBSettings and mAdvLock. SBSettings allows me to quickly toggle Wi-Fi on or off, or reboot the iPhone. It also hides Apps - like the standard Stocks app which I'm just not wanting to see.
- Posted from my iPhone
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Friday, April 17, 2009
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
No App Store for my Touch
I'm delaying upgrading my iPod Touch to use the Apple App store. Instead, several weeks back I ran a "jailbreak" on the Touch, and I've been loading it up with applications including an eBook Reader, File Manager, Unit Converter and Dictionary with thesaurus among many others, and all free.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Tech Bargain!
When I recently bought a Dell computer (as an early birthday present), I got an extra $200 off the price with a discount coupon from TechBargains.com. It is not the first time I've used a discount coupon from them, the last time was for a PSP game. Thanks TechBargains!
Monday, February 18, 2008
Tale of two Wi-Fis
Okay, so I've got my hands on two gadgets. The first is a Nokia N800 Internet tablet, and the second is the Archos 605 WiFi. They both have wireless capabilities and great 800 by 480 pixel touch screens, but that is where the similarities begin to end.
Firstly the Nokia N800 is not a cellphone. It does a lot of things, but its main function is to browse the internet. Now, there are a number of devices which do this, but the N800 has a web browsing experience which is closer to a desktop PC than I've ever seen on a handheld device.
The Archos 605 WiFi is a media player. It is a bit of a stretch to call it a handheld media player, but it is portable enough to carry around if you have big pockets. It also does a lot of things, but its main purpose is a multi-format video player.
Now for my Wi-Fi problem. The Nokia N800 hopped onto my home wireless network as easy as a wireless Pocket PC. The Archos 605 is another story. I have been trying for weeks to get this thing to connect to my home wireless network, but no dice. It sees my neighbor's wireless networks, both the open and encrypted ones, but not mine. To test it I even briefly connected to a neighbor's wireless access point (sorry, default, it was for less than a minute). That worked. I tried disabling all security on my wireless router, but that did not work.
Hopefully, someday soon I will get the wireless working. Until then at least I can still use the Archos 605 to watch videos I guess. Fortunately I have no desire to buy videos from the Archos Content Portal, otherwise I wouldn't be happy. It would be nice to use the other wireless features of the Archos 605 though.
Firstly the Nokia N800 is not a cellphone. It does a lot of things, but its main function is to browse the internet. Now, there are a number of devices which do this, but the N800 has a web browsing experience which is closer to a desktop PC than I've ever seen on a handheld device.
The Archos 605 WiFi is a media player. It is a bit of a stretch to call it a handheld media player, but it is portable enough to carry around if you have big pockets. It also does a lot of things, but its main purpose is a multi-format video player.
Now for my Wi-Fi problem. The Nokia N800 hopped onto my home wireless network as easy as a wireless Pocket PC. The Archos 605 is another story. I have been trying for weeks to get this thing to connect to my home wireless network, but no dice. It sees my neighbor's wireless networks, both the open and encrypted ones, but not mine. To test it I even briefly connected to a neighbor's wireless access point (sorry, default, it was for less than a minute). That worked. I tried disabling all security on my wireless router, but that did not work.
Hopefully, someday soon I will get the wireless working. Until then at least I can still use the Archos 605 to watch videos I guess. Fortunately I have no desire to buy videos from the Archos Content Portal, otherwise I wouldn't be happy. It would be nice to use the other wireless features of the Archos 605 though.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Missed the List
Well, I seem to have missed the opportunity to give my Top 5+ List of 2007, since 2008 is well on its way, but here are a couple of the tech gadgets I'll hopefully be using throughout 2008:
The Asus Eee PC Notebook - a micro-notebook the size of a paperback novel running Linux. It has one of the easiest Desktop User Interfaces I've ever seen on Linux. Three USB ports allow attaching everything from external DVD drives and hard drives to printers and USB flash drives. The 4GB Solid State Drive makes for fast and silent start up, running and shutdowns. It comes with driver to install Windows XP, but that would really be a waste.
Apple iPod Touch - an amazing device - listen to music, watch videos on its widescreen, browse the Internet or watch clips on the YouTube channel via Wi-Fi. Now with the addition of Google Maps, and email client and a Notebook app this is on its way to becoming a useful handheld as well.
The Asus Eee PC Notebook - a micro-notebook the size of a paperback novel running Linux. It has one of the easiest Desktop User Interfaces I've ever seen on Linux. Three USB ports allow attaching everything from external DVD drives and hard drives to printers and USB flash drives. The 4GB Solid State Drive makes for fast and silent start up, running and shutdowns. It comes with driver to install Windows XP, but that would really be a waste.
Apple iPod Touch - an amazing device - listen to music, watch videos on its widescreen, browse the Internet or watch clips on the YouTube channel via Wi-Fi. Now with the addition of Google Maps, and email client and a Notebook app this is on its way to becoming a useful handheld as well.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Still here
Just a quick note that I'm still around and haven't abandoned this blog. There will be less posts though as I currently have a blogging "gig" on BlogBytes under my real name (which starts with M..)
