The blog of Russ (snake) Michaels - Product Reviews

Dell Streak - first impressions

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 17:46:00 --0100

I have had my new Dell Streak for a week now after returning my iPhone 3G and I have to say I am quite impressed and I certainly like it more than the iPhone. I have had comments that is wrong to compare against the iPhone 3G and I should have got the iPhone 4G, but sorry I think this is crap, I owned an iPhone3G so that is of course what I am going to review or compare against. I also read about all the new features and improvements to the iPhone4 and it was nothing earth shattering, yes it resolved a couple of big issues for some people but did not make me want to buy one and would not have resolved most of my dislikes or issues. [More]

iPhone Disappoints

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 14:59:00 --0100

I was due for an upgrade on my mobile this month, after looking at the options O2 offered I decided I really wanted the new Dell streak, but it would have cost me Â£250 to upgrade, and honestly I don't need it that much. I have accepted the fact that I am rarely away from my computer anyway, so having these phones that do everything is rather pointless as I never use them. So I looked at the FREE upgrades. O2 were offering me the original iPhone 8GB, or I could have the current iPhone 16GB 3GS for Â£50. I pointed out that the 4G was out soon and I believed they would then have to give the 3G away for FREE to get rid of old stock, which worked and I got it FREE.

It was delivered next day, and I have to say the packaging is quite nice and surprisingly small. All you get in the box though is the phone, headphone and charger. The headphone are the usual bog standard cheap style that hurt your ears, so I wont be using it. The charger is a plug with a USB port so you can charge either via power socket or USB port with same cable, the cable supplied is however very short and will probably not be long enough for charging in the car.

The phone itself is completely self contained, you cannot open it up, which means you are stuck with the battery it comes with, which has quite a poor battery life. It seems to only last for 1 day with moderate use, less I would imagine if you like to listen to music a lot or play games.

Overall I found the phone very usable, the menus are easy to use and are responsive, navigation with your thumb and fingers really is possible, and the on screen keyboard is better than any other phone I have owned to date, although it is still a little fiddly unless you have small fingers, so for women I expect it works a lot better.

The included software is rather sparse, there is no SatNav for example, which is really disappointing for me, yes it has Google Maps which is great to getting directions but is certainly no SatNav replacement. And due to the poor battery life if you do use any satnav software for anything but a short trip it will kill the battery quickly. I did look into getting TomTom installed, but it turns out to be cheaper to buy a separate TomTom device for the car.

What is does have works well though, the email and messaging apps are nice to use, itunes is easy to use and handy for downloading new apps and the safari browser is quite a joy to use compared to other phones I have used, I was actually able to access our ticketing system and have everything work perfectly.

I downloaded a couple of 99p games and they play really well and look nice, I got quite addicted to fragger.

I then tried to copy my custom ringtone from my old phone, and this proved to be more trouble than it is worth, the iPhone will not allow you to use mp3 or other file types as ringtones, you need to convert them to iPhones AAC native format first, then you have the added problem that the only way to connect your iPhone to your PC is using iTunes which will not allow you to copy files, only sync folders.

The biggest disappointment I think has to be the camera, it has no resolution or other settings at all, just point and click and that is it. The picture quality is poor and there is no flash. So if you are looking for a phone with a decent camera, then you can forget the iPhone. This is also an issue for me as I like to have a camera handy to take pics of my kids.

The other major issue I have is the signal strength which is dire, I have either a very low (1 bar) signal or no signal at all at home, and I am in a high coverage area, with my old phone having 4/5 bars most of the time. This may just be a problem with my phone, but I found a lot of complaints about this same issue online.

In summary I would say that if you purely want a phone for calls, email, messaging and the occasional bit of gaming and music and the ability to get online with a decent browser then the iPhone is perfect and has an awesome touch screen menu to boot.

If you want good battery life, satnav, good camera, or any of the control you have with a windows smart phone then you better stick with a windows smart phone.

Create Edit & Share Your Sitemaps Online

Sun, 30 May 2010 13:19:00 --0100

Just found this rather handy tool I thought I would share.
WriteMaps is a free web-based tool that allows you to create, edit, and share sitemaps online. As a WriteMaps user, you and your team will be able to build and access your sitemaps from anywhere, without having to rely on proprietary desktop apps and static files. To get started, take the tour or sign-up for an account!

