Posts by Joshua Murray

What No...

... 5.11 Rush 24 ?

I've tried so many backpacks to cart around my tech over the years and the Rush 24 is by far the most robust, comfortable and useful bags I've owned.

Looks like it will last forever and although it looks a bit "mall ninja" in black, it doesn't really stand out in a commuter setting.

Fits an X230 in the hydration pocket, a 13" MacBook Pro inside the main pocket and an iPad in the front pocket, along with all the cables, a jacket, umbrella, camera and my lunch. It can even stow a bottle of wine in one of the side pockets too :) That's a bit extreme and I very rarely cart all that around with me (esp. the wine!!), but it can do it if I need to.

The side compression straps make it fairly thin when not lugging much about, but allow it to grow substantially.

I've stuffed it full of clothes and used it as carry on baggage too.

Cheers

Josh

Ahh memories...

I was a bit of a palmtop whore back in the day...

Psion 3c

Psion Sienna

Ericsson MC12 (Rebadged HP)

Palm IIIe

Palm V

Palm M505

Palm Tungsten T

Then moved on to early smartphones, then iPhones and now a new iPad too.

Last year I bought a Psion 5MX for next to nothing on eBay as I'd always fancied one.... Out of all the old skool devices I've listed above; only the Palm Tungsten T was "better" than the 5MX (and that's only really because the screen was nice and it ran TomTom). The 5 really is an amazing device and the bundled applications work really well. Proper hardware and software design, working seamlessly together.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to receiving my TouchFire keyboard layer thing for my iPad. Google it... It looks impressive!!

iCufflinks

I bought a pair to wear on my wedding day last month... They are really nicely made and I personally think they look pretty cool.

Owners of the original version...

... Might want to get an Apple AirPort Express to plug in via the Aux-In, which will give them AirPlay.

I have an Apple TV plugged into my AV Receiver and use AirPlay through that... It works well.

When will they learn?

Household mains electrical wiring is not a network cable!

It's unshielded, unbalanced, acts like a leaky feeder and pollutes the local HF and (now) VHF radio spectrum with broad-band digital noise.

I know you've heard all this before from us radio geeks, but it needs re-itterating.

Companies should invest more on developing faster WiFi instead of this crap.

/Rant.

T-Mobile

I used the T-Mobile Booster when I was last in Europe...

£10 for 50MB, which lasted me the duration of my 2 week holiday (browsing, emailing, facetweeting and a bit of googlemapsing on my phone).

I think that's pretty reasonable.

Like

Josh likes this.

Too Beaucoup!!

I just updated Fring on my T-Mobile Pulse and got a low storage warning... Seems it's grown in size considerably since the last version.

Oh, and even though the Pulse DOES have a forward facing camera, the app told me my phone wasn't supported for video calls.

So, thankfully I could restore back to the last version using my Titanium Backup backup.

/Paris.Video.etc....

Yay!

Good to see Amateur Radio on the Reg (and not just hams having a moan about RF spectrum pollution).

I'd also like to know if the 70cm frequency on the photo of the '817 is the one that will be used for the flight... I've got a log periodic, 817 and a big hill nearby :)

Cheers

Josh

Please Avoid Using Powerline Adapters

As discussed in this recent Reg article:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/11/rsgb_powerling_networking/

Please avoid using these RF Spectrum-polluting devices if at all possible. Thank you!

Good idea

Since complaints to Ofcom and the No.10 petitions have got nowhere, this seems like a sensible idea.

I have been previously affected by the Comtrend devices supplied with BT Vision so know firsthand how badly they can affect reception of the HF spectrum within a radius of a few hundred metres.

I think all UK Radio Amateurs that can afford to do so should donate to this fund. I know I will be.

If these guys know so much about Psion...

... why the hell does this machine lack the same sort of wonderful keyboard and sliding screen mechanism that the Series 5 had?

The keyboard on their machine looks like one of the least finger-friendly designs I've seen in years... Fat-finger jokes aside, it looks like you'd need a dialing wand to operate it!

Take a Series 5mx, stick Bluetooth, WiFi, Flash Memory, a decent mobile CPU, a colour capacitive touch screen and a LiPo battery in it along with maybe an Android based OS and I think you'd be onto a winner. I'd buy one anyway!

