Shola's Home Gadgets

Mobile Phone Incoming calls only

2011-06-06T16:26:00.006+01:00

If you are looking for a mobile phone provider in the UK that would support using a mobile phone SIM account for incoming calls only without a contract, then you should consider GiffGaff which is a subsidiary of O2. Most UK PAYG SIM only packages will allow you to use your account for incoming calls only for a limited time of anything between 3 to 6 months but require you to either topup or make a chargeable call/text once every 90 or 120 days to keep your account active, however with GiffGaff as long you have incoming calls your account will remain active.

If you have never heard of GiffGaff, you mght be wondering is this a con? The reason why GiffGaff doesn't demand you topup every 3 or 6 months is that every mobile network owner gets paid a fee for terminating a call, so as long as people call the mobile phone thee network is making money, but the bigger networks are greedy, and make more money by getting people to topup and force them to make calls.

GiffGaff even has a monthly bundle especially designed for people who get a lot for incoming calls, for a fee of £5 you get 60 mins and 300 texts and for every complete minute of incoming call you get, they add an extra minute to your call allowance.

So if you have an unlocked mobile phone or an O2 iphone, then for a one off SIM activation fee £10 (you get £5 extra credit if you use this link), you can have an incoming calls only mobile phone package.

If you have a locked mobile phone from a UK network provider, check out the free GiffGaff Guide to phone unlocking.

LG RZ37LZ55 Sky HD + remote code

2011-05-21T12:00:00.005+01:00

If you have a Sky HD box and need to programme the remote control to operate your LG HD RZ37LZ55 TV, then the code you need is 0206.

The process for entering the code into your SKY HD+ remote control for the LG HD TV is as follows, make sure you are not near the LCD when doing this:

1. Press the TV button.
2. Press and hold the Select and Red buttons down until the red light above the SKY button flashes twice, then let go.
3. Enter the code 0206 and press select.
4. Press the SKY button once, this completes the programming sequence.

Your Sky HD+ remote should now be able to control the basic features of your LG RZ37LZ55 tv, such as volume, standby, and channel selection or mode.

Do you need a cheap PAYG no contract SIM?
Setting up email on your sony ericsson mobile phone.

Cheap PAYG SIM for unlocked Mobile Phone Excellent Value

2011-02-04T13:44:00.002Z

One of the cheapest Pay as you go SIM only no contract mobile network providers in the UK at the moment is GiffGaff. They currently charge only 8p per minutes for mobile or landline calls (ASDA mobile is same rate), but in addition don't charge you for calling freephone numbers from your mobile phone! Text messages cost 4p each. This is a vitual network run on O2 infrastructure, so solid partners behind them.

If you are interested in monthly bundles, they have unlimited texts for £5, 250mins, unlimited texts and unlimited mobile internet for £10 (this is a special offer that expires 31st March 2011, 150mins after that date). Other bundles available, and unlimited text/internet are standard above £5, they also offer free unlimited calls/text to other GiffGaff numbers (topup required every 90 days) so an ideal package for teenagers to use amongst themselves without running up huge bills. You can see their full call charges here.

If you have a second unlocked mobile phone or O2 tied handset and are interested in trying them out order a free Sim card with £5 credit (affliate link) or non affliate order page but not free credit and see for yourself.

They have a very helpful community, and no matter what version of handset you have, they will be able to get you up and running.

And by the way talking about mobile phones, did you know that by the end of 2011 all phones manufactured in the EU will have the same charger? Check this info video.

Samsung Omnia new mobile phone

2011-01-10T15:02:00.000Z

My old Xperia Sony Ericsson phone has broken, so I urgently had to get a replacement Samsung Omnia lite Windows mobile handset in order to continue running my business because all my appointments, contacts and client details were held in text messages that I had luckly backed up using microsoft's myphone service.

I did lose some data, but nothing that affected the running of my daily London driving lessons operation, even though it took me a while to get used to the Samsung interface as well as Windows Mobile 6.5 way of organising things. I now make it a duty to sync and backup my mobile phone everyday via my home WiFi network, and try to be extra care when out and about not to drop my phone (this was partly to blame on the one year old Sony Experia).

I'm not as hung up on the latest gadgets nowadays, especially when money is tight, so the new Iphone 4 was not on the tables since I'm a light mobile call user and don't need the large bundle of minutes offered to get these latest android and IPhones off the shelf. Hopefully my Samsung Omnia will last at least a year before developing a fault.

Hitachi DZ-HV565E Battery Life

2010-06-18T17:13:00.000+01:00

The HV565E spare battery I bought recently lasted over 2 hours while recording a driving lesson in my car, though it was not capturing in HD mode, as I only had a 2GB SD card, and needed to film continuously for 120mins.

I don't know if I had a larger capacity SD card if the battery in the Hitachi DZ-HV565E HD camcorder would have lasted the 2 hours in the HD mode, but I do know it lasts over 1 hour.

So far I'm happy with the performance of my Hitachi pocket HD camcorder and the batteries.

More Reading
My new Hitachi DZ-HV565E HD camcorder.

Hitachi DZ-HV565E camcorder spare replacement Battery

2010-06-14T07:47:00.000+01:00

I have just bought a spare replacement battery for my Hitachi HV565E HD camcorder, it is the energiser FLNP60 3.7 1100maH Litium rechargable battery, because I needed to record longer driving lessons videos, and the orginal cell only lasted about 1hrs and 10minutes when recording in full HD mode.

It is much cheaper and affordable than the original Hitachi HV565E battery, and also lasts a little longer.

So if you want an extra battery or need a replacement, then why not order yours today.

VHS VCR is not dead!

2010-06-04T07:56:00.000+01:00

The VHS tape recorder is not dead in my house at least.

In a recent house cleanup, we found some old children's VHS tapes which we hadn't watched for years, and since I have a five and 4 year old boy and girl, we decidec that they might want to watch these Veggie Tales videos which while available on DVD, we wanted to see if our Sony SLV-E720 VCR would still play them since it had been sitting on our consumer electronics shelf for years.

Well plugging in the Sony SLV-E720 into the mains, connecting the SCART cable to the TV and popping the video tape cassette in produced an excellent picture on our CRT TV, so we've been watching some of these old VHS tapes.

It was back in 2005 that Dixons announced they would stop selling VCRs and 35mm film cameras and it is now virtually impossible to buy a Video Tape recorder anywhere.

So the VHS recorder has followed in the steps of the sony betamax, 8 track car music players, vinyl, and the siclair ZX81 to the history books. I will be keeping my Sony VCR for as long as it works, hopefully my electronics background will deal with any minor repairs like cleaning the video heads, though lack of spares will probably mean one day I'll have to give it up totally.

I remember the days when we used to have cassette tape duplicators to produce copies of audio sermons at V2V church, now it is Podcasts and MP3s!

Sony Ericsson Xperia X2 not available in the UK

2010-01-07T14:14:00.004Z

I have just got an email from Vodaphone saying that they will no longer be selling the Sony Ericsson Xperia X2 on their network through their shop outlets anymore.

I had pre-registered with the vodaphone shop to know when the newer version of my current Sony mobile phone would be available, put it looks like the X2 will now not be officially sold through any of the 4 UK cell phone networks.

The email does not give any reasons for dropping the Xperia X2 from its portfolio in the UK, but it did mention that it will be stocking the X10 after it is released in Febuary 2010.

I think O2 has also planned to sell the Xperia X2, but has since shelved those plans.

Electricity Power cut 24hrs London

2009-12-30T11:15:00.004Z

We recently had a 24hr electricity power cut here in Mill Hill, London and I only realised how highly dependent the mordern world has become on this source of energy.

The power cut occured around 2am, but the effects were felt immediately. Obviously the street lights went out, but near to us, was the bedside electric clock radio which we use to tell the time. While we didn't feel the effect immediately because we were in bed, the home central heating system also shut down, which meant no heating and in the morning no hot water from the taps, and this being winter is a MAJOR problem.

Luckly for us, the cooker is gas, so once we found matches, we were able to boil water, heat milk for breakfast and later cook food that was defrosting from the fridge and freezers.

My neigbours could not make outgoing phone calls because their phone relied on electricity (we have an old phone to plug in when power fails), but computers were out, laptop batteries can only last so long, even mobile phone batteries were running dangerously low, so no unnecessary calls.

The house was very quiet, as even the radio did not have batteries in it, obviously everyone was cold and all huddled up in the sitting room.

4pm the house was dark, we had candles but it was really cold, noone was thinking of the gadgets, games consoles they got for christmas, all we wanted was light and some warmth.

