Gadget Review of the Year - 2011

Well, if I'm going to do a review of the year, it had better be right now because there's only five hours of 2011 left.

Things were a bit lean on the gadget front this year, mainly because I bought the ultimate gadget in June, a new house! We had been talking about moving for some time, but we finally decided to bite the bullet and go for it. We weren't prepared for quite what a massively time-consuming (and to be honest, stressful) thing this would be, but it's done now and we're settled in nicely.

Other than that rather expensive purchase, I managed to acquire a new Xbox 360 Slim (after the other one suffered a rather drawn-out demise). It's a much more sleek unit than the old one, and having 250GB of storage is a bonus. It has also proved its worth as a decent media player too, as I've been using it as a stop-gap DVD player and media streamer in the lounge.

I also got a second Apple TV for the bedroom, and I also got round to migrating my iTunes library onto an external hard drive to free up space on the iMac. I've been upgrading a lot of my music to Apple Lossless, and ripping a lot of DVDs, so having the extra storage has been pretty much essential.

Other than that, in November I retired the HTC Legend and managed to finally get my hands on the Gadget To Rule Them All, an iPhone 4. This is, it goes without saying, quite the most magnificent thing in the known universe and why I didn't get one sooner is beyond me. Obviously, I considered the new iPhone 4S but ultimately it came down to money, so the 4 ended up being the better deal. iOS5 is excellent, and it has already become indispensable.

The final gadget acquisition of 2011 was an Apple Magic Trackpad for my birthday just a couple of weeks ago, and like all Apple gadgets it is superb - it really takes advantage of Lion's multitouch features, and now I've got used to it I can't see myself going back to a mouse any time soon.

And I can't let it go without saying that 2011 was a sad time for the gadget world when we lost Steve Jobs. We won't ever see another quite like him.

So goodbye 2011, and let's hope 2012 is filled full of gadget-goodness for you all. I have my eye on the home cinema conversion for starters - let's see how that one pans out!

It was all going so well.

After my triumphant victory over the red ring of death last month, I had been feeling pretty good about my ability to fix broken tech. Not only had I mended my old CD player but I'd now brought an Xbox back from the grave.

Buoyant from these successes, I then went about taking my washing machine apart in order to replace the perished door seal. I was invincible!

Sadly, my geek-pride was about to take a bashing. My Xbox promptly died again. Red ring of death and everything. Try as I might, I couldn't resurrect it again. I was beaten.

However, not to be completely thrown by my apparent failure, I used this as an opportunity to buy a shiny new Xbox 360 Slim. Every cloud has a silver lining I guess.

I'm still waiting to find out if the washing machine repair fares any better...

Green Is Good

After yesterday's post about my Red Ring of Death nightmare, I received my x-clamp conversion kit in the post this morning. Eight screws, eight carbon steel spring washers, eight metal washers and sixteen nylon washers. I couldn't begin to wonder how a few pence worth of bits from a hardware shop would repair my 360, but I was prepared to give it a try.

Needless to say, the installation of these bits is more than a little fiddly, but so long as you're organised and patient, it's not difficult. Here's the tutorial I used for this part:



I followed the instructions to the letter, plugged everything back in and tested it. Here's the result:



WOOT! I shall see how long it lasts, but for now - we're up and running again!

A visit from the Red Ring of Death

It had to happen sooner or later. I've owned my Xbox 360 for a little over three years now, and it was only a matter of time before it decided to call it quits and break down. I'd been experiencing graphical glitches and lockups on the 360 for a couple of weeks, and I knew that it was on its way out. Sure enough, at the start of this week, it resolutely refused to start up, displaying the dreaded "Red Ring of Death" - three red flashing lights on the front of the machine, which under normal circumstances would be a friendly green colour.

I went to check my Xbox account to see when I'd registered the 360, and sure enough I was just outside of my warranty - how very typical. With Microsoft wanting the best part of £100 to even just look at my Xbox, I decided that drastic times called for drastic measures.