It is incredibly simple to use, just click the + to add nodes wherever you live and has a drag and drop interface to allow you to move nodes around. Certain a very quick and easy way to make a nice looking sitemap for your website.

Photoshop CS5 demonstrates its stunning new party piece

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 21:36:00 --0100

I just had to share this as it is totally awesome. So many times I could have used this.

The now-familiar release cycle of Adobe's Creative Suite is signalled by two things: the hype and expectation of those who rely on Adobe's applications and prices that, especially for UK users, seem to soar further into the stratosphere with every new version.

A single new feature, though, has awed the PC Pro office and suddenly made CS5 seem like fantastic value for money. It's been dubbed the Content-Aware Fill, and has been shown off in a YouTube video narrated by Bryan O'Neil-Hughes, a product manager on the Photoshop team.

The dull, businesslike name hides a potentially revolutionary feature: if you're not happy with an item in your picture, select it, delete it, and Photoshop will analyse the surrounding area and plug the gap as if it never existed.

It seems easy to use and incredibly proficient: O'Neil-Hughes used it to remove lens flare, turn patchy and litter-strewn grass into a perfectly manicured lawn. He quickly removed entire trees and let Photoshop stitch together the grass and sky that would take their place. It's a testament to the new tool's proficiency that we couldn't tell that the image had been modified.

He didn't stop there: a simple click removed a dusty track and replaced it with desert, and a panoramic image's clumsy borders were filled out within seconds. Best of all, Photoshop handled these modifications without fuss and quickly delivered picture-perfect results.

Without this feature, making these edits could take hours or, in more complicated cases, even days. The Content-Aware Fill, though, took just seconds and has got us even more excited about the impending release of CS5. We'll have a full review available when the software is released but, for now, this demo should be more than enough to whet your appetite.

Q-waves USB AV Kit

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 15:12:00 --0100

Overview

Q-waves Wireless USB AV Kit enables users to stream from any laptop, netbook or PC directly onto your TV screen quickly and simply, with full audio support. Great for PC Gaming! Make Skype video calls on your TV. Imagine BBC iPlayer on your TV - well now it's possible! Connect a TV or projector for home cinema, showing your photo's or playing your music and internet radio. Free yourself to watch what you want, when you want.

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Electronic Cigarettes rock

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 02:09:00 --0100

In my efforts to give up smoking I decided to investigate these so called electronic cigarettes. To my surprise the reviews all seemed to rave about them and people were claiming they never looked back, what has a lot to do with the smoking bans, so I thought sod it lets buy one. There are so many out there it is damn hard to choose, but in the end I went for the one pictured left from Totally Wicked Eliquid where they call them Electronic Nicotine Inhalers (e-NI) rather than e-cigarettes, which is in fact what they are.

I have to say I am shocked at how good it actually is, not only does it taste very similar to a cigarette, but I actually prefer it and have been smoking it far more than I do cigarettes. You get all the things that keep you hooked on smoking, something to hold in your hand and put in your mouth, the taste, the inhalation of smoke and of course the nicotine high but without any of the nastiness, here are some of the benefits.

They contain no tobacco,Nor do they contain any of the multitudes of harmful, carcinogeous ingredients found in traditional tobacco products
No Smoke (it is actually water vapour)
doesnâ??t make you or your clothes smell
no chance of causing fire as it is not alight
legal to smoke in public places due to above
no where near as bad for your health
no more mouth like a litter tray in the mornings
will not effect those around you
saves you money
wont give you cancer
you donâ??t have to go outside in the cold to smoke

There are many different types, some look like cigarettes and some donâ??t, like mine above, and some look just plain weird, add to that the fact that there are 30+ different flavours of nicotine liquid (or cartridges) to choose from, and you can see the whole smoking experience suddenly has a bit more depth to it.

So far I have only tried regular and cherry flavour nicotine and I like them both. I used to only smoke menthol ciggies and couldnâ??t stand anything else, but this is not an issue with the e-NI as it is far less harsh due to the lack of tobacco. I am a big fan of the flavours too, back in the days of pipe and tobacco shops I used to smoke flavoured pipe tobacco and use liquorice rizla papers, so itsa bit of a blast from the past and I expect I will have a nice selection soon.

So if you are a smoker, I would definitely recommend you give it a try, iâ??m sure those around you wont miss your stinky clothes and smelly breath either. If you are worried about looking like a bit of a ponce, all I can say is â??grow a pairâ?? and stop worrying about what others think, itâ??s your life after all.

