Gadget Review–The Fridge Friend

I was recently asked by Carla at IdeasByNet if I’d take a look at a “Fridge Friend”.

Since I’m always interested in new gadgets I was more than happy to take a look!

The Fridge Friend allows you to record short video messages and has a magnet in the back so that it will easily stick to your fridge (the clue is in name!)

The main idea is that you can replace the traditional “can you pick up some milk” post-it notes you may leave for another member of your family.

You could also leave yourself a message telling you that you’ll only regret eating the bar of chocolate that’s on the top shelf of the fridge unless you go and do some exercise first.

Or if you’re just a child at heart then leaving silly noises for other family members to discover is another option (I’ve not done that…honest)

It’s a doddle to use. Stick a couple of AAA batteries in, put it on something made of metal and turn it on!

There are only two buttons, on/off/play and record/stop/delete and once you’ve recorded a message the power light will occasionally blink to get your attention. It’ll allow you to keep 15 records that are up to 80 seconds in length.

While using the device there are various on-screen icons to let you know what you’re doing. A big red light in corner when you’re recording. A trash can to indicate which button is to delete, etc. I thought this was a pretty nice touch as I’ve used other devices where you have to memorise the instructions to figure out how to do anything. .

It’s not badly styled so doesn’t stick out in a big way and the magnet keeps it in place nicely.

The video quality is actually pretty good in natural lighting which brings me onto the first of two things I think could be improved.

Under the right lighting conditions, which in my house meant daylight, the image quality was really good. However, the quality was significantly different when it was dark outside and I was using just the kitchen light. It’s possible this might change with a better light as I’m using an energy saver bulb so it’s not all that bright. (where are those affordable LED lights!?)

If I was going to be picky about anything else it would be that the sound quality could be better. This could be because the speaker is on the back and sounds a bit muffled. It’s not so bad that you can’t tell what’s being said but you do sometimes have to listen carefully.

Both of things things aren’t a huge problem for what the device is. It’s not a media tablet designed to play high definition audio! It’s just meant for quick and easy memo style videos and it does that just fine.

They RRP for £24.99 and if you’re interest in one the contact details are on the IdeasByNet home page.

** Usual Review Disclaimer – IdeasByNet kindly sent me one of these to try free of charge **

Buffalo Linkstation LS-WXL–Can’t Login

Wow…a technical post! These have been a bit thin on the ground recently!

I wasn’t able to get at the web interface or the shares on a LinkStation LS-WXL we have on one of our clients sites.

I was able to ping it..but that was all! Having asked the client to power cycle it I still couldn’t do anything with it so I duly went to site.

I fired up the NAS Navigator software which found the device ok. However it reported the NAS was in EM Mode which is Emergency Mode (or Emergency Mode Mode if you’re picky about how these things are written) which basically means the device couldn’t load the firmware from the hard disk.

* Disclaimer – if you try anything I mention below you run the risk of data loss – it’s not my fault if you lose anything! *

So the normal advice for getting out of EM Mode is to download the latest firmware version and install that, which I did. However, once I’d done this I wasn’t able to login with the password that had been previously set. The default password didn’t work either.

My next plan of action was to perform a factory reset.

The steps for this are:

Power the NAS off, hold the function button on the back and power it back on, once you start to get some flashing lights on the front press the function button again.

It took a little while to get the timing right for this but it appeared to work as the IP address reset back to default.

I still couldn’t login though.

A little puzzled I decided to investigate my options as to cracking the password. There is a lively community around the Buffalo NAS devices where they modify the stock firmware to do lots of things it wasn’t originally intended for (media servers, etc)

I did come across a couple of potential options but nothing really worked and I was very worried about totally “bricking” the device.

So my next train of thought had me wondering that if the main firmware is ran from the hard disk, what would I do if a hard drive needed to be replaced?

Not a stupid question apparently, using information from this guide and this guide, I managed to get it working.

In short, if the device can’t find anything to boot from it’ll look for a TFTP server on 192.168.11.1 – it’ll then use this to load a very basic firmware which can then be discovered in NAS Navigator where you can then reload the latest firmware.

Here’s what I did:

I took the hard disks out, plugged them into my PC and removed all the listed volumes (there were several)

Next I set the IP address on my laptop to 192.168.11.1

Then I downloaded and ran the TFTP Bootloader

I put the drives back into the NAS and started it up. It booted and the status light on the front flashed red to indicate there was nothing to boot from.

