Posts by Lui-g
17 posts • joined Monday 8th March 2010 17:54 GMT
Re: ...ownCloud anyone?
Version 5 was just released a few weeks ago. It may be worth revisiting them.
..then again, I just this second updated from 5.0.0 to 5.0.2 and it's broken itself in the update process...
joy!
...ownCloud anyone?
For the paranoid, you could get some unlimited hosting space and instal the free "ownCloud".
It's got Android & iOS clients, and works reasonably well. I only discovered it a few weeks ago, when I thought to myself: "hey, why don't I setup a free dropbox-like solution for self-hosting? With a paid mobile client, I could become rich!!" - a quick Google later, I was, on the one hand, happily installing ownCloud and yet, also cursing that my foresight needs adjusting...
Depends on your hand/pocket size - it's perfect for me.
The big downside with the S3 is that the screen glass & LCD are glued together - a cracked screen cost me near £200 to fix!
At least with the iPhones you can just replace the glass...
Posted in Fans rap Apple's 'crap' Map app
Re: Shockingly bad.
I'm just like you - throughout the betas I assumed they hadn't switched on the UK satellite imagery to save on some licensing fees until the launch.
Interestingly, using "Find my iPhone" on iCloud.com, the satellite imagery for where I live (Brighton, UK) has the expected detail. So Apple do have access to the images, they just haven't made them available on their mobile devices.
It's the first time I'm recommending EVERYONE I KNOW to hold off on an iOS update as it's more of a downgrade where maps are concerned.
Thank the heavens I also have an Android phone (S3) - I ended up getting one to explicitly to use the Google services which I particularly like - also, any respectable geek should own at least a couple of devices from the top players.
Now, Google, where's that Google Maps iOS app already?
Re: MagSafe2 - there is an adapter
Well spotted - and it doesn't cost $25 either!
Also, it was mentioned on the keynote that the magsafe had to be shrunk to be able to fit on the new machine - that's why magsafe 2 was made.
Re: Street View.
Street view is gone form the built-in map app.
Google recently announced their own 3D maps, and that they would be bringing these to iOS.
The issue will be if Apple approves a Google Maps app or not...
The article does say they have to refund all those who complained, so that will unfortunately hit their profit margins little more, but I expect they still made a profit.
The real problem here is that it seems you could fine them a billion pounds and they would just bankrupt the company (after having spent all the money), not go to jail, and move onto the next scam.
Scammers like this should be fined personally, named & shamed, tarred and feathered (optional), and banned from running any company for a good while. That *may* work as a deterrent...
Then again, many, many stupid people did sign up to this, so maybe there's no hope.
Save yourselves - go scam the stupid and flee with the winnings!
Posted in iKlip Studio
It's alright.
Got one of these and it's quite nice. Holds the iPad in portrait/landscape mode - even in its case. It's actually quite handy in the kitchen to watch TV or do some browsing whilst cooking - and the rubber feet really grip the surface.
Just need to buy another one for my studio now...
Posted in Hands on with the Apple iPad 3
For £329 it's arguably great value, a talking point, and presses enough on the competition.
I don't think they have a problem with volume shifting - these will sell fine - and if the iPad 2 was £279 or even £300, they would sell less "the new iPad"s which would not make any sense. By making it close, they make more money on iPad 2 sales as well as push those who can afford it to the latest and greatest (, and don't annoy existing iPad2 owners too much; and don't set a precedent big price drop on previous generation gear that would cause people to always wait for the next generation before buying).
It's all very clever and, whilst the magic still works, very lucrative.
It worked for me - my the new iPad which will replace the original iPad is pre-ordered.
Thank you HTC!
Seriously, I mean it: Thank you HTC!
Like many others, I'd been patiently waiting for this update, but the news yesterday made me take the plunge to root & cyanogen mod 7 Gingerbread my phone.
Like others, I had been running out of memory: I was always clearing cache, deleting non app2SD apps, but was always near the critical 15Mb available memory. Oddly, even by removing apps, and clearing the cache, I'd always creep up to that limit...
Now, onGingerbread without Sense UI, I've learned to live without Sense, and you know what? It's OK!
My phone has over 100Mb free at the moment, and Gingerbread with Cyanogen Mod 7 rocks. Hey, I can wake up my phone by pressing the trackpad! It's quick, smooth and there's loads of space.
Thank you HTC for making me realise that I can live without Sense UI, and that my next Android phone can now be brand agnostic.
I've fallen in love with my HTC Desire all over again.
Got this for Xmas
.... after telling my wife about it.
The random connection problems are an issue but it has many major flaws:
#1: whilst it is great that it has a find my phone feature, over xmas, I was hoping for a "find my LiveView" feature as the unit pops off the wristband far too easily. And no, you can't glue it on, as it needs to pop off the wristband in order for the charging usb port to be accessible. Thus, since you charge it rather often (more on that in #2), the unit needs to be removed and put in place, which means it becomes even more likely to jump off the wristband...
