Thursday 30 December 2010

Questions on Inception

So if killing yourself in Limbo gets you back to reality, why does Fisher and Ariadne go back to level 3 and Saito and Cobb seem to go straight back to reality?

Why does Arthur not wake up from level 2 as the van falls off the bridge?; he would have got a kick, and so would have been awake; I can understand why the rest would not be awakened, as they were in a dream within that dream.

Why do they run out of time in level 3; they are delayed in level 1 by security, which limits the time of interrogation to 1 hour rather than all night - which seems to be achieved in a short space of time, but then on level 3 they have run out of time as they miss the first kick. Therefore why did they run out of time?


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:UK, Shoeburyness

Tuesday 28 December 2010

Ripping DVDs to iPad

Trying to rip a DVD in Handbrake, on Mac, so I can put on my iPad, I did it with the default settings, and when I transferred across via VLC it was playing at a choppy framerate. Via trial and error, creating single chapter encodings I thought I'd cracked it. Sadly when I did the whole movie it was still choppy, and freezing, when played on VLC on the iPad, even though it played fine on the Mac.

So I tried transferring it via iTunes, and it works perfectly. This is a shame regarding VLC's playback, I hope they sort it out.

The settings that I chose which seem pretty good are;
- Choose the Universal Apple preset
- choose the framerate as 25 fps
- keep the quality at about 60%
- From the audio tab, remove the AC3 track
- If the movie has subtitles remember to choose the subtitle track and burn it in
- On advanced set the settings as in the following picture;






For 1 hour 42 minute film this created a video of 1.22 GB.

Note that whilst ripping the DVD the status at the bottom has a fps value. This has no relation to the Framerate that you preselect, so I am pretty sure that this is the number of frames being processed per second when encoding the DVD.






I got the settings from here.

Remember to create a new preset with the settings.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:UK, Shoeburyness

Thursday 23 December 2010

iPad apps re-ordered problem

Whilst trying to resolve the iTunes username/password issue I tried rebooting. The iPad forgot all the folders I'd created, mostly re-ordered all my apps, and removed stuff I'd put in the dock.

This was very annoying; it was the first problem I've had with the iPad. Considering the amount I've used the thing, maybe that's not too bad.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:UK, Canvey Island

iTunes apple ID is not available

So I got the error, "the apple id is not available" on my iPad. A quick search gave this; http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=869968 which points in the direction of here http://iforgot.apple.com/ to reset the password. This is not the first time this has happened. It didn't let me use the my previous password this time, unfortunately. Presumebly Apple have a reason for resetting my password. Oh well.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:UK, Canvey Island

Tuesday 21 December 2010

Content curation on Twitter and Facebook could be cool


"We’ve already heard that YouTube is in talks to buy a video production company, but it wouldn’t be a surprise for the likes of Twitter or Facebook to play a more pivotal role in harnessing its data to present relevant news and content to its users. What if Facebook had a news landing page of the trending news content that users are discussing? Or if Twitter filtered its content to bring you the most relevant and curated tweets around news events?"

From Mashable

Now how brilliant would that be to have curated news from Facebook and Twitter.

Another idea on the same lines would be to have YouTube creating it's own News videos, or content in general.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:UK, Essex

Sunday 19 December 2010

Making your Facebook public URL show something

When not logged in, my public Facebook URL wasn't showing my profile, but just an error message. To sort out do the following;

Account > privacy settings >





Under "Applications and websites" click "Edit your settings"
Next to "public search" click "edit settings" button



Tick the check box to enable public search



So now with facebook.com/kevgordon

Now publically I get;


And internally give;



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:UK, Essex

Saturday 18 December 2010

Free iOS developer books

Check out the free iPhone developer books Apple has made available for free via iBooks;

Object Oriented Programming With Objective-C
Cocoa Fundamentals Guide
The Objective-C Programming Language
iOS Technology Overview
iOS Application Programming Guide.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:UK, Essex

Saturday 11 December 2010

Bonkers train fayre

I just got a train from Shoeburyness to Basildon. For a return its £5.20, for a single the fayre is £6.20. I'm only going one way. How can it ever make sense to have a return cheaper than a single? Its bonkers.

Location:UK

Wednesday 8 December 2010

Publishing to Twitter via BlogPress on iPad

I suspect that if you don't save to draft first it doesn't do the publish to Twitter. This is a test to see


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:UK

Finding someone's house number

I needed to know the house number of someone I regularly visit so I could send them a Xmas. I visit them every week, but have lost their address, so don't know the actual house number, even though I go there every week - so I didn't want to have to ask them for their address. However I managed to find their address, and this is how;

1) First I got the street name from navigating there on Googlemaps and Googlemaps street view.

2) Then I got the postcode from the Royal Mail website here;

http://postcode.royalmail.com/portal/rm/postcodefinder;jsessionid=JXP2FDD1CSQPAFB2IGIUQ3Q;jsessionid=JXP2FDD1CSQPAFB2IGIUQ3Q?catId=400145&gear=postcode

This gave me the postcode and the number of houses on the road.

