Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

When I tried to install the Logitech software, I was informed that there was already a Bluetooth stack installed. I previously had a NewLink adaper but it was uninstalled some time ago. Essentially, because of this existing piece of software, I am unable to install the Logitech Bluetooth suite or use the hub for anything other than the keyboard and mouse (Which are still working even though I keep deleting system files!).

Searching the Logitech site provided no answers and the forums weren’t much help either which was unusual and indicated that the problem must be new or unique to me. What have I done recently?? Hmm.. installed Windows XP SP2 with its new and improved Bluetooth functionality. I think this might be the cause. After some searching and attempts at disabling the M$ Bluetooth I came accross a Knowledgebase article that seemed to have the information I needed. When I get around to trying this, I will be sure to post my findings as I doubt I will be the first person to have this problem. My first tutorial… since the last one anyway!!

The Bluetooth keyboard is really nice; it is a very sexy almost metallic, titanium colour. The MX900 mouse is the same style and fits in very well with my other peripherals that all seem to follow the same colour trend… this was not by design but it definately looks good!! It’s such a relief that the keys in the lower right quarant no longer stick when pressed, I will not let Gringod around this setup with a beer!!! The Bluetooth hub/charger has integrated Caps/Num Lock lights which is an absolute godsend. I followed the connection procedure and all worked fine when I started the PC. It was at this stage that the positive experience started to take a run downhill!

First impressions on the Lexar Pro 1GB Cf card are good. It appears that the 80X Write Acceleration actually works and is more than just marketing hype. I am able to get 1 more shot into the buffer when on continuous shooting, the buffer quickly recovers and you can actually see that the CF card access light is only flashing for very short periods of time indicating that it is writing very quickly! The free recovery software came pre-loaded onto the card so I had to copy it off before I formatted. All in all after taking 100 photos of my floor and wall, I am quite pleased. I will give it a hammering in Spain and we will see how well it really holds up!! I can see a few tests coming along in the future as I want to see if it was just the nice golden colour that made it seem quicker!!

Much like my good friend Gringod, I have also had some issues with Dabs.com.

I recently ordered a Logitech Bluetooth keyboard and a Lexar Pro CF card which is needed for my holiday. When I had finished the order, I was informed that the memory card was actually out of stock and wouldn’t be available untill about the time I leave to go to Spain. As the holiday was my primary reason for the purchase, I figured that I had better look for an alternative. Since I was already on the Dabs website, I searched for ’1GB Compact Flash’ and what should show up? The Lexar Pro 1GB card that I had ordered but with 4 in stock… how could that be? On further investigation, I discovered that Dabs have the same product, with the same manufacturers code on two different Dabs stock numbers and a £15 price difference! Whether this was due to different suppliers, alternative dispatch location or just plain old incompetence I dont know but I immediately sent the support team an email explaining that I am about to go on holiday and that I would like to pay the extra money and get the other memory card! I was sent an automated reply stating that they were bogged down with emails and are not quite up to their usual 4 hour response time… I can cope with a couple of hours over that I suppose!!

To get things in perspective, I am not worried about the difference in price, spending money does not bother me in the slightest and £15 is nothing in the big scheme of things. It is certainly nothing compared to the cost of the holiday and what the emotional cost of not having it would be! I am, however, really annoyed by poor service… I couldn’t even find a phone number on their website… this is supposed to be one of the largest and most respected IT suppliers in the world!!! I want things done promptly and as I choose… isn’t that how all things should be in the Internet-age? </apparent over-expectation> If you do need their phone number… Gringod has posted them, though they dont sound like much use.

At this stage, I discovered that it is possible to add and remove items from your order before it has been sent. So after some experimentation, involving the creation and deletion of a few new orders, I finally managed to delete the old memory card and get the ‘in stock’ version added to my order. Success.. the status changed and the payment was being authorised and a few more Dabs points would be on their way! A day later I received a dispatch confirmation email with a Parcelforce tracking number on it. I then proceeded to watch for 2 days as my parcel moved accross England, over the Channel and into Guernsey where it was promptly delivered to my door!

The final part of this story relates to that email which I sent to Dabs support team 3 days before my Parcel arrived. They sent me a reply stating that all the items were out of stock and that I would have to wait for 11 days before they would be available again! Hmm… had I not taken matters into my own hands… neither of my items would have been available!! I thought about using the keyboard to write a response but in the end… I couldn’t be bothered!!

The above is a panorama made from 12 stitched photos. I went to Vale Castle during my lunch hour to get the shots. Click the image above to see a QT animation of the full thing. Its 2MB so give it some time to load. Worth seeing if you are interested! The challenge is to spot my car (White Honda Integra Type-R)

Clearly this is why I need to get myself a Mac… the ability to raid floppy disks and memory sticks!