#2: maybe it's a side effect of having to attempt to connect an fail so often, but the battery life was closer to a single day than anything, often far less than that.
#3: the unit reset many times, after which you'll not have a working clock until you get reconnect. It would reset sometimes spontaneously, sometimes when I powered it on to tell the time. Other times I'd have to reset it to see if it would connect or not... Often the battery would die before I managed a reconnection.
The three above issues are quite problematic, and make this feel like a prototype/experiment product that was rushed out to cash in on the Xmas sales - before much testing was done.
Having spent most of the xmas break wearing a non-functional device (dead battery), or a pointless device (couldn't connect after a reset so could not tell the time), or wearing just the wristband whilst retracing my steps to find where the little black square had gone to, I wasn't impressed. Then, after an LiveView app update was pushed to the market, the new Liveview client on my up-to-date, non-rooted & factory unlocked HTC Desire phone (supposedly one of the few supported devices), it worked perfectly from one glorious evening! (This was unfortunately after Xmas, after my family got to see their 'tech guru' show off his latest innovation that doesn't function (last year I had an Archos 5IT which after an OTA update decided to not connect to any wifi network - &*%!). That device got working after a few tweaks and updates, but it lives in a drawer and will be recycled soon enough.
So, back to the LiveView - it was WORKING !!! - I was living the dream finally! I got a call notification, then later a gmail notification and even read most of the email on my wrist. All the while I was able to tell the time whenever I wanted without taking my phone out of my pocket - I've not worn a wrist watch this century. Fantastic.
Alas, the next morning, the power button (one of only two buttons on the unit) stopped working rendering the unit completely useless.
It's being repaired at the moment by SE.
I love it, but it needs stability and a redesigned strap. At least it wasn't crazy expensive.
I'd recommend waiting for the next generation, or at the very least until a proper firmware update is released.
Posted in Gear4 UnityRemote
works for me.
I have a cheap (£25) IR repeater from Maplin that seems to work fine with my Harmony one.
The amp, HTPC(MacMini) and HDMI selector all work fine with the cupboard open or shut - luckily no double signal problems.
Try it and see. you can always return it.
Posted in Gear4 UnityRemote
hmm...
I can see this product being useful to people who already use their ipods/ipads as remotes on home theatre computers.
Certainly, if you already have the hardware - it's far cheaper to get one of these BT to IR devices than to buy one of those old-school touch screen remotes.
As mentioned above, touch screen remotes require you to look at the screen, and also, they can be quite bright in a darkened cinema room...
Personally, for my humble needs, I use the Harmony One (~£100 these days) - like many others on the thread - although even after a couple of years' use, my wife grumbles when the 'activities' go out of sync and some devices are on when they should be off & vice versa.
What we all REALLY need is for manufacturers to include a distinct ON and distinct OFF IR control for every piece of hardware, instead of a toggle on/off... It's 2010 after all... Come on!!!
That's just not going to work...
"That download could be on a local router or the smartphone of the guy sitting next to you on a plane."
I agree with the concept, but only down to an ISP level - not a device level.
Otherwise we'd all become content peers for anything we've seen... and I can see a number of problems with that:
Bandwidth (your device becoems a server for all other people around you who want the same content)
Privacy - since it will be designed to be shared out, it will undoubtedly be possible to see what content you've seen - more easily and discreetly than ever before (since the network activity would not be suspicious in a peer environment).
We definitely need a solution, but it should be far easier for ISPs to cache popular content (which they must do already) than to change every device on the planet so they can become servers too.
One day, when devices have battery life in months or years, and bandwidth isn'a an issue, then sure. But I think it may be a while yet. Maybe I'm not looking far enough in the big picture...
Why not pre-order?
Why queue?
Why not pre-order?
iPad is SO yesterday.
Surely a true fanboy would have known about the pre-order date, and have been saving up for the magical device for at least 4 years.
Posted in Whatever happened to the email app?
Gmail all the way!
Maybe we're an oddity, but I assumed that most tech-savvy people would have numerous devices/gadgets on which to check their emails, and so would initially opt for IMAP and eventually move onto web based services. From the comments I've read, you're all mostly still using mail programs - which either means you are all much older than me (late 30's), or perhaps EvilGav1 & I are the only tech guys who use Gmail/webmail?
I've used just about every major program on Mac/PC since the mid 90's.
After much resistance, just over two years ago, I migrated to Gmail and have never looked back.
There's overall less cpu resources consumed.
There's less hard disk activity.
You can hop from device to device start an email on one, and finish it on the other.
Search is incredibly fast.
No large database stored on your hard drive.
POP option for backups - if you don't trust it.
Platform agnostic, browser agnostic - Need to reboot your main computer? - just carry on working on the laptop.
Labels Labels Labels - With a few clicks, I can label an email to belong to a particular client, to be a purchase, and to require action.
etc...
What's there not to like?
I use Gmail for it's services - yet use my own domain, own address. The Ads don't bother me - I don't even see them. If they did, I could always pay and make them go away.
Surely something like this would be the norm for The Reg readers???