Having received some guidance from tech guru Tom, I discovered that my most likely fix would come from tinkering with the heatsinks which are supposed to keep both the CPU and GPU cool. The internet is alive with reports of how the cooling in the 360 is particularly rubbish, and the method of securing the heatsinks onto the chips (flimsy metal x-shaped brackets) was the main culprit. The accepted method of sorting this out is to crack open your 360, rip out the offending x-clamps and replace them with something more substantial.

I'm not going to replicate the methodology of getting into the 360 on here - there are some brilliant tutorials and walkthroughs on YouTube. Without them I would have struggled to even open up the Xbox, because Microsoft really don't want you to get inside. However, once you know how (and so long as you have the requisite T10 and T8 torx bits) it's relatively easy. The videos I found most useful were these:





Getting the x-clamps off the bottom of the motherboard was the most difficult part, but with a little patience and perseverance you can manage it. And this is the point I find myself at at the moment. I've stripped down the 360, removed the x-clamps and heatsinks, cleaned the CPU and GPU and I've ordered a set of screws and washers from eBay. I really don't know whether this little project will work or not, but even if it doesn't I'm really no worse off.

Standby for update...

Nintendo DS wi-fi workaround

In my continuing "ways I've found to overcome technology problems" series, I've just found a good way of taming the truculent wi-fi on my Nintendo DS Lite.

When set to "auto everything" mode, I could NOT get it to connect to my wireless network at all. Nothing. Not a jot. So, in true problem-solving mode I hit the internet for answers.

Turns out - as with all these things - that I'm not the only one to be having issues. Seems like when the DS is set to obtain IP and DNS settings automatically, it can get confused very easily, particularly when there are lots of other wireless devices on the network.

Turns out the easiest way around the problem is to configure the DS manually, so here comes a step-by-step on how to do it. Needless to say, if the automatic settings work for you, there's no point in fiddling, but if the DS is refusing to play ball this might be what you're looking for.

1) Grab your nearest wi-fi enabled DS game and slap it in the DS. When it boots up, find the "wi-fi settings" in the game menu (different games have it in different places).
2) Tap the "Nintendo Wi-fi Connection Settings" button on the next screen. If you've got any current settings saved, you might want to erase them at this point, or alternatively choose one of the other free slots - your choice.
3) This is where we're going to get "manual", so you're going to need some settings. The best place to get these is from your computer. In Windows XP, go to the "Run" dialog box and type CMD to get you to the command prompt. Once you're there, type IPCONFIG/ALL. This command will bring up a whole load of settings - might look a bit daunting, but bear with me here.
4) On your DS, change the "Auto-obtain IP Address" to "No" rather than yes. This will alllow you to type in the next lot of settings.
5) Now you need to choose your IP address. Look at the information in the IPCONFIG window and you'll see your current IP listed there - probably something like 192.168.0.x. You'll be keeping the first three numbers the same on your DS but changing the last one to something else. What number you choose will depend on how many devices (not just wireless ones) you've got on your network. I can routinely have ten things connected at once, so I opted to have this last number as 20. Choose something significantly higher than you're likely to need so there are no conflicts later on.
6) Type your chosen IP into the DS by tapping the "edit" button and punching them in with your stylus (you need all four sets of numbers).
7) Back on the IPCONFIG window on your computer, you'll now need the numbers listed as SUBNET MASK and DEFAULT GATEWAY.
8) Type these numbers into your DS in the same way you did with your chosen IP. On the DS, the default gateway is just called "gateway", in case you were wondering.
9) Set "Auto obtain DNS" on the DS to "no", then find the two sets of numbers listed as DNS SERVERS in your IPCONFIG window.
10) Type the first DNS SERVER number into your DS under the "Primary DNS" setting and the second number into the "Secondary DNS".
11) Tap "Save settings" and you should be good to go! Tap "test connection" at the top of the DS window and if all is well, you'll be greeted with a "Connection successful" message.
12) Play online games to your heart's content and get your ass whipped by a seven year old Chinese kid that you've never even met...