3) Then I used 192.com people search. First I tried the name and town and there was a match, with all other info blanked out - you need a premium account of £120+ to get the rest of the information. So then I tried typing in street and postcode as well. So then the premium results revealed all the parts of the address I typed in. So I tried guessing the house number, but that came grayed out. What I wanted to know is if I guessed correctly would it show the house number, so I tried on an address I knew, and it did give the house number. So I started with a number halfway and worked up, and eventually I guessed the correct number.

N.B. During this I ran out of free searches on my iPad, then I swapped to my iPhone, and it allowed me to continue. And so I managed to obtain the house number without paying £120, awesome.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:UK

Monday 29 November 2010

Vodafone you suck

I rang Vodafone support and first they'd never heard of the MiFi device (mobile WiFi) then they went on to tell me it couldn't receive text messages and I could not have an online account for it. Well I just found out how to do it. I wonder how many others they've tried to fob off.

Here is the link with instructions for how to receive text messages on the Vodafone MiFi


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:UK

Setting up account for Vodafone MiFi

How to setup a Vodafone account for the Vodafone MiFi (Mobile WiFi/R201).
1. Register at vodafone.co.uk and they will send a text to the device.
2. Whilst connected to the MiFi network go to http://192.168.0.1 this will go to admin page of the MiFi unit


3. Login using "admin"
4. Navigate to SMS/text messages via the left hand menu, and copy the security code from the text message.
5. Enter the security code on the Vodafone site, and enter all requested details in order to complete the registration.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:UK

Saturday 27 November 2010

BlogPress for iPad review

I am very impressed with the iPad version of the BlogPress app. As a regular user of the iPhone version, this does everything that does and more in a slick and easy to use iPad type interface.



My favourite parts are the implementation of the controls for the images, that allow you to set the text flow and whether it links to a URL. Also you can very easily add HTML rather than having to tediously type out the tags.



Also it works in landscape mode. And my last comment is that I've been using it quite a bit since I purchased this week, and it works well with multitasking, and is very robust.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:UK

Notetaker HD review

The app Notetaker HD is simply the best thing I've ever bought on a portable device, and makes the iPad so much more useful. I have replaced all my notebooks and pads of paper at home and at work with this app, the iPad and a stylus.


It is easy to use, very well put together and robust and makes it addictive to write notes on the iPad. Basically you can do anything that you would normally do with a blank piece of paper; notes, task lists, tables, charts, take minutes, mind maps.

To all those that have said it isn't very iPad like I have no idea what they are on about. I agree there is a little bit of a learning curve but once you've picked it up this app is brilliant. The interface is robust, usable and attractive.

And it looks like the developers are making a conscious effort to keep it up to date. I just got a new version that has given a number of features I was just thinking would be great, including being able to import PDFs into the app and make annotations on it - and it just worked very well on a 100+ page PDF.

I can't recommend this app enough, and I think it is a bargain. Fantastic.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:UK

IPad at work - initial experience

I've used my iPad at work for a week and have to say it is awesome and offers a number of productivity gains and generally makes working life much more pleasant.

1) Things


Instead of writing my tasks on postits I can keep them all organised using this awesome task management software.

2) Safari & Mifi
I soon found I needed a network connection, so I purchased a Mifi and I get a very good and fast signal from Vodafone. Safari is so useful, and with a work PC that runs like a dog, I can do research here instead. It also provides a distraction whilst my PC is locked up or crashing.

3) Web Outlook
It's not perfect, and iAnywhere hasn't done an iPad app yet, but the web interface to email is workable, and very useful when my machine is busy doing other things.

4) Yammer


There is no iPad Yammer app yet, but the website works perfectly, and this provides a perfect way to use the site.

5) Evernote


Used for making notes, I use this to quickly transfer information, especially links and pictures between the iPad and my works PC via the cloud.

6) Notetaker HD & stylus


This is the absolute killer app it allows me to do all my notes, minutes and diagrams electronically. Which makes it fun, and allows me to tag all the documents to make them easy to find. This works so well and I started using it as much as possible as it is so practical. This is going to be a massive saving in need to use paper definitely. The stylus makes writing more accurate and more comfortable.

7) iPod
Last but not least the iPod app is so good on the iPad that this is now my favourite method to consume my music.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:UK

Thursday 25 November 2010

Japan to China a novel way

The directions from Japan to China on Googlemaps. Nice.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Japan to China

Wednesday 24 November 2010

Getting Rowmote working with iPad

Okay I had trouble getting Rowmote Pro working on my iPad. I downloaded it from the app store and tried to connect. It would not find my computer. Then I realised they were on different networks, fixing that did not resolve the issue. I tried putting in the IP address but finding out which IP address to put in proved to be very complicated. This did not work.


