05 January, 2010

My daughter..

Just wanted to let the world know that my first born, Myar Jane Arnold, arrived this snowy morning in Worcester. She was 9 lbs 13 oz .. she is beautiful!

Also the geek in me went out immediately and registered www.myararnold.com and secured her email address at google.. Twitter?? of course..

Why? Personal brand! Myar has just entered the world and its her future..

Why Myar? Myar is an anagram of Mary. Both Becky and myself had grandma's called Mary. Beckys nanna passed in June just after Becky told me that she was expecting. My Nan passed a few months later. We believe it's a fitting way to pay tribute to our mothers mothers.. However, neither of us wanted to call our first daughter Mary. So it had to be an anagram.

Why not Myra?? I don't think its fair to call our daughter after one of the Moors Murderers.Why not Mayr? or Ryam? or Raym? In all honesty, only Myra and Mary was found at behindthename.com , and Mya was close. Mya is a variant of Mia , and we just added an R to the end. In fact,  we will still pronounce it My-uh

Anyway, keep your eyes and ears out for more of what Myar is getting up to..

06 August, 2009

11 July, 2009

The best news ever

I have some great news I want to share with you..

I am going to be a dad!


[gallery link="file"]

While we both found out from a pregnancy kit at the beginning of June, it was only on Tuesday this week that we went for the 12 week scan. The antenatal lady who did the scan, said that 'it' was 14 weeks and 4 days old.. and our expected due date is the 1st January 2010. The geek in me immediately thought of 010110 and binary numbers..

  • 0101 1000 X

  • 0101 1001 Y

  • 0101 1010 Z


Perhaps the name should begin with one of those letters??

Its great news, and both us are really happy

29 April, 2009

Google Android and Vodafone..

g1-white When I first heard that Google was bringing out there own Phone Software, I was over the moon! I use Google.. a lot! Not just for search, but email / calendar .. everything! I am what you call a Google Fanboy..

Being a T-Mobile Customer, I was really looking forward to going down to the store and seeing what the G1 was like.. They had a big hype and a great advertising campaign, but when I saw it.. I HATED IT!

I played around for some time, trying to build up some love but I couldn't.. It was the keyboard, and the general clunkiness of the whole thing.  However, I rested in the knowledge that this isn't Googles hardware. They supply the OS - Google Android. HTC had bought the first model out, and there would be more soon.

Christmas came and went, and still only rumour on who would be bringing the next phone out. In February, the Mobile World Congress was over in Barcelona and I heard about the next HTC Android phone ... the G2, and it was exclusively with Vodafone in the UK! GREAT!

htc.magic.frontIt was due in April, so I went over to the Vodafone site to find some information... after all I had looked comprehensively through both o2 for the iPhone, and T-Mobile for the G1. What was Vodafones site like?? Rubbish. they didnt have any info at all..

It wasn't until the beginning of April that they started putting pictures and more info on there minisite http://htcmagic.vodafone.co.uk and I had to wait until near the end of the month, to try and get prices.

Finally, they released pricing and you know what.. I could actually save £5 a month, on the potential £35 a month contract by pre-registering! Free Phone! Free data! What more do I need?

How about the ability to transfer my old number to the new one? Isn't that what most people want to do? Apparently not, according to Vodafone. I phoned for clarification with the number on there microsite, only to be told I had rung the wrong department. I explained my predicament, and they said "No - not possible" i mentioned it to them, that this is going to be quite popular, and they didn't even care.

Now that Samsung have announced the i7500 -  a better phone, with a better camera, an OLED screen, all with a bigger battery! So, now I might just have to wait till June for that to come out.. just need to know who the carrier is! The rumor is currently sitting with T-Mobile, but its just as likely to be o2.. We will find out soon enough!

UPDATE - The ability to bring in your PAC (Port Authorisation Code) has been enabled.. i guess I am going to order!

