Map me up

Just a quick post to mention this Memory Map iPhone app that I was emailed about this morning. As a long-time user and big fan of Memory Map, I'm very interested to see how this will work. I'm hoping that it will use your pre-installed OS maps, and that there will be some way of selecting maps in the desktop software and then sending them to your iPhone. Two caveats - hopefully it'll also be iPod Touch compatible, and hopefully it won't be too expensive (or require any ongoing subscription). I shall eagerly await more news.

2010 - The year we make contact?!

So it's customary around this juncture to say things like "Happy new year", so erm... HAPPY NEW YEAR!

In the past, I've liked to tell the world my new year's resolutions on this blog (here, here and here), but to be honest I don't really have many this time around. Nothing important or interesting enough to share with you all anyway.

I have decided to do a bit more of this blogging malarkey though - apologies for being a bit lacklustre recently.

Things are largely the same here, with the addition of some new gadgets courtesy of Santa: A very nice pair of Grado SR80i headphones, and a 22" Samsung LCD television for the bedroom.

My purchasing plans for the coming twelve months are modest (not as much spare cash floating around when you've got children) but I do have my eye on an Apple Magic Mouse, and if the predictions about the Apple tablet computer come to fruition I may have to do some serious saving to get my hands on one.

But for now, that's about it from me. We'll talk again soon, yes?

Airport extension

I've sung the praises of the Apple Airport Express before on this blog, and recently I've got myself another one - this time, the newer 802.11N version.

Although it's essentially the same, in upgrading it to "N" Apple have introduced a bit more functionality to the unit at the same time. Whilst tinkering with it, I've found something very useful - something which you can't do with the old "G" revision.

I've had a few problems with the wifi reception around my house - quite a few dead spots, and patchy signal strength - so I'm now using the Airport Express to boost things up a bit. It's widely publicised that the Express can lock onto the wifi signal from an Apple base station and then relay it to extend the coverage, but I don't have an Apple base station. I've configured it slightly differently.

I've taken an ethernet cable out of my existing Netgear wifi router (which is still on main wifi duties), and plugged this into the ethernet port of the Airport Express in another part of the house. Using the Airport Utility on my Mac, I've then set it up to rebroadcast the signal it's getting via it's inbuilt transmitter. All quite mundane so far - but the clever bit (as far as I'm concerned) is that the Express can use the same SSID as the existing network, so your client wifi devices only see one single network name in the list of available networks. Your wifi device - laptop, iPod Touch, phone, whatever - will use the strongest signal in any given place, and switch if necessary, all completely seamlessly.

I've now got a decent, strong signal virtually everywhere in the house - a clever solution from a VERY versatile Apple gadget!

If you want to know specifics about the setup, just ask in the comments.

Joi to the world

If you follow my Twitter feed you may have heard me mention a little application that I downloaded for my Nokia E63 called Joikuspot. It's a very clever little program that uses the phone's 3G connection and wi-fi to create a little personal hotspot for you to use to get internet access.

I'm pleased to report that it works incredibly well, particularly bearing in mind that it's free. There is a "premium" version but I'm quite happy to look at a landing page in my browser when first logging on in exchange for not having to pay!

As you might expect with plain old 3G, you're not going to set the internet alight with amazing download speeds (I'm getting about 256kbps) but when you're without a web connection, then it's a very neat option. It's essentially doing what the Three Mi-Fi does, but at very little cost. My phone network (Virgin) gives you 24 hours of unlimited browsing for just 30p, so for the few times I need to jump on the web away from home its perfect.

In fact, my Eee PC is connected via Joikuspot as I sit here and type this in a local (wifi-less) coffee shop. There's not many times that my budget Nokia phone option gets one over on my iPhone using friends, but this is one such occasion.

Decision made

After much faffing (i.e endless hours of internet research and many visits to shops) I've finally decided on my new mobile phone. And the winner is?

This one! (I'm going to make you click this link in a vain effort to create some suspense, rather than just telling you outright).

I've gone with the tried-and-tested Nokia/Symbian S60 platform, combined with the convenience of a QWERTY keyboard, which for an old man like me makes texting, emailing and web browsing considerably easier. Wifi too, which is nice.

I've previously gone on at some length about why I haven't got an iPhone, so don't start asking me about it okay? I know your phone is better than mine.

No half measures

As you may be aware, I've done a lot of tinkering with various distributions of Linux on my Eee 901 netbook over the past few months (mainly due to the evangelism of my mate Rich). I've tried Mandriva, Eeebuntu, Ubuntu, Xubuntu, Mint and Fedora - all with varying degrees of success.

I've either been running these distros as live versions from a USB stick, or (if they work reasonably well) installing them to the Eee's SD card. This has had the benefit of leaving the default Windows XP installation untouched, allowing me to choose which OS to boot on startup. The downside has been that trying to run an OS from an SD card hasn't exactly provided the smoothest or quickest experience.

So, to that end, I decided the other day to go the whole hog and remove XP and install Ubuntu (my preferred flavour) onto the main solid-state drive of the Eee. I'm pleased to report that this was a very simple process - I just went with all the default options, rather than having to mess about with partitions and boot loaders and the like.

As I've previously reported, Ubuntu 9.04 works with all the Eee hardware - wifi, audio, bluetooth, webcam etc - out of the box so there were no issues with any of that.

Pleasingly, running Ubuntu as the main OS from the SSD has provided an exceptionally quick user interface. Power on to login screen takes just 19 seconds, and from logging in to fully running desktop with active wifi connection takes just another 15 seconds after that. Compared to the minute and a half that XP was taking to perform the same actions, that's quite an achievement. Of course, the real benefit of Linux ownership comes from the refreshingly bloat-free nature of the OS - no extraneous rubbish running in the background to slow everything down, no need for virus checkers, no "helper" applications annoying you in the system tray.

And of course, like Ubuntu itself, all the  installed software is free and open source - OpenOffice, Firefox, GIMP - and with a quick trip to the Skype homepage that's been painlessly installed too.

All in all, a very successful and simple transition.

I'm not even remotely tempted to go back to XP after seeing how nicely Ubuntu works on the Eee - it's an ideal OS for a netbook. I may start tinkering again when Moblin gets properly established though!

Fixing my Denon DCD-825 CD player

Although it's 14 years old, I've grown very attached to my Denon CD player and when it stopped playing discs I was most upset. The most probable cause was a defective laser/lens assembly, so I found out that it's actually a generic Sony unit - the KSS-240A - which is still widely available. A quick visit to eBay and £20 later, and I soon had a new unit waiting to be fitted. I wasn't really sure how to do it, or even if it would work, but I figured the best way to learn was to try it!

See my Flickr set here.