As I Xi It v2.3

Watson is a bit OCD, wherever I put the chunks of the treats stick he’s taken apart, he’ll always pick it up and put it back into his “computer” which he uses as a pantry for all this nibbles. He’s ever so tidy.

It looks like Cici isn’t all that interested with toys.

Brilliant!

I’ve just been testing the voice search on the Google app for my iPhone and I can’t say that it’s as good as I’d expected. When I asked it to ‘search Xiyu’, it returned with ‘sexy z’. I also tried ‘Xiyu online’, but got nowhere close. Now, granted that those aren’t very standard things to search, so next I tried ‘Applied Environmental Microbiology’ and it returned with ‘applying for men to microbiology’. Now, while it’s fairly close phonetically, it’s not really close enough to be of much use. Nice try Google, but I think I’ll stick to good old typing for the time being.

One more thing before I go – I’m actually posting from my iPhone using the WordPress app. It’s fairly capable for blogging on the go. I think other blogging platforms have their own apps too. I love my iPhone.

Now I thought seamless integration of my iPhone with my computer as a remote was cool, then I came across Apple’s own app which lets me control my iTunes via wifi! Works mighty well too, I’m almost tempted to get a Macbook Pro now.

See here for more info.

Today I came across the coolest app ever for my iPhone, it works pretty darn well and best of all, its FREE!! It’s the Logitech Touch app which allows you to control your computer like a touch pad over wifi. All you need is the software for the computer you want to controll here and install the Touch Mouse app onto your iPhone. If you search for “Touch Mouse”, it should be the first app that comes up.

It was surprisingly easy to set up, all I did was install the software on my computer and then opened up the app on my iPhone, selected my computer which it automatically detected and voila, all done. So now I can use my computer with ease while I’m on the exercise bike! How’s that for multitasking?

Since my mobile (cellphone or handphone for non-Brits) contract has terminated, I upgraded to the very shiny black 16GB iPhone 3Gs. I’ve got to admit that when thinking about which phone to upgrade to, I was a little apprehensive about picking the iPhone since it’s just so common. But having delved closer, I can see why it’s so popular. It looks good and is fairly easy to use. I like that it uses iTunes so I’ve only got one piece of software to deal with my iPod and iPhone. No need to have multiple software to clutter up the computer.

There are some way cool apps you can download for it. My favourite so far is probably Urbanspoon with its scope feature giving that augmented reality feel to it. There’s also What Knot to Do by Columbia, the outdoors clothing people with a guide on knots! Language Translator is pretty good too and the auto detect language tool works fairly well when I tested it with what few languages I know.

I do miss real buttons though. The on screen keyboard is fine, but takes a little getting used to it. Not sure how well it’d work for those with fat fingers.

After a rather long hiatus from doing any sort of real wildlife photography, I got my layers on popped over to Richmond Park on Saturday to shoot the deer in the snow.

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Seeing as its been snowing rather frequently in London and I’ve got that upcoming trip up into Swedish Lapland, I ordered myself a set of Manfrotto snow shoes. Although I have a set of Slik and Gitzo tripod legs, I went for the Manfrotto because a) they were cheaper and b) Gitzo ones were out of stock at the place where I ordered my new ball head. The Manfrotto and Gitzo snow shoes look the same anyway.

You don’t have to use the snow shoes just for snow, I’m sure they’ll work pretty well on dry sand and other soft sediment. They just increase the surface area between the tripod and terrain to reduce sinking. However, I don’t recommend them for use on smooth surfaces such as laminate flooring as they’ll just slide around. I suppose they could be used for the new sport of tripod curling.

They’re reasonably cheap at around £15 and get the job done.