My history with Smartphones..

alcatel HC800 I love smartphones! Why?? It all started when I damaged my first phone back when I was in the Army. It was an Alcatel, I think! I lost all my phone numbers, and I made it a condition that any phone I get from now on *HAD* to support the ability to back up my phone numbers.

At first it was a manual job. I had a piece of paper I kept in my wallet, with all the numbers, but I knew there should be a way of doing this. I didnt want to do this manually anymore..

I left the Army, and went to University. I discovered the ability to create my own logos and ringtones with a piece of software, but wasn't entrepreneurial enough to make money like a lot of people did back then. I just did it for friends! This software, also allowed me to back up my phone to a database where I could actually adjust the numbers.

orange-spv-c500

I was using Nokias a lot. I had a business grade Nokia for a long, long time and it was a perfect phone. Nokia was clever enough to realise that the Interface had to be intuitive, and tried not to change it to alienate there growing customer base. I remember when everyone had a Nokia 3310 at one point!

However, Nokias still didn't do it automatically. Thats when I discovered Smartphones.. well actually an Orange SPV C500 running the Windows Mobile OS. I could use ActiveSync to sync not just my contacts with Outlook, but also my calendar. It was brilliant, and as a longtime Orange User I was over the moon.. It even allowed me to download programs onto the device, but they never seemd to work that well.

A bonus of this phone, was that the back-up cable was USB to Mini-USB and it also charged the phone. It was a no brainer, to use this lead as the charger. I had this phone for about three years, and its still my backup phone sitting in my drawer just in case it all goes wrong.

When I got back from travelling, I used a friends old Orange SPV C550 for a long time, and I had discovered the ability to surf the web using my phone. I was always hoping that Orange would give me a decent data package, so it wouldn't cost me much but it seemed to be about £10 for 1mb per month. It just wasn't good enough. I switched providers..

When I joined T-Mobile I opted to move away from Windows Mobile, and back to Nokia with the Symbian S60 OS. It was pretty simple, and had an extremely easy to use intuitive OS. I could even download programs onto my Nokia e51. When my business phone came up for renewal, I even chose a black e51.. why?? Well, if the battery died on one then I could swap them out really easy. A 2gb micro-SD card is great to store some music on, and I even discovered th pain of using Bluetooth headsets. I still swear by a single headphone at the end of a wire for my handsfree kit!

Anyway my contract has lapsed about four months ago and I have been on the lookout for a new phone... you are probably thinking the Apple iPhone..

No, I want the Google Android..

21 April, 2009

Red Fridays - Support Our Troops

After reading a blog post by Behind Blue Eyes today, I wanted to re-post.
Very soon, you will see a great many people wearing Red every Friday. The reason? British men and women who support our troops used to be called the ’silent majority’.

We are no longer silent, and are voicing our love for Country and home in record breaking numbers. We are not organized, boisterous or over-bearing. We get no liberal media coverage on TV, to reflect our message or our opinions. Many English people, like you, me and all our friends, simply want to recognize that the vast majority of Britain supports our troops.

Our idea of showing solidarity and support for our troops with dignity and respect starts this Friday and continues each and every Friday until the troops all come home, sending a deafening message that every Briton who supports our men and women afar will wear something red.

By word of mouth, press, TV — let’s make Great Britain on every Friday a sea of red much like a homecoming football team If every one of us who loves this country will share this with acquaintances, co-workers, friends, and family, It will not be long before Britain is covered in RED and it will let our troops know the once ’silent’ majority is on their side more than ever, certainly more than the media lets on.

The first thing a soldier says when asked ‘What can we do to make things better for you?’ is…’We need your support and your prayers’… Let’s get the word out and lead with class and dignity, by example; and wear something red every Friday.

IF YOU AGREE — THEN SEND THIS ON - IF YOU COULD NOT CARE LESS THEN HIT THE DELETE BUTTON.

IT IS YOUR CHOICE. THEIR BLOOD RUNS RED—- SO WEAR RED! Lest we Forget.