Pressing the function button caused it to connect to the TFTP server and download the boot files.

After a bit of waiting around the device finally appeared back in the NAS Navigator software which also indicated the NAS was in EM Mode.

I was then able to use the firmware update utility to force a reload (using this guide) and rebuild the partition table.

Once this completed ok I reset my static IP on my laptop and on the NAS using NAS Navigator I was able to browse to the web interface and login with the default user name and password.

However everything was in Japanese!

To change this back to English

Click the second tab from the right (System)
Click the first sub-tab from left (Settings)
Click third bar from top, or lowest bar (Language)
Click the bottom button (modify)
Change display and Windows languages to English and then click left button (Save)

Done!

I was then able to set up the NAS again.

The biggest downside to this was I obviously lost all the data on the device. It wasn’t a big deal in this scenario but there is an excellent article that talks about NAS recovery. It covers a lot of the things I’ve mentioned above as well as additional areas such as attempting to copy the data from the hard disks.

I’m still not entirely sure why this all happened in the first place but I’m glad I managed to get it back up and running again – these notes are so I’ve got the process written down somewhere – maybe it’ll help someone else too!

Some useful community resources I used during all of this:

http://buffalo.nas-central.org

http://forums.buffalotech.com

http://forum.buffalo.nas-central.org

I remember 2011 like it was only last week

Ah…the obligatory end of year, start of year post!

This time last year I was writing about how challenging 2010 had been.

I’m pleased to report that on the whole 2011 didn’t throw up as many major problems as the previous year.

We’ve settled quite nicely into our new house, Bryony’s hearing didn’t get any worse and I managed to start playing football again after recovering from my knee operation as well as losing a couple of stone in weight as a by-product of that. (Christmas may have undone a little of that work though!)

On the geek front I purchased an Amazon Kindle, a HP TouchPad and a Windows Phone.

I also expanded my collection of retro games and consoles alongside visits to Replay Expo and the Retro Computer Museum. 

On the gaming side of things Portal 2 was without a doubt the highlight of my gaming year. I’ve not played as many games on my Xbox as in previous years on account of spending so much time on the retro stuff but Portal 2 was so refreshing and entertaining I’m glad it had some of my attention (taking nothing away from Arkham City which I’m thoroughly enjoying at the moment!)

On the personal front I stepped out of my comfort zone and spoke at a Pecha Kucha event in Coventry as well as realising the writers block I had was actually a symptom of not spending enough time resting and thinking about something other than work. I celebrated 10 years of being with my significant other, Bryony and wrote all about how the Internet changed my life!

In sadder news, Tony Sale passed away. I visited Bletchley Park the weekend beforehand and as ever it was great to see the fruits of his labour. He’ll also have been pleased to know that Bletchley Park’s future is safe.

On the business side of things 2011 was also much better than 2010. The second half of the year was one of the busiest I can remember for some time and this in conjunction with my decision to make sure I spend enough free time “not working” meant some things had to be dropped down the priority list – this blog included – but I’m happy that I’ve learnt my lesson from the summer.

One of the things that also dropped off quite badly in the second half of the year was the amount of reading I did for the same reasons outlined above. It didn’t stop altogether but the pace with which I was getting through books at the start of the year was totally different to the end of the year. My reading tracking experiment showed between the start of 2011 and May 3rd, I’d read 18 books – the final total for the year was 26. A much slower pace! I’m happy with my experiment though. It’s been good to look back and see what I’ve actually read this year which also makes recommendations to others easier too. Richard Tubb wrote a great piece recently about why reading is important which is worth a look.

Christmas always reenergises me when it comes to reading though. My family always know that books are a good choice when it comes to gifts and I’ve got some excellent ones again this year!

So 2011 was pretty decent – I’ve met some great people and done some really interesting things – thank you to everyone that contributed to my year whether that was virtually or in person.

Bring on 2012!

Choosing The “Right” Smart Phone

Earlier in the year I wrote about my thoughts on choosing a new mobile phone.

I went with Windows Phone and tried to be (reasonably) impartial about why I’d discounted the others.