I thought it might be related to Rowmote helper, so I tried reinstalling that. There was then a problem with permissions that I had to restart my Mac to sort out. That still did not fix it. So I deleted the app and used iTunes to transfer it from my iPhone. It was now able to find my Mac, horah!

Rowmote is a really good app for controlling your Mac via your iPhone or iPad and probably iTouch.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:UK

Upgrade to iOS 4.2

I've done the upgrade to iOS 4.2 on both my iPad and iPhone. Annoyingly after install to iPhone the iPhone was very very hot. Also none of the apps would open so I had to do a reboot. It's now working fine.

As for the iPad; it's fantastic to get multitasking but the sweet double click for iPod controls now requires an additional swipe to the left to get the iPod controls to appear. A little annoying. Additionally the rotation lock control has now become a mute switch annoyingly. I wonder if there is an option to change this?


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:UK

Monday 22 November 2010

Cross country results

The results are here;
http://www.benfleetrunningclub.com/eccl.13.11.10/essexlg3.xls




I came last in my age category oh well :-)

Oh yeah and Phoenix Striders came 13th out of 23, not bad!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Hockley

Car repair

So I got into a little accident in my car, not to worry no one was injured. Take a look at the before and after shot.

Before



After



Repairs were done by Brockley Road Bodyworks in Chelmsford. They did a fantastic job, thank you.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:UK

Sunday 21 November 2010

Some iPad tips and initial findings

Wow just worked out how to sync the calendar, follow these directions;

http://help.apple.com/mobileme/interface/index.html#mmcc733205

VLC is fantastic all the videos that wouldn't load via iTunes now can be pulled across and play. Unfortunately there is a bug where the movie freezes after 15 minutes. Pressing home and going back in makes VLC crash, then you can go back in and continue the movie - not ideal I've emailed the developers so hopefully they'll sort out an update.

iBooks is slightly disappointing, all the titles and authors I looked for weren't in there. Plus the price is quite expensive.

Twitter app is great - I'm getting back into Twitter.

Pulse news is fantastic, I'll never read RSS in the same way again.

Bad on Spotify, Facebook and Tutor 24x7 for not having iPad apps, hopefully that'll be sorted out.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:UK

I bought an iPad!

So I finally gave up waiting for the new iPad. I cancelled my holiday plans, so I had some spare cash so I thought what the hell I'm getting one. I don't want to have not had a first generation iPad and even if the iPad 2 comes out then I'll just have to get a new one and I'll sell this or give it to someone as a present :-)



I absolutely love it, there is something addictive about using it and I haven't yet found anything about it that I don't like.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:UK

Tuesday 16 November 2010

Lost photo

OMG I thought I'd lost a photo from my holiday to Portugal; a classic photo of me and my brother-in-law pretending to do a number 2 on some historic toilets in a monestry....!!

I thought I remembered copying the photo out of iTunes and uploading it as my profile picture (cropping to my face). In doing so I would have copied it to my desktop and then deleted it off my desktop once uploaded. It was there cropped on Facebook showing just my face.

Only looking back through Portugal photos tonight, it wasn't there. I paniced. I looked through my memory cards - but I'd deleted my photos. I got very irate with iPhoto as the photo was missing even going back far past the date of deletion. I rang my sister and she said she hadn't got a copy of my pics but they may have taken the picture. I was convinced it was my camera. But even my facebook gallery didn't contain it. I was fuming.

Then I looked through my brother-in-law's facebook pics and there it was, with me holding my camera in my hand. Doh! Problem solved :-)





Location:UK

Sunday 14 November 2010

Cross country

I did my first ever cross country run on Saturday in Hockley. Parking was at a school with a 5 minute walk to the race start.

I've learnt that I should have given alot more than 5 minutes and that I should have taken a bag with me; because after the race I didn't have any food or drink handy, or a jacket.

When it started everyone went so quick. I was last for a while before overtaking 3 people and losing one position half way through. After half way round the first lap I checked my watch and I'd only been running 15 minutes, it was hard!

I also learnt cross country requires trail shoes or spikes. It was fun slipping everywhere and getting covered in mud.

I did 8.5km in 47minutes 48 so that is 5.28 miles. Which is 9 minute per mile pace. Would like to get back to 7 minute mile pace.



Location:Hockley

Sunday 31 October 2010

Power snooker

Power snooker

I attended the Power Snooker event at the O2 on Saturday. I had a brilliant time, it was excellent!

The rules are; the players have 30 minutes to get as many points as possible. When you break you continue playing. There are fewer reds (only 9) and one is the power ball. If potted you get 2 minutes where all pots are worth double points.

All shots potted from behind the balc line are worth double (the power zone). So in power play in the power zone pots are worth alot. Additionally you only have 20 seconds to take your shot. Each time the frame is over the clock is stopped and then the balls are racked up. After 30 minutes whoever has the most points wins.

Oh yeah and you can make as much noise as you like.

The atmosphere was excellent, like at a football match but better. It was hilarious. It started getting going when everyone found it amuzing to repeat the refs Powerzone instruction. Someone shouted can I have that for my ring tone, which was funny.

