Xbox 360 for less than 200 quid

You can now get an Xbox 360, with a 60G hard disk, for less than 200 pounds. Twenty pounds less if you go to Amazon, where they are doing them for 180. This is quite frankly an incredible price. Over 10 years ago, when money was really worth something, I got a Playstation 1 for 400 pounds. Now you can get something far more powerful, which will also work as a media centre and has a genuinely useful sized storage capacity, for a fraction of that. And of course with XNA you can write your own programs for it. For free if you are a student.

Amazing.

The eeePC Comes of Age

I am sad. And weak. And I go through phases where I buy new computers. I also sell slightly older ones on ebay, and so it kind of balances out. Today I bought another computer.

Last week I sold my Asus EEEPC 701 because although it was lovely and implausibly cheap I never really used it much. And besides I needed the money to pay for yet another computer that I seemed to have bought, of which more later when I actually get my hands on it.

Anyhoo, having sold lots of things on ebay for more than I expected I found that I could afford to buy the computer that I've got today (I hope you are all keeping up).

The 701 sold me on the idea of a mini-laptop, it was just that I wanted one that was genuinely useful. And to me that means running Windows. I quite like Linux, but it turns out that most of what I want to do has a Microsoft flavour. We managed to get the 701 to run XP quite successfully, but the small screen size made using it a bit of a pain, and the lack of a proper keyboard was also somewhat irritating. And to put all the software I wanted on the device would have filled the solid state memory several times over. So off it went.

What I actually wanted was a mini-laptop with a proper keyboard, a slightly larger screen, a hard disk and running Windows XP. And it turns out that you can get exactly that in PC World, for only sixty pounds more than the original device.

The Advent 4211 is a re-badged MSI Wind. This is one of the newer mini-laptops with one of the latest Intel Atom processors. It comes with 1G of memory, a 90G hard disk, a lovely 10" display delivering a very useable 1024x600 resolution and it works a treat with Windows XP. It is nowhere near as funky looking as some of the mini-laptops, being a rather somber black, but it goes like a rocket. And it only costs 280 quid, which to me is a major bargain.

This afternoon I put Visual Studio Express and XNA Game Studio on it and was soon running some of my XNA demos with no problems at all. It won't have the grunt to do the 3D stuff, but for simple programs it is well up to the job. Windows XP on the Atom seems to zoom along very satisfactorily. The keyboard is nice to use with good sized keys and the screen looks great. It also plays movie files extremely competently, the only let down is the rather poor quality of the internal speakers (but you can of course add headphones or an external amplifier).

It actually comes with a copy of Microsoft Works on the hard disk which means that you can be writing documents and spreadsheeting to your hearts content straight out of the box. I've not had a chance to test out the battery life yet, but from the reviews I reckon that a couple of hours should be tenable. And there is also a high capacity battery available.

If you are in the market for a dirt cheap, and very portable, laptop then I don't think you should look any further.

Apple iPhone 3G

At the risk of taking myself of Microsoft's Christmas Card list for ever I must confess that I’ve got myself an iPhone 3G. I really had to, the combination of 3G, GPS, Exchange integration and that lovely touch interface were really hard to resist.

Even for someone with the respect I have for Windows Mobile I still had to make the investment. Of course I’ll also get myself a Windows Mobile 7 device when they become available (I don’t drink, smoke or chase women and so I feel justified in spending money on gadgets - although the aforementioned may actually be a bit cheaper...) because from what I've seen I'll really, really want one of those when they come out.

Of course I've had to suffer for my sins. I had to get up at an ungodly hour on Friday, and suffer the torment of acing out Zoe to get the last 16G machine in the store (sorry about that), not to mention the way that the O2 registration process collapsed and so for the first two days of ownership I had a 3G paperweight. Fortunately things are settling down now and I can actually make and receive phone calls and use the O2 network. Now it works I feel qualified to say a few things about this device.

Physically it is slightly thicker and wider than the original, but not in a bad way.

It looks good, but not quite as good as the original in my opinion. However, the good news about the shiny and finger mark prone plastic case is that it lets through a lot more radio signals, meaning that the phone should be more sensitive and useable in marginal signal areas. Like my house. Not sure if it is as good as my Smartphone, but it is certainly a step in the right direction. And now I can make and receive calls in my living room again.