I promised a follow up post explaining how I was getting on. That post never turned up as my writing mojo vanished (which I explained in a blog post – the irony)

By the time I’d gotten back into the mood for writing again the Mango update was imminent so I thought I’d wait for that. There were so many features I was interested in that I couldn’t have written a post without using a variant of this phrase a million times.

“This will be fixed/better/improved/available when Mango arrives”

Waiting seemed to make sense.

However, there was a massive delay in getting Mango out to Samsung Omnia 7 devices on T-Mobile in the UK which wound me up in a big way and I lost my enthusiasm for writing about it. On top of that Richard Tubb wrote a great series of posts about his experiences trying out all the major platforms.(read them…now!) which I was glued too so any thoughts I had for writing about it at the time disappeared. 

This morning I spotted that Richard was about to order an Android device which reminded me to make a start on this post.

So now that I’ve rambled on for 200 odd words I’d better get to my point

I’m of the opinion there isn’t much to gain in arguing the difference between any of the major phone platforms anymore. They all do some really good, unique features and equally they all have faults or things that could be improved on.

I honestly think that each platform has a “style” (for want of a better word) that will fit certain types of people depending on their own personality, habits and way of getting stuff done.

For some people that will mean an iPhone, for others that’ll be Blackberry or Android or Windows Phone.

In case you’ve been living under a rock you’ve probably spotted that people get very defensive and passionate about their choice of mobile phone and it’s become the kind of techno-religious debate we see all the time

Windows vs Linux vs Mac / Xbox vs PlayStation / Internet Explorer vs FireFox vs Chrome / etc, etc, etc

In these types of debate ultimately no-one is “right” and all it really boils down to is personal preference based on what works best for the individual.

Now when someone asks me what phone they should go for I’ll happy explain what I personally like about the phone I have chosen but will also suggest that where possible they should take a look at lots of different devices, speak to people who have similar interests or work in the same kind of way before diving in. Those mobile contracts are long and expensive to get out of!

They all make calls, do email, send text messages, get on the Internet, update social media and run apps which is what we’d now call “core functionality”. They all do it slightly differently and have their own little niggles. But they all do it.

Find which one irritates you the least and go with that one.

For the record I’m really enjoying my Windows Phone. I’m not going to say anything other than that in this post though!

As always your own thoughts, opinions and comments are more than welcome

How The Internet Changed My Life

The phrase “life changing” is used an awful lot when talking about technology and the Internet in particular seems to get this more than any single item of modern technology.

I for one totally believe technology can change lives.

When using the the phrase “life changing” in this context though it’s usually meant in the collective/global scale.

It’s not something you can dispute. Children growing up now will have no concept of what an encyclopaedia is. If there is something they want to know everyone’s first instinct now is to look it up online.

Media and entertainment as we know it is totally different to where it was ten years ago in that it’s not limited to radio, television or the cinema. We now consume media on a multitude of devices and screen sizes whenever and wherever we want. 

So how did the Internet change my life specifically?

While it may sound a bit extreme everything that’s good in my life at the moment I have the Internet to thank for.

This.

My family.

So how do I have the Internet to thank for this?

I’m writing this post to mark a bit of an anniversary. It’s 10 years since I met my significant other, Bryony.

A big milestone generally, but when we met there was about 200 miles between us.

That’s because we met online.

What’s really interesting about that is that anyone reading this will probably think,  “so what?” as it’s not really that big a deal anymore.

It happens all the time and people get married and have children after meeting on the Internet so often now it’s just one of those things. But remember i said this was 10 years ago. There was no Facebook or Twitter and actually just chatting to someone on the Internet was still quite a big deal for the average computer user back then. There was a real taboo about it and for some time afterwards we didn’t tell the entire truth about where we met when we were asked.

But we finally met in person and found out neither of us was a crazy lunatic (well she wasn’t anyway )  and the rest is history! We got married, bought a house and had a couple of children just like any other couple who may have met through more conventional means.

I’m very thankful to the Internet for that!

I’ve also met lots of other great people virtually and in person via the Internet. Considering there is a stereotype of people who spend a lot of time behind a computer not being all that sociable I’ve met a lot of people entirely because of the Internet.

My involvement with AMITPRO and the SBSC community came through this blog. This still has a massive influence on my professional life and I’ve met some amazing people who I’m lucky enough to call friends as well as business acquaintances.