While the electricity power cut was due to an underground cable fault, and the utility engineers from EDF Energy had been working round the clock to rectify the fault, by the time power was restored almost 24hrs later, it had really been a tough day, and I can't imagine being homeless in winter out on the streets!

Hitachi DZ-HV565E Merry Christmas

2009-12-23T14:55:00.003Z

If you are thinking of get the Hitachi HV565E HD pocket camcorder as a gift for a family member or a friend, then here is some christmas snow HD footage that might persuade you to do so. This was edited on my Apple MacBook Pro using final cut.

I have really been having a lot of fun with this little Hitachi HD hybrid camera, the battery life is quite very good, allowing me to record almost 2 hours of a driving lessons in HD, the limiting factor being that the camcorder runs out of storage space since I only got a cheap 4GB SD card from Amazon which the Hitachi camcorder has not had any problems reading.

Most of my recordings have not required sound, but it performed well during my daughther's christmas school play, for me to be happy. The other thing is I think I might have a resolution to the HV565E auto focus issue, and will be posting about it later, after I have done some more tests.

HP Smartmedia Homeautomation Server

2009-12-17T16:39:00.003Z

Following my recent article about my simple home automation media solution using an IPod, I have come to notice that HP wants to capture more of the HA and Home media entertainment market by launching the Smartmedia server.

Did you notice the strategic placement of the 17TB server next to XBox 360 media extender console in the video above? They are obviuosly trying to show how easy it integrates with microsoft's product.

The HP smartmedia server will perform the function of centralising your music, videos, pictures and will mean that you can show off all those family photos and home videos made over the years, and is compatible with iPhones as well.

While I'm still thinking of my options as I reconfigure my home automation system, I've got enough storage space already, so don't think I will be buying one of these media streaming devices.

Simple Home automation whole house audio

2009-12-07T10:35:00.003Z

I'm currently reconfiguring my home automation system, and for that reason, my HTPC is down, but it still wanted to have some of my whole house audio still available to distribute relaxing music while I work from home during the day.

At first I thought of using my apple macbook pro as a temp solution, but then I remembered I had an Ipod which was not being used lying around.

So all I did was copy a couple of hundred of my favorite songs to the 80GB hard drive of the Apple Ipod, create a few playlists, plug the MP3 player into my audio distribution amplifier which is already wired to the rooms and corridor of the house, and now I can continue to enjoy music around the house.

If you are living in a small flat or appartment, you can implemet this simple home automation idea using an Ipod shuffle which has no moving parts (less likley to breakdown), a cheap doking station (there are many cheap ones available now, not just Bose).

To prevent my Ipod from running out of power, I ordered a cheap usb power adaptor for £1, and use the Apple supplied cable to permanently connect it to the MP3 player. This also means in the even of a short power cut, I don't have to reset the playlists or press the play button.

The other part of my home automation system the XBox 360 media extender continues to work okay, providing stunning pictures on my 3 year old LG HD LCD TV.

Playstation Video Store

2009-11-25T10:13:00.004Z

It is christmas time, and if you are looking for a gift that you could give to a gaming console addict, then maybe you might be thinking of getting a Playstation.

Having used an XBox 360 as a media entertainment centre for over 3 years, Sony has decided to launch a playstation video store to offer easy access to HD quality entertainment on their console, in addition to the blu ray dvd playback features.

Movies, games etc, all downloaded directly and ready to view in minutes.

New gadget Sony Ericsson Xperia X1

2009-11-03T16:09:00.003Z

I have just acquired a new gadget, it is the Sony Ericsson Xperia mobile phone.

The windows mobile 6.1 phone is on a O2 contract, and is a worthy replacement of my old and trusted SE-K750i that I've had for a very long time.

The reason I chose the Sony Ericsson Xperia is that I'm looking for a gadget/device that will act as a mini mobile office as I'm out and about alot, so need to keep track of appointments, email, contacts, surf the net, create simple word documents and the Xperia fits the bill.

I have only had the Sony X1 for a short time, but it is living up to its expectations. I'm yet to buy an external memory card for it, but that will be ordered soon.

Using Apple Mac and PC

2009-10-15T10:24:00.003+01:00

I have been using an Apple MacBook Laptop recently (last year or so) to do a lot of my work having used PCs for most of my adult computing life (right from Windows Version 3.1) and computers had 286 processors 16MB of ram and 40MB hard drives.

My Apple Mac is currently not available to me, so I've had to move back to working with PCs, and it has just dawned on me how I have become used to the Mac.
Simple keyboard shortcuts are different, and some characters are in diffrent positions, in particular the '@' symbol which I use a lot.

One of the things that you don't miss from being on the PC, is the lack of viruses when it comes to the MAC, I don't have any antivirus software running on the laptop, and don't have to worry about adware, spyware or malware. What a world of peace. I'm trully missing my Apple Mac.

While I don't think the PC will be ever threathen by Steve Jobs creation, they are getting more popular, and while still more expensive than a windows PC, they are getting more affordable, and with generous discounts available to students, a lot are being bought.

More Reading
Connecting Apple Macs to TV.
BoinxTV Mac video production software.

Hitachi DZ-HV565E good daylight pictures

2009-10-01T14:31:00.006+01:00

I took my recently acquired Hitachi DZ-HV565E camera on a family holiday, and was pleasantly surprised by the quality of photos the camcorder took in addition to the already mentioned good HD video footage.

While the DZ-HV565E takes very good pictures in the outdoor daylight conditions, I was disappointed by the results produced indoors at night especially since it doesn't have a flash for taking photos, the inbuilt light no being of much use.

I have posted samples of the pictures taken by this wonderful Hitachi HD camcorder below of some steam raliway locomotives if any of you are into small guage engines.

So far I've been very impressed with this cheap Hitachi HD camcorder, and while it is not the perfect gadget for taking both video and photos, for a portable handheld device it is perfect in my humble reviwing opinion.

Hitachi DZ-HV565E Auto Focus problems
Sanyo Xacti C40 pocket hybrid digital camcorder.

Hitachi DZ-HV565E Auto Focus

2009-08-20T22:46:00.005+01:00

The auto focus on my Hitachi HD Camera can not be disabled or turned off, this creates a problem, as the algolrithm doesn't always choose the right thing to focus on, as shown by the video clip below.

I'm interested in my shoe which takes up most of the shot, but the Hitachi DZ-HV565E is more inclined to focus on the black surface in the background. Not very selective!

While I like the quality of images produced by this cheap HD camera, this issue does put it in the bad books for me, as serious home movie maker would not be able to be creative if he can tell the camera what to focus on. I'm still going to hang on to mine though.

New Hitachi DZ-HV565E HD Camcorder

2009-08-15T07:02:00.016+01:00

I've just bought a new gadget, it is the Hitachi DZ-HV565E HD digital camcorder which will be replacing my Sanyo Xacti CA6 which I still have, but was a camcorder I didn't like!

The Hitachi camcorder was a birthday present from my wife, and has already been put to use for recording high definition driving lesson videos with very good clarity as shown below (high speed ADSL broadband internet connection required for this video clip).

This gadget reminds me of my first digital camcorder the Sanyo Xacti C40 which I loved so much and was gutted when it got lost or stolen under misterious circumstances.
It has many of the features of the Sanyo C40 that were missing in the CA6.
Rotatable LCD screen, full size tripod mount, can also take photographs as well as record HD video, the only disappointment is that the battery can not be charged while in the camera. The Hitachi records to solid state SD cards, so is tapeless, which means quicker editing times of the quicktime mov files it produces (I use final cut express on a mac for editing, but I'm sure you can use Movie Maker or Adobe Premier Elements on the PC).

So far I've only used the Hitachi DZ-HV565E to record video, and have been happy with it, and I can see that it will get more use than my Sanyo Xacti CA6. One question that a lot of people often ask is what is the low light recording like? Being a semi-professional videographer, I tend not to shoot in low light as even the professionals use lights in daylight, not to talk of indoors, and I will be using it mostly for outdoor activities in the day.

If I do have a genuine reason for shooting in low light, I will let you know how I get on with the inbuilt LED lights on the front of the Hitachi hybrid camera.

I will post more video clips and photos from the DZ-HV565E once I've had more time to evaluate it, and would give a proper review then.

More Hitachi Camcorder views
DZ-HV565E Camera auto focus Issues.
Hitachi HD camcorder spare battery

WII Games Console

2009-06-11T13:16:00.004+01:00

I've had a xbox 360 media extender since 2006, and have never tried playing games on it even though my son has football and racing cartridges to use on it, so I've never thought of getting a Wii games console despite the many TV adverts promoting this excellent product, but that is about to change.