There were a number of songs made up like, come-by-ya with Ding's name and Murphies name inserted. "who need's X Factor, we've got Michela". "She went to snooker school, she loves the powerball, Michela!".  "Come on Ali" to Come on Eileen.

Banksy on Torquey hotel

I attended a function in Torquey, and woke up early to go for a run. There on the side of the building some wooden panels were being removed and a photographer was getting excited. What was revealed was a Banksy, very exciting, enjoy the photos.













Location:Torquey

Sunday 3 October 2010

Snowboarding at Snozone

I did the 1 day intensive learn how to snowboard course. It was really good.

We did the basics going down slowly backways then feathering across. Then frontways. Then we started learning turns. I got rear facing turn, but couldn't get front facing turn, much to my frustration. It was also REALLY knackering and when we broke for lunch I was going to quit.

After some words of encouragement from my fellow skateboarders, some food and an hour and a quarter break, I felt like I could do it.

By the end of the day I was turning both ways it was really excellent, and picking up a bit of speed.

I hate the lollipop lifts so gave up and used the travellator.

Best accident was when I got out of control and crashed into the middle of a sky school, whoops!

One of the best things was that there was no messing, we went right to the steep bit straight away.

I loved it.

And so I renember I'm right foot first.



Location:Milton Keynes

Wednesday 29 September 2010

This is a very interesting article on the things that Old media is doing wrong about the web. The comments from other web users are also very interesting.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2JrzGp/www.techi.com/2010/06/five-things-old-media-still-dont-get-about-the-web/

I very rarely buy a newspaper, the only newspapers I read are free ones in London, when I'm there. I get my news through Radio 1, BBC news website, RSS feeds, Twitter and Facebook. Oh yeah and I occasionally go to the sites of newspapers when there is an interesting article I've heard about.

If there was a decent micropayment system for high quality articles I'd probably consider paying if it was integrated and easy to use, maybe integrated into my iTunes id?

One user talks about all users over the age of 50 not getting the web. Well I don't think that's true at all. For example my parents are all into the web, facebook and youtube. Why would they pay for cable? - They can get all the TV they want from freeview, iPlayer and youtube.

"5: File sharing doesn’t always represent lost sales: Are you out of your damned mind?" - Loads of people buy stuff they've seen file shared - as long as it is better quality and has lots of special features e.g. Blueray. Spotify allows me to listen to so much more music then I'd ever used to get to hear, and I spend a lot more money on new music then I ever used to spend. I don't this person's argument holds for a lot of people.

Really good builder

I needed the lead flashing done around my chimney. I gave myhammer (http://www.myhammer.co.uk/) a go and had mixed results. I didn't know fully what I needed doing, so maybe a was a bit vague in the job description. But whilst I got good information from the respondents, the quotes were a bit high.

Quotes ranged between £1000 and £2000 (based on my entered budget of £2000). One respondent visited to see what needed doing. They seemed to know what they were talking about, explained to me what needed doing - and that the lead might need replacing. I got two quotes from them; £780 to fix, and £1070 if the lead needed replacing (including £400 for scaffolding).

I wasn't hugely happy with the quotes. I contacted the company that did my cladding (Alpine Cladding http://www.alpinecladding.co.uk) who did a great job, and asked whether they would quote. They recommended a guy that works with their company. He came round and quoted £100 to fix and £170 if the lead needs replacing!

I accepted, they did a fantastic job, and also sorted out some of my pointing that had come off. It only required fixing as the lead was all intact, so it cost me £100. They did a fantastic job, I couldn't recommend them higher.

What I want to know is how did those others quote so much, if this company could do it for £100 with a profit, how were the my hammer quotes asking for £780+. This company wanted £70 for new lead, one of the myhammer quotes was going to charge £300!

Saturday 11 September 2010

We've become bin emptiers

At work they took away everyone's bins. Now there are a few communal bins which we all have to visit.

So its cheaper for high cost IT professionals to make several trips to the bin rather than employ a couple of low cost resources to do it.

I estimate that everyone takes about 3 minutes a day in trips to the bin, with 200 people that is 600 minutes or 10 hours a day. If on average we are earning 50 pound an hour that is 500 a day, 2500 per week, 10,000 per month. That's £120,000 per year. Wow I don't see how that is a cost saving.

Location:UK

Friday 10 September 2010

BBQ at work

At work yesterday I went to a different building. The people there invited me to the canteen for lunch. On the way there, there was a frigging BBQ outside, friggin awesome!

So I had a cheese burger with onions and salad for about 2.40. Friggin marvelous, cheaper than sandwiches at our buildings canteen....



Location:UK

Thursday 9 September 2010

Wrong theatre!

Went to The Black Veil play at the Palace Theatre. Only I thought it was at The Cliffs Pavillion. Googling "The Black Viel Cliffs Pavillion", gives The Cliffs Pavillion website, which is why I made the mistake and where I turned up, only they were showing The Rocky Horror show, and I should have been at the Palace Theatre.