You don't have to. But this country is slowly going south. Its time to stand up, and be counted for what you believe in. Don't be a part of the silent majority. I am not asking you to stand up and shout. Just do something and support our boys.
From an unknown traveller

Last week I was in West London attending a conference.

While I was in the airport, returning home, I heard several people behind me beginning to clap and cheer. I immediately turned around and witnessed one of the greatest acts of patriotism I have ever seen.

Moving through the terminal was a group of soldiers in their uniforms, as they began heading to their gate everyone (well almost everyone) was abruptly to their feet with their hands waving and cheering.

When I saw the soldiers, probably 30-40 of them, being applauded and cheered for, it hit me. I’m not alone. I’m not the only red blooded Briton who still loves this country and supports our troops and their families. Of course I immediately stopped and began clapping for these young unsung heroes who are putting their lives on the line everyday for us so we can go to school, work, and enjoy our home without fear or reprisal.

Just when I thought I could not be more proud of my country or of our service men and women a young girl, not more than 6 or 7 years old, ran up to one of the male soldiers. He knelt down and said ‘hi,’ the little girl then asked him if he would give something to her daddy for her. The young soldier didn’t look any older than maybe 22 years old himself, said he would try and what did she want to give to her daddy. Suddenly the little girl grabbed the neck of this soldier, gave him the biggest hug she could muster and then kissed him on the cheek. The mother of the little girl, who said her daughters name was Courtney, told the young soldier that her husband was a Corporal and had been in Afghanistan for 5 months now.

As the mum was explaining how much her daughter, Courtney, missed her father, the young soldier began to tear up. When this temporarily single mum was done explaining her situation, all of the soldiers huddled together for a brief second. Then one of the other servicemen pulled out a military looking walkie-talkie. They started playing with the device and talking back and forth on it.

After about 10-15 seconds of this, the young soldier walked back over to Courtney, bent down and said this to her, ‘I spoke to your daddy and he told me to give this to you.’ He then hugged this little girl that he had just met and gave her a Kiss on the cheek. He finished by saying ‘Your daddy told me to tell you that he loves you more than anything and he is coming home very soon.’ The mum at this point was crying almost uncontrollably and as the young soldier stood to his feet he saluted Courtney and her mum.

I was standing no more than 6 feet away as this entire event unfolded.

As the soldiers began to leave, heading towards their gate, people resumed their applause. As I stood there applauding and looked around, there were very few dry eyes, including my own. That young soldier in one last act of moment turned around and blew a kiss to Courtney with a tear rolling down his cheek.

We need to remember everyday all of our soldiers and their families and thank God for them and their sacrifices. At the end of the day, it’s good to be an Englishman.

If you a little digging around, you are going to discover the snopes page. I don't care.

Support our troops

03 January, 2009

The Future of Music?

 So here is my take on the future of music.. its probably been spouted out before by someone, but I just wanted to get it out there. 

I own an Xbox 360. I am on my second one now, after the original ones optical drive failed. Oh well.. anyway thats beside the point. I own a few games. I like first person shooters a lot - Call of Duty 4, Far Cry 2, etc etc. I also own two music games.. 

  1. Lips - pretty much a Karaoke game

  2. Guitar Hero - playing Air Guitar to famous tracks.. 


Why do I own these games?? The social aspect.. I can actually get my girlfriend interested in the Xbox if we are playing these games. Also if I have a party, its a great way for some fun to be happening!

Everyone has heard of iTunes. Its the #1 place to get your digital music online. Amazon MP3 is a new service (to the UK) that allows you to download any DRM-free music tracks. Apart from illegally downloading your music, its one of the most popular ways today to get hold of your favourite tracks. Oh, don't forget you can also buy a physical copy!!

Since October 2007, the Official Charts company has allowed these digital downloads to count towards the official number one single. So whats going to be the future?
Let me download the new releases on to my Xbox / Wii / PS3 into Guitar Hero, Rockband or Lips / SingStar and make them count towards the number one single! Simple! 

