Happy New Year

Just a cut and paste of my post on whitespider1066.com for today:
The pack and I would like to wish the readers of this blog a very very Happy New Year.
We hope that if your 2009 has been as "interesting" as ours, that the coming year will be less "interesting". If you have had a boring year then we hope that it remains just as boring.
I was going to do one of those end of year round ups. Then I thought I could also do one of those end of decade round ups that seem so popular on the tv and radio etc. I soon ruled that out when I thought it will be a cold day in hell (well it has nearly got been that down there) before I write a blog with a title that has "noughties" in it. In fact those look backs kind of leave me cold really.
Besides I kinda like the title "Gordon Brown, his part in my downfall". It has a ring to it, sadly I couldn't use it. I'm pretty sure that the Spike Milligan estate would have something to say about me using a title based (however losely) oops sorry inspired by the title of one of Spike's classic war memoirs.


Have a goodtime this evening, and see you on the otherside in the future.

Recent iPhone Apps Part 1

I know between this blog and my other ones I’ve spent a fair amount of time writing about the iPhone and the rather cool apps you can get for it. For those of you without an iPhone this may of been a bit boring for you. Sadly I’m going to bore you a bit more with this post.

I've been playing with some new apps on the iPhone. The majority are free, one or two I've had to get from the US app store because they are only available there.

I'm going to start off with an app that I have been playing a lot today, and really enjoying. Which surprised me. In fact I enjoyed it so much I splashed out and upgraded from the free ad supported version to the paid version! So what app has been so good that it had me reaching for my virtual wallet?

The app is called Words With Friends. Basically you are playing Scrabble on your iPhone. But for the obvious legal reasons they can't call it that, or use the same board layout. You still get the double and triple word scores, and letter scores but in different locations on the board. This is not a solo game. You play with friends or complete strangers that also have this app on their iPhone. It then basically becomes a game of postal scrabble but using an iPhone to track the game. When your opponent has finished their go, (if switched on) a notification is sent to your iPhone to let you know.

The great thing is that you are not restricted to playing one game at a time. You can have several on the go at the same time. Which is a fantastic feature.

The app also allows you to send out invites to friends (via email), or post a tweet on Twitter or status update on Facebook to invite friends to play with you.

In fact I have enjoyed this so much, even though I'm not much of a chess player I may just download the chess app that they do that works in a similar way.

The next two apps I'm going to cover together. They are from the same company and I had to use my US iTunes account to get them. Why? Because for whatever reason the developer decided that the rest of us can't play with these yet. The two apps are voice apps, the first Dragon Dictation allows you to speak into your iPhone, and turns that into text that you can copy and paste into whatever app you like. The second app is Dragon Search which allows you to speak in to your iPhone with what you want to search for. Sadly the speech recognition is not that great. My initial test of the dictation app was to speak "I'm writing using dragon dictation". Guess which part it didn't understand? Yep it's own name. I thought maybe it was me and the way I talk. So I fired up the Google app on the iPhone and repeated the word dragon and it understood it. So it definitely is down to the voice recognition app that the developers are using, and that just isn't as good as the one Google are using. The search just reminds me of being competition to the Google app. So no reason to switch there. All in all I'm not impressed with these as they currently stand.

A great free app is the Directgov Travel News app. "By choosing a region, you can use the app to search for travel news on trains, roads, tubes, ferries and trams.

You can get detailed information about the type of delay, areas affected, incident description and severity, complete with Google maps.

Check before you leave to avoid speed restrictions, road closures, engineering works, sailing cancellations, replacement bus services, roadworks, accidents, bridge and tunnel closures, contra flows, diversions and more." (taken from the official site here).

As you can imagine this is a very handy app to have for all those that travel a lot. Although it can seem a little slow in downloading the data that has been asked for. Especially if you ask it for all the severity types. So I would do this at home over wifi and not the 3G network. Oh and I approve of the tax payer money being spent on this sort of thing. Bugger I think I have found something Labour has done I like.

I use wordpress as my main blogging platform for my other blogs. Which means I use the excellent free wordpress app for the iPhone. However I didn't have an app that would let me edit the blogs I write or contribute to on Blogger. So I have been trying the free version of BlogPress. I know that the paid version will also allow me to write posts for my wordpress blogs as well. But at the moment I'm sticking with the free wordpress app for that. However I may change that if the next release of the wordpress app doesn't match this one in the control it gives over the placement of images within a post.  Which should tell you that I do like this app.

O2 and Sky are doing an offer of being able to watch some Sky tv on the go free for 3 months, then after that it's £6 a month. The tv is the sports and news, I'd of liked some of the other Sky channels myself. But 3 months of being able to watch Liverpool struggle to get back into the top four for free can't be bad. The big test will be in 3 months time whether I keep the subscription going or not. The picture was not bad, but the broadcast was a couple of minutes behind the live broadcast in the test that I did so far.

I'm a movie buff. The questions I like answering in Trivia Pursuit are the movie questions. So this paid for app is ideal for me. It has little video clip based questions, very interactive, very well executed. I like this app a lot. Plus it has the all important Facebook connect so I can go online and brag about my high scores to my friends on Facebook.

This is a great little app that most people will find useful.

I've used it to check the speed of Kate's broadband connection (which is dreadfully slow). Checked mine as well. But you can also use it to check that 3G data connection. The app also stores the results of those tests so you can do back and compare.

It is a simple app and does one thing. But it does it really well.

 

 

 

 

Keep an eye out for part 2 in the next couple of days.

Apple’s 12 Days Of Christmas On The iPhone

I may of not gotten any new gadgets for Christmas. But I have been trying some cool apps out on the iPhone (all free as well).

One of them is time specific. It’s from Apple and free, and involves more free stuff as well! Basically from the 26th Dec and for 12 days (6th Jan) Apple via this app will be giving away a free gift each day. The free gift will be a “download a free song or music video, app, TV episode or film from some of the biggest star performers on iTunes. Each free download will be valid for 24 hours only.”

Day 1 (today) was a Snow Patrol mp3 of the song “An Olive Grove Facing The Sea (2009 version)”.

Visit this page for more info and a link to get it without the iPhone straight into iTunes.

Merry Christmas

I hope that you are having a great day with friends and family, and that Santa has bought you lots of gadgets to play with.

Some Freebies I Talk About Elsewhere

It seems that I am forever at the moment redirecting you to my other blogs to read about freebies. Well there is a reason for that, I don’t want to repeat my self. And isn’t that the great thing about the internet you don’t have repeat yourself you can link straight to the item of interest. In this case one of my posts on one of my other blogs.

Over on my business blog I have a post called “Office 2010 Freebies” which tells you of some freebies from Microsoft to do with the up and coming Office 2010.

I also have another post over there that gives details about some free books (audio and ebook) that people can get hold of “Get Some Free Books Online”.

On another blog of mine whitespider1066.com I also write about “Another Free Ebook” that is worth getting.

So there you have it my little present for you, a bunch of really good free stuff online.

The First Four Screens On My iPhone

As promised in the previous post, but a bit earlier, here are the apps I have installed on the first four screens of my iPhone.

The third screen and bit of the fourth shows the addiction I have developed for iPhone photography apps.

So what are on your first four screens?

