As I Xi It v2.3

For months I’d been wanting an iPad but couldn’t really justify getting one, but towards the end of last year, I got my hands on one and have since put it through its paces. All I can say is that I wished I’d got one sooner.

It’s been pretty good for travelling, quite handy for backing up pics on the road and I can quite happily spend hours on it playing inane games. Current favourites include Temple Run and F.Godmom from those DOS days gone by.

Yes, it is like a bigger iPhone minus the phone component, but it’s much nicer to read content on a bigger screen. I find myself preferring to catch up on news using Flipboard and Google Currents than browsing from my desktop.

The downside of the thing is that it prevents me from going to bed. Well, technically it gets me in bed sooner, reading and browsing, but I’m far less inclined to fall asleep. It’s amazing how many hours it so effortlessly sucks up. Other than that, the iPad is pretty muy bien.

Tetris for the iPad was 69p today (I know, I’m a big spender) so I figured, ‘Why not?’

I still have my bulky, old Nintendo Gameboy and it still works! The only game I really ever played on it was Tetris. Unfortunately, the iOS Tetris doesn’t have the classic theme tune!! It’d be cool if had a Gameboy classic mode emulating the original.

The joys of being a 90's kid

“Santa” wants me to delve deeper into myself…at the genetic level. I’m expecting diabetes to be right up there along with fatness.

AT, GC

Well, my shiny, shiny new iPhone 4 was delivered promptly yesterday lunchtime. What proceeded that was a series of unfortunate events.

Opened the package, phone in excellent new condition eventhough it’s a refurb, connected to iTunes as per instructions and restored the backup from my 3GS to 4. While that was going on, I contacted O2 via webchat and conversed with “Charles”. I asked him where he was based and surprise, surprise, India! Asked him to remove the bar on my account and activate my SIM. He did as he was told and said that I needed to wait up to 2 hours for my phone to connect up to the network.

Three hours later, back on webchat I went and this time chatted with a “Benjy” who went on to tell me that “Charles” lifted the bar but didn’t activate my SIM. So he went and activated my SIM and told me that I now had to wait a further 2 – 24 hours until I was able to make and receive calls. About 30 minutes later, I get an email from “Benjy” telling me that my SIM was for a different number and that I would have to go into an O2 store to sort it out. Unfortunately, all the O2 stores near me shut at 5:30pm – 6:00pm so that wasn’t an option.

I didn’t trust “Benjy” so called up O2 and spoke to a real person, can’t remember what her name was, probably a Jane or Janet or something. She made no comment about my SIM problems (I just asked to activate my SIM), gave her my mobile no. and SIM code and that was that. A few minutes later, yay! I could see “O2-UK” on my phone. I thought all was well, but I couldn’t make or receive calls from it! A few minutes later again, I was able to make and receive calls, but now I didn’t have data access!! In the end, I manage to solve the data issue by reconfiguring the cellular data settings. It was just one palava after another.

To add to these connection woes, iTunes kept crashing during the photo optimisation process when I tried to upload my photos to it. Lost count how many times I tried. Some googling revealed that iTunes 10 has a bug and you have to deselect “include videos”. I’ve managed to circumvent the lack of vids by using the VLC player app which unfortunately has been pulled from the app store.

Shiny, shiny goodness

While the iPhone 4 has more features, I still prefer the shape of the 3GS. For me, the most striking difference between the two is the retina screen on the 4, it really is noticibly sharper than on the 3GS. Text is really crisp and images vivid. Those blues and turqoises from my Seychelles pics really pop! Speaking of which, I got a Case-Mate Pop case in red for it.

For those who are going to ask why I didn’t just wait for the iPhone 5, well, I would’ve been iPhone-less for a few months. Cant’t possibly be having that.

Taking aquarium photography to a new dimension.

Like snorkling, but not

I passed my driving test yesterday (yay!) and decided to reward myself with a nice new timepiece – a Casio Protrek 2000 with all the bells and whistles – atomic sync, solar, altimeter, barometer, compass, sunrise, sunset, oh and of course, it tells the time. Now I just need a mountain to climb…

Yup, the manual really is that thick.

It's not as big I thought it'd be.

I thought it was about time I retired my elderly headtorch of 10 years and pick up something new, shiny and super bright. Seeing as it’s something I rarely purchase, I figured I might as well go for the upper end of the Petzl Tikka series and settled on the aptly named XP 2.

LED technology really has come along in leaps and bounds in the last decade. The light on the old one (original Tikka) is like candlelight compared to the new one. I don’t even know what the lumens on the old one is. I think it was at a time before lumens were the industry standard for comparing brightness.

There’s a whole cornucopia of features in the new one. It has white and red lights. The white light has high, economy and strobe mode, while the red light just has one light level and strobe. Great for aurora shooting and alerting others to where you are should you get lost. The new one also has an integrated whistle on the headband, takes more effort to blow than some regular whistles though.

New toy

Face off

Whistle