Also if I am a musician, I want to get my tracks on to these games ASAP. Let me do that! Make it simple.. 

The future of Music.. Its all about being part of it! Let me sing it.. Let me play it.. I don't want to just listen to it anymore..

Losing this big fat belly

I have just spent ten days with my parents and family back home. Do you want to know what every single friend and relative said to me? 
"When you expecting?"

They were'nt talking about children. They were talking about me having a big belly. Now, I have been out the forces now for eight years. I have been to University, and I have been travelling. I now work for the largest IT company in the world as a Technical Consultant. I spend a lot of my time talking on my phone, and sat behind my laptop. On a day to day basis, I generally don't do a lot of exercise. However, I have been saying for the previous three years that I need to Get Fit and Stay Fit. 

I always thought my Body Fat was over 30%. After all if you take the standard test which is:

  1. Work out your height in metres and multiply the figure by itself

  2. Measure your weight in kilograms

  3. Divide the weight by the height squared (the answer to Q1)


For example, you might be 1.6m (5ft 3in) tall and weigh 65kg (10st 3lb). The calculation would then be: 1.6 x 1.6 = 2.56. BMI would be 65 divided by 2.56 = 25.39.

If I followed this example, I am 1.8m tall, and weigh 100kg. This would currently mean 1.8 x 1.8 = 3.24. 100 / 3.24 = 30.9 . As the BMI Categories are:

  • Normal weight = 18.5-24.9

  • Overweight = 25-29.9

  • Obesity = BMI of 30 or greater


I would be classed as Obese. ME?? OBESE! :(

However, I discovered a different site today. The CholestorolNetwork . Here you enter in your height, weight and sex. You then enter in your waist size and hips size. Finally you enter in your forearm and wrist size. After I entered my results in, it comes back with 24% body fat. "You have 52.7 Pounds of fat and 167.3 Pounds of lean (muscle, bone, body water)"

Anyway, I know I have this belly. I have to do something about it. As such, from today and for the next two months, I am on a diet.

I will not drink any fizzy drinks. Eat any chocolate. Drink any alcohol. I will do exercise every day. 

I will let you know how I have done at the end of February..

01 January, 2009

Happy New Year 2009

 Welcome to 2009.. Its traditional to have some New Year Resolutions set on the 1st day, and keep them... well try anyway!

I have published my New Year Resolutions here before - 2006 and 2007 - but I didn't do it last year! I also had some thirtieth birthday resolutions. They were all the same:

  1. No More Smoking! 

  2. Get Fit & Stay Fit 

  3. Manage my cash 

  4. Keep a life journal - keep it simple. The book How to Make a Journal of your Life is useful here.


In 2007 I added to #3 that I wanted to also manage my life better, with a little Getting Things Done, and added to #4 that I was going to keep a photo journal. 

So what am I doing this year? I reckon I'm going to stick to this list.. These are resolutions, and even though I have been attempting to do this for the past three years I think it will soon all come together!

Also going to start the Photo Journal again, but instead of doing it with Vox or Flickr I will do it over at Daily Mugshot instead. Using my phone, I can take a picture of myself daily and send it on over..

01 December, 2008

gOS Cloud

gOS.cloudJust seen something about gOS Cloud -- Anyone know when this is released? I am still on the lookout for my next laptop, and its going to be a Netbook of some sort. The Asus 1000H seems to be drawing me in right now, but waiting for it to drop below £300.

Adding the tiny linux software gOS Cloud to boot into, when I start my machine seems a very clever way of getting what I need very quickly. I can then boot into Windows when needed. 

Now I know someone is going to say, "just get a linux OS like xandros".. sorry, but I dont have the time to learn a new OS. I know windows inside out now, and certain programs ONLY work on Windows, or Macs - Nokia PC Suite, Outlook, iTunes etc etc. This has very few programs, and if its stable then looks like a winner.