It’s hard to believe that this picture – the very first time I met anyone from the SBSC community – was taken in August 2007!

I’ve also had some really great times all in the cause one of my favourite pastimes – gaming!

I was in Cambridge for the first ever UGVM meet. I was pleased to get an invite even though I’m more of a UGVM lurker!

I was in Blackpool again recently for Replay Expo.

and at the Retro Computer Museum

All this as well as trips to Bletchley Park which in turn led to my recent involvement in Pecha Kucha.

Every single one of these things came about because of contacts and communities I’ve been involved with online and it’s difficult to picture what my life would look like if it wasn’t for Tim Berners Lee!

So I have the Internet to thank for having a huge impact on my family, friends and career.

Life changing enough?

I wouldn’t change a thing!

Do Something That Scares You

Has it really been a month since my last blog post? I seem to be in one of those busy periods at the moment where days and weeks seem to fly past!

I’ve had this post written in my head for a while but not actually typed it up yet but since it’s Friday afternoon and I’m wrapping some things up before spending a couple of days with my family I thought I’d knock this off the to-do list.

The advice “do something that scares you” and variants of it come up an awful lot and the reasoning behind it is sound.

By doing something that takes you way out of your comfort zone you’ll learn an awful lot. That may be about yourself, your ability to do something or even that you can overcome a fear by facing it head on.

This doesn’t mean you need to go and jump out of an airplane every weekend!

I’m obviously going somewhere with this….I wanted to share something I did recently that scared me.

I’ve been a visitor to the Pecha Kucha nights in Birmingham ever since they launched.

I heard about the format many years ago and as soon as I found out it was coming to the region I’ve been attending ever since.

The concept is simple. Someone presents on a topic using only twenty slides. They also only get twenty seconds per slide. That in itself doesn’t really sell it as interesting but it does make for really focussed and passionate presentations and since they can be about anything I’ve learned lots about topics I normally wouldn’t have an interest in.

You can see videos from previous Birmingham events here.

A few months ago I was at a Pecha Kucha night and was having a conversation with Richard Tubb about how brave the presenters were for getting up and doing it. We’ve both presented to groups of people in the past but agreed that the strict structure of Pecha Kucha could make it very difficult if you got your timing wrong or lost your train of thought through nerves or whatever. In a regular presentation style you can “fill” or explore a different avenue before coming back to the point you were on previously.

We both laughed about how we’d never do it and ordered another beer.

However, the organiser of the event Jo Hardy had asked me a couple of times if I’d present since I was such as regular to the group and in the interests of doing something scary I finally said yes.

I put together some slides and was all set to do it but the event had to be re-arranged. Have psyched myself up to do it I was a little disappointed. However, the Coventry event was the week after(their videos are here). I’d never been to the Coventry event as it’s normally on the same night as AMITPRO but this time around it was on a different evening and they were short of speakers so I offered to help out and took my presentation there.

Some of you may be thinking, “that’s not scary”.

I guess it depends on your point of view. Growing up I was very shy and the thought of standing up in front of a room of people filled me with dread. It’s something I’ve worked on as I’ve become an adult. I was going to say “as I grew up” but you need to have grown up for it to become past tense  

In recent years I’ve presented at various user groups and I’m also expected to speak in front of a group at the BNI group I’m a part of and while it’s still something that doesn’t come naturally I don’t dread it in the way that I used to. In fact when it comes to talking about a technical topic it’s something I’ve come to enjoy.

Doing this was a little bit of validation for that there are always things to learn and if you want to change something about yourself you’re perfectly capable of doing it. If you’d have asked me five years ago if I’d be talking to a group of people about anything I wouldn’t have believed it. Yet I now seem to be doing it with an increasing regularity.

Do Something That Scares You – you don’t know where it will lead.

Almost forgot….Did I mention they filmed it?

Video should be below or behind this link.

I’ve not actually watched it though as listening to the sound of my own voice is definitely something that scares me.

Pecha Kucha Coventry | Vol.5 | Andy Parkes from MINDRIOT PRODUCTIONS on Vimeo.

Useful Productivity Website: Trello

I’m really enjoying Trello.com at the moment.

The story behind the site is that the people at FogCreek built a tool so the people in their teams can see at a glance what everyone is working on. They then decided it would be a good idea to make it available to everyone else!