A recent family holiday where I was forced by my 4 year old son to play some Wii games with him in the entertaiment room at our resort gave me an idea of how good the Wii games console and the wrist held remote are. I enjoyed how close to reality the tennis, golf and boxing games really were, and the feedback vibrations from the Wii remote was very good.

I am now seriously considering a Wii as a good complement to my 37 inch HD LCD TV based entertaiment system, and would make a companion to by XBox 360 which doesn't get any gaming action.

More reading

Xbox360 as Media Extender.

Flip Video Camera Sample

2009-04-18T08:57:00.007+01:00

One of the many camera's that I have access to for my church video production activities is a Flip video camera which I won as a prize for a short film from current tv.

Many might think this is a fun camera that might not have much use for a professional, but the following flip sample video clip shows how a simple device can be used to accomplish tasks on a low budget.

Basically there was a need to shoot a very quick church video announcement, and it was about 30 minutes before the service started, so all our Sony PD170 cameras where already setup for the service and unavailable to use, my sanyo xacti CA6 digital camcorder was in the car, but I didn't have a usb cable to connect it to the Apple Macbook laptop, so we had no option than to use the Flip Video Camcorder.

Our Pastor had already been told that this was going to be an impromptu rough video, so the expectation had already been set, and nobody was expecting a HD professionally produced production. Shooting took less than 10 minutes, and due to the inbuilt USB interface cable, connection to the Apple MacBook was a very easy and it took less than 5 minutes to import the video clip.
A quick edit in Final Cut software, and the video below was the result.

Everything was ready for the time announcements were made, and we were very pleased with the quick turn around allowed us by the Flip Video Camera.

You can check out the orignal full quality file here.

See also Hitachi HD pocket digital camera.

BoinxTV on MacBook Pro Review - First Impressions

2008-11-19T00:24:00.013Z

I mentioned the BoinxTV Video mixing Software sometime ago, but haven't had the time to test it on the Apple MacBook Pro and produce an episode of our church's video podcast on it until last weekend.

Our church video ministry already has a 2 channel video mixer, so my use of BoinxTV was going to be cut out the post production required to add a logo and lower 3rds to the video podcast, adding these features live while the church service was being recorded meaning that I would have a more professional looking video and not have to spend time later at home to do this (I don't have the time anyway, which is why there are none of these features currently included in our video podcasts.

Since this was my first time of really playing with BoinxTV, I needed to do some pre-production thinking of the layers required, what settings I needed and how it would work in the video podcast.

To give you a fair idea of what you might need to run BoinxTV on your MacBook Pro, I'm going to post the specs of my Apple laptop here.

Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro3,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 4 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 800 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP31.0070.B07
SMC Version: 1.16f10
Serial Number:
Sudden Motion Sensor: State: Enabled

In order to connect the switched output of the CMX07 Video Mixer, I used a Sony DV camcorder as a bridge, with the compsite video and stereo audio being fed into the camcorder input connectors and the firewire connector of the camcorder being connected to the MacBook Pro.

Because I was going to use BoinxTV only for producing a video podcast for the internet, I had created a template that would record the output file at a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels, so on firing up the BoinxTV software on my MacBook Pro, I open this document. The first thing I had to do was add a new camera source to the software to allow the software to recognise my firewire connected DV camcorder.

The system resources meter showed that it was using about 40% processor with only BoinxTV and nothing else running except one instance of Finder on the MacBook Pro.

I created a new template for a larger video output of 640 x 480 and opened this with BoinxTV.

Note that I have the video layer selected in this case, and that resources are now running at 82%. It was apparent that my MacBook laptop would not be able to handle the 640 x 480 video output size (I hadn't pressed the record button yet), so I closed down the template and reloaded the smaller template into BoinxTV.

I now started playing around with the lower 3rd settings to get something that would be suitable for my video podcast, I had already added the logo layer, and imported the appropriate image for use. When I had what I was happy with, I then decided it was time to try to recording a video to disk, so I plugged in some headphones to monitor the sound, but couldn't hear anything!

The problem was later traced to the fact that I hadn't enabled the audio pass through feature.

Audio Pass through Icon

With the audio levels sorted out, and the layers prepared, I was ready to record my first video podacst, so I clicked the record button, but the recording stopped after 1 minute, which turned out to be because the timer recording was enabled on BoinxTV.

In the end I was able to record a few minutes of the church service using BoinxTV and tried out some of the effects of this live video production software for the Mac.

My impressions of the software are mixed at the moment, I like the features that it possesses, but until I'm able to fully test it on a more powerful Apple Mac, I wouldn't be able to say if it will be used for the actual total production of our videos.

BoinxTV V1.0 Lanches

2008-11-11T13:14:00.004Z

Boinx Software today announced the public realease of BoinxTV Version 1.0, their live video production software for the Apple Mac which allows a laptop such as a MacBook Pro to act as a portable TV studio, supporting up to 3 camera sources.

The key motto of BoinxTV is 'Say goodbye to post production' and this video mixing software has all the features that allows a video producer to create a professional looking podcast or live recording of a TV show. There are layers for lower thirds, logos, graphics, transistions, keying etc.

BoinxTV now brings professional features to a wider range of video content producers, and in some circles is seen real competition to the other portable TV studio product on the market, the Newtek Tricaster.

Price of the video production software for the Mac starts at $199, and is available to download from the BoinxTV software download page.

Nokia 2310 Speed Dial setup

2008-11-03T01:45:00.006Z

The Nokia 2310 phone is a cheap mobile phone on offer from the Nokia stable, and while it is not something that will be of much interest to a gadgets fan like myself, I found myself in possession of one due to the fact that my trusted Sony Ericsson K750i mobile phone was broken and I needed a quick replacement mobile phone while I decided on the upgrade model I was going to buy.

The first thing I noticed with my new Nokia 2310 phone was that I needed to setup the speed dial settings, as this was a feature I used very much on my old mobile phone, especially since I could call home by just pressing one button instead of having to go through my contacts list and then choosing my home number.

To setup speed dial on the Nokia 2310 mobile phone, there are just a few steps to take.

1. Make sure you have created contact entries for the numbers you want to assign a speed dial on your Nokia phone.

2. You only have 8 speed dial numbers available to use on the 2310, numbers 2-9, as 1 is automatically assigned the voicemail speed dial code and is not changeable (this is convetional on all mobile phones), while 0 is not available.

3. You now need to activate speed dialing on the Nokia 2310, by selecting menu, contacts, speed dials, on. This makes the feature now available and the phone will automatically assign contacts to the numbers 2-9 which we will want to edit to our preference.

4. To edit the pre-assigned numbers on the phone, go to menu, contacts, speed dials, edit. The first pre-assigned key 2 will be displayed with the contact number, to change this select options, change to call (if you want make a phone call to the number), or change to SMS (if you want to send a SMS text message). You will now be presented with your contacts list, scroll through till you get to the number required for this speed dial, and press select, you should see a message confirming the change and the sreeen will then show the new number assigned to key 2. Scroll down to the next key, select assign and repeat the process till all 8 keys have numbers allocated to them.

You now have 8 speed dials setup on the Nokia 2310 mobile phone for quick calls or text messaging.

Connecting the MacBook to TV

2008-10-30T17:07:00.005Z

In a previous post I mentioned how you could connect an Apple Macbook laptop to a video mixer.

I've had a few queries about connecting a MacBook to a TV, and would like to note that the CS-320 Scan Converter for PC & Mac is device that you could use to connect a MacBook to a CRT TV. The CS-320 scan converter will also work with PCs as well, so now you can watch those video clips stored on your computer's Hard drive using your large screen TV be it CRT, LCD or even a HD plasma.

The CS-320 also has a pass through port, so you could use it to down scale a the resolution of you Macbook to that supported by your LCD or Plasma TV if it doesn't support the native resolution of your computer or laptop.

For more information about the TV One CS-320 that can be used to connect a computer to a Video Mixer or TV read my Connect computer to video mixer post.

Another BoinxTV Video Podcast

2008-10-14T10:28:00.006+01:00

Podcasting with BoinxTV in the field

A bit of a guerilla filming technic using BoinxTV Software and the iSight camera of an Apple MacBook to produce a video podcast interview.

Not quite as refined as the Sample BoinxTV video from DigitalUpgrade podcasters, but it gives you an idea of the various capabilities of this new Apple Mac live video production software.

The video can be found here

I'm looking forward to the release version of BoinxTV in November 2008.

Sony Ericsson Mobile Phone

2008-10-13T18:30:00.005+01:00

My Sony Ericsson K750i mobile phone now needs to be replaced, as not only is it over 2 years old, but the cell phone's lcd display is broken, and I can no longer take photos with the phone anymore.