According to the few sites that have this written up - engadget / cnet / laptop mag - it seems that gOS Cloud features a browser with a MacOS like dock with shortcuts to favorite apps. It has tabs for multi-tasking between web and rich client apps, and icons that allow it to:

  1. Open gMail

  2. Open Meebo (web based instant messaging)

  3. Open google Calendar

  4. Open google Reader

  5. Open Google Maps

  6. Open Youtube

  7. Open Blogger

  8. Change wireless settings

  9. switch to Windows

  10. and power off


This does look really interesting, and something I need to read a lot more into. 

Anyway, Good OS.. let me download this, and install it on to my new netbook in the new year please! In fact Google, why don't you just go out and buy this company?? ;)

07 October, 2008

100 Skills every man should have

Over at Popular Mechanics, there is a post on 100 Skills every man should have. Being a 33 year old man, I thought I should check to see where I am. How much do I know?? I have starred ( * ) all mine. 
Brains and charm are fine, but a real guy needs to know how to do real stuff. After months of debate among PM’s expert editors, here’s our lineup of essential skills, broken down in 10 categories for the competent man—plus 20 tools you need to own. Did we leave anything out—or included a skill you don’t think is worthy? Sound off in our chat, then take PM’s interactive DIY quiz to see how you measure up!

Google Chrome .. five weeks on

Five weeks to the day since Google released its browser, Chrome and I thought I would give a quick update. 

I think the best thing you can say is that I am still using it! It wasn't a fly by night browser, try it out for an hour or so and never open it again.. its used for everything I do on my PC thats related to ME!! .. I don't use it for anything work related. For that I use IE7 and occasionally a very clean install on Firefox v3. 

Its still blindingly fast.. I have application shortcuts on the desktop for Gmail, Calendar and Gmail Contacts... I use the incognito feature, when I want to check my other Gmail account... I have used the Tabslock feature, so that whenever I press CapsLock it opens a new tab with my nine most used webpages on. For the record, its my company homepage, Facebook, Gmail, BBC News, Amazon, Google Reader, Wikipedia, My Wikipedia Watchlist, and at the moment it also has National Rail. I also love the search bar.. its called the onebox,a nd you can have custom search set. For instance, everytime i press W > space > SEARCH TERM.. it normally brings up the wikipedia page on it.. Would someone please tell me how I can search Amazon.co.uk the same way?? I have tried loads of ways and none of them work.. All in all though, I love it! 

But what do I miss?? I miss my delicious adding, but have managed to fudge it using a bookmark. Its not the best, but it works and Del.icio.us is 100 times better than Google Bookmarks. but thats about it. I now have a very fast browser, and its only crashed on me once. It opened up again so quick though, that I hardly noticed. 

The trackpad still doesn't scroll up, but I understand Google have fixed it on the nightly betas ... I haven't signed up for those, as I want a pretty stable release. One thing though Google, of you are reading this, please make it easier for me to upgrade to v0.2.149.30 or whatever the most recent one is by a click of a button. I don't know which is the most recent stable release.

Anyway want to know more?? go and view the comic at http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/index.html and download the browser from http://www.google.com/chrome

02 September, 2008

First thoughts on Google Chrome


 Any normal google announcement is normally preceeded by all the tech pundits giving it a bit of this and a bit of that.. this was no exception. 


 This time though, it was only because Google sent out a comic to some leading bloggers yesterday that anybody had any idea it was happening. One of the comments was, "Who Cares? After all Internet Explorer is still used by 70% of all internet users" .. true. Another 20% use Firefox, and the remaining 10% use a mix of Opera, Safari, Netscape and others. 

Day to day I generally use Firefox,  but regularly find my memory being abused to the point that my computer crawls to a halt. Even closing tabs still fails to reduce it enough. So lets run a very quick test.