More To Read On Whitespider1066

It seems I am writing a series now over on Whitespider1066 on mobiles and their use in the outdoors.

There have been two more posts that followers of this blog may be interested in.

They are Choosing A Phone For The Outdoors and Gorillamobile And Gorillacam.

In the next day or two I will write a proper post on here. Probably talking you through the first 4 screens of apps that I have on my iPhone.

Some Posts Of Interest Elsewhere

There are a couple of posts that I wrote for one of my other blogs (whitespider1066) that folks that follow this one will find of interest.

The first is “Blogging On The Trail”, which covers blogging away from the PC/Mac. Now over there I relate it to the outdoors, but to be frank it’s anywhere really.

The second is “Ustream On The IPhone” in which I cover with some example video the new Ustream app that was released this week for the iPhone.

The reason they are over on whitespider1066 is because I can link them in to the main subject area for there “the outdoors”.

So pop on over and read which one interests you. Hey leave some feedback as well while you are there, I don’t bite ^__^

The Song Remains The Same

only the tech changes. Don’t know the game my cousin and brother are playing but that is a Commodore 64 they are playing on. That’s me behind the door reading a gaming magazine of the time.

So why did I post this blast from the past? It’s probably one of the only pictures I have that shows or captures the home computing boom of the 80’s, and what a geeks room at the time looked like.

I had a wall of computer and gaming magazines. Ranging from Byte,PCW,C&VG,Zzap64,Crash,Big K,Your Sinclair plus others. My gaming hero and still is, is Jeff Minter of Llamasoft fame.

It was a time of fun and variety. People pushed the limits of the hardware. Every other game redefined what people thought was possible. We were exploring an undiscovered country.

Somewhere down the line we seem to have lost that fun element. After the bean counters took over it became a business, the fun disappeared. The industry went from being a child to being an adult. Was it for the better? I don’t know.

At the moment an element of that fun has been starting to make a come back in the form of the mobile phone market. For the time being large and small teams have an equal opportunity for getting their efforts out to the public. How long this remains for I don’t know. But for the time being let’s enjoy it and once more remember those good ol’ days (which is why I buy Retro Gamer trying to remember those fond memories).

Backing Up That Wordpress Blog

Well I suppose this could be considered the last in an unintended series about backing up and recovering a blog, with a specific focus on Wordpress.

In the first part I covered recovering a deleted blog when no back up existed. While the second part talked specifically about how to get the Google Reader ATOM file converted so it can be imported in to Wordpress.

In this last part I am going to concentrate on backing up your blog, specifically Wordpress because that is what I use.

In the first part one of the recovery methods relied on you having subscribed to your own blogs RSS feed in Google Reader. It also relied on the full post being in the RSS feed and not a summary. So this is our first way of backing up our Wordpress blog. This will also work with any other blogging platforms, so is a nice general tip.

Now Wordpress should adapt the iPhone ad campaign to say “there’s a plugin for that” (thanks Duncan for that quote). Because by installing the WordPress Database Backup plugin you are then able to backup the important Wordpress database tables for your blog. Not only that you can schedule the backup to happen on a regular basis and have the backup emailed to your inbox.

The third and final backup method we will use is to back up all our Wordpress files. To find out how to do that pop on over and read “Automatically Backup Your WordPress Site”. Now this will only work with self hosted Wordpress blogs where you have FTP access to your files. Although this would work with any blog platform where you can get FTP access. So potentially a nice general tip. This will also work if you want to back up a website to.

So there we have it use these three methods and you should be covered if anything goes wrong. Just make sure you keep multiple copies of the back ups and at least one of them offsite (maybe use something like Dropbox, or Live Mesh).

Importing That Google Reader Atom File To Wordpress

Ok so in my previous post I told you how to get your blog posts back if for whatever reason you deleted your blog. In that post if you went the Google Reader route you ended up with a ATOM/XML file.

Sadly Wordpress in both forms (Wordpress.com and Wordpress.org) will not read this ATOM file. But it is possible to get it into a format that can be read by them.

Firstly you are going to have to visit a couple of places on the web and download a couple of things.

The first thing you need to do is download the atom2rss.xsl (from Atom conversion tools). Store that in the same directory that your ATOM file is stored. Next you need to visit the Microsoft site to download msxsl.exe (get from here), and also save this in the same place as the other files.

Now you will have to open a command prompt up and change to the directory where you have all the files stored.

From the command prompt type the following:

msxlr.exe –o OUTPUTFILENAME.RSS ATOMFILENAME atom2rss.xsl

where OUTUTFILENAME.RSS is the name of the new file we want to create

and ATOMFILENAME is the name of our ATOM file containing all our blog posts.

If all has gone to plan then we should have sitting in the directory a file with a .rss file extension.

Now if you have a self hosted Wordpress blog, all you have to do is login, go to the Dashboard. Go to Tools, Import, click on RSS locate the .rss file created and that’s it. You should now have all your old posts loaded back into the blog.

For a Wordpress.com blog you need to do some extra steps. Sadly for whatever reason Wordpress.com does not allow you to import an RSS file. See nothing is ever easy.

Firstly you are going to have to install Wordpress locally! Now don’t worry that sounds harder than it actually is. Especially if you follow the steps detailed in this excellent blog post HERE.

Once you have XAMPP up and running with Wordpress, log in, go to the Dashboard, go to Tools and Import. Yes this sounds awfully like what the self hosted lot have just done, and it is. So I won’t continue with the steps just read what they had to do.

Now with all the posts sitting there locally on your pc, go to Tools, Export and export your blog posts out as wxr file to your hard drive.

Now log in to your Wordpress.com blog, go to the Tools section and Import and select Import Wordpress blog and follow the prompts.

That’s it, you have you lost posts back up.

Phew!!!

Getting Your Deleted Blog Back

Ok for whatever reason your blog has been deleted. It then dawns on you that you don’t have a back up to fall back on. Don’t worry all is not lost.

Using Google Reader

Hopefully you are subscribing to your own RSS feed in Google Reader, and that you are posting the complete post to your RSS feed and not a summary. If you are doing both then getting your content back is going to be really quick and minimum effort.

Google Reader doesn’t just allow you to read RSS feeds that you subscribe to, it also caches the feed and archives it. That’s why when you scroll down when reading the feed you can read all the previous posts of that feed.

It’s this caching and archiving that we are going to be making use of now to get our deleted blog posts back.

In an web browser enter the following URL in the address bar:

http://www.google.com/reader/atom/feed/FEED_URL?r=n&n=NUM_ITEMS

Replace the FEED_URL with the feeds address, and replace NUM_ITEMS with the number of posts you want to retrieve.

Here is an example that retrieves the last 100 posts from my Outdoors Blog Whitespider1066.com:

http://www.google.com/reader/atom/feed/http%3A%2F%2Fwhitespider1066.com%2F%3Ffeed%3Drss2?hl=en?r=n&n=100

What is returned is an ATOM/XML file that you can save to your local hard disk. This file can then be imported into your blogging software and thus restoring your lost blog posts.

Using Google Cache

Ok the above Google Reader way was the easy option if you met the conditions I mentioned at the start of it. The remaining ways require effort. This particular way is also useful if you have any static pages you want to recover as well.