What was also annoying is when parking at The Cliffs Pavilion the heavens opened and the pay machines wouldn't take my money. It took 15 minutes to get a parking ticket. Then I couldn't find anywhere to park at The Palace Theatre.

Upside is we had to sit at the back, which was much cooler than our actual seats and allowed us to move around.



Location:UK

Sunday 5 September 2010

BBQ, full English and mixed grill

Did a BBQ and full english breakfast and mixed grill, all in one weekend. Very pleased with myself, because they all turned out well.

I may start practicing my roast dinner again.



Location:UK

Thursday 2 September 2010

Stop watching tele

I've been struggling with getting house work done, and when having a free Saturday I all to often will rather fall asleep in front of the tele.

I read an article that talked of the benefits of not watching TV. I can say its worked for me, in the last two weeks I've managed to tidy and declutter my house and make progress with a load of projects I wanted to do. I'm also waking up very easily in the morning before the alarm goes off.

Don't get me wrong I still watch my favourite programmes, but instead of just turning the tele on being the first act of the day, now I turn the tele on for a specific show, and turn it off afterwards. And I pay attention to it, and so I find it a lot more enjoyable, and use it as an opportunity to relax.

Try turning the tele off for a week, it'll change your life.



Location:UK

Friday 20 August 2010

Annoying things people do at work

Omg my most annoying things at the moment are
1. Really loud over dramatic yawning. Fuck off!
2. The milk has a label so we know its our Milk Club’s so why the hell put it back in so the label isn’t facing out and I have to turn all the milk cartons around to find out which one is ours. Come on!!!
3. Leaving cups and breakfast bowls in soak around the sink. Wash it, or get rid of it. If I was the cleaner I’d lock them all in a cupboard like my cleaner did with us in Uni halls.
4. Walking really slowly, you know when you’re obviously in a rush and some one walks so slowly, this is especially annoying when navigating junctions and if they’d had some sense they would have slowed slightly to give way to you so you can continue at pace, rather than make you walk really slow behind them.
5. How I always have to be right, and can end up getting in email ping pong trying to proove I am right. I have to work hard to hold my tongue sometimes.

Favourite things at the office
1. When someone sends me an email saying thanks or well done for something
2. When I get a freebie from the cafe or someone brings in cakes/fruit
3. When an afternoon of difficult/boring meetings gets cancelled
4. When a strange or interesting activity or event happens. Like winning a ride in a world rally car, or helping push someones car to the local garage.
5. When we have a team social at lunch or after work

And some other people’s lists;

http://www.shine.yahoo.com/channel/life/how-to-handle-an-annoying-co-worker-2344712/ - How to handle annoying colleagues - I like the earphones trick.

http://www.shine.yahoo.com/channel/life/how-to-handle-an-annoying-co-worker-2344712/ - Omg I’m responsible for at least two of these; Foghorn phone voice and I’m a key smasher, both of which I’ve been told off for doing but am not very good at improving....




Location:UK

E-mail chains at work

I got pissed off at work to come into a stack of emails where I had been added to an email chain after it had been running for several messages. My frustration is they take 5 minutes to read and understand and then require lots of thinking, research, and general work type things in order to answer the question that the last person asked you.

So I told the first sender that I wasn’t going to read their email as I’m too busy and they should come and talk me through it if its urgent. Which actually worked quite effectively because I got an introduction to the topic and with a few quick questions I was able to make a decision and request some work to be done by one of our developers.

What I shouldn’t have done was post on our internal Twitter that these type of emails was one of my email frustrations. The sender reads Yammer and thought it was quite a co-incidence that he’d just sent me an email chain. Whoops.



Location:UK

Thursday 5 August 2010

Some thoughts on Inception

****Contains spoilers****

I love the movie inception. On first viewing I got lost by two moments. First what the architect Ariadne explains what they are going to do after Fischer dies. I get it now, he's gone into limbo and they go into another dream which puts them in limbo. And limbo is the world that Cobb/di Caprio and Mal created.



What I don't get is why when Saito dies he goes in his own limbo, nothing to do with di Caprio's limbo. Plus how did Fischer and Ariadne get out of limbo so easily - by killing themselves? How did they get to limbo by using inception - I thought it was where you went when you died and were too heavily sedated to wake up?

How did di Caprio go from his limbo to Saito's at the end? Is it because he drowned in the van?

And what happened in limbo so di Caprio and Saito got back out? Did they both commit suicide together, and if so they would still have been in the snow base dream, so how did they get out of that without a kick?

And then how did they all get back out the first dream - they must have got out before Fischer - but what was the kick?

The second point I missed is when Fischer's father said "disappointed". What he went on to say is that he was disappointed his son tried to be like him - I get that now.

An inconsistency I would like to question is when in dream one the van is falling, there is no gravity in dream 2. If so why is there gravity in the 3rd dream?