Currently in Firefox I have 11 tabs open. Its using 213Mb of memory. With Google Chrome I have 10 tabs open, and in Task Manager I see 10 instances of Chrome running - 50mb + 19mb + 5mb + 44mb + 11mb + 23mb + 11mb + 16mb + 27mb + 10mb = 243mb of memory. 

You might think here I have a problem. Less tabs, using more memory. Not the case. I close one of those tabs, and I immediately get that memory back. In Firefox, it stays. In fact if I close all the tabs less one, its still using 158Mb of my precious RAM. As Google says:
Each browser tab operates as a separate process; by isolating tabs, should one tab crash or misbehave, others remain stable and responsive, and users can continue working without having to restart Google Chrome.

Its a lighning fast browser, with a noticeable difference to the speed of opening new pages.

First impressions?? GREAT! Considering I use a lot of different google online applications, it will be one of my most useful broswers... 

Anyway, one complaint.. I can scroll down using my trackpad, but can't scroll back up. Its not that bad, just use my up/down arrows. 

25 August, 2008

Heres to the Crazy ones






My favourite piece of poetry.. I used it for a voiceover on a snowboard movie we made at University once.

It still makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck...
“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits.The rebels.
The trouble makers.The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
They’re not fond of rules and they have no respect for the status quo.

You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them.
But the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.Because they change things.
They push the human race forward.

And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.”

24 August, 2008

Beijing 2008 - Team GBR finish in fourth!

With the 2008 Beijing Olympics now entering the closing ceremony, I am over the moon to see Team GB finish fourth overall! CONGRATULATIONS!

Its been an amazing Olympic Games, and I have been glued to the t'interwebs, especially the BBC Live Action page, and the coverage from the BBC. Again, I feel my TV license was money well spent with the coverage that has been provided.

So whats been my highlights? Super Saturday and Sunday, and Tremendous Tuesday.. each day four new gold medals for Team GBR. I was gobsmacked with Usain Bolts three world records.. and Michael Phelps! Is he the worlds greatest athlete? He's up there with the best of them! It wasn't just Phelps.. all the swimmers did well. I guess at London 2012, every swimmer will be wearing the latest and greatest Speedo Suit...

The medal table is impressive this year.. China with 51 gold out of there 100 medal count, USA with 110 overall medals.. Russia pipped us to the post with a superb tally of 72. But Britain definitely put the Great back in Great Britain. Fourth in the number of Golds, fourth in the overall table. WOW!

Just before the games started, I was expecting Australia to do soo well. After all they have a pool of 21 million people to choose from and are a sporting nation. (lets not mention the Rugby though!). The UK Sports Minister, Gerry Sutcliffe made a stupid bet that he would wear Australias Green and Gold jersey at a sporting event if they beat us in the medal table! DUH!! I thought, "ARE YOU STUPID??".. fast forward two weeks later, and maybe I should have made a similar bet..

Anyway, for a rundown on all the British Olympic Medal Winners pop over to another BBC page. Lets all sit down and congratulate them in a very British way, with a nice cup of tea! After all it did seem that our Olympians were sitting down for most of our medals :)

Good luck to all the Olympians competing in the Beijing 2008 Para-Olympics!  Great Britain will send a team of 212 athletes to the 2008 Beijing Paralympics and compete in 18 of the 20 sports. In Athens four years ago, GB finished second to China in the medals table with 94 medals, including 35 golds. Team GBR can you do better ??

22 July, 2008

EeePC 901 - Linux or Windows? *MUST* sync with my phone..

Anyway, I am still contemplating buying myself my own laptop instead of using works all the time... In the next few weeks, I will be getting myself one of two laptops:

What's the difference you may ask?? Well they are both £300 from LaptopsDirect, and come in two different colours - white and black. However, apart from them running different Operating Systems, the Windows XP version only comes with 8Gb of SSD storage space, while the Xandros version comes with 16Gb. Each comes with a 4Gb SSD to store the Operating System on. As such I am going to need some decent online storage..

