Andy’s Tech Blog

Please excuse the mess while I move content over from my old sites. I hope to get things up and running here soon.

Three are launching their MiFi device on 17th September 2009.  So what is it and why do I care I hear you ask?  Well it is basically a self contained, battery powered 3G Modem with a built in WiFi Access Point allowing any device with WiFi to access the Internet via Three’s 3G Mobile Broadband.  Giving around 5 hours of life it recharges via USB.

So take an iPod Touch, Sony PSP, or a Nintendo DSi and off you go your own WiFi access point wherever you want one.  Out and about with your Laptop or NetBook then no troublesome 3G Dongle installation and configuration.  Forget about nasty proprietary access software, just get online whenever and wherever you have a 3G signal.

I can’t wait to get hold of one of these!

I have played around with all the currently available eBook Readers on the market in the UK, but this is the one that got my cash.  From the moment you first see it you can tell it’s special.  The design cues are distinctly reminiscent of Apple but they are nowhere to be found in this sector, this little beauty comes from www.coolreaders.co.uk and a slick design it certainly is.

It is about the height and width of a paperback book, but about a third of the thickness.  The 6 inch screen is perfect for reading most types of books (I mainly use it for reading technical text books), you can switch between portrait and landscape views and choose between 3 font types and 8 font sizes.  The display is very crisp (using 8 levels of greyscale).

A full charge from empty takes about 3 hours and should give you up to 8,000 page turns.  As the device only uses power to change the displayed image you can read several books before the battery needs to be recharged, though as with any battery powered device the battery loses charge over time when idle so it would need to be charged about once a week even if not used just to keep the battery topped up and available for use.

Buy now from Firebox.com

Every so often I find a product that is perfect at what it does and also looks great doing it.  That pretty much sums up this backpack from Built.

I travel around with my MacBook almost every day and most often I only need the laptop and maybe the charger, not every other bit of crap in my backpack just in case I might need it.  All this extra stuff makes it heavy and some of it is never used.  What makes this new backpack from Built different, well it is very slim so you can’t just bung in all your crap.  It holds your laptop snug to your back so it is not flopping around stressing the hard drive, etc.  It has a pocket for your charger etc if you need it, and a small pocket on the shoulder for an iPod or phone.  It can even be worn under a jacket if it is loose fitting, so no one would know it is even there.  This is so what Jack Bauer would use to carry his laptop around town (Note: Alough it might look like it does, it will not stop bullets!).

Buy now from Cancomuk.com

When I heard about the CrunchPad last year I never expected them to make a working prototype, but now here it is.  Basically it’s a low cost Web Tablet with low power hardware with just one job to do, run a web browser well.  With it’s touchscreen interface and built in webcam this is just what I need for surfing the web from the couch.  So far they there are no firm plans for it to go into production, but I really hope they do go ahead with it as I have wanted one of these for ages.

Having been a user of a USB Mobile Broadband Modem on the Three network for about a year now I was pleased to discover their new D100 Wireless Mobile Broadband Router.  If you have one of their Huawei USB Modems then plug it into the D100 and you have an instant Wireless Hotspot for up to 32 users.  This is perfect for the traveler who needs to stay in contact but may have more than 1 device or for small groups.  With an onboard Ethernet port there are numerous connection possibilities.

Most of us know that we should back up regularly,  but how many of us actually do it?  This service from Mozy.com takes some of the pressure off.  I have been using this for quite a while now and it just sits there in the background and does it’s job quietly.  So what does it actually do I hear you ask, well it backs up your data from your computer onto a service on the Internet so that if your data is inaccessible (broken hard disk, stolen computer etc) you can recover your data and keep on working.

There are two levels of service, Mozy Home aimed at users with one machine to backup and Mozy Pro for users with multiple machines to back up.  The Mozy Home service costs US$4.95 per month with unlimited data storage, they also offer 2GB of storage for free (yes you can backup up to 2GB of data online for free – so what is your excuse now?).  The Mozy Pro service starts at US$3.95 + US$0.50 per GB per month.  Both services offer various encryption options to secure your data.

The service works equally well on both Mac & Windows and offers online management tools.

To get an additional 256MB of storage use my Promo Code (DG7MB7).

Denon’s DN-S1200 is a whole heap of fun for £350. When I first saw this device I could not believe that it did everything I could want all in one small fairly cheap box. Of course it plays regular audio CDs and MP3 CDs, but it will also play from a USB device like a thumb drive or hard disk. OK, that’s cool at this price point but then they kept on going adding a USB sound card and making it a USB/MIDI control surface for use with Traktor or Live, etc.

OCZ Have launched a new range of Solid State Drives in a range of sizes up to 128GB, double the size of the largest currently available drives and promising to be much more affordable as the 128GB version is expected to retail at around £240.

When I am working on web sites I often need to find out the hex code for a particular colour that has been used. With separation of the style into a stylesheet using CSS this can be awkward. I have used a number of tools to do this in the past but ColorZilla is very convenient as it just sits in the corner of my browser until I need it, then with a click of the icon I have access to all the information I need to match the colour.