The basic idea is the system is made up of three things.

Boards – a collection of lists – a board can be an abstraction of a specific project. A project folder if you were doing this without a computer.

Lists – a collection of cards – imagine a stage in a process (e.g To-Do, In Progress, Complete) -  Think of it as a piece of paper if you were doing this without a computer.

Cards – an activity of work – a specific something that needs to be done – an entry on your piece of paper if you were doing this without a computer. What’s really good about cards is they start as just a title but if you drill down you can add as many or as little details as needed (comments, work complete, embed pictures and videos)

Sounds simple enough? Hope that makes sense!

You create a series of lists – add some cards and then you can shift those cards between lists as work gets done.

So here’s a simple example of how I’ve been using it.

I’ve got a board called WORK

On this board I’ve got three lists.

To Do   -   Doing   – Done

I add things I need to do into the “To-Do” list. If i need to add extra details I can but generally the title is enough.

Initial card creation.

Card in more detail. You can add pictures, video, text. Assign team members or categorise with colour labels.

As I start to work on a specific item I drag it into the “Doing” list. I update the list if needed if it’s a work in process and I’m not completing it straight away. Obviously once the task is complete it’s dragged into the “Done” list.

Dragging to the Doing list.

Nice and simple. It’s just me using these but I can see it getting really powerful when a group of people get involved. Especially when assigning a task to someone is as simple as dragging their avatar onto the card.

So how’s this different to other collaboration applications?

Everything is so easy. Data entry consists of typing and pressing enter. You can fire off a series of new entries really quickly. There is no constant clicking ok / save every time you do anything. You can enter a little or as much detail as you feel like. Very importantly – it just works.

Finally you can use it on just about any device you like. I’ve been using it on my TouchPad in the office instead of keeping lots of paper lists hanging around my desk. Also because it’s web based if I think of something I need to do it only takes a second to get onto the site and add something new. It’s then available everywhere I’ve got a web browser.

Sign up is really easy too. You can either create an account on the site or sign in with an existing Google account.

The Trello homepage gives some really good usage examples.

It’s honestly worth spending ten minutes taking a look – it’s free!

Book Review–Roo’d

Look a book review!

This is the review I’d started when I was hit with what I originally said was writers block and eventually attributed to being burnt out.

I’ve avoided coming back to this but I really do need to get it out of the way so here it is.

After the previous book I’d read I was pleased to say I really enjoyed this one! This was despite reading the description and being a little bit wary.

The story is set in a near future where body modification is the norm and having your jawline reshaped is a common as having your ears pierced!

The main character is Fed, whose defining physical characteristic is that he has prosthetic legs – despite living in a world where getting a new set of legs would be trivial.

Fed is a bit of a loner, highly intelligent and a near genius with computers. His life is at a bit of a crossroads when he meets up with his estranged brother who convinces him to get involved in a what sounds like an impossible “get rich” scheme. Fed agrees to get involved and drops out of school which is where the fun starts.

Fed’s skill with computers a key part of the plan so this part of the plot was obviously of interest to me.

The story is very much about how Fed grows as a person and tries to figure out who he is as he comes across a wide variety of weird and wonderful characters and they soon realise they are way in over their head.

What I really loved about this book was the imagery it created of the world it was set it. I honestly think it would make an amazing film!

The title of the book sounds a bit random but once you realise what the phrase Roo’d means it makes perfect sense.

It all gets a little bit crazy towards the end but it doesn’t take anything away from home much I enjoyed this.

As with a lot of the books I’ve read so far this year it’s available on a creative commons license so grab it and check it out!

Highly recommended.

The Long Overdue HP TouchPad (and tablet!) Post

It’s overdue as I’ve been in possession of a HP TouchPad for almost a month now but also I’ve wanted to write about tablets/slates/whatever for a while but I had so many different things to talk about the post jumped all over the place and I scrapped just about everything I’d written! So here’s my final attempt.

I’ve wanted a handheld, touch based, computing device for what feels like most of my life!

Growing up and seeing things like this on my TV screen fuelled that geeky desire.

and going back a bit further this:

Anyone remember this?

It’s not a massive surprise there was such fuss about Microsoft’s rumoured Courier project!