I'm now thinking of getting another Sony Ericsson mobile phone, maybe the Cybershot C902 with its 5 MegaPixel camera due to my interests in photo taking and videography as opposed to the more popular Sony Walkman W580i which tends to favour the music lovers with its MP3 player. The other mobile phone that has caught my attention is the Nokia N96 which might suit my protable video camcorder needs.

Sony Ericsson cybershot C902, Walkman W580i or Nokia N96 review

So as a gadgets man, which new mobile phone should I go for, the SE C902, the SE W580i or the Nokia N96 that is the current question. I'm not going to rush into a decision, especially since it means I'm going to be tied into at least a 12 month newtork contract with either T-Mobile, Orange, Virgin, O2 or Vodafone.

I'm wondering if email configuraion on the SE W850i will be similar to that of the SE K750i, I hope the SE W850i default smtp server can easily be changed and that the option to leave email on the server is available on the Sony Walkman mobile phone.

As soon as I make a decision on the new mobile phone, I'll post my thoughts here, I don't like the colour of the Sony Ericsson W850i walkman phone.

BoinxTV Sample Video

2008-10-11T13:57:00.003+01:00

Here is a sample video produced by BoinxTV showing its video podcasting capabilities.

This BoinxTV Sample Video was produced by the guys at DigitalUpgrade, a German technical podcast team, so while you may not be able to understand what they are saying, the video does show how easy it is to use this Apple Mac software to produce a professional looking show, as demonstrated by the presenter on the left. Notice how with a click of the mouse and a keyboard shortcut he can bring up lower third titles or start a pre-recorded video tutorial.

So with this BoinxTV live video production tool, a single presenter with practice can record his live show, and upload it to the internet with out any post production!

BoinxTV Release 1.0 is due to be released on November 11th 2008.

BoinxTV Video Tutorial

2008-10-09T20:27:00.004+01:00

Yesterday I posted about BoinxTV, a new Apple Mac software currently in its final stages of development by Boinx Software and the coding monkeys.

There is a BoinxTV video tutorial that been released to help beginners get started with this new video production software designed to reduce or eliminate post production of live recorded events such as concerts, weddings, sermons, etc.

You can download the BoinxTV Video Tutorial by clicking here.

BoinxTV Video Production Software

2008-10-08T13:08:00.006+01:00

BoinxTV for MacBook Pro

I've just discovered BoinxTV a new video production software that looks very useful especially for those who would like to reduce or eliminate post production after recording a live show like I currently have to do for our church services which we put on the web.

At present after recording our live event, I have to do some post production like adding titles, intros and outros, and it looks like with this BoinxTV software for the Mac, I can use the MacBook Pro to do these on the fly and have a properly formatted quicktime movie file ready at the end of the service to be uploaded to the internet.

The BoinxTV Mac video production software is still in alpha at the moment, and I haven't done some serious testing of it yet, but with 3 camera input support, it looks like a video production softeware that might be a challenge for the Tricaster production box product by NewTek.

I will surely be posting a review of BoinxTV once I've tested it thoroughly.

Looking for a Cheap video mixer?

Connect Computer to Video Mixer

2008-09-09T14:12:00.011+01:00

Connecting MacBook Laptop to Cheap Video Mixer

In an earlier post, I mentioned how you could connect a computer to a CRT TV, in this article, I'm going to show you how you can connect an Apple MacBook Pro laptop to a cheap video mixer using a commercially available gadget as an interface.

If you are using a top end broadcast quality video switcher, then you would not need any gadgets to interface between your computer or laptop, but if you are starting out in the video production business or just started a church video TV ministry, then you budget might only allow a cheap video mixer to start with.

TV One CS-320 Scan Converter

The TV One CS-320 down converter is the gadget that allows us to easily connect any computer to a Standard Definition video mixer, and thus be able to use the graphics or whatever the PC is outputing as a video source.

A computer generates very high resolution images which are not compatible with the lower resolutions used by DV or S-Video cameras, however a very popular request in churches or business conferences is being able to mix the output of a laptop with images from a video conferencing camera or other camera.

The work of the TV one CS-320 scan converter is to down grade those high resolution graphics output from the presentation computer into a format that is usable by the video mixer.

The scan converter accepts a wide range of computer screen resolutions and then provides output in either S-Video or Composite (720×576 PAL)format to be used with any cheap video mixer.

I have been using the TV One CS-320 scan converter as part of our church's TV ministry for the past 4 months, and it has worked flawlessly allowing us combine images from our camera's with presentations, videos and graphics stored our Apple MacBook Pro laptop, and easily mix between the two using our CMX-07 video mixer.

As mentioned earlier the TV One down converter is not just for Church TV ministry use, but corporate video or wedding videography as well, and the gadget is quite affordable, so won't break your bank account.

TV One produce a slightly more expensive scan converter the CS-450, one of the added features in this gadget interface is the overlay function which allows you to overlay the graphics from the computer on top of the video images from the cameras, a function that my church services use for song words over the images of the singer or business corporate executives request for titles over images of speakers at conferences.

The TV One CS-320 scan converter is one of the most productive gadget accessories I've used with our church cheap Video mixer and Apple MacBook Pro laptop.

V2V Church Women of Excellence 2008

2008-08-30T23:24:00.004+01:00

A personal invitation from Pastor Erica Goodman of V2V churh wembley, London to join her at this year's women of excellence conference.

Live Olympics 2008 Feed

2008-08-09T07:56:00.004+01:00

Beijing 2008

If you are looking for live feeds of this years Olympics games, then you should visit

Beijing 2008 Live provided by Eurovision.

You have a choice of 12 channels of live olympic sports with sound, but no commentary.

Anyone with a broadband connection on their pc should be able to follow this year's summer olympics. I've had problems watching it on my Apple MacBook Laptop, but no problems on my Windows Vista powered compaq notebook.

Apple Laptops - MacBook Vs MacBook Pro

2008-08-06T14:16:00.009+01:00

Which Apple Mac Laptop?

When I decided to switch to an Apple MacBook for my mobile video editing needs, I choose the Apple MacBook laptop mainly due to budget constrains. I now have access to and use the MacBook Pro laptop for all my video production capturing and editing with Final Cut Express as the application of choice.

Having used both the MacBook and MacBook Pro for over 6 months, I thought I'd give my thoughts (not a product review) on the two apple laptops so those who might need to choose between the 2 products would be able to make an informed decision.

Apple Laptops Cost

If your decision on which apple laptop you are going to buy is going to be limited by budget, then you would more likely have to buy the apple macbook, as they are cheaper.

MacBook physical design features

The Apple MacBook laptop is only available with a 13inch screen, while the MacBook Pro is available in 15 or 17inch. This is important if you are going to be carrying your apple laptops around a lot especially if you are going to be doing mobile video editing. I found that I was much more confortable using the Apple macbook on the public transport system to do my mobile video production, and as at yet have not used the MacBook pro on London's public transport system (Underground or Buses). The smaller MacBook laptop is obviously lighter, less conspicuous (if you can ever call an apple laptop with its glowing fruit logo inconspicuous).
The MacBooks also have a plastic casing as opposed to the mixed metallic/plastic exterior used on the MacBook Pro which gives the latter a more professional look. It is almost like the MacBook was designed for Students while the MacBook Pro was what you graduated to as a young working professional (just my view anyway).

laptop Specifications

Both versions of the Apple MacBook are well specified machines, with the bigger MacBook Pro having a few extra availble options like faster firewire port, larger and faster harddrive upgrades, glossy/high resolution screen and an illuminated keyboard (a very nice touch for the MacBook Pro laptop).

MacBook or MacBook Pro

So which of the two Apple laptops should one go for? That would depend on what is important to you. Cost aside, as mentioned earlier, If I was going to be doing a lot of mobile video editing, then I would probably settle for a high specification Apple Macbook as the smaller size and lighter weight would make it ideal for carrying around and using on the go (obviously you should think about personal safety when using your gadget in the public). On the other hand if I had my own transport to use, then I would go for the MacBook Pro, with the more professional look.
Personally I like the illuminated keyboard on the Pro laptop, but that alone wouldn't persuade me to buy one, though a professional video editor would probably go for it due to the larger screen estate, faster/bigger hard drive and the ability to connect the firewire 800 port to faster external hard drives.

Apple MacBook Air Laptop
I have not mentioned this gadget, as I don't think it would be useful for mobile video production, but if you are more interested in small apple laptops, then this might be the one for you.

Amazon.co.uk Widgets

BoinxTV on MacBook my impressions.