The 3G connection seems to move data around a lot more quickly than my previous device, and it falls back to the reasonably speedy Edge protocol in marginal areas.

The Microsoft Exchange integration is wonderful and just works with my university account, which is fantastic and pretty much worth the price of the upgrade on its own.

Having extra memory means that I've put nearly all my music on the device, which is really nice.

Using the phone is nearly as smooth as the original iPhone, although I have noticed a bit more stuttering in applications and lack of response to the Home button on occasion. I think that the new firmware is starting to load up the processor more and this is beginning to show.

The much vaunted Apps store is a bit of a damp squib to be honest. There are some stand out titles which are free, the New York Times and the FaceBook application are impressive. But amongst the rest is a whole bunch of dross, including at least three torch applications. Later I might invest in Super Monkey ball, which is supposed to be ace, but then again I didn't much like it on the Nintendo DS, so I might not bother.

I hope this improves in the future, at the moment I feel a bit under-whelmed on this aspect of iPhone ownership. Number one son has had a look at writing code for the device and the environment looks quite sweet, although Objective C seems to be something of a head-scratcher when you first start and I'd have to run OS-X to be able to create code. It costs 100 dollars to allow you to deploy your app to your iPhone and that of 100 close friends, I think this also allows you to put programs into the Apps store, but I'm not sure.

So, I think the iPhone is presently the best pure touch screen mobile device you can get. I agonised for a while over the HTC Diamond, but they rather neatly made that decision for me by only putting 4Gb of memory in the device and leaving out the memory card slot. The Sony XPERIA X1 looks tempting, but to get the iPhone I don't have to lay out as much money and you can't get the X1 yet.

FreeSat Fun and Poor Sports

The man came today to fix my FreeSat. FreeSat is a new service in the UK that delivers high definition TV from a satellite. And, now that I have a shiny dish pointing in the right direction, it works.

The only real problem is a lack of content. The only reliable source of High Definition TV  is the BBC channel, which fortunately tonight was showing just what I wanted to see, which was the Wimbledon match between Andy Murray and Richard Gasquet.

The picture was truly amazing, with fantastic detail and no compression artifacts. The game itself was great to watch as well, apart from the braying idiots in the Wimbledon crowd, who shouted, booed and took flash photographs during the points. I hate it when people cheer if the person they've decided is "the opposition" makes a mistake. I ended up rooting for the french player, just because it would really have upset the people watching in the stadium.

If you are thinking about FreeSat it is definitely worth a look. However, remember that there is not that much to look at just now (even Channel 5 is presently missing) and that things like recording programs are presently not possible. However, if they keep developing it and adding new channels it could well become a must-have.

Hewlett Scrapyard

Just had over an hour of "the wrong kind of fun" courtesy of an HP printer. Under normal circumstances I have a lot of respect for HP products. Their printers give good, reliable, results and I've never had one of their ink cartridges dry up on me. Always a bonus. When people ask me which kind of printer to buy I used to say "HP" out of reflex, because I reckoned they would get a good device that will not let me down.

Until now.

Dad got an HP "all in one" disaster area with scanner, printer, colour screen, card reader, WIFI, Fax and some kind of personality module that is permanently on stupid. During my tussles with the darned thing I explored the very limits of disbelief that something could be so stupidly over designed. The printer software installation itself takes around half an hour on your computer, then you start to grapple with the printing process.

The initial problem was that the printer buffers incoming printing, so that it can receive a lump of data over the network and then print it. Nothing wrong with that. It even stores the data in non-volatile memory, so that it can recover from power outage. Nothing wrong with that too. But if the printer is given a partially completed, corrupt, file to print this stays in memory for ever. Each time we turned the printer on it tried to print the file, and then locked up. There is no command to flush the printer buffer, no way to get around this and it means that if data sent to the printer is damaged or incomplete it turns into a noisy, expensive paperweight.

I've written embedded code myself in the past. One of my golden rules was that it should never, ever, be possible for your device to lock up. There must always be a button that can be pressed to get control back. My devices never got stuck. Not once. Never.