Hopefully you haven’t banned Google from crawling your blog. Which means that Google has indexed your blog. So what we need to do is find out what Google has indexed. We do this with the following command in the Google Search box:

site:NAME_OF_BLOG

for example:

site:whitespider1066.com

You then get a list of entries that Google has indexed. Below each entry found is a link to a cached version of that entry (see screen grab left). Click this and it takes you to that cached copy of the post.

If there are images on the page, you can right click and “save as” these if you don’t have a back up of them already.

Next you need to view the source code of the cached page that you are viewing. Select the code that starts with the title, and finishes with the close paragraph tag. Copy this, and then paste into a text file.

Repeat this process of viewing the cached copy, viewing page source and cutting and pasting for each of the posts/pages you want to recover.

I’m assuming a Wordpress blog from this point on. Log into your Wordpress blog, and go to the Write Post screen. Copy and paste from the text file the title of the post, then switch from “visual” mode to “code”. Then paste in the rest of the  post, starting with the paragraph tag that opens the post and the stopping with the end paragraph tag that the post finishes with. The benefit of doing it this way is that it keeps any links and images intact without having to redo them.

Finally the timestamp can be set in Wordpress using the Post Timestamp option to that of the original post. That can be found between the title and and the post content that we have cut and pasted.

Now you have to repeat this for each post. See how much more effort this is to just getting the RSS feed cache from Google Reader. I bet you wished you had posted the full post now.

Warrick

I’ve not used this option, but it is a third way that seems to automate the process of getting the copies of your blog/website from the stored caches from several sources. Having not used it I can’t say how easy it is either in getting the data back up either. But having said that it’s worth checking out when your back is against the wall.

Here is the link to Warrick.

Of course all of the above does not replace doing regular backups of your blog.

The Little Photo Lab On Your Phone

I wrote the following post for my blog whitespider1066.com but thought it may be of interest and totally suitable for the readers of here as well. I’ll apologise for those that read both for duplicating the post.Oh there is a difference for some reason WLW and blogger don’t like me posting images! SO I have had to remove the screen shots that I was able to post over on whitespider1066.com.

Roger in the comments on the post “The Best Camera” asked me what iPhone apps I used to generate the photo that I posted. I thought that this would be easier to answer with a blog post than with a comment. Well I wanted to break up the OTS coverage, and to post a couple of screen shots from the iPhone. Any ol’ excuse to be geeky really.

The iPhone I have is the 3G which has a 2 mega pixel camera, unlike the 3GS which has a 3 mega pixel camera that also shoots video. The other difference is that the camera on the 3GS also has an auto focus, plus you can also select the area to focus on by touching the point on the screen. So those with the 3GS should be getting better results than I can with my 3G.

The iPhone has some great apps to allow you to manipulate photos while away from your pc/Mac. Which makes it really useful when out on the hills or doing a multi-day hike to live blog and attach images to the post.

After taking the photo using the camera on my iPhone I then load the photo into Photogene. Photogene costs £1.79 from the App Store, but is a very handy power packed tool. For starters it allows you to crop and straighten a photo. Plus enhance photos with multiple colour adjustment options and a sharpen filter. You can also add effects like text balloons, frames or special filters.

So using Photogene I cropped the photo, used the auto colour correct, and applied a frame to the picture (in this case the sticky tape on the corners).

The resulting picture I saved and loaded in to Collage Lite. Collage Lite is the  free limited version of Collage. Lite versions are the way you get to try before you buy in the iPhone App Store world. In Collage Lite the limitations are that you are limited to four photos and that you don’t get the crop functionality. At the moment the Lite meets my needs, but the full blown version is only 59p so like a lot of iPhone apps not going to break the bank. So using Collage Lite I assembled the photos to make the simple collage that you saw.

As I commented on the blog posting I just thought that it would be a fun way to present the photos that I had taken on the iPhone. We need to have fun sometimes.

So there you have the two apps that I used for the picture I posted. However I have a couple of other apps that I use as well. The first app is Pano. This app allows you to take panoramic photos using the iPhone and costs £1.79 on the App Store.

So as you can see on this post I have screen shots of the iPhone. How did I do them and get them on my netbook so I can use them in this post?

To take a screen shot on the iPhone quickly press and release the Sleep/Wake and Home buttons at the same time. A white flash of the screen lets you know the screenshot was taken, you will also hear an audible queue as well. The screenshot just taken is then added to the Camera Roll on your iPhone. Simple and very handy.

I then had to get this onto my netbook. Sadly my netbook does not have iTunes on it, and I only sync my iPhone with my Macbook anyway. So how to transfer files? Dropbox that’s how. Dropbox gives you 2GB of free online storage, and they have just released a free iPhone app. So with a small install of the Dropbox software on my netbook and creating a free account I was able to sync the photos quickly across from the iPhone to the netbook to be used in this post.

CropForFree is a free app that allows you to crop an image. It is a new one that I have recently downloaded to have a  look at. But with cropping already in Photogene and in Collage (if I buy full version) unless this adds something really special I can see this one being deleted from my iPhone. But still a handy one to know about if you want to crop without splashing out any cash.

Another app I have just downloaded is NoiseBlaster at 59p. It’s by the same author as Photogene, so it has a good pedigree. As the author describes it “NoiseBlaster implements an advanced algorithm, specifically designed to remove the noise created by the iPhone camera”.

So I hope that answered your question, and I haven’t bored you.

Lilly Allen, File Sharing And My Thoughts

In the last week or so Lilly Allen has caused a bit of a stir on line with her “blog”. Well calling it a bit of a stir is an under statement, more like a shit storm. I can’t link to what she wrote, because she has taken the offending postings down. However I did get a chance to read them before they were removed. Basically Lilly came out in support of the Labour Governments plan to remove repeat file sharers from the web.

Since the shit storm, Lilly has backed down a little or in her words “had a rethink” and is now in favour of not disconnecting them but cutting the amount of band width down that they can use.

See I can understand Labour coming up with their blinkered bought view. Lets face it they have taken the music industries money. And yes we can argue that Lilly has also.

But there is a difference.

Lilly stated that file sharing hurt artists and stops new talent being discovered. I disagree, the music industry has been exploiting musicians and ripping off the public for decades. Which they were able to get away with while they were the gatekeepers to what we got to see and hear.

But the music industry got caught napping. The internet came along, and as it has in so many other industries it has removed the gatekeeper. For the music fan the internet has been a positive thing. It has forced down the price of owning music, from cd’s to being able to get individual tracks as downloads.

Yes there is still lots of music that gets downloaded for free. But it is incorrect to assume that these are lost sales. Very often these are people that would never of bought the record anyway

For years now musicians have made their money from touring and merchandise, and not record sales. The only people profiting from the record sales are the record companies.

Musicians need to get fans to come along to the concerts and buy merchandise. How do they do that? Have as many people listen to their music as possible. With the logic being “oh I like that group I’ll go and see them play live”. The only thing that I can see that will get in the way of this is if the artist/musicians involved get a rep for miming to their songs when playing live. That is unforgivable. Plus will put fans off from going to see them live.

Maybe Lilly could answer the question from all the money that the RIAA has gotten in the fines awarded by the courts in the US, how much of that has actually made it back to the artists?

Despite what Lilly has said the internet has made it easier for new artists. It has enabled them to build a fan base, and get their music out to the public easier. It has also enabled established acts to connect with their fans in a more direct way. In fact it has removed the barrier of entry for the artists of getting their music out there.