Another one is the train in dream 1, why do we not see any further defences like this? Or was this from di Caprio's subconscious?

I think it was a wonderful film, because the plot was so ingenius and the visuals were so impressive. I love the whole idea of inception and dreams, and the blurring of reality.

Would the totem fall at the end? I think yes because that is the same reality as when it fell before. If no then I would have to rewatch the movie to see how they/he got into another dream. Perhaps they never get out of the city with train dream?

Location:London IMAX

How to reset PS3 screen resolution

If your PS3 is set for a resolution that your new TV doesn't recognise you will get "no signal" and no picture. On a friends PS3 the menu was set for 1080p and didn't work, but putting in a 720p game worked. By pressing the playstation button you get the 720p menu, but if you want to change video settings it exits game, tries to go 1080p and therefore no picture.

To resolve this hold the on/off switch until it turns off. Then press and hold the on button for 10 seconds and the resolution will be reset to the lowest setting and it will appear on the screen.

You will be given prompts to optimise the resolution, and if the resolution it tries for doesn't work it will reset after 30 seconds.

The source was a very knowledgable PS3 owning friend. You can also find details of resetting the PS 3 screen resolution here.



Location:UK

Friday 30 July 2010

I'm such a dork

I'm such a dork







Location:UK

Funny pics











Location:UK

Adding and managing playlists

Go into playlists, create a new playlist by clicking "add playlist"




You can then name the playlist and select the songs to go in the playlist.



When finished press "done".

To edit the playlist; delete songs or re-order click edit.




Then you can remove or re-order.




You can press the plus button in order to add extra songs

Iphone play music without unlocking

Here's a tip; when your iPhone is locked you can control the music by double clicking the home button. You'll be able to play, pause, skip foward and skip back.





Location:UK

Wednesday 28 July 2010

Boo Empire cinema

Inception - 10/10
Twilight eclipse - 5/10
Splice - 6/10 - It was alright. But checkout the trailor to Paranormal Activity 2; I'm already terrified. They didn't turn down the lights in the cinema and then they cut the movie just as the credits started. Boo Empire cinema



Location:UK

Monday 26 July 2010

Ferrari 1-2 swap, the right thing to do?

It may be a controversial view but I think Ferrari were right to swap their drivers, and I think the no team orders rule is completely unworkable and should be removed.

- why
Alonso has a much greater chance of winning the championship than Alonso; based on pace and greater number of points. And it is up to that team if they want to put all their eggs in one basket.

- what could happen at end of season
The trouble is, if they get any further punishment, what would happen at the end of the season, with exactly the same scenario and Massa out of the running, and a swap would win the drivers championship? - I could totally see the validity of doing it (though I'd be upset neither Button nor Lewis would then win it), but Ferrari would be silly not to do this, in fact a driver may offer this on their own without any prodding - a point I'll come back to.

- other examples
The rule is totally unworkable as team orders are so subjective, and hard to proove, and context sensitive. What about Jordan/Hill/Ralf 1998 Spa, the order was to hold station and let Hill win, when Ralf had the speed to get by. The correct decision as Hill was more deserving, plus in the conditions it could have risked a crash and loss of a 1-2 finish. Jerez 97 when McLaren agreed with Williams that Villeneuve wouldn't get in the way of Hakinnen and the team order was for Coultard to let Mika past. Completely the right decision, as Mika had been the faster driver, looked likely to easily win several races that year until outrageous unreliability struck, it was also important psycholically for Hakinnen to get his first win. And Mika Salo v Irvine Monza? 99, Salo was leading but was a stand in driver and so couldn't win the championship - of course they were right to give Irvine the win. All these scenarios would now be illegal.

- where it backfires
Eg 1999 with Schumacher and Irvine. It doesn't always pay for the team that employs these tactics eg in 1999 until Britain Ferrari had favoured Schuhmacher, only he broke his leg and so Irvine had to take over, loosing it by only a few points - maybe if Irvine hadn't been the number 2 earlier in the year he could have won it (though I'm glad he didn't)

- when its wrong
The example in Austria 2002 was plain wrong, Ferrari shouldn't have done that. It was due to this the rule was brought in, maybe instead there should be an understanding amongst teams that when you are that far ahead don't do it.

- Proving team orders - what if driver decision, agreement, or made to look like a proper ovettaking manaeover?

Then there is proving team orders, teams could get more savvy and agree the strategy beforehand and make it look less obvious - how would you proove? Or what if Massa had slowed down on his own account, would this have been allowed? Then there are gentleman's agreements, like the McLaren boys at Australia 98, in a move that proved to win Mika the championship, should that not have been allowed? There's more subtle one's like preferential equipment, preferential treatment and preferential pit or tyre strategy, or putting one driver on a risky rain strategy - how do you proove all this and what falls under team orders?

So overall when something like Sundays Ferrari driver swap happens its not the best thing for racing, but it is impossible to legislate against, and is actually the right thing for a team to do in that situation in my opinion.