So the years went by and we had laptops that were called tablets with “touch” screens that needed a stylus to work with and it was no different to carrying a heavy laptop around with you (and a wallet that was as empty as the tablet was heavy!)

Until finally Apple released a massive iPod/iPhone and called it the iPad and redefined what we call a tablet.

Unfortunately, the iPad isn’t for me and I’ve been waiting for a viable alternative ever since. (I do have a unfair personal bias towards Apple products, but that’s for another time – or shared over a pint if you’re buying!)

But for my mind there hasn’t been a viable alternative. Lots of different manufacturers tried to get in on the act but they aren’t quite there.

So when HP announced they were going to acquire Palm in 2010 this got my attention. An operating system that was showing some promise with the giant that is HP behind it – what could go wrong?

Quite a lot actually. Before we get on to the device itself, when it was released as soon as I saw the price my heart sank.

Approx. £399 for the 16Gb model and £479 for the 32Gb model.

HP aren’t the only ones guilty of this. The manufacturers seem to think that because people are willing to pay a premium for the iPad they should price their devices to get near that price.

The thing is one of the reasons I wasn’t interested in an iPad was the price. As I write this you can pick up the wi-fi only, 16Gb iPad 2 from the Apple store for £399.

If you’re looking for a tablet if you’re going to match the iPad for price surely you need something software/hardware wise that makes you stand out. The TouchPad and lots of other doesn’t specifically have anything that makes it standout from the iPad (an exception to this would be the Asus Transformer for example)

One of my concerns is that while it’s certainly a clever piece of kit and runs tons of useful apps one thing that it isn’t is a computer. As a result if I got one would it fit in with my lifestyle (personally and professionally) or would I be throwing at least £400 on something I’d end up not using as I’d find myself reaching for my laptop or my netbook?

I wouldn’t really know until I had one but I wasn’t willing to spend that sort of money to find out.

I also didn’t really know exactly what I wanted one for. Yes, the touch screen is nice, as is the portability but I have a netbook that while it’s a little underpowered it does everything that I need to do when out and about.

So back to the TouchPad.

You’re probably aware HP decided they didn’t want to be in the tablet market any longer and to get rid of the existing stock they slashed the prices in big way. First in America, and finally over here. Take-up was massive and various retailers saw their online stores fall over as they struggled to cope with the demand which also left a lot of disappointed people who either couldn’t get onto the websites to actually place an order or battled through to place an order only to be told later the order couldn’t be fulfilled. I was one of the lucky few (with a massive thank you to @SpritesBites for helping me out).

I’m still trying to decide whether this proves HP got the original pricing wrong for the Touchpad or will people buy anything when it’s so drastically reduced in price as it’s a bargain.

Nearly a month on I’m not regretting the purchase and I can report I do use it everyday. I’m certainly glad I didn’t pay the original price for it though.

At home it’s been really useful as an instant-on device for browsing, checking email, twitter, Facebook and playing music while doing bits and pieces around the house.

At work it’s become my third screen. I push all my social media onto it which has actually helped increase my productivity as moving away from my keyboard and mouse is more of an explicit action than switching to another tab in the browser on my desktop. It’s also where I keep various to-do lists and notes which is helping me get a bit more organised.

webOS is actually pretty neat. Treating applications like cards is an interesting abstraction and the upward swiping gesture to close a card is nice. The application notifications are certainly not intrusive and having the home button flicker when you receive a notification while the device is in standby is a very nice touch. The look and feel is on the whole pretty attractive and some applications such as Guardian Zeitgeist, Sky News, iGizmo and rad.io are a joy to use.

The built-in applications are pretty decent. Contacts, calendar and email are simple enough to use and Exchange integration is obviously massively important.

The app catalogue is nice to use as well. I really appreciate the fact it recognises when you have an app already installed and instead of a “download” option you get a “launch” option. Featured applications are displayed in a magazine style which is a joy to browse through when you have a spare five minutes.

It’s not without it’s faults though.

When I first started using it the whole experience was very sluggish. I’d certainly recommend reading this great piece by Gareth Halfacree which has various different tweaks that can help improve your experience. I’ve switched logging level to a minimum which has made a massive difference. (it appears to have broken Angry Birds though!) I haven’t quite been brave enough to install PreWare yet though but it’s something I’ll be doing soon.