HP are not in my league. Not close. We ended up playing a game of skill where we had to cancel the print before it crashed the printer. Fortunately my video game powers came in handy and so we got past this duff job, at which point the idiot device pumped out every failed print job since then. We ended up putting the same pages back into the input tray again, to save paper. Of course it probably cost us a bit on ink....

So, finally the printer was working. But no. Now when you printed a page it produced it many times, over and over, like the bit from the Sorcerer's Apprentice, where Micky can't stop the brooms from fetching water. At this point we felt like taking an axe to the printer as well...

So, we gave up on network use (the main reason why we bought the printer in the first place) and went back to USB. Which when I left (at speed) was working OK.

I'm not sure which printers to recommend any more.

Splitting Fibres

I've just found a very neat solution to the problem where you have a single optical input on your HIFI, but you want to plug more than one device into it.

These people will sell you a splitter and a couple of optical cables for around a fiver which you can then use to share the one input with, say, your Xbox 360 and a Freesat box. And they work a treat.

The FreeSat Plot Thickens

(I'm wondering why you should care about my satellite TV woes. But then again, it's my blog. So there.)

Anyhoo, yesterday left me with nothing working and a pile of broken bits on the floor underneath the dish. Today Dave from next door came round and, hearing of my plight, offered to go up his ladder and take a look for me. On the windiest day of the year. What a guy.

Actually, it wasn't that windy round the side of the house. And we were able to establish that actually the dish hardware looks fine. The bits I found on the ground must have been left by the Sky+ installer ages ago. That or we have a really clever prankster out there (I'm tempted to go round to the place where someone I really don't like lives, and leave a pile of slates on their front lawn in a similar kind of vein - but then again there's nobody out there I really don't like, and I'm very lazy - so it probably won't happen).

I wonder if my shiny new box is broken?

Update on 2008-06-23 12:13 by Rob

After a chat with Ian it seems that the LNB things in the Sky dish don't like being left out in the cold with nothing to talk to. They show this by never working again. So now I've signed up for a man with a ladder to come round and put a shiny new dish up.

Fun with FreeSat

Every now and then I do something silly-ish. Just to remind myself that if I was constantly sensible life would be really boring. Today I bought a FreeSat box so I could ignore the European Cup in High Definition (not that keen on telly football to be honest). The internets had told me that it would work with my old Sky dish, which is presently rusting away gently on the side of the house. We did away with Sky last year, when I got a Media PC which does all the bits that Sky+ used to do, without costing me 36 quid a month.

Anyhoo, FreeSat is free, once you have bought the box. So I bought the box and plugged it in. And it doesn't work. I was kind of expecting this. After a particularly loud storm some time back I found some bits of satellite hardware on the ground underneath the dish, but I figured that since Sky+ uses two LNB receivers, and I'd only found one on the floor, I might be able to get away with it.

Note to self:  Every time I find myself thinking "You might be able to get away with this" I must remind myself (perhaps with a slap around the face to make the point properly) that I am Rob, and therefore not destined to get away with anything.

I went next door to borrow a ladder so I could go up and have a look, but then number one wife found out about this and banned me from climbing up there, what with my fear of heights and everything.

So at the moment I have a dish that doesn't work, a FreeSat box that doesn't work, or some wire that doesn't work.  Ho hum.

Mending Headphones with McDonald's Straws

I got some Ultimate Ears headphones a while back. They sound wonderful. However, they have a little problem which has been causing me grief recently. They use an "in ear" design, with a tight fitting plug which goes inside your ear so that all the sound comes your way. Nothing wrong with that, until the plug bit starts to come off and stay in your ear when you try to remove the phones. I think this is caused by the rubber stretching slightly and becoming slack on the fitting. Whatever causes it, I don't like it as it then leaves me picking bits out of my ear canal, which doesn't look very cool.

Anyhoo, I've fixed the problem by the use of some drinking straws from McDonalds. I've put them around the outside of the rubber sleeve that goes over the headphone bit. This stops the sleeve from stretching quite so far, and makes it fit really tightly. I don't think it is the kind of thing you can get the Nobel prize for, but it works for me.

Earpiece with straw power

Oh, and while we are in a McDonalds mood, don't the drink lids look a lot like faces?