So...

... when Snow Leopard munches your data and you go to restore from your Time Capusle backup and find that doesn't work...

You've had it!!

Good one Apple!

I like your OS and the design of your products, but you need to sort out reliability issues!

(I'm on my 5th plastic Macbook keyboard so far, and now need a 6th due to the plastic splitting).

So let's get this straight...

They couldn't sell that part of the spectrum to anyone else because it'd interfere with the statellite signals, but because it's the same company who is transmitting from space - they can charge them a fortune for the same piece of spectrum??

Huh?!?

As a licenced radio amateur, I get access to oodles of MHz for free... I suppose it's this sort of story that demonstrates that amateurs really must use as much of our alloted spectrum as we can. If we don't use it, at some point Ofcom will want to sell it off!!

Yay! It got me!

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&safe=active&ie=UTF8&ll=53.380769,-1.468735&spn=0,359.961891&t=h&z=15&layer=c&cbll=53.378464,-1.465239&panoid=s3CGJ5HO8f241t0DZBCKlA&cbp=12,222.0133923867685,,3,3.257509048840585

:)

I've had this issue...

I was a "victim" of this issue and logged a complaint with Ofcom.

However, before the field agent was scheduled to visit, my neighbour agreed to remove the devices from his home, for which I am very grateful!

If you are a radio amateur, enjoy listening to shortwave broadcasts, or are a scanning enthusiast, a neighbour getting a pair of Comtrend PLT devices means it's very likely that you will be unable to hear anything apart from this digital noise on most of the HF spectrum.

They need legislating against, soon!

/Paris, because she might enjoy being interfered with.

@Tom Chiverton... You get what you pay for:

Someone like Fast.co.uk you mean?

No throttling, no shaping... Just the bandwidth you pay for with good old fashioned telephone customer service and technical support.

I've never been hapier with an ISP as I am with these guys.

Downloading the update now...

Does that make me an "appearance obsessed idiot" or "poncey(sp?) faggot"?

Grow up you Anonymous Cowards... It's a computer for crying out loud.

Why get so upset about the type of computer someone uses?

I've had my Macbook for just over two years... I *really* like the O/S - I'm a Windows "techie" with 15 years experience that wanted something different to "use" at home - it's just a shame that the quality of the hardware is not up to the big boys of the PC world (I've had problems with the external plastics cracking - sorted under Warranty though).

However my overall feeling is that I made a good choice. It's very rare that anything bad happens with the O/S, so I just get on with USING the machine, rather than tinkering or fixing it.

Unless you're the rare Unix geek who loves meddling under the bonnet, I think you'll find that most Mac users are just that... Users. They want a computer that they can just USE to accomplish whatever task they need to complete. They don't want to have to bugger about... It needs to just work, and that's something the Mac does very well.

Don't knock it until you've tried it guys... It is a very good system.

Radio Amateurs...

... like to play in the >10GHz regions.

In the UK, we are licensed to use the following:

10GHz:

10,000 to 10,500 MHz

24GHz:

24,000 to 24,250 MHz

47GHz:

47,000 to 47,200 MHz

76GHz:

75,500 to 81,000 MHz

The following bands are also allocated to the amateur service and the amateur satellite service:

122,250-123,000 MHz

134,000-136,000 MHz

136,000-141,000MHz

142,000-144,000 MHz

241,000-248,000 MHz

248,000-250,000 MHz

I'm not entirely sure what goes on at these lofty heights (my amateur radio use stops at 440MHz at the moment), but I bet it'd be pretty cool to make a contact on 250GHz!

Cheers

Josh

Looking for love in all the wrong Plazes...

... No fly girls, just ugly faces!

:)

@ Stu & @ Kam

Stu

New "hawt" phones on an 18 month contract do cost a lot when you add the monthly line rental (x18) to the cost of the phone, this isn't just specific to the iPhone, so I don't think your argument is particularly valid unfortunately.

Kam

Thanks for the link to Bill's article from last year... Apart from the title of the article (inferring that the iPhone would be a flop), it's actually a pretty accurate prediction. In fact, until we see how many sell in the UK, you never know, but he might be right!