blog.bumpytrails

The iLiad Book Edition

bnchap — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 13:01:57 +0000

Took my wife to have a look at an iLiad this lunchtime at Borders in Cambridge. We saw it advertised in the window whilst sitting in Prett eating our lunch. My wife has lots and lots and lots of books and I saw this as the perfect opportunity to look at a digital alternative.

The good bits. The screen looked great, you can plug in all of the most common storage formats i.e. MMC, SD, CF, USB so good all round there it also supports PDF so I could see it being used to read all sorts of stuff. It may have done some more stuff but I kind of lost interest when I found out the price and what the battery life was like! See below…

Now the bad stuff. This is the first time I have used a ebook reader like this so I wasn’t sure what to expect- it seemed slow to me - maybe I’m impatient? The worst part is a 4 hour battery life, if you are away from a power source for a couple of days, lets say you go camping or fly to Canada from the UK you will be out of juice before you know it. The price tag isn’t exactly great either its £400! That’s like $800!!!!! Yikes! You better have some paper based books as a backup!!!!

Is there a market for a subsidised ebook reader with a monthly contract for books? Surely if these devices were lets say from FREE to £50 with a monthly contract many more book people would be snapping them up.

Also bare in mind that the sub notebook market is just about to get really competitive with lots offerings from lots of different manufacturers so there may be good alternative in there as an ebook reader / email / internet / games machine.

Verdict: we haven’t quite saved the rain forests yet!

Confirmed Muffy is the final cylon!

bnchap — Fri, 23 May 2008 15:23:15 +0000

I couldn’t believe this myself when I found about this. Muffy the Daggett is the final hidden Cylon in Battlestar Galactica. I wondered when Muffy was going to make a come back! Apperently Muffy has been hearing the music to!

My New XBOX 360 Elite

bnchap — Mon, 05 May 2008 19:08:35 +0000

I have just bought myself an XBOX 360 Elite. After spending the year messing around with an XBOX 1 with XBMC installed I couldn’t help be pulled in by the GTA4 hype! It took me about 3 weeks of arm twisting to get my wife comfortable with the idea that I was going to spend a shit load of money on a games console…. was it worth it? Yes. My first impressions of the console was that it was bloody heavy! I had to carry it around whilst shopping in town I wish I had just bought it on the way back to the car but I was fearful that GTA4 was going to sell out! When I got home I rather eagerly unpacked the XBOX inspecting all the sockets and pulling the warning stickers off. GTA4 was now only 5 mins away. I pressed the ON button and the XBOX came to life - whirring away. Then I put GTA4 in. Well f**k me! It sounded like a helicoper taking off I dont think I have ever played on a console where I have thought about putting ear protectors on. Then once I got the game running the dreaded overscan got me sigh… I didn’t buy the ELITE for HDMI socket etc. In fact I got kind of fed walking around the shops trying to find one of these fangled FALCON versions of the console. It looks better in black anyway LOL. I have now ordered a VGA cable and a switch box my ANTEC HTPC is now going to have to share the VGA / DVI socket on the back of my TV. Watch this space for reviews on the VGA and the SWITCH box.

GTA 4 is freakin awesome though. I haven’t got that far yet (i haven’t had much time to play it) but running down pedestrians and then inspecting the dent just doesn’t seem to get old with me! (maybe i should see someone about that) Im not gonna bother giving a full review as there are loads on the web all you need to know is that its good.

10,000 BC

bnchap — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 17:58:14 +0000

It was nice to go and see a historically accurate film for once. LOL. Even though it was a bit crap I enjoyed it. Some of the special effects were a little suspect particulary at the start when they are in the mountains you can kind of see the green screen blur around the characters! They aren’t even shivering and it looked pretty cold!

Juno

bnchap — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 17:41:21 +0000

Juno was one of those films that I really didn’t want to go and see, my wife kind of dragged me along! After a slightly boring start to the film things picked up the plot thickened and I came away really enjoying the film and quite frankly its one of the best films I have seen in a long long time. It was funny, thoughtful and sad. It really got me thinking about various issues regarding pregancy and child birth and speaking as a father to be it certainly is worth a watch.

Charge Spoon Saddle in Brown Leather

bnchap — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 13:54:55 +0000

One of the best saddles I have ever had! It only cost £20 from Wiggle! Better still I got given it as a gift for Christmas.

FSA Pig Headset

bnchap — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 18:00:39 +0000

I got one of these off eBay for £10!!! Awesome for the money. Seems to be really solid.

Dodgy Homemade Bike Headset Press Tool

bnchap — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 14:47:53 +0000

I just got one of these off eBay to fit a new FSA Pig headset on my Marin Rock Springs.

The mating of the headset and frame was tight so when I was actually trying to fit the headset I ended up with the plastic cups actually digging in to the black plastic handle / stopper at the top of the tool. I just couldn’t tighten it up anymore and I thought I was going to lose all my fingers on the metal tightening bar! I ended up using a wooden mallet (which is about 50 years old) that worked fine. I did only pay 12.50 including postage which I suppose isn’t to bad but it didn’t work aswell as I thought it would.

My advice - buy decent bike tools this one is crap.

Infact have a read of this - its not what i used but you get the idea from the comments on the page.

Free Web Application Icons Set

bnchap — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 16:28:43 +0000

I build and maintain quite a few web apps at work, one thing they dont have is a standard set of icons. This free set that is available from www.webappers.com is a much appreciated addition to the wonderful world of web 2.o.

Don’t Trust Sat Nav

bnchap — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 22:13:51 +0000

This is what happened on a recent trip to Cwmcarn to go biking! I had recently aquired a Nokia N95 it was my first trip to Cwmcarn so I though I would try Nokia Maps out. Um I think the picture speaks for itself! If you look closly there is even a finished flag on the N95 screen.

Two weeks ago I was on my way to Centre Parcs at Whinfell forest and it took me to Ullswater (thats in the opposite direction). This was all well and nice but not with my pregant wife who needs to pee every 15 mins!