I'm also getting a little fed up with Windows, and want to try a different OS. I think Linux is one to learn today..

However, my problem is the syncing of a phone. Currently I am using a Nokia e51 phone. This runs Symbian S60 v3 , and is one of the most popular phones in the world. However, can I find out if it will be able to sync with the linux laptop?? nope.. not anywhere. The ever popular EeeUser Forums doesn't have a clear answer, nor does going through 30 pages of google results for "sync linux s60" solicit the easiest answers.

Nokia makes a bloody linux tablet, but can't seem to be bothered to create a Linux Nokia  dataSuite.

Due to this 'slight' problem, it looks like I am going to have to buy the Windows version.. Does anyone have any ideas????

14 July, 2008

Who uses Digital Pens?? saw the zPen reviewed on fives GadgetShow

zPen

After watching UK channel fives Gadget show tonight, I was really impressed with a new digital pen that has just been released in the UK. Part of the show is called the 'Focus Group' and tonight they did it on Computer Peripherals. They included:

Anyway I have been looking for a digital pen for some time, so was really happy to see this on TV. Everyone likes to write things down.. telephone calls, meeting notes, brainstorming. Trying to use a Wacon tablet with OneNote was a real PITA. Also when I attend my monthly team meeting, all of us are sitting behind laptop screens, checking email and not engaging with the meeting.

Digital pens have been around for some time, but have always needed a special tablet, or special paper. I don't mind putting some money down upfront, but I do NOT want to keep having to buy new paper everytime it runs out. Also, it needs to be portable.. The Dane Elec zPen should be, and according to theUS Amazon site you should be able to:

  • WRITE with the pen, on any kind of paper (with the receiver on top of your page)

  • DOWNLOAD your handwritten notes on your PC and view them on screen

  • FIND keywords back on your handwritten notes

  • CONVERT your handwritten notes in digital text, to use it on your standard word processing software applications


It takes standard biro refills, and apart from one downside - the battery life does not seem to be that great - it looks a sure fire winner! It has the ability to upload 1Gb of data (using a proprietary .eli format) which creates PDFs, and these can then be OCR'ed to your text editor of choice.. Maybe I can convince the boss to buy 25 of them and tell everyone to turn the laptops off!

So I need to know if anyone has used this yet?? Any US or UK customers willing to point me to a couple of reviews? google didnt bring much back I'm afraid.. and there is no zPen wikipedia page (there is one for digital paper)

30 June, 2008

My 2008 Resolutions

So this blog has been up and running for over three years now.. and originally I only used it for my travels round the world in my thirtieth year. I haven't really kept it up to date for ages, but now that its moved over to wordpress I hope I can ...

So why am I writing in July about Resolutions? Well I am just looking through my previous years resolutions. Thirtieth / 2006 / 2007 There seems to be a familiar pattern.

I only do four each year, and all of them mention:

  • No More Smoking!

  • Get Fit & Stay Fit

  • Manage my cash & life better

  • Keep a life journal


So what do I want to do right now?

  1. Give up smoking - I try and I fail. I think its been about six times I have given up now, and every time it lasts about three months. However, I have declared my flat to be a non smoking flat. (Once the new kitchen is all fitted, and the front room has been painted)

  2. Get Fit & Stay Fit - Again, I find this difficult. Its all about routine. Its all about sticking to a plan. When my kitchen is fitted, me and Becky want to do a routine of ONLY shopping for the week on a Monday night. Stick to the meal plan, and stick to a shopping list. Its not just going out running, but having a change of lifestyle.

  3. Manage my cash & life better - Something I can actually do! Do you want to know how to do this? Have two accounts - one for your bills and one for spending.

  4. Keep a life Journal - I love technology, but what I want is a private online blog linked to my laptop. Has anyone got any recommendations for journalling software?


I don't want to add any more to this list.. four is more than enough.

No more HP2133.. its going to be the Asus Eee PC 901!