Sanyo Xacti CA6 Camcorder I Don't Like It

2008-07-18T10:57:00.004+01:00

Further to my Sanyo VPC-CA6 Camcorder review, this is another rant about this hybrid recording device.

I hadn't used this Sanyo Camcorder in a longer time, opting to use my Sony instead, but today my son had a little presentation at school, and I wanted to use this smaller camcorder so that I could be a little discreet.

On powering up the Sanyo Xacti VPC-CA6, I got a low battery warning message, and immediately I thought not now, as I can't even power the camcorder from the charger!

I know the Sanyo Xacti CA6 is weatherproof, but I would rather have a camcorder that is more versatile, can be mounted on a tripod, has a viewfinder Lcd monitor that allows me to record myself. None of these features are avaiable on the Sanyo VPC CA6!

I'm not sure if I'd buy another Sanyo hybrid camcorder again, I miss my Sanyo Xacti C40. This gadget has now been replaced by a Hitachi SD card HD pocket camcorder.

Sanyo Xacti CA6 Digital Camcorder Negative Review

2008-06-24T11:04:00.002+01:00

Sanyo VPC-CA6 Hyprid Camcorder/Camera

Summary: Don't buy this gadget, very poor design compared to the previous Sanyo Xacti model I used.

My first Sanyo Xacti camcorder was the C40 which I had for about one year, and proved to be a very reliable, versatile and useful little digital camcorder with the added advantage of it taking very good quality photographs. Having used the Sanyo Xacti C40 digital camcorder for over a year filming various movies including my african bicycle adventure, my driving school video podcasts and my hang glider blog photographs, I was very upset when the little silver Sanyo Xacti C40 digital camcorder disappeared into thin air. I don't know if it was stolen, or I just lost it.

A few months latter, and I really needed another small digital camcorder to replace the Sanyo C40, as my Sony Digital 8 TRV camcorder was too big to carry around with me all the time.

I wanted to buy another Sanyo Xacti C40, but it was no longer available to buy, so the next model that came up was the Sanyo Xacti CA6 digital camcorder. I needed a replacement really fast, and having been totally satisfied with my first purchase from the Sanyo stable of Camcorders, I didn't think twice about buying the Sanyo CA6. What a big mistake.

When the Sanyo package arrived, I eagerly opened the box, and as I took the digital camcorder out of the wrapping, the first thing I noticed was the plastic casing of the Sanyo CA6 digital camcorder as opposed to the metallic silver casing of the Xacti C40, that was not the only disappointment.

I opened up the camera lcd view finder to find out that the camcorder viewfinder does not swivel around and therefore I can't record video blogs with it! The other problem is you can't charge the battery while it is in the camera, which rules it out it being used as a webcam. Finally the VPC-CA6 does not have a tripod mounting hole as did the Sanyo Xacti C40, so I can't take professionally stable shots!

On the whole a big disappointment when compared to the excellent Sanyo Xacti C40.

I would have returned the Sanyo Xacti VPC-CA6 back to the place I bought it from, but I was just too lazy packing it up and then arranging a courier to take it back, especially when I would have to pay for delivery charges.

So my advice to you is don't buy the Sanyo Xacti VPC-CA6 Digital Camcorder!

Hitachi HD Digital Video Camera

Blogger.com Custom domains not for business blog

2008-06-02T18:34:00.005+01:00

Don't use blogger.com and the custom domains feature for a business blog, even if you have a totally customised blogger template. Today 2nd June 2008 blogger.com suffered an outage, which meant I could not post on my blog, neither could anyone access any blogs hosted by blogger.com. This included blogs on blogspot.com and all blogs using custom domains.

Even though using a custom domain means you can use any of your registered domains as the address for your blog, because the blog is still hosted on blogger.com, any outage on blogger.com will also affect your blog!

Non of my custom domains hosted on blogger.com where business critical, but it just occured to me, that some small businesses or people running business from home, might be using the custom domain feature for their make money online blogs.

It is a shame that blogger layouts are not supported on ftp hosted blogger blogs, as I wouldn't have thought twice about moving my blogs to that option.

I'm hoping that today's blogger.com outage will be the last for a long time

CMX07 cheap Video Mixer Review

2008-05-13T11:36:00.019+01:00

The CMX07 is a cheap 4 source, 2 channel video mixer aimed at the consumer market.

Looking for a cheap HD video mixer?

I needed a low cost mixer for training purposes at my local church's TV ministry, and after some searching on the internet short listed 2 products, the Edirol V4 VJ mixer and Cypress's CMX-07 video mixer.
The CMX-07 was the cheaper mixer by £200, but the main reason why I chose it was that for my TV ministry training application I needed to be able to simultaneously preview all my input sources, and the Edirol did not provide this. The CMX-07 also has an Audio Mixer, but I will not be covering this, as my audio is supplied from a proper mixer and plugs into the XLR inputs of the Sony PD170 used as the main Camera. If you are however pressed for space, then the Edirol V4 mixer is a good option worth considering.

The CMX-07 is manufactured in Taiwan and imported into the UK by CYP UK Ltd. The build quality is what you would expect for a mass produced item from the Far East, the joystick looks particularly vulnerable, and there is the conspicuous absence of a T bar for transitions (probably expected at this price range), instead an audio mixer type slider is used.

Design and Layout
The CMX07 has a cheap look, a plastic case and delicate controls, the unit however is very light and compact. The controls are well grouped, with the frequently used ones within easy access of the operator, the Audio Mixer controls are relegated to the far right.

What's in the Box
Included with the mixer is the Power Adaptor, a S-Video cable and a stereo phono cable.

Setup and Operation
Setting up the CMX07 involves connecting the various Video and Audio sources to the mixer, connecting the preview outputs to the respective monitors and mixer Audio/Video output to the recording device and program monitor.
There are 2 S-Video (4pin DIN), 2 Composite Video (RCA Phono) inputs, all 4 can be monitored simultaneously via their respective preview output (phono connection), 2 stereo audio inputs (RCA Phono) are also provided with the composite video sources, a stereo aux audio (RCA Phono) and a 3/4" Mic jack in the front panel completes the audio inputs. There are 2 S-Video, 2 composite Video and 2 stereo audio outputs.

Once everything is connected, switch on the CMX07 mixer which will go to its default settings. Even though the mixer has 4 video sources, you can only switch 2 at a time, so you need to configure both A and B buses with the required sources for switching. It should be noted that the mixer does not save any settings, so you need to configure the sources each time you switch the unit on. Cutting between 2 sources is accomplished by moving the "T" bar to either A or B bus and simply pressing the Video1 or Video2 button as required.
Basic Transitions (dissolve, wipe and PIP) are provided, again using the "T" bar on A bus, select Video1, choose the transition, on B bus select Video2, move the "T" bar from bus A to B and you have your transition. An auto take button is also provided with programmable speed.

Performance
Obviously this is not a broadcast quality switcher/mixer, and therefore the performance is not going to be brilliant.

The CMX07 specifications boasts that it has "Dual Time Base Correction for glitch-free source-switching", however in use I have found that when perfoming straight cuts between Video1 to Video2 there is a visible freeze on Video1, this occurs about 80% of the time, the dissolves on the other hand are pretty smooth and look professional to me (viewed on my 28inch WS TV). The processed output of the mixer seems to have a little bit of gain, as the same scene viewed from the camcorder recorded tape (ISO) has a lower contrast/Brightness level.
There are various digital effects (Negative, Mosaic, etc), which I've played with, but are generally not going to find use in a real production environment. There is a Blue Key mode which is supposed to allow Blue Screen work, I haven't tried this, but doubt the quality of the key would be very good. The PIP mode works quite well, and could be useful, a set of Background colours is also provided, though I have found no use for these in my application of the unit.

Conclusion
For its price, the CMX07 is actually good value for what it does, the main pitfalls being the absence of a T Bar, and the glitches during straight cuts. I have overcome the glitch problem by using the wipe transition in auto mode at its fastest setting.
Though the unit is advertised as a cheap 2 channel mixer, I have with a bit of ingenuity been able to use it to switch/mix a 3 Camera setup.

Having used the CMX07 mixer for over 4 years in a mobile setup at my local church to connect up to 3 church video cameras in a live switching configuration, I must say it provides good value for money, and would suit churches who want to startup a video/TV ministry, wedding videographers looking to mix 2 cameras live at a reception or even low budget corporate work. If you need something smaller, then I woud recommend the Edirol V4 video mixer.

Video photography and Editing services

2008-05-09T07:30:00.001+01:00

I am now offering video photography and video editing services to individuals.