I realise this information is already out there on the internets, but the more places it's available the better in my opinion.

Touch the Snake...

If you've got an iPhone or iPod Touch, you might be as excited as me about this...



Of course, it could end up being pants, but the concept is quite tantalising.

Physicality

A curious notion has been swilling around in my head for some time now regarding "our" relationship with the physical media I love so much. Were it not for the books, CDs, DVDs, computer games, photo albums and vinyl records (yes, VINYL!) there would be so much more space in my house. I'm very attached to this stuff, and it got me thinking about the brave new digital world we're living in now.

My good friend Rich did one of the most brave and awe-inspiring things I can think of a while back. He jacked in his job, sold his house and waved goodbye to almost all his worldly possessions - and then upped sticks to the other side of the world.

Whilst I am incredibly impressed with this exciting (and slightly extreme) take on downsizing, I was thinking the other day that I don't think I could be without all my "stuff". However, I constantly think we have far too much of it, and that it could be streamlined and much better organized.

I've ripped nearly my entire 300-strong CD collection into iTunes, so why don't I just sell/donate/bin the discs? Surely I don't need them any more? They're just taking up room?

I could buy a huge hard-drive, rip my huge DVD collection as DiVX movies and then ditch all the discs that are filling a floor-to-ceiling set of shelves next to me as I type this.

All the books in the house have been read over and over - surely we could donate them to a library?

As for the vinyl - I must be living in the dark ages.

But no. It's not going to happen, for two (maybe more) reasons.

1) I like having this stuff. "Physical" items are reassuringly real and tangible. Files on a computer just don't seem the same. The feel of the pages, the colourful artwork, the fidelity of the sound and pictures. It all adds up to something quite distinct, and something that I really enjoy.

2) What if you DO ditch all this stuff, and then - god forbid - something happened to the backups? Hard drives fail all the time. Now don't get me wrong, I'm fairly anal with my backup routine, but there's a nagging (irrational) voice at the back of my head saying "but what if the backup failed as well?!? Had you thought of that?"

The thing that's really been making me think, though, is that - for me - the ownership experience is just evaporating. I used to cherish going out and buying an album or a DVD that I had been looking forward to for months. I knew the release date well in advance, and the expectation was something to be cherished. I realise that we're only talking about relatively cheap items, but I selected my purchases with care. DVDs were always released on a Monday, and I'd even go so far as to pre-order items because I knew other people coveted these things as much as I did, and not to get my hands on them on release day would be sacrilege. I knew exactly when the "2-disc director's cut special collector's edition DVD with remastered footage, DTS sound and all the extras" was going to hit the shops, and I'd make the pilgrimage into town during my lunch hour to get it. I'd get back to work and occasionally take the sacred item out of its carrier bag and look at it, even going as far as to open the cellophane packaging so that I could wonder at the gatefold packaging and inlay cards.

Now I realise that you can still buy these things in real high-street shops, but I just don't any more. Whilst I enjoy/enjoyed the "retail" experience, I'm not so attached to it that I can afford to burn money. Internet retailers undercut prices by massive margins - why would you spend an extra fiver just so you could have the item in your possession on "release day". Just stick your order in on the website, and in a few days your faceless postie will manhandle a scruffy jiffy bag through your letterbox. You probably won't even bother opening it straight away.

We're so inundated with "stuff" these days that it's impossible to keep track of it. Who knows when that new album's being released, and honestly, who cares? And, as the volume increases, the quality goes down. Do manufacturers put the care and attention to detail into their releases these days? Do they hell. Stick the disc in a box and shovel it out as cheap as possible. No-one really cares these days. Better still, make it a digital download and we don't even have to worry about a box.

"Back in the day" there would only be one major DVD being released on the hallowed Monday, or computer game on the Friday. Now you don't know where to look - JUST TOO MUCH STUFF.

As far as I can tell - to my mind at least - there's only one retail experience that still lives up to my rose-tinted view of the world, and that's console releases. They still are real events. Witness the queues at midnight, the frenzied pre-ordering, the internet "unboxing" photographs. Ordering on the internet doesn't gain you anything - prices are fixed, and delivery will take positively AGES.