Now I can see why there were personal attacks on Lilly from the online community. They felt that Lilly was attacking them. Which in a way I think she was. But that doesn’t justify the personal attacks. I think you can debate/discuss the issues and the points raised without getting personal. If you make it personal then how can you ever hope to change a persons mind with your reasoned argument? That person won’t be listening to what you have to say.

I feel sorry for Lilly. I don’t think she realised how much her fans, and the public feel about this subject. If Lilly reads this which I doubt she ever will, I would like to invite her up North to discuss this subject on camera over a cuppa while out with my dogs. I think it would make a great vidcast. One day, one of these celebs will accept the invite and then I’m done for as I won’t be prepared.

Some Great Free Stuff From Microsoft

Wow I bet that title shocked folks. Yep Microsoft do some great stuff, and it is free as well!

Windows Live Writer (WLW) – I had to start with this it for me is the best bit of blogging software out there at the moment. So good in fact that on my Macbook I have VMWare Fusion running an XP virtual machine so I can use WLW on my Macbook. It really is worth the effort. There are also some nice free plugins that can be installed that expand it’s functionality.

Windows Live Photos (WLP) – You can install this at the same time as you install WLW, which I do recommend. There is one feature here that I find very useful indeed, and that is the ability to stitch photos together to make a panorama (details here). You can see the results I got from a panorama I did with it here.

Live Mesh – 5GB of online storage for your files. Runs on Windows (naturally), Macs (although there is a Snow Leopard incompatibility at the moment), the web and other mobile devices (no iPhone client yet). So 5GB of synced stored files, and the ability to access the desk top of the computer as well. So when you are away from your desk or office your able to get easy access to them and the apps that access them.

Office Live – Want another 5GB of storage just for your office documents? Want to collaborate on them as well? Then this great M$ freebie is just for you.

Sky Drive – 25GB of online storage! Yep a massive 25GB of free online storage. ‘nuff said really.

Of course with the above there may be file size restrictions. But if you are using these to back up photos, documents and the odd mp3, then this shouldn’t be a problem.

So using three free Microsoft services I make that 35GB of free online storage. Not bad if you ask me. Plus don’t forget when Office 10 comes out there will be a free online version of that to include in this list. It won’t be the full version naturally, but hopefully be more functional than Google Docs. I think that Google Docs will have some pretty stiff competition.

Yet Another “Social Media” Phone

Yet again another new phone that is aimed as a “social media” phone. This time it’s a Google Android phone from Motorola. I hate it when the phone company or network provider try to sell a new phone trying to ride on the back of “social media”. I’ve ranted about this previously about Nokia.

What they are trying to pass off as a “unique selling point” isn’t really. Any “smart phone” that can have apps installed on it can be a “social media” phone. The Google Android G1 phone is a “social media” phone, as is the Blackberry and the iPhone along with the Palm Pre. They all have Twitter and Facebook apps, plus other apps to hook up to other social networks. Also the majority of these apps are free and pretty good as well. In fact I prefer accessing Facebook from my iPhone to using the website (yes the apps can be that good).

I suppose to a general population that is none the wiser then this “unique selling point” may get them the odd extra sale. For those in the know we just aren’t fooled by this sales/marketing snow job.

My Top iPhone Apps

I've not posted anything on here for awhile. Well I've not had much to say on tech, so why bore you with senseless rambles? So I thought I would do this post about the apps on my iPhone that I am currently using the most at the moment.

TweetDeck (itunes link) (FREE)

TweetDeck is a very very popular multi-platform Twitter client for the desk top, which has been replicated on the iPhone. The initial version was a bit unstable, but that was soon fixed. The nice thing about this app is that it syncs the columns from the desktop version with this mobile version. There are a couple of features I would like to see in this that would make it my primary Twitter app and allow me to remove Tweetie. The first of those is the ability to see the current trending topics, and the second is the nearby feature. A tweet and walk mode would be handy as well.

Wordpress (itunes link) (FREE)

If you have a Wordpress blog then this is the app on the iPhone that you need. It supports multiple Wordpress blogs, allows you to not just do posts, but pages and comments as well. Only thing I would like to see added to this app is a bit more control over the images in the posts, ie not just having them put at the end of the post but allowed to have them within the text and have the text flow round them. But other wise this is a very very good blogging app.

Tomtom (itunes link) (GBP 59.99 for UK & Ireland)

Shown at the Apple event where they showed off version 3 of the iPhone OS. I along with many others have been waiting for this to come out. For me in the last couple of weeks even more so (well since my Tomtom was stolen from my car). There are a couple of features that are missing from the dedicated Tomtom device, which I hope they will add soon, such as allowing speed camera updates, along with map updates as well. There are other features I want added back in. Plus there is a difference in the routes the iPhone version comes up with compared to the Tomtom 920t I had. For instance the 920 when driving to my Nans would take me from the A1 to Wisbech via the A17. Where as the iPhone version takes me via the A47 and Peterborough. Even with these differences and missing features I still like this app a LOT.

AroundMe (itunes link) (FREE)

I love apps like this that are location based (and they will only get better with the augmented reality stuff that is becoming available on the 3GS). This one will tell you the location of places like Banks/ATM, bars, coffee shops,gas stations etc based on your current location. It will even give you directions as well.

SitOrSquat (itunes link) (FREE)

Another location based iPhone app this time one that tells you were the nearest public toilet is. Which when in a strange town/city is a very very handy thing to know.

Facebook (itunes link) (FREE)

The version 2 had a great interface that I preferred to actually using the web site itself. However the app has just got even better with version 3. If you are on Facebook and don't have this on the iPhone then what are you doing?

Google Mobile App (itunes link) (FREE)

Voice search and links to the Google Apps. A very very cool and handy app to have. It's great showing off the iPhone using the voice search.

Skype (itunes link) (FREE)

If you are a Skype user then you need this. Can only be used over wifi (as if O2 would allow us to make free calls over 3G), but still very useful to have.

Shazam (itunes link) (FREE)

Oh I love this app. It identifies music from a short snippet, great when you are watching a tv program or film and think wow what is that tune. How did we manage before this app came out?

Tube Delux (itunes link) (GBP 0.59)

I got this for my infrequent visits to London. Very handy to have, status updates, trip planner, departure info, even push notifications.

Sky News (itunes link) (FREE)

An app that links to Sky News. Even allows you to watch video of the news. Nice interface, does as it says on the can really. I like this one a lot as well.

Sky+ (itunes link) (FREE)

Once setup you won't have to miss another program on tv again. Select the program you want to record and your Sky+ box is programmed instantly to record it. It would be nice if the tv schedules pre-loaded at the start of each week so it was a bit faster, and that when setting something to record you could also set it up as a series link. But these are minor quibbles for what is still a great app. Also while I think about it, it would be nice if you could set it up so that it will search the schedules for you to tell you when there is stuff that maybe of interest on. A good app that could with a couple of features added be amazing.

Sky Sports Live Football Score Centre (itunes link) (FREE)

Now the season has started this is a must for football fans.

AirVideo (itunes link) (GBP 1.79)

With a free pc/Mac server software you are able to stream video from your pc/Mac over your network to your iPhone. Don't worry about the file format of the video not being iPhone compatible the server software converts on the fly!