Video Photography:
If you are looking for professional coverage of your special events, then I am your man, having submitted video documentaries to BBC and Current TV that have been accepted for publication, I have the knowledge to produce a product that will captivate your audience, unlike your average man with a camcorder who just points and shoots at everything happening.

The end result is a video that is short, entertaining with a balanced coverage of the whole event.
Fees start at £250, and depends on the time spent covering your event.

PS: I don't cover weddings at the moment due to the longs hours required for these and the unwillingness of most people to pay professional rates (min £1,000) for an excellent service.

Video Editing:
Do you have a long wedding video you need edited into something short that can be shown to your guests? Need to produce a video from photos and footage of your children or just need a video produced from various footage you have in old formats, then you have come to the right place.
Fees start at £50 and depends on the work you need done. Please note my editing is not about trimming done a long video into something short, but about telling a story using the footage provided.

Please have a look at my show reel to see the various videos I've produced and edited to have a feel for the quality of work undertaking.

I'm currently acting as a producer/editor on a project billed as Britain's first Internet Only reality show.

If you are interested in any of these services, then call 07956233032 or email sholao@meet-britain.org.uk

Hitachi HD pocket Camcorder

Blogger, Custom domains & 123reg.co.uk

2008-04-18T15:24:00.015+01:00

If you want to use a custom domain with blogger.com and have a domain registered with 123reg.co.uk, then here are the steps to follow to enable both www.yourdomain.co.uk and yourdomain.co.uk to point to your old blogspot.com blog. 123reg.co.uk provide cheap uk domains registrations (£6.80 for 2 years) and are thus very popular with bloggers.

Login to your control panel at 123reg.co.uk, and select the domain you want to manage.

Click on modify domain.

Now choose Web Forwarding

Select non-framed webforwarding, and enter the blogspot address of your domain.

Click on update webforwarding to save changes and return to the control panel.

Now select Manage DNS and add a CNAME record for www pointing to ghs.google.com as shown below. Note: there is a trailing dot!

You will now have to wait 24hrs for these changes to take effect. The easiest way to know if the changes have taken effect is to type www.yourdomain.co.uk into a browser, if it comes up with a 123reg.co.uk holding page, then the changes have not occurred.

Once the changes have taken place, login to blogger, and change the publishing settings to your new domain as shown below:

You should now have both www.yourdomain.co.uk and yourdomain.co.uk pointing to your old blogspot.com blog.

PS: You might have to wait about 30 minutes after changes made at blogger.com for your blog to work (you might get 404 errors in the meantime).

Additional Reading
Don't use Blogger Custom Domain for business blog.

The Apple iPhone UK

2007-12-07T14:36:00.001Z

The apple iphone has been out here in the UK for a while now, i haven't got one, don't really need one, as I recently won a 30GB Apple ipod from Current TV, and my Sony Ericsson K750i mobile phone while getting on in age, is still serving me well.

If you have however got an Apple iPhone and found it not quite what you expected, you can always ebay it, if not, there is another option, Blend IT!

Blending an Apple iPhone

I've switched to an Apple MacBook!

2007-08-15T09:42:00.001+01:00

I have just switched to an Apple MacBook for mobile video editing. In April this year I bought a compaq laptop because I had need for a mobile video editing platform. The shop assistant told me that Windows XP was no longer available, that all computer hardware now had Windows Vista installed from the factory. I'm not an early new technology adoptor, as I know from experience that there are always bugs etc to fix, but had no other option.

To cut a long story short, Windows Vista has been a pain in the backside! Crash upon crash, not many programs work correctly on Vista and it has not been as stable as my good old Windows XP PC which is over 4 years old, and I have not yet had a blue screen on it.

One of the main requirements of my laptop was to enable me to do my video editing while on the move. Unfortunately for me, this has not been possible on my Windows Vista based laptop due various compatibility issues with my video editing software. Last week, I finally gave up and acquired an Apple MacBook.

Having never used an Apple Mac before, it is a new way of life, but I'm giving it a good go, and have been able to edit a short video with Final Cut Express on it.

I have a steep learning curve ahead, especially since I've been using windows for almost 15 years, but I must confess that for my mobile video editing needs, my Apple MacBook is a perfect solution.

Sanyo Xacti C40 Review

2007-04-14T14:06:00.003+01:00

Some of you have been wondering if I was going to do a full review of the Sanyo Xacti C40 digital camcorder that I've been raving about recently. Well why do it when someone else has already done a full and comprehensive review, so check the link below:

Steve's Sanyo Xacti C40 review

Here is a clip I recorded during my trip to Nigeria using my compact Sanyo Xacti C40 camcorder.

Sanyo Xacti CA6 Negative review

Hitachi HD Camcorder

More Sanyo Xacti C40 camcorder clips

2007-04-09T01:14:00.003+01:00

Here are some more video clips and pictures from my Sanyo Xacti C40 digital camcorder.

Sanyo Xacti CA6 Negative review

Hitachi tapeless HD camcorder

Sanyo Xacti C40 digital camcorder

2007-04-06T23:14:00.003+01:00

I bought the Sanyo Xacti C40digital camcorder for my trip to Nigeria because I needed a small digital camcorder that was inconspicuous, had good image quality, easy to use and very portable.

At first I was considering the Nokia N93 mobile phone instead of the Sanyo Xacti C40, as it was having rave reviews for the included camera, but I could not justify the price (almost £500), and was not prepared to enter into an expensive year long contract to get it for free. The Nokia N93 would have been idea for the purpose I needed the camcorder for, with the added bonus of a mobile phone which would certainly mean that I would take it everywhere and thus have a fair quality camcorder with me always, however having had the Sony Ericsson K750i for over a year, I knew the novelty would wear off after a while, so I was not going to waste my money just for the sake of having the latest gadget when there was a cheaper product to fulfil my needs.

Having found out about the Sanyo Xacti C40, I knew this was the product for me. The specs meant it was superior in quality to the camera in the Nokia N93, was cheaper and fitted my needs perfectly. Having had this camcorder for over 3 months, I can report that it was the right choice for me, and the quality of videos produced by the camera is very good indeed. As a filmmaker, I was never expecting this camera to beat or rival my Sony DCR-TRV-355E digital camcorder, but for its weight and size, it is a very good compromise.

The Sanyo Xacti C40 served me well during my trip to Nigeria, and has been very useful since I returned to the UK as well, and the other 2 good things about the camera is that it produces excellent photos, and uses secure data cards, so I don't need to carry tapes about, as well as there is no long capture process when transferring from camera to computer for editing, as all clips are recorded in high quality MP4 format.

Find below a selection of video clips and a photo taken by my faithful Sanyo Xacti C40 digital camcorder.

Sanyo Xacti CA6 Negative review

Hitachi Digital HD camcorder

Sony Entertainment PC - I want one!

2007-02-15T07:34:00.002Z

Now that Microsoft's Windows Vista is out, manufacturers are now trying to get their new entertainment PC's into homes.

I want one of these Sony Entertainment PC's in my living room, looks very futuristic and very un-PC like.

It surely makes my Microsoft XBox 360 Media Centre media extender look outdated.

For more details, check Sony's Entertaiment PC Website.

I can't justify the price tag of the though!

Olympus WS-200S Digital Voice Recorder

2007-01-01T23:01:00.002Z

The Olympus WS-200S is the digital voice recorder that I got as a christmas present.

There are 2 things that I plan to use this device for. First I will use it as a remote microphone for recording interviews when ever required for my video recording hobby.

The other use is of course for recoding audio podcasts on the move.

The olympus ws-200s has 128mb of storage space, and depending on the recording mode selected, you get up to 40 hrs of recording time.

I have already used the olympus twice, the first time to record my Christmas greeting, the second was used to record the audio I used on my New Year Video post.

I am using an external microphone with mine, this allows me to keep the device in my pocket, as well as keep my hands free while still giving me good audio both of me and anyone close to me that I might be having a conversation with, as demonstrated in my New Year Video post.

Olympus also make another model the Olympus WS-300S, this has 256MB of storage, can act as an MP3 player, which the Olympus WS-200S can not. Both devices however record to a windows media audio format (.wma), and will need to be converted to be used in a non windows media player.

Greenlights Please

2006-11-07T23:01:00.000Z

Please give my video a greenlight by voting for it.

Registration required, but minimal details taken.

Palm Treo 650 fake call

2006-09-23T10:30:00.001+01:00

Have you got a palm treo 650 phone?

Then you might be interested in Fake Call for the Palm Treo 650. This allows you to use the calendar to schedule the Palm Treo 650 to ring as if you had an incoming call, and can save you from boring meetings or other sticky situations.

To read more about Fake Call for Palm Treo 650, click here.