Flash in the browser is both a help and a hindrance. It’s been great that sites such as YouTube just work but there have been some sites which have been a pain. When browsing the BBC news site if a page has an embedded video I’ve had the page constantly refresh. I’ve actually switched to the mobile version of that site just to make it usable.

When it’s the hardware is getting a little bit stressed you don’t always receive feedback. It’s very frustrating when you’re using an app and your on-screen touches suddenly stop doing anything. After jabbing the same spot two or three times it comes back to life and those extra screen presses are then processed causing mayhem in your current app.

Finally you have to accept that going forward the future is uncertain for webOS. HP still haven’t fully indicated what their plans are and other than the homebrew community you can’t see many developers wanting to put together apps for the platform.

In summary, I’m glad I was lucky enough to get one at the price I did. With more usage I can see it being a gateway to me being more open about spending a bit more next time around.

So what exactly will next time be?

At the moment it’ll probably be a straight fight between the iPad 3 and Windows 8.

The rumoured Amazon device may have an impact but at the moment there is no concrete information to go on.

I’m not entirely sure what to make of Windows 8 yet. Is it a desktop operating system or is a tablet operating system? The Metro interface does look very nice but how practical is it going to be on a traditional system (i.e with a keyboard and mouse).

The move to an ARM version is on the face of it interesting but since it looks like existing  x86 applications will need to be re-written for the ARM version why are Microsoft bothering? We’ll effectively end up with two different operating systems and they’ll be confusion over which applications will run on which device. Wouldn’t the Windows Phone operating system have been a better fit?

All just thoughts at the moment – Windows 8 has a long way to go until release and Apple are being their usual tight lipped selves on any plans they may have for the next iPad

You’re notice I’ve not said an awful lot about Android. I’ve not seen many devices that seem to for for me from a price/hardware spec perspective and the multitude of different operating system versions and whether the next one would be available for your chosen device was frustrating. It is something I’ll revisit though.

As I suspected I’ve jumped around a bit here and this post is long enough so it’s a good place to stop.

Just like every other area of IT everyone has their own reasons as to why their chosen bit of kit is better than the others so please leave a comment – I’d love to hear what you think!

When did you last have a real break?

This is a personal post – if you’re looking for something technical feel free to move along

I wrote a post recently complaining of writers block. I wrote the post as a way of giving me a kick. It didn’t have the desired effect in the way I hoped it would but it did get me thinking in more general terms.

I mentioned in the post that it wasn’t just blog writing that was suffering, but writing in general. I realised that there was actually more to it than that.

My productivity has also been through the floor. Tasks that I should be getting through easily (personally and professionally) were dragging on and I’d been putting off anything that required extra effort. After a day at work I’d get home and my normal routine is to do something. It doesn’t matter what it was and could be reading, gaming, spending time with Bryony, whatever – the point is it’s doing something with my time at home. Instead my routine was replaced with collapsing on the sofa and channel hopping for the whole evening which is something I rarely do as I usually only watch TV when there is something specifically I want to see (Dr Who being a current example!)

It was only on the run up to some time off work I realised I was burnt out.

I had two weeks off work organised for the start of August and I realised it was the only time I’d taken off all year. I then realised that babies and knee operations aside since the business started the most I’d ever had away from work was a week.

I’m dreadful at booking time off work and if my good wife didn’t give me the occasional reminder I probably wouldn’t have any! It’s not an intentional thing. I’ve usually got so much going on elsewhere I don’t think far enough ahead to next break.  

You do need to switch off some point though and I think I’d gotten to the point where I had nothing left and was “running on empty”.

One thing people talk about is work/life balance and while I know mine needs some improvement I thought I was doing ok.

A typical work day for me looks like this:

Get up between 6am-7am  (depending on how I’ve slept! A topic for another time.)

Arrive at the office between 7am-8am – getting to the office early generally means I get lots done while no-one is around.

Lunch – no fixed time. 99% of the time involves sandwiches at my desk

Leave work between 6pm-6.30pm

This is an average day. For example, If I have a BNI meeting I’m up around 5.30am and on AMITPRO nights I’m not home until much much later.  

That’s actually quite a long day when you write it down, especially since lunch usually means eating sandwiches at my desk. When I think about it there have been particularly busy days where I’ve not moved from my desk at all!

So that’s work – where is the life balance?