Back in April when I heard that HP were going to release a new laptop.. called the HP2133 .. I put it straight to the top of my wish list. After all, I need my OWN laptop (I don't like using works to do my personal stuff) and It looks beautiful, with what looks like a full aluminium case and also a full size keyboard. Its only available to buy from Research Machines in the UK right now, and its priced from £385

Not a problem I thought.. after all the spec is either Linux (SUSE 10.3) or Windows (vista or XP) with a large 120Gb HDD, and either a 3cell or 6cell battery. The problem?? I have read that it gets hot... damn hot! If its meant to be a nice portable laptop then it needs to be running cool.. after all it will be sitting on my lap half the time..

So I needed to review the other models out there. Using both Wikipedia, and my favourite review website - Trusted Reviews - I have checked out these reviews:

Coming soon is also the Dell E and the Acer Inspire One .. but neither of these brands have ever ticked the box with me!



So it looks to me that my next purchase is going to be a Asus Eee PC 901, probably the linux edition. Its running with the new intel Atom processor, which makes it run quieter and cooler, and also dramatically improves the battery life (approx 4.5 hrs). It also has draft-N wireless built in. Some previous features that are quite clever are the Multi-touch pad, and the custom Linux Xandros OS.

With a guideprice of £319 and available from the 1st July 2008, it looks the perfect netbook.

Just want to finish with the verdict that Trusted Review gave:
"Brimming with features and with a new CPU and better battery, the Eee PC 901 personifies exactly the spirit in which the original was created. It may be a bit more expensive than the original and lack a more comfortable keyboard, but for a balance of features, size, usability and value, the 901 has once again set the standard. For the moment, at least, the (new) original is still the best"

29 May, 2008

Sicily 2008 - three days in Trapani


Lavanzo Harbour After spending three days in a B&B in Catania, me and Becks were fortunate to ask Angela (who managed the Catania City Centre B&B) to find us a nice B&B in Trapani. We had thought long and hard where we wanted to stay, and after dismissing Palermo, it was between Selinunte and Trapani. We discovered getting to Selinunte would prove difficult… So we stayed 200m away from Trapani Train Station at a B&B called Cortille di Venere It was well priced at only €48 per night, and was ideally situated in the old town of Trapani.



Trapani is a great base for the non-touristy east side of Sicily. There could be lots to do on this side of the island, but we didnt find it! We just spent three days chill-axing.. three days of slowly wandering round, having a few beers and lots more coffees, and smoking lots and lots of cigarettes.. I had finished the two books I had bought with me (Flashmans Lady, and Flashman and the Mountain of Light - Great Books!) and we were walking at snails pace round the town!! It was sooo quiet!

Anyway the next day we wanted to go to Selinunte, but my alarm was set for weekdays only and we didn’t get up till 11:30.  Instead we caught the hydrofoil across to Levanzo.. one of the beautiful Aegardian Islands. Only 450 people there, and its the epitome of peace and quiet.. When we got back to Trapani, we went out for a beer and some food. (but forgot to get some food..)

Sunday was my 33rd birthday, and I did find out the day before that everything was going to be closed, so with our hangover we went to the beach for the day.It rose to 35°C during the day, and we had to go and relax in the shade for the rest of the day.. I also discovered Brioche with icecream.. basically an icecream in a bun! tasty… That night we went out for a lovely meal at a new restaurant that had only just opened.

Our last day, and again we wanted to go to Selinunte..  and again we were thwarted. The bus only runs at 6:55 and 12:35 and takes three hours.. it was not meant to be. Instead we slowly wandered Trapani, drinking lots of espresso, and taking lots of pictures…

Tips ‘n’ tricks



  1. Guidebooks.. dont forget them!If you do bring one, get a decent one - Lonely Planet or Rough Guide

  2. Its possible to go on holiday with just one cabin bag (article to follow) — just plan it carefully!

  3. Be prepared for days of nothing… just sit back and put your feet up with an espresso