John Large – Technology & life Blog

Time for Something New

Oct 19

Posted by John Large in Technical | No Comments

iMac 24" Ready to unpack

Well it has been a crazy month of new things. Firstly the month has seen me in and out of the doctors with headaches, which we have concluded is down to stress, and a weak right eye which is being irritated by using a screen all day. So I now have two pairs of posh designer glasses to wear which has already made a big difference, meaning I can see my iPhone & netbook and all other screens alot more clearly.

To go with the new eyewear, I finally invested in a North Face hardcore waterproof with zip out fleece which cost me so much money it makes my eyes water thinking about it, but I’ve wanted the jacket and the fleece for so long, and I got a good deal on the pair so I now have them.

Perhaps the icing on the cake is our new top end 24″ iMac with maxed out Ram, Graphics and processor specs. Cost a hell of a lot of money, and the guys in the Apple Store Manchester where very helpful in sourcing & sorting us out with our new baby, so all our work is now being completed on the iMac.

Mixed thoughts so far, the hardware is amazing, and the screen is immense, however Snow Leopard sucks. Tons of system crashes, enabling Sharing makes everything start to crash,, and running CS3 or CS4 is impossible on Snow Leopard, Illustrator, Photoshop and Dreamweaver just crash whenever you try to open, save or print a document. It will also crash on copy/paste or infact for any reason at all. Also the guttenberg print drivers seem very sketchy, and there is a lot of banding and colour problems on my Trusty Epson CX3200. I finally had enough of the issues and downgraded to Leopard 10.5.8 which is solid as a rock.

So now all our badge orders, and all my Development work is being completed on the Mac, and I’m loving it. Speaking of badges, we are selling loads of Halloween Badges over at Koolbadges so be sure to head on over to check us out.

iMac in it's temporary home, before driving back to our house.

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Tomtom app for iphone – first impressions

Aug 26

Posted by John Large in Technical, iPhone | No Comments

Yesterday I grabbed a copy of the tomtom gps app fron the iTunes store to test with my iPhone. I’ve been a long time tomtom gps user and currently have a tomtom go in the car. The promise of similar functionality on the iPhone coupled with the inteligent route functionality to find the shortest & fastest route made this app a must for my iPhone.

First impressions of the app Are mixed. The gps signal isn’t great on the iPhone, and the app isn’t as responsive or fast when compared with the tontom go. However the functionality is complete and the app has much more functionality than the recently updated tomtom go software.

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Tags: tomtom gps iphone

Samsung n110 Netbook – 2 months in.

Aug 16

Posted by John Large in Personal, Technical | 1 Comment

Well I’m now in the second month of ownership and I still love the Samsung N110. This machine has completely changed the way I browse then Internet, and the fact that most of the things I do online are web based such as Twitter, Gmail, iPlayer and reading news and blogs, the Netbook is an ideal partner.

I was sceptical from the start with regards to quoted battery life, but I’ve got to admit, even with normal usage on battery with brightness adjusted to my lining and iTunes either playing music or downloading podcasts in the background, I still manage in excess of 8 hours battery life from a single charge. I now find that If I charge the netbook overnight, I can do all my computing on it the following day without the need for a power outlet. The powe consumption and battery life is amazing, and although the system may be limited from a processor power point of view, it is more than sufficient for editing photos in Picassa or Photoshop, and writing php in Dreamweaver.

Another fear when buying the netbook was the size. I wanted a laptop which was portable, and all the laptops I have owned in the past where far from portable because they required hoofing about in laptop bags, and always required the AC adaptors. The Samsung N110 was supplied with it’s own samsung netbook sleeve, and I tend to just throw it in the car or a backpack to take it anywhere I go.

The screen is only 10 inches, and the resolution is only 1024 x 600 but this is quite easy to get used to, and the synaptic scroll pad is great for scrolling down web pages. Most pages will fit horizontally without need for scrolling and with the adoption of good CSS standards, most content will shift to fit.

The keyboard was another worry, coming it at something like 93% of full size I’ve actually adjusted to the keyboard really well, and it is really nice to type on for extended periods of time. The silver nano key coating is also welcome as it eliminates bacteria growth on the keys, and i far more hygenic than normal keyboards.

I have tried Windows 7 on the Samsung N110 and whilst it runs well, there are issues with shutdown taking a while. Also I’ve experienced far reduced battery life under Windows 7, and the netbook feels nowhere near as snappy as it does under XP, so I’ve opted to stay with XP on the netbook. To be honest I don’t really see a problem with using XP on a netbook as it is a very familiar operating system, and does a great job at providing awesome performance and superb battery life.

This netbook has really set me free with regards working from home. Coupled with the new iPhone 3.01 update and Tethering I can work online from anywhere (even got online from the Outer Hebrides in Scotland and was able to work and twitter). The combination of the netbook and the iPhone means I am now truly mobile.

I can’t see my life without a netbook in it now, and hopefully as processor development continues, and battery technology improves we can maybe hit the 24 or 48 hour battery life marks. By using the Netbook in place of the Desktop 99% of the time I’ve reduced my power consumption from 400-500 watts right down to 6-8 watts of power draw. This is a great benefit of Netbook technology, and may even persuade me to look into a net-top for home.

I’ll keep posting reviews of this netbook along with experiences and problems encountered so watch this space.

Downloading Carpool Podcast. Check it out at Llewtube or on iTunes

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Tags: laptop, mobile computing, netbook, samsung n110

Perseid Meteor Shower Peaks August 12th

Aug 12

Posted by John Large in Personal | No Comments

Well tonight is the night. The Perseid Meteor Shower Peaks tonight (August 12th) so I’m going to be sat outside on the Balcony at Vicki’s Mums in Dundee, Scotland down by the river tay in the hope that we have clear skies and no rain. According to Nasa, as the meteors (which are chunks of Swift-tuttle comet) hit out atmosphere they burn up creating amazing colours in the sky and even audible phenomena. I’m really excited to get out and see what happens and wish I still had my Canon EOS 20D to take some slow shutter night photos.

Everyone get out tonight and see what you can see.

Perseid Meteor Shower Peaks August 12th

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Day out at the beach

Jul 5

Posted by John Large in Technical | No Comments

We spent the day yesterday at Broughty Ferry beach, down the road from our new house in Scotland. It was an absolute scorcher of a day, and we managed to have a splash around in the sea, eat big ice creams and even get a little bit brown in the process. It was a superb day, and is so close we expect to spend most of the summer down there. Anyway some pictures of our day.