On an average day I make sure I’m home to put the children to bed as a minimum. We chat about their day while getting changed, brushing teeth, etc and always read bedtime stories together.

I rarely ever bring work home of an evening and ActiveSync (push email) is actually off on my phone by default. I don’t need it on when I’m in the office so I specifically turn it on during work hours when I’m doing something away from the office. This means I should the evenings to do whatever I want.

Again, just an average. There are some occasions where I do work at home but I do keep it to a minimum.

Weekends are also work free. This is family/personal time. Email rarely gets checked and it’s common for me to leave the office on a Friday and not check it again until Monday morning.

I thought I’d got a reasonable balance. I thought I’d got enough time away from work of an evening and weekend to keep me fresh and make sure I was splitting my time time between the business and my family.

I was wrong

We don’t really switch off properly during those evenings and weekends. Modern working life blurs the lines between where work starts and stops and while I may not be checking email of an evening and weekend that doesn’t mean I’m not thinking about stuff I’ve got to do the following day, ideas to flesh out or solutions to problems. In the same way while I’m in the office I’ll be thinking about that dripping tap in the downstairs toilet when I’m supposed to do doing a quote or how much new school uniform is going to cost while I’m looking at a PC that won’t boot.

Both areas of our lives are fighting for attention and you need to make an effort to stop and have some time where you’re not thinking about your work or your home life.

As I mentioned earlier I had two weeks away from work arranged so made sure I used that time as well as I could on relaxing, spending real quality time with my family and taking a proper break.

A week in Center Parcs followed by a couple of days in Wales was just what I needed.

It was great seeing so much of the girls and Bryony for an extended period of time and I came back refreshed.

I am a realist though. My phone wasn’t off the entire two weeks. For a start I’m a geek. I can’t do without my Internet connection – in my work life and my personal life but email stayed off and everyone in the office were told I was only contactable as a totally last resort. Everything else would have to wait.

However, I made one small adjustment that had the biggest impact.

I turned my “out of office” auto-reply on.

I’ve never turned it on before. Normally if an email comes in when I’ve been on holiday I’d either reply to it or delegate it to someone in the office.

This isn’t really switching off from work is it!

One of the main reasons I never use out of office is that I feel uneasy with email automatically responding for me. Susanne wrote a very good piece about it recently, she said

Having led a life in sales, I have always loved receiving out of office messages – they are typically a wealth of information such as mobile and landline numbers, job titles, and correct spellings of names that I can access should I be looking for ways to get a foot in the door to your business. You tell me that Janice Jones is in charge in your absence and hey presto, I have another contact to add into my CRM system… very useful if I’m being told I have to have at least 2-3 contacts per company on file.

And if I’m a spammer, well, all I need is your out of office to kick in and I know you’re there. Which suits me fine since I can sell on my data to someone else knowing that your email address is live. Maybe in this instance it would have been better to have not activated your out of office in the first place?

People always look me like I’m a lunatic when I say I consider out of office messages a security risk. What Susanne said feeds into that for me and have a look at some of the results of this search. I’ve always been sufficiently paranoid to leave them off.

However, I bit the bullet and made use of the out of office feature and it worked exactly as it should. I received several emails that didn’t need my specific attention. The auto responder let that person know I was away and they got their problem sorted by someone else in my absence.

I’ve been back in the office a couple of weeks now and I can report I’m feeling much better about things. Writing has come back to me (if you’re still here after the length of this it won’t be a surprise!) and the inclination to plonk myself in front of garbage TV has gone. I’ve gotten into some bad habits during my “rut” but I’ll get those kicked into touch soon enough.

I hadn’t placed enough value on taking a real break.

I was at a Comptia meeting recently and we were all invited to suggest a idea for “best practice”. Something we’ve done to improve our business.

Jat Mann from PC Pal simply said “take a holiday” – he told me afterwards he was joking as he couldn’t think of a suggestion but it’s no surprise that after the voting his suggestion came second!

Rob Franklln from JPT Solutions also wrote a post called “Downtime is good” which is about taking a break. Rob talks about making use of his network so that he can have that downtime.

It’s not just me then!

So after all that waffling my message in short is.

You can get more done by stopping once in a while.

Whether that’s taking two weeks off or getting away from your desk and having a proper lunch break it’s worth doing.