I am not in the position to acquire any new home gadgets at the moment, even the last gadget I bought the XBOX 360 media centre has not been used to it's full potential.

Instead any extra money I get now will be channelled towards my I want to fly a hang glider across the UK challenge.

Anyone want to buy a lonely XBOX 360 console?

XBOX 360 Core system and spring update without storage device.

2006-07-04T23:02:00.002+01:00

If you like me bought an XBOX 360 core system to use as an MCE 2005 extender, then you would have been caught out by the fact that you can't update the firmware on your console to the latest version via XBOX live if you don't have a storage device (either the HDD or a memory unit), even though the spring update press release says you can. Microsoft are yet (as of July 2006) to release the update on CD/DVD to allow this to be done offline.

There are a number of reasons why you need to update the firmware of your xbox 360 console to the latest version. The spring update includes a number of DVD player enhancements which would make your use of the XBOX 360 as a media hub much more enjoyable. The major one for me was the ability to stop the console from automatically playing a DVD left in the drive, when the console is powered up using the power button. It now goes to the dashboard. The full list of enhancements is here.

The other thing I noticed when I updated my console via XBOX live was that my console now had support for the live camera accessory, something that was not available on the console before, so obviously console updates is the preferred way for adding support for various accessories (the HD DVD drive will be available soon), which is why I'm a bit annoyed that the console was not designed with some form of onboard memory to allow for these without having to buy external storage units.

I don't think it was an oversight, rather a deliberate way of making sure that people buy additional accessories to generate more funds of Micro$oft! Even the HD component cable is not included in the core system.

I was lucky to be able to borrow a HDD storage device from a colleague at work, perform the update, and return the unit, so now I have the latest firmware (June 2006), on my XBOX 360 and have not spent un-necessary funds on an accessory I don't need.

Just for your information, you don't even need to create a profile on XBOX live to perform the update, the first thing the console does before trying to sign in is to see if there are any updates, so you can perform an update without having to log in or sign up to XBOX live. The best way to do this is via the Test XBOX Live button on the Network section of the system blade.

XBOX 360 as Media Extender Part II

2006-06-29T20:05:00.000+01:00

Having spoken to Xbox 360 support personnel on 3 different occasions, I can confirm, that at the moment, you will need at least a memory unit to download any firmware updates to your xbox 360 console from the Xbox live site!

Another ploy by the Microsoft corporation to squeeze more money out of individuals!

What really annoys me is that their press release blatantly lied about not requiring one, and I don't see why technically one is required. Surely during the design process they knew they would be rolling out firmware updates via xbox live, so they could had made provision for this without having to require an external storage device, unless of course they knew that the main purpose of the console was going to be gaming! So the additional media hub facilities were an after thought to gain an extra market share!

XBOX 360 as a Media Center Extender - The hidden costs.

2006-06-26T20:59:00.003+01:00

I recently bought a XBox 360 console to use as a Media Center Extender, as I quite loved the idea of my family having arm chair access to our complete ripped CD collection, our ever increasing collection of digital photos that would never otherwise see the light of day, as well as access to the few DVDs we had and our home videos which I had shot.

With Media Center Edition 2005 firmly established as a favourite easy to use HTPC application, and me having a fairly new windows XP machine in the study, and not wishing to shell out £800 or so to get a living room acceptable HTPC, using the XBox 360 as an extender to my current PC which I would need to install MCE 2005 Edition on seemed a good choice, and Google seemed to have many references to the increased use of the XBox 360 as a media hub in the house.

Having had access to a Liteon 5025 PVR/DVD recorder over the last 12 months or so, I knew that our family had no use for a PVR, so I wouldn't be using MCE 2005 for live TV or recording. It wasn't until I started adding all the bits and pieces together that I realised how far from the £210 commonly quoted price this new media hub was going to cost.

Not being a gamer, and to cut costs, I decided on buying the Core system and building on that.

XBox 360 Core System £210
HD Component cable (to complement my new LG RZ37LZ55 HD Ready LCD Television) £20. Joytech sell a cheaper version.
You will need a VGA cable to connect the Xbox 360 to a computer monitor, the cable included with the core system can be used to connect it to a CRT TV, but for a better quality signal you will need the RGB scart cable.

Xbox 360 Universal remote console £20. Even if you buy the premium pack, the included remote does not have the complete features provided by this remote.

XBOX 360 wireless adaptor £55 (I needed this since I didn't have a wired network point near my TV, and wasn't in a position to run one). For best performance, your MCE 2005 PC should be connected to the wireless access point via a wired connection.

A digital optical cable to allow me output 5.1 surround sound from the Xbox 360, as the HD Component cable only outputs stereo (I haven't checked if this is Dolby, but guess it is).

One annoying thing that I recently found out was that you need a storage device to be able to download updates to the Xbox 360 via Xbox live, contrary to the press release that was sent all over the place by Microsoft when the much anticipated Spring Update was released in June. So here I am with a XBOX 360, and I can't download the latest firmware to the console because I don't have a memory unit or Hard drive. Obviously Microsoft still thinks the XBOX 360 is primarily a gaming console and the media hub facilities where just an after though. I haven't bought a storage device or memory card yet, as I don't think I really need the spring update yet!

Finally I have had to pay £72 to get a legal copy of MCE 2005 to run on my study PC, and this had to be a fresh installation, as MCE 2005 will not upgrade Windows XP Home Edition.

Now I have everything to connect my XBox 360 to my TV as well as allow it to act as a MCE 2005 edition extender, does my family now get the full MCE 2005 experience from the sofa? NO.

I will be explaining in my next post what a let down the XBox 360 as a MCE extender is.

more reading
XBox360 as Media Extender
The Wii games console

LG High Definition LCD Television review.

2006-06-25T22:16:00.011+01:00

My latest home gadget is the LG RZ37LZ55 HD ready LCD TV which I bought recently as part of my quest for a Digital Media Experience.

The LG RZ37LZ55 is an affordable good quality 37" HD ready LCD TV, and though it is not the latest model from LG, it still offers good value for money. Not every one will like the styling of the LG RZ37LZ55, especially with the 2 speakers on the side, which are not removable. It also comes with a desktop stand. The TV has an analogue tuner which I don't use, as I have a SKY box connected via scart RGB.

In terms of connectivity this home gadget the LG RZ37LZ55 offers 2 Scart sockets, 1 composite, 1 component, 1 VGA and 1 HDMI interface, so will connect to any device you can think of. A RS232 control interface is also included for those computer geeks who want computer control.

The quality of the picture is very good, and when I connect my gaming home gadget the XBOX 360 via the component input the HD picture is stunning.

Amazon.co.uk Widgets

What I don't like about this home gadget

Non detachable speakers (not a lot of LCD or Plasmas have these anyway), but would have been nice especially as I intend to wall mount mine.

The TV does not scan the inputs for a signal, so if I switch on the XBOX 360, switch off the SKY box, I get a no signal screen saver, it would have been nice if the LG RZ37LZ55 automatically detected that there was a signal on the component input and automatically switched to it (maybe this is available in more expensive sets?).

When the aspect ratio on the TV is set to automatically detect from the broadcast signal it puts grey bars on the side of 4:3 broadcasts, I would prefer black.

On the whole I'm pleased with the set.

Points to note:

The TV remote is supposed to be a programmable universal model, but I couldn't get the remote to control my SKY box or Samsung AV601 receiver.

If you are used to CRT pictures, it takes time to get used to the LG RZ37LZ55 LCD HD ready TV, especially when watching poor quality broadcasts, as the high quality screen really shows the artefacts.

I am still trying to get the picture settings adjusted right especially for watching DVDs, as the dark scenes from the movie 'Tears of the sun' where not watch able last night with the current settings, so you will need to adjust the factory preset settings.

I got mine from Dixon's Online for less that £1000, I got an automatic £25 web discount as well as an additional £10 pricerunner discount (check pricerunner site for the current discount code). Took 6 days to arrive from ordering.

The price of the set seems to be coming down everyday, with some outlets now selling it for £900. I you are looking for an affordable 37" hd ready LCD, the LG RZ37LZ55 might fit the bill, as with everything, you get what you pay for, so don't expect this TV to out perform a similar sized LCD from a leading brand manufacturer.

LG RZ37LZ55 TV Problems

There have been a few problems reported on this LG TV, howver the only one I've encountered is the issue of the LCD TV not waking from stand by. I've not heard of a fix for this problem by LG, but since switching off the telly from the main and turning it back on again overides it, I can live with it.

Update 2008: Almost 2 years of owning this High Definition home gadget, and I'm very satisfied with the product.