TUAW (itunes link) (FREE)

I've just installed this as it has just become available. It's a very handy app for reading The Unofficial Apple Weblog.

I also play some games from time to time. The following are the ones I am finding myself going back to time and time again.

FlightControl (itunes link) (GBP 0.59)

I've just got into this one,and boy is it addictive. Cheap crack should never be this good!

FieldRunners (itunes link) (GBP 1.79)

A great tower defense clone, addictive. I start this and somehow an hour just disappears before I know it.

Bejeweled 2 (itunes link) (GBP 1.79)

King of the casual games, but still a classic that I enjoy.

Stating The Bloody Obvious Part 2

In another one of the “stating the bloody obvious” The Guardian and other newspapers and websites have been reporting  “Twitter is not for teens, Morgan Stanley told by 15-year-old expert” (read the full report here).

The so called “technorati” that live in that closed bubble called London are loving the story.

No one seems to be saying “der!” What strikes me from this story is that it “generated a flurry of interest from media executives and investors.” Morgan Stanley also said “We've had dozens and dozens of fund managers, and several CEOs, e-mailing and calling all day.” How has this surprised these powerful men? I would imagine a lot of them have trophy wives and children. Some of these children may even be teenagers. So I ask again why is this such surprising news for them? I can only assume that even though they have these families that their home work life balance is so heavily skewed towards work that they don’t talk or know their own children.

Those working in the City are well known for having a long working day, in early and out late. They then also work weekends as well. Even on family holidays they tend to take work with them, and are constantly checking emails etc. So where in this life style have they had time to spend with their families? If they spoke to their teenage children then they would know all this already, or a lot of it. They have this expert in their own homes that they ignore. They use the excuse that they are keeping a roof over the heads of the family, putting food on the plate etc. But I ask at what cost?

As I write this post the lyrics for the song Cats In The Cradle keep coming to mind. Maybe these City types with families should all have this on their MP3 players and have to listen to it daily to remind them

The real news story isn’t that a 15 year old has said his peers don’t use Twitter, or own expensive smart phones, and use pay as you go. The real news story is as I pointed out that City executives do not have relationships with their families.

I’ll write about the London based “technorati” and how they are so up each others arse some other time.

Microsoft Security Advisory For Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 Users

If you are running Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 then you will need to take heed of a new Security Advisory being issued by Microsoft. The vulnerability is “in Microsoft Video ActiveX Control. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the local user. When using Internet Explorer, code execution is remote and may not require any user intervention.”

Microsoft are saying that:

“For Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 customers, Microsoft is recommending removing support for this ActiveX Control within Internet Explorer using all the Class Identifiers listed in the Workaround section. Though unaffected by this vulnerability, Microsoft is recommending that Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 customers remove support for this ActiveX Control within Internet Explorer using the same Class Identifiers as a defense-in-depth measure.”

As you can see from the above quote Microsoft are also recommending that Vista and Windows Server 2008 users also do this.

There is an automated fix for this available from Microsoft, which makes things easier for you.

You can get the Microsoft fix at the following link:

“Microsoft Security Advisory: Vulnerability in Microsoft Video ActiveX control could allow remote code execution”

For those that want to read more go to the following link:

“Microsoft Security Advisory (972890) Vulnerability in Microsoft Video ActiveX Control Could Allow Remote Code Execution”

Setting Up A New Site

Well it’s been a busy busy day. I have been registering a new domain, and setting up a website for it.

For the website I am using Wordpress as a CMS. I’m not going with the usual blog set up of when you land on the site of seeing the blog and the latest blog entries. Instead visitors will land on a static webpage.

Once the installation of Wordpress was done, it was then a matter of installing the plugins that I needed. Followed by configuring the plugins, which for one or two meant setting up appropriate accounts elsewhere. So the new site has been added to my Google Analytics account, and also the RSS feeds have been added to Feedburner.

I also spent some time looking through for a suitable theme for the new site. Which has been installed, and just in need of configuring to suit my needs. By that I mean changing default graphics, and adding the widgets to the right hand side bar that I want to be there. The really great thing about Wordpress 2.8 is that installing new themes and plugins is really simple. They have really made it easy for a non-techie to install change things.

I also have a google mail account setup now as well for this new site/enterprise. Which I have added to my iPhone so I can check the email on the move, as I do with my personal email account already.

My next task is to get content up on the site, which I have already started. I need to write copy for the welcome page, and the other pages, get my graphics and logo up. The contact page has already been done, for which I have a contact form for visitors/potential clients to email me. There is an initial blog entry up as well, which is the Facebook and MI6 post I wrote on here with an extra paragraph tagged on the end. I will also expand the last case study to a bit more detail. Plus there will be more case studies going up over there, along with some of the more suitable previous posts from here.

I still have a Facebook Fan Page to do, along with adding a FriendFeed stream, and my delicious account to the new site. These last two will hopefully add useful resources for visitors. Might also add a Twitter stream as well. Plus I almost forgot to do a LinkedIn page as well.

So much to think of and set up,so little time.

Facebook Privacy And MI6

I woke up today with Radio 5 covering the following story “MI6 boss in Facebook entry row”. My first thoughts were how did this happen? Had the next MI6 Bosses wife friended reporters from The Mail on Sunday? Had she not set her privacy settings correctly?

Well the answer was the later,  “She had not imposed privacy protection on her account, allowing any of Facebook's 200 million users in the open-access "London" network to see the entries, it added.”

Now there are calls from politicians and security experts for an inquiry to what happened, and the security implications. Well let me save them some money and more importantly the tax payer some money from a lengthy inquiry. They can look at the security implications for the new boss and his family. I’ll tell them what happened. It basically falls down to a lack of education. That’s it, nothing else.

You can’t stop the families of these “V.I.P’s” from using the social networks that everyone else is using. What you can do is educate them. Tell them how to set their privacy settings, not to friend people left right and centre, to also think about what they are posting.

But I should point out that it’s not just the families of the “V.I.P.’s” that need educating I think everyone needs to be educated. Especially our young. How many times have we seen stories of teenagers falling foul of something they have posted on a social media site of some sort? Surely at our schools and collages there should be a compulsory lesson or two about using social media sites. Within one of those lessons they should cover privacy settings, and protecting your identity. It’s the least we have to do to prepare our youth for a life online.

It’s not hard to get the information about setting the privacy settings on Facebook. A quick search on Google finds some good advice out there. So it seems pointless of me to re-write all this advice again. Here are a couple of links I think folks should read.

10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know

Facebook best practice

Case Study: A Driving School Start Up

Recently a friend went solo and started his own driving school. Naturally like all small businesses he had a website done (Pass My Way). I think the logic goes get a web site and let the good times roll. Sadly it’s not like that on the web. Getting good search engine rankings so folks find you requires some time and effort, and not just as a one off but on a regular basis.

What follows are some things that I Stephen can do that will improve the website, how it is found, and hopefully get Stephen more business.

Email Signature

Currently when Stephen sends an email it has no signature on it. The first thing I would recommend is that he add a signature to his emails that has contact details on along with the websites address. It’s an easy thing to do, costs nothing and promotes the website.