Location:UK

Sunday 18 July 2010

Moon - film review

Set on the moon Sam Bell is coming to the end of a 3 year contract harvesting some kind of Helium compound from the moon which supplies most of the earths energy.

He's only companion is the talking computer called Gerty and video messages sent from his wife from earth. That's right the corporation is too stingy to pay to fix it.

Slightly slow to build up this story initially, Sam Bell is going a little mad having spent so much time on his own, when he goes out in one of the moon buggies to check up on one of the harvester machines. He's slight craziness hallucinates someone standing in the falling rocks ahead and he has a nasty accident, crashing into the harvester.

When he wakes up, the film kicks into another gear - always leaving the viewer slightly guessing, working out what's going on in the moon station with Sam Bell is compelling stuff. This is such a good movie. The actor Sam Rockwell is essentially doing the whole thing on his own - like a Castaway set in space - with Kevin Spacey (Gerty) as a talking Wilson, which is very impressive as he carries the movie brilliantly.

It's a very satisfying Movie as the questions it makes you ask about what is happening and what's going to happen are all answered by the end of the movie.

I love the look of the movie - clean, futuristic, interesting - and the special effects are super and completely convincing.

It's not perfect, I thought there were a couple of mess-ups with the plot regarding the accidents that had happened in the past - whether they had happened when Sam Bell arrived or whilst he has been working. I won't go into detail or it'll reveal to much of the plot.

I thought the plot had some good emotional depth - helped by great acting, and a great plot; for example - moments of sadness and moments of self-sacrifice.

I won't go into detail about what happens but it is fasinating and well worth watching. I highly recommend watching this movie.

If you liked my review of "Moon" please rate it as helpful on IMDB

Location:UK

Wednesday 30 June 2010

Learning to hear German

I'm trying different strategies to improve my German listening skills. I tried recording myself read a passage and then listen back and write down what I said. Interestingly most of it was easy to pick up, but I could only capture a few words at a time; up to three, and I would have to stop and rewind and re-check.

What I stuggle with is und, I keep hearing it as un. I keep leaving the r off of einer. And three words I struggled with were bewaldete, frütterte and wechselte. Even hearing multiple times I came up with wiewoltete, vertote and wuchselte. Funny I should mistake "b" for a "w", but understandable for thinking an "f" was a "v".

Then I tried recording a short vocab list and tried writing down the english. Interestingly I struggled writing the english unless I'd written the german down first for certain words.

My word I'm a world a way from hearing german and then translating it on the fly!




Location:UK

Tuesday 22 June 2010

iOS 4 multitasking

Omg very impressed with multitasking on iOS 4. I just put Radio Box into the background and it has continued to work, whilst I go into safari and then into Evernote to write this.

Then left evernote to change radio station and went back in, and it put me back in same place in Evernote, yazah! Very impressed :-)



To close a program, you hold an icon on the multitasking bar, and the a minus sign appears; press again and this closes the app.

Location:UK

Sunday 20 June 2010

iPhone app recommendations

Adobe Ideas is a good drawing package for the iphone and its free.



You can find it in the app store here;

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/adobe-ideas-1-0-for-iphone/id365441166?mt=8

http://iphone.tvcatchup.com



This allows you, after you've registered, to watch live tv, it is very good. Just save it as a button on the home screen and its as good as having an app.

Liebe bis in den Tod - is a german audio book and its excellent for helping improve German listening skills.



You can get the first chapter free;
http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/id326139385?mt=8

Or pay for the whole book for £2.99;
http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/lernkrimi-daf-liebe-bis-in/id324667094?mt=8

Sunday 30 May 2010

The iPad is awesome!

So I got to try out an Apple iPad, it is really quite simply genius. Loved how iPhoto and iTunes are almost like their desktop equivalent, but with touch controls. Its stunning. I think I will stick with the portrait iPhone style keyboard, then try and touch type in landscape. Documents, numbers and keynote were also very impressive, and the games were amazing!






I asked a very helpful assistance about camera connection and printing.

http://store.apple.com/uk/product/MC531ZM/A?mco=MTY3ODQ5OTY
Apple iPad camera connection, 25 quid, that's alright but should've been built in.

And about printing;
http://wiki.nisi.ro/2010/04/how-to-print-docs-from-ipad/
Print from ipad no apps required, very funny.






http://forums.appleinsider.com/showthread.php?t=106716
Ipad print apps, and possible os level printing is coming. Maybe I should wait, but either way it looks like I'd have to upgrade to a wireless printer...

Location:UK

Saturday 22 May 2010

Twitter to Tweetie

They've changed Tweetie to Twitter (iPhone app), and it forgot my accounts, so I had to re-enter them, how rude.



I rather liked the name Tweetie, what a shame.