Saturday, December 01, 2007
Candybar Cell
On my recent trip back to South Africa, I couldn't help noticing that candybar style cellphones were much more popular there than here in the USA. This can probably be attributed to Nokia having a large market share there.
I had an up close look at one of the South African cellphones. It looked like a brick - but when I got it in hand I realized it was a Nokia E90 Communicator, with built-in WiFi (I was actually trying to check the wireless settings so I could apply them to my Pocket PC). It was definitely a smartphone, probably Symbian-OS based , and from the depth of the phone probably had a slide out QWERTY keyboard. Apart from the size I was impressed. Even though the Nokia was more responsive I still prefer my T-Mobile Dash as it is smaller and lighter.
I had an up close look at one of the South African cellphones. It looked like a brick - but when I got it in hand I realized it was a Nokia E90 Communicator, with built-in WiFi (I was actually trying to check the wireless settings so I could apply them to my Pocket PC). It was definitely a smartphone, probably Symbian-OS based , and from the depth of the phone probably had a slide out QWERTY keyboard. Apart from the size I was impressed. Even though the Nokia was more responsive I still prefer my T-Mobile Dash as it is smaller and lighter.
Sunday, November 04, 2007
A break and a warning label
First of all I'll be going away on an overseas trip and most likely won't be able to blog from there.
Secondly the warning label. I'm not sure if Sony is going to put this anywhere on the box of their lower priced 40GB Playstation 3 ($399 in the USA), but one of the things they have dropped from this version is backwards compatibility with PS2 games (according to Sony rolls out cheaper 40GB PS3 in InfoSyncWorld). Considering that there are very few compelling games for the Sony Playstation 3 this is a possible deal breaker. This especially so since there are a lot of Playstation 2 games still available (and still getting released). From what I understand, to get backwards compatibility you have to buy the 80GB Playstation 3, which is apparently due for a price drop - probably down to $499 - before Christmas. Hopefully Sony won't decide to remove backwards compatibility from the 80GB version when they drop the price.
Secondly the warning label. I'm not sure if Sony is going to put this anywhere on the box of their lower priced 40GB Playstation 3 ($399 in the USA), but one of the things they have dropped from this version is backwards compatibility with PS2 games (according to Sony rolls out cheaper 40GB PS3 in InfoSyncWorld). Considering that there are very few compelling games for the Sony Playstation 3 this is a possible deal breaker. This especially so since there are a lot of Playstation 2 games still available (and still getting released). From what I understand, to get backwards compatibility you have to buy the 80GB Playstation 3, which is apparently due for a price drop - probably down to $499 - before Christmas. Hopefully Sony won't decide to remove backwards compatibility from the 80GB version when they drop the price.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Deal of the Day
Deal of the Day, or Sale of the Day, websites are springing up all over the net, with some variations on the theme.
The first one I came across was woot!.com which is regarded as the best and most popular.Basically woot! sells one item a day, anything from computers to flashlights. Sometimes the items are new, other times they are refurbished. There is also a quirky funny story about the item on sale. Some people wait up until midnight (which is when the next day's item is put on sale) just to see what it is going to be. Some items sell out quickly (the woot website has stats), and others don't, but a lot are sold, like the refurbished 30GB Microsoft Zune MP3 Players on October 15 - over 10,000 units were sold in one day. From what I've seen woot's prices are good and I haven't had any problems with items purchased from them.
And the other sites? Squidoo has short descriptions and links to many sites (but for some reason maybe blocked by overzealous corporate website blocking software).
There are also several Roundup sites, like Deal of the Day Tracker and Bargain Jack. I would advise shopping around before buying anything on these bargain websites.
Since I have not had any dealings with any of these websites other than woot!, I would recommend checking out reviews and approaching any purchases with the normal caution you would use for other internet purchases.
The first one I came across was woot!.com which is regarded as the best and most popular.Basically woot! sells one item a day, anything from computers to flashlights. Sometimes the items are new, other times they are refurbished. There is also a quirky funny story about the item on sale. Some people wait up until midnight (which is when the next day's item is put on sale) just to see what it is going to be. Some items sell out quickly (the woot website has stats), and others don't, but a lot are sold, like the refurbished 30GB Microsoft Zune MP3 Players on October 15 - over 10,000 units were sold in one day. From what I've seen woot's prices are good and I haven't had any problems with items purchased from them.
And the other sites? Squidoo has short descriptions and links to many sites (but for some reason maybe blocked by overzealous corporate website blocking software).
There are also several Roundup sites, like Deal of the Day Tracker and Bargain Jack. I would advise shopping around before buying anything on these bargain websites.
Since I have not had any dealings with any of these websites other than woot!, I would recommend checking out reviews and approaching any purchases with the normal caution you would use for other internet purchases.
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