Use Facebook Properly

The next recommendation I would make is for Stephen not to friend any of his pupils on Facebook. The personal Facebook account should be for friends and family only. But I’m not saying to ignore Facebook. What Stephen needs to do is set up a Fan Page for his website. Which naturally will point folks back to his website. But it will also allow Stephen to interact with possible customers, and hopefully turn them into a paying customer. But this is something that will require time and effort. I’d also add the Facebook Fan Page URL to the email signature.

Don’t forget business cards and stationery

I’ve mentioned the email signature having his website URL on along with the Facebook Fan Page URL. But this needs to be added to any stationery and business cards that he has as well.

Web2.0 and social media is not always the silver bullet

I’m not going to recommend Twitter or starting a blog. These things take a lot of time and commitment, and let’s face it they are not the answer to everything. And in this instance I don’t think that the time and effort that they would require would give a good ROI.

Contact via website

When you look at the site there is a booking form for prospective customers to book a lesson with. However to send any other query they use a mailto link. I’m not a big fan of mailto links. I much prefer contact forms. To me having both methods does not come across as consistent either. They should stick to one, and that one should be a contact form in my opinion.

While I’m talking about queries from prospective clients, I want to mention about keeping the FAQ on the site updated. Every time a query comes in (via email or the Facebook Fan page) Stephen should be thinking does this need adding to the FAQ? If it does then it should be added to the FAQ. Also the FAQ should be reviewed every so often to make sure that the information is still relevant or needs updating.

Google

Doing a Google search for “driving lessons Farnborough” gives the following at the top of the search results.

The top three are the Sponsored Links, which are paid for links. But then we have the Local business results.

Stephen needs to get his site listed here, luckily this is something that can be done for free. Once again it will require some time and effort, but doesn’t everything?

Which brings us nicely on to Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Stephen should look into this. It will enable him to increase the ranking of his website. HOWEVER this is not a do once and forget thing. It will require time and effort on a regular basis. It also includes the next two or three suggestions as well.

Know your enemy

Stephen should be regularly looking at the websites of his rivals. Not just as part of any SEO that he is doing but also from keeping an eye on what they are doing. He can take ideas from their sites that might work for him on his, sites always need improving. It will also allow Stephen to respond to any special offers that rivals introduce, keep an eye on their rates. It’s a dog eat dog world and the last thing you want to do is be caught sleeping.

Google Analytics

Looking at the HTML for the website there is no Google Analytics Tracking Code (GATC).Which unless he is getting some stats from the server hosting the site means Stephen is getting no feedback about his site. So as a matter of priority Stephen needs to get his web developer to add the GATC to his site even if he has server side stats being generated. It doesn’t hurt to have two different opinions, plus the Google Analytics can link in with a Google Adwords campaign.

Google Adwords

Which brings me on to Stephen possibly thinking about running a Google Adwords campaign. Now I can see some of the keywords that Stephen has had put in the sites meta tags being popular and expensive. This means that Stephen will have to look at secondary keywords to advertise against.

Being contactable

One thing I think that Stephen should be while he is out, and between lessons is contactable not just be phone but by email as well. I know that Stephen has a laptop, but that is too big to keep in the car out of eyesight of thievin’ gits. So I would look at maybe getting a smartphone like an iPhone or a Blackberry to pick up emails and respond to them. Another option would be to get a netbook like a Compaq 702 10.2-inch Mini Note with a USB 3G card. There are several deals around on these and one can be found that matches the budget available.

I think that is enough to be getting on with. Stephen has a steep learning curve ahead of him. I haven’t gone into great detail on some of these like the analytics or SEO stuff. These are big subjects and I couldn’t do them justice in this post. With a bit of reading, some time and effort, maybe a little bit of money, he should see an increase in traffic to his website and from there an increase in people booking lessons with him.

If you run a small business and would like some impartial advice at a reasonable price either for your website or company IT drop me a line via the contact form on the right.

Cool XBox360 Announcements From E3

At this years E3 Microsoft made some cool announcements for the XBox360. Here I’m going to look at the three that I think will have the biggest impact on the home.

The first of which was to announce that this Autumn Sky will be coming to the 360. Which is a pretty good move on both parts. It’s not clear at the moment exactly which channels will be available, or what the costs will be. But for Sky this means that they can get into all those homes that have cable and by pass the cable provider. A lot of 360’s are in the bedroom, and this announcement means that there is a way to get Sky into those bedrooms with out having to have a second Sky box, or pay for that second installation. For Microsoft this helps them position the 360 as the only box that you need under your tv in the living room.

But one of the exciting things that you will be able to do with the Live Sky broadcasts like football matches is the live chat. So if you and your mates are all watching the match on your 360’s you will be able to use the headsets and have all the banter while the game is on. Just like you do while playing Call Of Duty 4 or Halo 3 at the moment.

Over the last couple of years you can’t escape the impact that social media sites like Facebook and Twitter are having. So the next announcement from Microsoft for the 360 will come as no surprise either. This Autumn Microsoft will be adding the ability for you to access your Facebook and Twitter accounts via Xbox Live. For this to be of real use to people they will need to get the messenger kit. This adds a little keyboard to the 360 controller that makes typing easier. So I expect to see sales of this messenger kit increase once this is available to use.

The final announcement that will be of interest to folks is Project Natal. So what is Project Natal? Well it’s a controller free controller! At a basic level think of the Wii sensor bar on steroids, but you don’t need the Wii remotes, or the need for a WiiFit board. It is easier to show what it does than write about it. So watch this video showing what Project Natal can do.

But the most impressive and incredible use for Project Natal was shown by Lionhead with their Milo demo. Just watch the following clip, it’s breath taking.

So can Project Natal be a Wii beater? If it works as well as the demos then I think it can and will be a game changer for the Game Industry. I’m so looking forward to when we can get this technology in our living room.

WWDC Next week

Next week is WWDC. Which is an Apple event for developers. There are many expectations for next week about what Apple will be announcing.

There is probably going to be something about Snow Leopard announced at the show. This is the next release of OS X that will be released to the world.

The other no brainer is that the next release of the iPhone firmware will be made available to the general public. But along side this there is the expectation that a new iPhone will be announced as well. The rumour mills are already in over drive with the expected new features to be seen.

But the rumour mill has also been saying that we may see a new Apple device/computer as well. Whether that is in the form of a netbook some sort or even the fabled tablet mac who knows.

Finally it is expected we will see Steve Jobs return back to the helm of Apple. But do we really think that in his time off that he has not been involved with the company in some form or other? But it will be good to see him back anyway.

So until the keynote has been delivered, and we know for sure what we will be getting. We can only dream of what could be.

iPhone Project

Well it’s been a while since I posted on here. Readers of my other blog (whitepsider1066.com) will know that I have completed my second TGO Challenge ( a west coast to east coast crossing of Scotland). Which has taken up a lot of my time in getting ready for that and then actually doing it.

Now that it is over I am now looking for work in the I.T. sector again. But with the current “economic downturn” that may be harder than I think.

But while walking the dogs round the local nature reserve on Thursday I did have an idea for an iPhone app. Well there were a couple of ideas. The first idea was for an iPhone tv guide app, that would have alerts (set up by the user). These alerts would pop up when programs you are following or maybe actors or whatever appeared in the schedule letting you know that you may want to watch or record the program.