Funnily enough, the best products that still live up to my peculiar ideal recently have all been made by Nintendo. First there was the Gameboy Advance, then the Gamecube, then the Gameboy Advance SP, then the DS, the DS Lite and the Wii. I watched their development with feverish excitement, consuming every last bit of news I could get my hands on, then got excited when the release date was announced. I pre-ordered as soon as I could, and then the day would come where you I walk into a shop, slap the cash down on the counter and walk out with a real, tangible item that I had just bought there and then. Take it home, set it up - marvel at its shinyness. Bliss. But saying that, even hardware isn't that exciting any more - it's just a means to an end.

Quite honestly, the "ownership experience" is going, if not already gone. Digital downloads, streaming media and BitTorrent - why would you need anything else? The youth of today measure their musical and cinematic appreciation in how many gigabytes they've got, not whether it's actually any good - both in terms of content AND quality.  Will they ever understand or appreciate the wonder of buying, owning and using something "real"? I doubt it. The physical world is dead. Jack in grandad, and shut up.

Wholly unnecesssary

Much to the despair of my better half, I've just spent ten US dollars on a piece of really cool - but utterly pointless - software called Delicious Library. You may be aware of it already (it has been around a while) but essentially it's a cataloguing/library management tool for keeping track of DVDs, video games, CDs and books. It's Mac only (because it's too cool for Windows) and the killer feature - purely because it's so beautifully geeky - is that it scans the barcodes on your media in order to import it into the libray. You can do this via a firewire camera or if you're lucky enough to have a Mac with a built in iSight camera then you can use that instead.

I can't begin to tell you about the unadulterated peurile joy I've been having scanning in all my DVDs and games. I still need to do my CDs, but that's a mammoth task for another day!

At the moment, due to being stuck in the Mac dark ages with OSX 10.4 Tiger, I've had to limit myself to version 1.66 as opposed to the new and very shiny version 2.0 which only runs on Leopard.

And whilst I'm on the subject of OSX upgrades, I've been reading that OSX 10.6 "Snow Leopard" will only be for Intel-based Macs. So that's me stuffed then. I was going to miss out 10.5 altogether and jump straight to 10.6, but that now looks like it won't be possible. So is 10.5 the end of the road for my dearly beloved G5 iMac? It certainly looks that way.

All Cabled Up

My 360 audio dongle arrived today, and I've just plumbed it in - HDMI and optical audio living side by side in perfect harmony! Wonderful.

I also indulged in a Nintendo component cable for the Wii, rather than using SCART. Although it produces a 480 line picture as opposed to SCART's 576 lines, it is progressive scan so looks lovely and crisp. The step up in quality from composite to RGB SCART was good, but this is a step further - pretty much as good as you're going to get from a humble standard def Wii.

So there you have it - all cables now in place, and raring and ready to go. I had a bit of a fight with my Harmony universal remote to make it work with all this new kit, but I've cracked it now.

With the exception of swapping out the HDMI lead that came in the box with the DVD player for something a bit better, I think that's it for cables and interconnects now. Good job.

Optical Illusion

I've just been on the mighty fleabay and got hold of an official Microsoft audio dongle so that I can use both HDMI and optical digital outputs of my Xbox 360. Bizarrely, Microsoft have opted to have the optical out built into the AV lead rather than the Xbox itself. There is an optical audio output built into the standard component hi-def lead which comes in the box, and there's even one on the SCART lead, but if you opt for HDMI then you're scuppered. Weird. Obviously it's not an issue if you're plugging the HDMI into an AV receiver that accepts audio over HDMI, but I'm not. I still need "old-fashioned" optical. And the other thing is Microsoft bundles the dongle with the top-of-the-range 360 Elite, but not with the lower models, meaning you have to shell out extra. Typical.

Anyway, it is bought now, so I'm looking forward to an HD picture and 5.1 Dolby Digital any day now.