Online CMS Pt II - PageLime

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 11:52:00 --0100

In a previous article I extolled the virtues of Adobe's new InContext Editor (ICE) which is a new online CMS service that is integrated in Dreamweaver 4. Since then I have discovered that are in fact other much better solutions out there which do essentially the same thing, only better and cheaper. PageLime is the first of these which I have been trying out and will review here. [More]

Time Tracking and Source Control for FREE

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 17:52:00 --0100

For quite some time now I have been using ProWorkFlow for my time tracking and project management, which I found to be the most fully featured of all the project management solutions I tried and really is very good. However the amount of development work I do these days is very small, so I couldn't really warrant paying for something that gets used so rarely, so I decided it was time to look for an alternative and preferably FREE solution. [More]

Adobe Incontext Editing

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 15:31:53 --0100

I recently came across this rather nifty new service (called ICE for short) from Adobe, which essentially allows you to add basic content management facilities to any website with zero coding and allow your clients to manage it via their browser. You just take a simple flat HTML page, add in some markup to identify editable regions and your done. Granted it has very basic WYSIWYG capabilities, but it is perfect for those small clients who only want basic editing capabilities and don't have much money to spend on implementing a fully featured solution even with an open source CMS such as the very cool Mura CMS.

If you already use Dreamweaver then you already have everything you need to get started and easily create Incontext editable regions, but there are in fact no special requirements for using this service, you do not need to use Dreamweaver other than to create the javascript files, so you could in effect just download a Dreamweaver trial to see how it works and get the code then you can insert the required markup via notepad if you wish. To use the service all you need to do is sign up for an Adobe ID, and then login to the IncontextEditing Admin portal. From here you setup and manage your sites. Check out the getting started video below.

Currently the InContext Editing service is FREE and in the forums Adobe have quoted that it will remain free until 2011, after which it will be a subscription service costing $10-$20 per month. This information was actually quite hard to find, I tried calling Adobe to enquire about pricing, I spoke to customer services, sales and technical support and amazingly no-one had any idea what Incontext Editing was or that it was even an Adobe product.

To get started with ICE try out these tutorials.

Sky Broadband

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 12:07:00 --0100

I recently decided to save myself some money and switch over to Sky Talk and Sky Broadband at home. They were offering a pretty good package deal and sky seemed to be rated quite high on broadband review sites. Sadly this turned out to be a big mistake. [More]

Ultimate Boot CD for Windows

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:52:16 --0100

Have you ever found yourself in the predicament of having a dead PC and no backups of any of your personal data and needing to get at this data before re-installing? then read on.

I recently had this predicament with my wife's laptop after her hard disk died and windows would no longer boot. Of course she had not been backing up her data, so I needed to try and recover all her data before installing a new hard disk. Windows repair or any kind of disk repair couldn't help in this case, as the disk was far too corrupted to get windows working again. So I tried my trusty old BartPE CD, but alas this couldn't help me either as it did not have the correct drivers to recognise the network card or USB devices, so I could not copy the data anywhere. So I went looking for another solution and came across Ultimate Boot CD for Windows.

UBCD4Win is a bootable recovery CD that contains software used for repairing, restoring, or diagnosing almost any computer problem. Almost all the software included in UBCD4Win are freeware utilities for WindowsÂ®. Some of the tools included are "free for personal use" copies so users need to respect these licenses. A few of the tools included in UBCD4Win are paid for and licensed software owned by UBCD4win.

UBCD4Win is based on Bart's PE. Bart's PE builds a Windows "pre-install" environment CD, basically a simple Windows XP booted from CD. UBCD4Win includes network support and allows you the ability to modify NTFS volumes, recover deleted files, create new NTFS volumes, scan hard drives for viruses, etc.

All you need is another working PC with a CD burner and your original WindowsÂ® XP CD, with at least Service Pack 1 (SP2 is highly recommended). If your CD does not have SP1 or SP2 included on it you can easily "slipstream" a Service Pack using a program called AutoStreamer.

Once you have created your boot CD, you then simply boot from this CD on your FUBAR pc (or laptop) and you are ready to rock.