The other iPhone app I thought of I’m not going to mention on here. At the moment I’m trying to get some backing to develop it into a commercial product. So you will understand why I’m not giving out specifics. I do have one possible interested party in the idea but it is early days still at the moment.

What I will do though is talk iPhone apps and their development in the coming weeks. You have been warned.

Audio Books

Over on my other blog I from time to time sing the praises of audio books. Particularly the ones from Audible.co.uk.

On my drive back from the South I was listening to some episodes of TWiT. One of the sponsors/advertisers on TWiT is Audible. Each episode the TWiT crew make suggestions for books you might like to listen to from the Audible catelog.

These weekly picks are a great way of finding a way to spend your monthly credit that you get with the subscription. Sadly sometimes the recommendation is only available in the US version of the site. I think this is down to licensing issues.

As I listened to the discussion I thought about what was it that made me like listening to audio books.

I thought back to my formative years, and the great program that the BBC used to have on for children called Jackanory. This was a book broken up in to several parts and read by a presenter. In some ways audio books remind me of this program but with out the visual element.

But I thought it can’t be just that. Does it at some level take me back to those times when a parent would read to me in bed at bedtime? I think to some extent yes it does invoke those memories. I do remember my dad reading to me as a kid at bedtime, particularly Robin Hood.

There is another benefit about audio books, you can have rather a lot of them on your ipod and they don’t take up any extra space or add any extra weight to the ipod.

But whatever your reason for listening to them, you can’t escape the fact that the Audible.co.uk is a good deal.

Remaining In Contact Update 1

Thought I would write an update on my initial experiences of using social media and technology to keep in contact with Nathan after I moved up North.

Before I left on Nathan’s pc I installed Skype, bought him a web cam and installed, then set up a short cut up on his desktop to my blog.

Nath and I both have Xbox Live Gold accounts for our Xbox360’s. So we are able to send messages to each other via Xbox Live. Xbox Live is great for keeping in touch. Nath can send me a text or voice message. To aid in the sending of text messages Nath and I both have the messenger kit. This is a small QWERTY keyboard that plugs into the 360 controller. We both use this when sending text messages to each other via Xbox Live.

But Xbox Live comes into it’s own with games. Nath and I can and have games evenings playing games online with each other. It’s good fun playing Texas Hold ‘Em or Uno while chatting away using the headset. Sound quality isn’t amazing but it’s good enough (just).

Another great feature is private chat, so Nath and I can chat away with each other while playing different games. We spent two hours doing this one Sunday afternoon. I was playing Doom and I think Nath was playing Saints Row 2.

Nath and I have also been using Skype with video to chat with each other as well. Skype is great, easy to use and Nath can call me whenever he likes. The video side I think adds more to the call for Nath.

When Nath came to visit I was impressed and touched to find out that Nath actually visited my blog regularly to see what I was up to. So that seems to be working ok at the moment.

So far the use of social media and other tech seems to be working. It’s enabling the both of us to stay in contact easily with the minimum of effort. The proof  is the fact that Nath is using it himself without me prompting him. Several times now Nath has been the one to make the Skype call. So all in all a very positive experience so far.

What Does A Blogger Take To Cover A Show?

We all see and follow the tech blogs that cover industry events and live blog Apple Announcements. But what tech do they take with them to do all this? Very rarely do we get to peak behind the curtains to see what they are using.

So I thought I would write about what tech I take with me to cover outdoors events like The Outdoors Show at the NEC. This kit has grown and changed since I started blogging. By that I mean I didn't start out with all this stuff, IIRC my first show I live blogged I used only an MDA Pro (it's a PDA/Smartphone).

Phone: iPhone 3G

I love my iPhone, it is a dream blogging device. Mainly due to the apps you can put on it. Using the free Wordpress app I am able to write a blog post and attach a photo without having to rely on a third party (as I did previously) to post a photo from the show floor. But I can also update social media sites as well such as Facebook and Twitter if I want with the appropriate app. I also have a voice note app on there that I can record notes on or do an audio interview with. Oh and it makes phone calls apparently as well ;-)

But all the above on the iPhone takes power, and eats up the battery. So to increase the battery life so I can get through the day I have just got a mophie juice pack.

Camera: Olympus SP-565UZ

I don't have an DSLR at the moment (that is planned, but way off in the future). But as folks have seen I have been getting some pretty decent photos with this camera on my walks (see whitespider1066.com for examples). So this is the camera I will be using at the moment.

Video Camera: Flip Mino

What a great little video camera. Not much I can say about this really. It showed it's worth last year at a trade show I went to when I was able to capture demos on the stands. If it arrives in time there maybe a second video camera going along as well which will allow me to record in HD!

Laptop/Netbook: Compaq 702 10.2-inch Mini Note

Last year I took a eee pc with me. It is a nice little netbook (it has a new home to go to), so I have replaced it with this XP based netbook from Compaq. Built in webcam, able to use Windows Live Writer, if need be I can do a quick video edit, or crop a photo. The netbook allows me to write longer better posts, and get them up. Last year the eee pc was used in the evening to write up that days blog entry ready to go up when I got home or net access (I spent two days at the show last year, and screwed up with no net access at the hotel).

Notepad and pen

Well you still can't beat the old pen and paper. It's the format I have been making my pre-show notes on ready for the day.

Well I hope that has given folks found that brief list helpful and informative.

iPhone 3.0

Yesterday evening  (5pm GMT) Apple held their big press conference to announce the next version of the software that runs the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Like some sad Apple groupie I was following the gdgt live text feed from the event. So sitting at a pc (yes not a Mac, I was at my aunts for the evening) for the duration of the event. As the presentation progressed I got more and more excited at was appearing on the screen.

I'm not going to go into much detail about what was announced, that is getting some excellent coverage elsewhere.

The software on the iPhone was good, there were one or two features folks wanted, but it was the best on the market by a long way. Add on to that the amazing amount of applications you can get for the iPhone and none of the competition was getting close to the iPhone.

Now it is over two years since the iPhone came out. In that time we have seen two interactions of the hardware, and now the third version of the operating system.

In the same time the competition has tried to catch up and compete with the iPhone. Which frankly I don't think they have done. Market leaders Nokia have had two years to come up with a smartphone to compete and their effort announced at a Nokia world event last year will only have just made it to market by the Summer. It was already looking like it was an also ran then, but even more so now.

BlackBerry bought out an "iPhone killer" last year that promised much, but just didn't deliver. Google released the G1 to much acclaim, and is still in my opinion at the moment the main competition to the iPhone. But the G1 has been hampered by poor battery life. Which has been due to the fact it can run apps in the background, and these apps cause the battery to run down even faster. Which I think is the reason why Apple said they wouldn't allow it. Somehow ironic I think that the phone aimed at beating the iPhone proves Apples point.

I will briefly mention that fact Microsoft with Windows Mobile are being left behind. They are still talking about their next release of the operating system, which is still about a year away. It will have to be something something very very special to move folks away from the iPhone, and to compete with everyone else. I think the next release will be more evolution than revolution, and may well be the last version we see of this OS.

Finally we have what could be a true "iPhone killer" coming to market very soon, the Palm Pre. The Palm Pre is the last roll of the dice from Palm to save the company. Which looks like a very good last roll as well. The Pre was worked on by some ex-Apple iPhone guys, which as we know from using the iPhone they know a thing or two about smartphones.