Scary face or coffee cup cover? You decide.

Cool Device Award

This is the coolest thing I've seen at Teched so far (apart from the .NET Micro Framework stuff). It is a fully featured Windows Mobile 6.1 system with GPS, GPRS and all the trimmings. Which you wear on your wrist. Find out more here.

Want One

Waaaaant onnnnnne!

Photographic History

We are having a kind of clear out in the department. All kinds of stuff is going out. We found this rather anonymous looking boxy thing. Which turned out (once we have worked out how to open it) to be a Polaroid SX-70.

A real blast from the past. This is an incredible device which when it was launched was an instant camera that worked like an SLR. It had special film that gave amazing results. I vividly remember seeing it on Tomorrows World when it first came out. And now we are chucking them out. Such is life.

Fortunately the Hull University Photographic Society (HUPS) was on hand to take the camera into its collection and give it a good home (well, better than being left in my office).

It is getting very hard to find film for these cameras, but the pictures it produces are incredible. I hope that we can stump up enough cash to get a film pack and run off a few shots with a piece of photographic history.

Meet Trevor

Trevor is a Pleo. That is a computer controlled robot dinosaur. He's been through a few changes since we got him, since you can upgrade his firmware using an SD card. He has a couple of processors, a camera in his nose, 20 motors and over 100 gears. And he can't walk in a straight line as one of his back legs seems a bit gammy. And some of the white has come off his teeth because the paint sticks to the leaf that we got to feed him with.

But we like him anyway.

Update on 2008-04-08 10:10 by Rob

You can find a really good guide to how a Pleo works here:

http://science.howstuffworks.com/pleo.htm

Pitch Car Fun

I bought a new game on Saturday. Nothing strange about that. But this one is a racing game which is made of wood. It is called Pitch Car and it is very silly. Not as silly as Very Silly Games of course (cunning plug) but silly nonetheless.

Pitch Car originates from France and is a racing game where you flick wooden cars along a smooth track made out of pieces that you can fit together. Sort of a grand prix shove-halfpenny game. I've a feeling that it could be quite skilful, but we've only played a couple of times so far. But it is great fun. Oh yes.

I got the game from Archeron Games who operate out of a shop in the middle of Hull. They are worth seeking out, and - because one of the people recognised me from my day job - I even managed to get a bit of discount.  They have some really neat board games, along with other bits and bobs.

MVP Chronulator

One of the nice things about being a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional is that you get a free gift each year. Last year the gift was a rather nice business card box with some toys in it. Whilst it was a nice box, I don't have much of a need to store that many cards. Having seen number one son's Chronulator I had an idea....

The world's first MVP Chronulator

The workmanship is not first class. You can see a scuff mark on the bottom left where the Dremel slipped, and I need to line the meters up a bit better.  I should also change it so that right hand meter goes up rather than down.

But it works, and it is showing the correct time (near enough).

The guts.

Sony Rolly

Want one.

WiFi For Your Camera

This is a very cute device. If your camera uses SD cards it gives you a very neat way of getting your pictures into your computer, with no wires.

Gadget Review

Zoe sent me this. I find it rather funny.

Having a Ripping Time

When I was abroad I picked up a pair of Ultimate Ears headphones which sound amazing. Andy put me on to them, and he was dead right about how good they are. Whilst they don't have a huge amount of bass they produce the clearest sound I've ever heard. I'm actually listening to tracks and hearing instruments that I've not noticed before.  They are a bit pricey, but I do listen to music via headphones rather a lot, and so I reckon they were worth it. Unfortunately they also show up shortcomings in badly recorded or highly compressed music, and so I'm now having to get better copies of all my tunes. I'm putting them onto my new Zune, which has a nice big 80Gb disk and puts out really nice quality.

I really hope that Microsoft bring out the Zune in the UK. I'd love to be able to use their music service as well.

I Want Another Robot

I find the "naked" one rather scary

They had these in the GDC exhibition. They are called Pleos and are actually rather neat. Very like an Aibo, but with a much more organic feel to their movements and behaviour. You can get them in the UK, but they are of course at rip-off prices compared to their American cousins. Ebay beckons......