I simply plugged in my USB external hard disk and backed up all my wife's personal documents, music, pictures, etc using the file explorer utility, thankfully most of them were not on the corrupted part of the disk. For those files that were corrupted and would not copy, I simply used the included file recovery tool to copy them from the laptop to the external hard disk where possible. In most instances this worked like a treat, even with the Outlook pst file, although the resulting pst file was itself still corrupted so that outlook could not read, so I still need an outlook pst repair tool. Unfortunately I as yet have not found a free one, and the commercial ones are far too expensive, and the emails are not worth that much to my wife.

National Cycle SwitchBlade windshields and chrome lowers

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 23:13:00 --0100


SwitchBlade Windshield	SwitchBlade quick release mount system	Windshield bag

The SwitchBlade® Windshields utilises the new SwitchBlade Mounting System, which allows riders to easily install, switch, or remove their windshield in less than 5 seconds [More]

The wonderful world of pear cider

Fri, 30 May 2008 11:48:00 --0100

I seem to be one of those rare people that actually figured out how pointless it is to blow all your money on booze, act like a dick, make a fool of yourself, throw it all up again and waste your weekends being hungover, although I certainly spent a fair share of my younger days doing this, before I learned my lesson. Being a family man now I do have much more important things to do with my time than prop up a bar so I don't really go to pubs, but still I do like to have the occasional drink, especially after the kids have gone to bed and you finally get some peace and quiet :-) and the pub still is the only social place to go most of the time when you meet up with people.
I actually went off beer some years ago and since then the only thing I drink is cider (or snakebite and black which has always been my favorite since I was a teenager), and even then only very specific ciders. I can't stand the usual pub fare of Strongbow or Woodpecker etc, the only ones I can stomach in the pub are Magners or Bulmers, or when drinking at home my preferred tipple was Frome Valley Sweet cider which is a real cut above the rest, so you really should give it a try if you are a cider drinker, especially the sweet one if you don't like dry, they sell it in Tesco.
Then I discovered pear cider and it was an instant love affair. The first (and by far the best) one I ever laid eyes on was Koppaburg pear cider which is very refreshing, especially over ice, easy on the pallet and hails from Sweden. There is even a non-alcoholic version which tastes almost exactly the same. The great thing with Koppaberg is that you can happily drink it all day long, which is perhaps a bad thing also :-)
Since I started drinking Kopparburg it seems to have become quite popular and other brands have started to appear in the supermarket and I am even told that some pubs have even started to stock it now. I have tried most of the other brands, and I have to say at time of writing they really do not hold a candle to Kopparburg, which has a unique taste of its own. I recently introduced a friend of mine (Johnny the hat) to Kopparburg, and it is now the only thing he drinks at home, which is quite something considering he did does not normally like nor drink cider.
So if you haven't already tried it, give it a try, I would imagine it is kind of like marmite, you either love it or hate it.

Here also is a quick run down of the others I have tried

Brothers Pear Cider
http://www.brotherscider.co.uk/
The absolute worst one of the bunch, tastes nothing like either pears or cider as far as I can tell, its the cheap lager of pear ciders. I will never buy this one again.

Bulmers Pear Cider
http://www.bulmers.ie/
I quite like Bulmers ciders in general, and the pear cider is not half bad in its own right, as it is a totally different taste. It it quite fruity and refreshing but not as distinctively different from regular cider as the others. If it was the only one you had tried then you would probably be quite happy with it, but after trying the others then Bulmers will probably be resigned to you "only if nothing else is available" option.

Gaymers Pear Cider
This one feels like a cheap copy and when compared to Kopparburg it really doesn't stand up well. But like the Bulmers it doesn't make a bad drink in its own right although there is nothing special or distinctive about it and you probably wouldn't associate it with pears if you didn't know what you were drinking and you certainly wouldn't buy it if any of the others are available.

Maguires Pear Cider
http://www.halewood-int.com/maguires.php
This has been the cheapest option I have found so far and bizarrely is actually my second favorite so far. It does have the distinctive refreshing pear flavor and even when compared against Koppaburg it fares pretty damn well. So if your looking for a cheaper alternative to Kopparburg or simply need an alternative when Koppaburg is not available then this may be your best bet, you may even find you like it as much as or more than Koppaberg.

St Helier Pear Cider
I have only just recently tried this one and I was pleasantly surprised. St Helier comes very close to being as good as Koppaberg for me, I certainly have no qualms about choosing one over the other. The main difference is that St Hellier has a stronger flavour, it tastes more alchoholic than Koppaberg, so I would imagine for a lot of people this would make it the preferred choice.