The Pre is bad news for Nokia, as it makes their poor effort look even worse. I still can't believe that Nokia have got it so wrong after taking so long to come up with that phone. The Pre was good news for iPhone users. It is (or could be) the first competitor to get close to the iPhone. Competition is good.

I think it is with one eye on the Pre that Apple released version 3 of the iPhone OS yesterday. The best just got even better. The bar has been raised again, and it will be interesting to see how the competition reacts.

In the meantime I am getting excited about all the 100 new features added for users. But also about the new apps that third parties will be developing that will come out making use of the new 1000 API's they can use.

This Summer it's going to be great playing with these new apps and features, I can't wait.

Don't Forget Apple Event This Evening

Don't forget that this evening (UK time) that Apple will be holding a press conference to announce details of the iPhone 3.0 software. This new release is rumoured to have the long awaited and demanded cut and paste.

Other chatter/rumours on the net also say that this release of the iPhone software takes it up to the same level as the new Palm Pre. Although it will not apparently have MMS or video in this release.

So I can't wait to see what new additions I will have for my iPhone 3G, which I LOVE. All these great apps you can get for it make it the best "smartphone" on the market.

More later...

Frustrated At Fleet Pond Blog

I've been getting very frustrated over at the Fleet Pond Blog as they will not allow me to post a comment with links in.

The intent of the posting was to answer a question they had asked, and also to point them to some recent links that I have done about Fleet Pond that I think they would like.

Heck some of my favourite pictures are in these links I was suggesting.

Anyway I would dig out the links, click post and the comment just disappears off into the ether.

They use WordPress, same as I do. It is easy to configure to ask for approval of comments with links in, it's what I do. WordPress also can email you letting you know when comments have been made, or need approving. Once again this is what I do.

I suppose what is also frustrating is there is no way to email the guy running it on the blog either. Which is a major no no. There has to be some way for folks to contact you directly via the blog. Not everyone wants to leave a comment, and as in this case if there is a problem how do they contact them?

So while the Fleet Pond Blog is a nice little blog about Fleet Pond. It does fail a bit in encouraging and facilitating discussion. Yet by making some very simple changes they could make things easier for their readers to comment and communicate with them.

For those interested here is what I tried to tell them, but it won't allow me. It may sound a bit short tempered, and to the point. That's just the frustration coming through.

"Well for starters, it appears there are no CountryFile magazine readers following this blog. In the February issue there was a mention of Fleet Pond in the Rural Retreats section.
I also suggested that the fungi was Yellow Brain Fungus. Which I had photographed at Fleet Pond as well here http://whitespider1066.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/p2110068.jpg

I also suggested you might be interested in some of my other posts about Fleet Pond
http://whitespider1066.com/2009/02/more-fleet-pond-indulgences/
http://whitespider1066.com/2009/02/recent-fleet-pond-pictures/
http://whitespider1066.com/2009/01/more-water-fowl/
http://whitespider1066.com/2009/01/black-swan-of-the-family/
http://whitespider1066.com/2009/01/rain-stopped-play/"

Some Wordpress SEO Stuff

See hardly nothing all month, and then two posts come along in quick succession just like buses.

I was having a browse through some of the blogging feeds I follow and came across this handy post on the ProBlogger site "How to Grow Your Blog to the Next Level With SEO".

Now I always find this sort of stuff interesting, I don't use all the advice they give. Mainly because of time, and I do have a life, and I am not making a living out of blogging so it is less important to me. However it does help to use some of these ideas from time to time, especially over on my main blog (whitespider1066.com).

In the third Wordpress video  in the article on the ProBlogger site they mention a Power Point presentation that can be downloaded. I managed to save you the effort of finding it by finding it for you. So if you are interested here is the presentation for downloading:

SEO Mistakes Most Bloggers Make - The Power Point Slides

Finally here is an interesting article on the subject of SEO by one of the guy that did the second video in the ProBlogger article Wordpress SEO Article.

Useful FREE Mac Program

I got the tip off for this from the rather excellent iJustine blog (ok it may help she is cute as well). So for those out there with a couple of Macs, and still use both of them, you may want to download teleport.

Here is how they describe it on the teleport site:

" teleport lets you use a single mouse and keyboard to control several Macs.
    Simply reach an edge of your screen, and your mouse teleports to your nearby Mac, which also becomes controlled by your keyboard. The pasteboard can be synchronized, and you can even drag & drop files between your Macs. "

Things To Come

Ok, not posted much on here recently. Main reason being I haven't had much to say about tech.

But soon there will be some posts up with reviews/impressions of some cool gadgets.

Remember I got a TomTom GPS at Christmas. Well I'll be giving some thoughts on that soon. I have an external 1TB hard drive coming for using with my Macbook. Plus I have a Satmap 10 GPS coming as well.

So plenty of gadget talk to come. Speak to you soon.

Interesting Links

Thought I would finally get round to linking to some of the interesting posts on other blogs that I have come across over the past few weeks. I hope you find them useful, informative etc etc.

Wordpress Links

• WordPress Post Content Sandbox Content Updated
• Wordpress Backup Database
• Setting up a local wordpress development environment

Blogging Links

• Why Video IS Worth Experimenting with On Your Blog
• How to Use Facebook to Promote Your Blog
• Blog Struggles: Trackbacks Count
• Pull Your Blog Into FriendFeed and Increase Exposure

Podcast/Vidcast Links

• Record a multi-participant podcast with GarageBand
• Gathering audio to go with your pictures
• Tips for Taking Home Video Like a Pro

Misc

• Check Your Company’s Reputation
• How to send a personal email
• CSS tips that every beginning developer should know about
• How to: Build a Social Media Cheat Sheet for Any Topic

Finally here is one I think everyone will like:

worlds best chai tea recipe

As I said I hope folks found these interesting, and I will do another brain dump like this soon.

Freedom2Surf Feck Up Again

I should of posted this yesterday, but wanted to give my ISP a chance. As a part of Freedom2Surfs continuing attempt to provide a crap service I currently have no email. It's been down since the early hours of yesterday (so over 24  hours now). It has had one or two emails through in that time. But ones I know I should have, have not come through. Like the email alerts I get when folks comment on here, or when a friend makes a comment on my Facebook page.

I could moan how the quality of service has just gone down hill with them since they were bought out. Especially in the last 3 months. Which in that time they have had more email outages and lose of ADSL than all of the 11 years or so that I have been with them put together. So something has changed at my ISP, and it's not for the better that is for sure.

So if you have sent me an email and I haven't replied in the last 24 hours, there is a good chance my ISP (Freedom2Surf) has fecked up delivering it to me.

Stating The Bloody Obvious

I couldn't resist linking to this story on Gizmodo "Microsoft Says Less Phones Will Have WinMo in the Future".

Apart from the fact in the story M$ are saying they will be the ones limiting the number of phones with their OS on. Somehow I think that with the other choices out there being better than the M$ offering, they may find that the manufacturers were already planning to use them less anyway.

Windows Mobile 7 needs to be something special to compete with the competition. Yet it is already late to the party. From the rumblings online I don't think it will be good enough to compete either.

So by force or by choice the M$ claim was always going to be stating the bloody obvious.