Location:UK

iPhone issues

Some issues I've experienced with my iPhone;



1) Unresponsive touch screen. I've had this intermittantly since purchased. Quick fix: power button to sleep, the power button on again and slide - should now be responsive.
Genius bar solution: the iPhone is a computer and needs to be restarted occasionally. Hold the power button, wait for scroll to power off screen, hold until it goes black and apple logo appears

2) Can't answer call. Caused by first issue. Fix: pressing the power button off then on might work - though sometimes drops the call.

3) Random shutdowns / Phone crashing and turning off. This happens occasionally. A restart stops it for a while. Its caused by the iPhone running out of memory; at this point it shuts down.

4) Phone unresponsive after call. Sometimes the screen goes black and turns off and won't turn back on, then after a little while will turn back on

5) Shut down during call. This is outrageous and has happened to me twice. I hope there is a planned fix for this.

6) No wireless. Occasionally it won't recognise a wifi signal. But after a few minutes it suddenly recognises it.



7) Dodgy copy and paste. Quite regularly it won't allow text to be selected, or will only allow a large block of text to be selected, rather than an individual item. Rarer is when you select and the context menu doesn't appear. Or when you're trying to paste and no paste option appears.

Do you have any similar experiences?

Location:UK

Sunday 16 May 2010

Seven reasons why I'm not buying an iPad yet

Don't get me wrong I really want an Apple iPad, but here are a list of seven reasons why I won't be buying one yet.






1. Price - its £429 for the basic wifi model and £529 for the basic 3g+wifi model. I don't have that sort of spare cash, plus it means I'm going to be more worried about carrying it around, and have to pay for expensive insurance.

2. No printing - there is an app that does it in a convoluted way, but no built in printing facility is poor, come on Apple! Either wirelessely or via USB would be nice. For example if I purchase tickets online I have to go to my laptop to print them out, come on!

3. No USB or SD Card reader - so I can't plug in my camera. Even the most basic netbooks let me do this, if I'm paying that price, I want to be able to use it to download my pictures to it!

4. No front facing camera - I'm fine with no rear camera - it's too big to be a camera, I get it. But this is the ideal device for video chats, even basic netbooks do this!

5. No iPhone OS 4 yet - we've got to wait until later in the year, longer than for the iPhone. So I'd personally rather wait so I can have multitasking and a better experience overall.

6. Weak wifi - it drives me nuts when my iPhone refuses to join a network that is clearly there. If the iPad wifi issues are true and therefore worse than that, then I don't think I could cope. At least wait until Apple has put out a software fix for this.

7. Price likely to go down? - with such a high price point I'm willing to bet this is going to be reduced some months after release.

Conclusion

Mark II will be better - I kept away from the iPhone until they did it right (with the 3GS) I think I may wait here - at least until the price is reduced to a level where I can accept its limitations.

However, no flash, is not putting me off. The usability, performance and power consumption arguments are compelling. Sites should degrade gracefully to non-flash, so I can live without it.

iPhone development

I'm very excited, I've registered as an iPhone developer. Sign up as a developer here; http://developer.apple.com/iphone/index.action and then download xcode (the development IDE) and the SDK.



Reading good article about how to get started here http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2009/feb/10/gameculture-apple One guy wrote iShoot, a game that went viral, and he was making $22,000 per day at its peak! Enough money to quit his job and do iPhone development fulltime. Sounds awesome.

I guess you need a good idea, that's the key, I'm currently busy brainstorming.



I've also just bought my first book on iPhone development from Amazon here http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d.html/ref=mp_s_a_1?qid=1273992552&a=1430224592&sr=8-1 So next steps are to learn Objective C, and sign up to the development programme so I can start testing apps on my iPhone.

Watch this space.

Sunday 9 May 2010

iPod Nano first generation fixing

This is a guide on how I got my first generation iPod Nano working again.



I thought my first generation iPod Nano was dead. All it would do is flash contact apple support, despite trying to sync it.

I'd left it a while, and I decided to try and fix it. I plugged it into my Mac, it kept flashing contact support and wasn't recognised in iTunes. After 5 minutes it stopped flashing and stopped saying contact apple suport.

Then it appeared as a device in iTunes, and asked if I wanted to do a software upgrade, so I did.

Then after it finished installing and charging up, it said okay to disconnect in iTunes. However it said do not disconnect on the iPod Nano. I thought there was a problem, so I left it 20 minutes or so.

I soon realised all I needed to do was eject it from iTunes. I did this, and it now works, wa-hoo!

Location:UK

Thursday 22 April 2010

Facebook photo upload via iPhone

Upload not currently working, see details here; http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=6628568379&topic=15740#topic_top

Here is a workaround; Go to here http://www.facebook.com/mobile/ and get a unique email address for uploading photos. Then use email address that Facebook recognises as you to send the photo (copy and paste it in a blank email). Takes a few moments, plus you can't write a caption. Good workaround though.

Location:UK

Tuesday 13 April 2010

iPhone iPod tip

Great new tip. If the iPod is running on your iPhone, double pressing the home button brings up the iPod controller. Which lets you fast forward and rewind, and jump to your iPod. Great!