Oakleys Pear cider
Not tried it yet

Cobra Speedster Exhausts on V Star 1300

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 00:56:00 --0100

In general I have been very happy with the performance of the stock V Star 1300, but having been riding it for a while now and getting used to all its little nuances I did decide it could do with a little boost in the low end as I felt I was having to exert a little too much clutch control a little to early and too often when slowing down and when in traffic and a bit of extra torque and rumble wouldn't go amiss either. So I decided it was time for a set of after market exhausts which would give me what I wanted and would also give me that sweeter Harley like exhaust note. My first thought was Vance and Hines as they have probably the best reputation and I have had them before on my V Star 1100 and was happy with them, plus they are easier to get here in the UK. However V&H only do a 2into1 for the 1300 and I am not overly keen on that look and wanted to replace my stock 2into1 with a 2into2.
The next most popular seems to be Cobra , and they have a good choice of exhausts for the 1300 and the sound seemed to be what I wanted. I did initially want the Slashdowns but these proved very elusive and no-one had any as they are very popular it seems, one of my suppliers Eastern Cruisers told me he could get a set of speedster longs, so I went with that. Unfortunately after they had been fitted it turned out they had had got me the shorts, but I decided to suck it down after all the hassle getting them, I will get a set of slashcut tips to achieve the look I want.

In addition I also got the FI2000 digital fuel processor, which is supposed to provide better throttle response, no backfiring and smoother cruising and you need one of these with after market exhausts.

Anyway, the result of these exhausts + FI2000, I have no idea how the exhausts perform without the F2000 or how the FI2000 performs with the stock exhaust.

PROS
They sound great, much better than stock and are LOUD if that is what you like, at least to the human ear they sound very loud. I have recorded the exhaust note which you can hear in the video below, but it really doesn't sound anywhere near as loud in the video and it doesn't do them justice, you need to hear them in the flesh.
Performance wise there is a definite improvement in the low end, exactly what I wanted in fact. More torque and less clutch control required. You can go faster in lower gears (easily 30mph in 1st, 60mph in 2nd), slower in higher gears, so you no longer feel like you are going to stall if you don't get down to first gear quick enough or when doing a hill start.

CONS
While I do love the sound in general and it is useful for "being heard" and tearing up the neighbourhood, I do find it an annoyance on the motorway which is where you appreciate the much quieter note of the stock exhaust, especially on long journeys where you just want to chill out. After an hour or more riding I am usually half deaf. It would be nice to be able to switch between quiet and loud whenever you wanted, like the peacemaker pipes from national cycle, but I wasn't brave enough to buy those :-)

In the high end (70mph+) I have lost some torque and performance. Previously I have had this baby at 100mph with more to go. With the cobra exhausts and FI2000 I was at full throttle by the time I got to 100mph. I will be giving the FI2000 pots a tweak to see if I can fix this, I will report back when I have done it, but in general the low end performance improvements are more important to me as I spend more time driving at 30-40mph than I do at 100mph and I have used to it by now anyway :-)

There is also increased vibrations. My mirrors now vibrate, even at low speeds, they did not do this before. I also cannot ride so long without a break now, but I am more sensitive to the vibrations than most, so others may not notice this.

ISOFIX Car Seats

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 02:00:00 --0100

If you are a parent with a small child and own a car with ISOFIX fittings, then you may have also taken the seemingly impossible challenge of trying to find ISOFIX car seats. If you don't know what ISOFIX is, see the explanation below. Note that ISOFIX seats can also be secured the old fashioned way using a seat belt, so they are also good for when the grandparents visit and want to take the kids out in their old banger :-)

Despite the fact that these are the safest and most recommended car seats you can buy and it is now a legal requirement in all new cars, it is still strangely hard to buy them, and virtually impossible to find one for Group 2 & 3 which is suitable from 3 up to 11 years (Groups explained below).
We searched high and low for many weeks, even mothercare do not stock them, so we then decided we would have to resort to buying online, which was not really our favored solution as when it comes to child seats you really want to test them out in the flesh and make sure they are suitable. But even finding one online proved to be a challenge, as most of them do not have the ISOFIX connections built in, you need to buy a separate ISOFIX base that the seat slots into, which can easily double your cost and can do so without you realizing as on most web sites we found that the seats will actually say they are ISOFIX but do not specify that they require an ISOFIX base, so you could easily buy the seat and then discover that you cannot use it unless you also purchase an ISOFIX base.
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