My next phone… the sexy yet weird Motorola RAZR V3… I dont know what Quad band is yet but I know I want it!!

Bluetooth flying robot anyone?? Epson Seiko have one!

Gringod has kindly uploaded all of the photos to my new gallery system. I will get this installed at some point in the very near future. Keep your eyes open though as I am hoping to have a neat blog integration in place. If I do it right… you wont even know it!!! You can see a very basic version here… there is no styling at all yet though so dont expect much!

As IBM supply the G5 chip to Apple, does that make Mac’s IBM compatible??

IrfanView is a free image program that I can now highly reccommend. It has nearly all of the features you might want from your editing software and includes support for plugins, video, slideshows and even command line operations. You should head over to the website and look at what it can do. Thanks Irfan for a great piece of software!

Now I don’t know if it was just a sign from above that I need to clean and tidy my computer area more, but yesterday I received a pleasant surprise for doing just that!! My rear center speaker started working again. It hasn’t emitted so much as a pop since I used a heavy duty electric staple gun to attach/implant the wires cleanly to the ceiling! It seemed quite clear at the time what the issue was and since then, I have been on the verge of taking it down and throwing it away a number of times if I could have been bothered to remove the staples! It is not clear exactly what I did when cleaning to actually solve this problem, but it now works perfectly! It was either the static held in the dust or alternatively, perhaps I just pushed a connection home that was previously loose. The latter seems more likely but very coincidental timing that it stopped and started working at these times.

At last, an opportunity to do something that has about as much use as the time I wired an old hard drive to a stereo amplifier and made it work like a speaker. BoingBoing have linked out to a kernelthread.com article where the authors have managed to load Unix onto a Gameboy Advance… amazing.

For doing Math calculations, what is the most powerful bit of kit in your PC? … Whats that you say?… Your 64Bit 3GHz AMD Athlon 64! Nope.. try your graphics card. On average today, a PC’s main processor is capable of 5 or so gigaflops, the same as the Cray 3 Supercomputer in 1989. A cutting edge graphics card is generally capable of about 40 gigaflops or more. The innovative company, BionicFX, noticed this and has created the world’s first commercial application to process non-graphic data on your GPU. The new application relies on Audio Video EXchange (AVEX), a technology which transforms real-time audio into video and performs effect processing on your NVIDIA GPU. It will be interesting to see what the next stage of this revolution will be! Good work guys!!

As I will be travelling to Spain on holiday in the very near future, I have been getting my camera and accessories ready. Unfortunately, my Archos AV340 has broken(ish) and I am left without the ability to backup the images from my 1GB Compact flash card. This would limit me to about 400 pictures. Sounds like a lot but that is only 40 pictures per day. Again, sounds like a lot but my Canon EOS 10D could eat through those in about 12 seconds worth of continuous shooting (4 lots of 9 shots at 3 seconds each set). Now I am not saying I am a true Japanese tourist but when I go on holiday I try my best to take a lot of pictures. Remember that every picture taken is a memory that will be used for years to help me remember the holiday. And since I am shooting on digital, I can delete anything that is rubbish so why not go Jap for 10 days??

To get to my solution, I have ordered a 1GB Lexar 80X Professional CompactFlash card. These cards have a 12MB/s Minimum Sustained Write Speed which will help my camera take pictures more quickly, I am sure this feature will be very useful at the rodeo!! Another benefit of these cards comes by way of the included application, Image Rescue 2.0™. This is Lexar software that can recover seemingly “lost” or deleted images from memory cards. I will be testing out the speed claims as soon as it arrives and I will post back to tell you about my findings!

You may notice that the title says upgrades implying plural… that would be correct. I have also acquired 512MB DDR ram to upgrade my PC at last. It has been sitting with 512MB RAM for an eternity waiting for the memory. After losing so many UT2004 matches last weekend at a LAN party, I felt I had better get myself back in the game!!! To summarize the issue, I was waiting twice as long as everyone else for the levels to load and by the time I entered the game, they were all kitted with flak canons and rocket launchers!!!

Gringod has linked to a very cool currency converter at Oanda. It allows you to select numbers in your browser, click a link and it will quickly process the conversion. I have set up two buttons.. a ($ -> £) and a (€ -> £). I think these will be very useful!! Go to the site above to set up your own buttons for quick currency conversions.

I have a few GMail invites if any of you would like one. GMail is Google’s new email service that offers 1GB of webspace and new ways to organise your messages. It is a very good service and completely free so let me know if you are interested!!