Digital Media Experience

2006-06-04T20:41:00.000+01:00

Over the next few days or weeks, I will be putting things in place so the family can experience digital media in our main lounge.

The plan is to get a new HD Ready flat screen display, use a XBOX 360 as a Media Center Extender to allow us access to our music, photos and videos in full HD glory. The XBOX 360 will also replace my DVD and CD player, so the lounge should look tidier with all CDs, DVDs and fewer electronic gadgets around.

I have started the process this weekend by buying a Toshiba 320GB external USB hard drive. This external USB hard drive will have all my CD's ripped to it in MP3 format, hold the few DVD movies we have, I will be using a DVDShrink to copy just the main movie, eliminating all un necessary extras. The hard drive will also hold the family photos.

I'm half way through ripping the CDs, I used Windows Media Player, though there are other options available. I'm not too fussed about quality, so I used maximum compression during ripping.

I've bought the XBOX 360, but am waiting for a few extras, so haven't bothered opening the box yet. The order of the HD LCD TV will be made in the week.

I will also have to install windows media center 2005 on my study PC, so there is a far bit of work to be done.

I will keep a diary of how things go, and will do a few write ups when finished.

Protect your portable gadgets and devices

2006-05-08T21:46:00.000+01:00

Make your Mobile Phones, MP3 plays and Laptops harder to sell if stolen, by following the UK police crime initiative.

Register your valuable property https://www.immobilise.com/

Keep a record of your mobile phone IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) http://www.met.police.uk/mobilephone/imei.htm

Go to your mobile phone company website for extra security information - list below: http://www.met.police.uk/mobilephone/links.htm

If you are buying second hand gadgets or devices, check them against the database to see if they have been reported stolen.

Reset the Conexant AMX CA61E ADSL Router

2006-04-08T09:51:00.003+01:00

Update May 2008 The article originally linked to in this post is no longer available on the internet, and I can't find a replacement. I don't have this ADSL router anymore, so am unable to retrace the steps to reset this router.

Recently I had a software problem with one of my home gadgets the Conexant AMX CA61E ADSL Router, that required a hardware reset to put it back to the factory defaults.

Luckily I found the following Reset the Conexant AMX CA61E ADSL Router article which gave me all the information I needed.

Unfortunately, I was missing pictures, so it took me about 15 minutes to find the actual jumper that needed shorting, so I've decided to take some pictures of the Conexant AMX CA61E ADSL Router to help anyone who needs to do this in the future.

The picture below shows underneath the Conexant AMX CA61E ADSL Router, with a hole made in the label to gain access to the screw holding the unit together. You will need a Philips (star/cross) screwdriver to open the unit.

Once you open the unit, you will see the circuit board as shown below. Click on the photo to see a higher resolution version, with jumper J7 circled.

A close-up of the J7 jumper is shown below.

Finally the picture below shows how you short the jumper following the instructions in the Reset the Conexant AMX CA61E ADSL Router article.

Once you have completed the hardware reset, you will need to re-configure your Conexant AMX CA61E ADSL Router.

O2 recalls X1 due to fire risk

2006-03-25T10:38:00.001Z

UK mobile phone giant O2 is recalling the X1 mobile handset due to a risk of overheating.

O2 recalls incendiary X1.

If you know of anyone using the X1 mobie phone let them know.

HDTV arrives in the UK

2006-03-24T22:59:00.001Z

High Definition TV HDTV, finally arrives in the UK as two of the major broadcasters today announced their plans to start HDTV transmissions in the UK.

The BBC plans to start HDTV trials with its coverage of the world cup and this years coverage of the Wimbledon championships.

BBC to start HD trials

SKY TV today also released prices for its HDTV service. With a monopoly of the satellite market, the prices are not cheap.

SKY HDTV

Its a bit early for me, and the price of SKY's system is too much for me to even consider. Did I mention I don't have a HD TV yet?

Telewest launches the UK's first HD TV service

2006-03-14T08:35:00.000Z

Cable company NTL:Telewest launched the UK's first High Definition TV service yesterday.

Full details at:

PC Computer and The Register

The service is available to those who have the Telewest TV Drive PVR set top box, and there is an additional premium of £10-£15 depending on your current TV package.

Details of programs available on the Telewest HD service are sketchy at the moment, you ca visit Telewest's TV Drive website for details.

In the meantime SKY is still saying that its HD service is due for launch in the first half of 2006. SKY HD.

Portable Satellite Navigation

2006-03-04T10:11:00.000Z

I'm putting up my Garmin portable satellite navigation up for sale, as my current car has an inbuilt system.

The system I have is 3 yrs old, and so might not be able to compete with modern devices, however when I bought it, it was an affordable way to have Satellite Navigation especially if you needed to use it in more than one car.

I did a review of the unit for the Lexus Owners Club, and it can be found here.

The recent introduction of more stylish units like the Tom Tom has almost meant that portable satellite navigation units are almost becoming a fashion accessory on the same lines as the latest mobile phone, MP3 player.

The new SKY personalised TV listings

2006-02-10T06:57:00.002Z

Finally my SKY Digital satellite receiver box got updated with the new SKY TV guide yesterday, and I have tried out the personalised SKY's TV listings. It is not exactly what I was expecting, but it surely is a very useful feature.

The new SKY personalised TV listings is actually an enhancement of the favourite channels feature that had been present in the SKY TV guide previously. The enhancement includes an increase in the number of channels you can add to your favourites from 10 to 50, but more importantly the addition of the option to view your favourite channels as a list and a 7 day guide of those channels which then acts as your personalised SKY TV listings.

For those who have not used the favourite channel feature before, here is how it works.

SKY TV personal listings setup

Using the SKY Digital digi box remote control, press the services button.

Choose favourite channels from the options listed.

You are now presented with a screen showing the channels available on the SKY TV digital platform.

Using the up and down arrows on your remote go through the channels, and for everyone you want to add to your favourite channel press the yellow button, a tick should appear on that channel.

Continue through the TV listings until you have selected all the channels you want to add, or you reach your maximum of 50, then press the select button to save these channels. If you want to remove any channel just press the yellow button when you have that channel highlighted, and the tick will be removed.

Once you have finalised your favourite channels, press the TV listings button on your SKY Digital digi box remote control, and you will be presented with the TV guide main menu. You will notice at the bottom right of the screen the favourite square with an arrow pointing down, if you now press the Blue button on your remote control, you will be presented with your favourite channels as a TV listing, this also contains a 7 day guide which you can now use as normal.

The new feature should be very useful to people who have only Free to Air (FTA), Free to View (FTV) or limited subscription channels, as they can now have a TV listing that shows only the channels they have access to, and they don't have to go through loads of extra channels just to see what is available to them.

Personally I think those who are subscribed to all premium channels and thus have access to a larger amount of channels might not use this feature regularly, as they might think they would miss a an interesting program on one of their less favourite channels.

TIP: When adding channels to your favourites, you can get more value by not adding +1 channels to your list, but using the scan feature while watching a channel to see what the +1 channel is showing as most +1 channels are just one channel number up (More4 being an exception).

If you've found an interesting way of using this SKY TV listings feature, leave a comment letting me know.

SE K750I Mobile Email Issues

2006-02-02T18:02:00.000Z

Sorry for the lack of posts recently, I have been very busy both at work and home, and time has been very tight to play with gadgets or search out new ones. I have also been working hard trying to find sponsorship for my hang glider adventure so blogging has had to take a back seat, and there are still a lot of things I'm involved with at the moment so it might be a while before I can resume my weekly posts. Anyway here is a little issue I had to deal with this week.

Further to my earlier Email from your K750i mobile phone post, all has been working okay with my SE K750I mobile phone, email wise until recently when I tried to send myself an email at work, and it failed!
My first reaction was that there was a problem with Virgin's mobile phone network, that turned out to be false as I could surf the internet of the SE K750I.
Further investigation showed that I was able actually access the POP3 account setup on the phone, but the problems was when it tried to send the email using the smtp server specified the mobile phones email configuration. If you remember in my earlier Email from your K750i mobile phone post I had to use my personal smtp server for sending email as Virgin Mobile does not provide an email service. Since I did not know the IP address my phone would be using to connect to my home PC, I had to configure my home firewall to accept connections from any IP address. Somehow that setting on my smtp server had changed to allow only local connections. I changed it back to allow all connections and now my SE K750I is now happily sending emails out again.
For the benefit of all you potential spammers, I don't use the default smtp port for connections from the internet, my PC has a dynamic IP, which you don't know and I have a DNS name which you will never guess, so I don't have an open smtp relay.

This is one of the downsides of the email client on the SE K750I, it does not support authenticated smtp, so you will only be able to use this phone to send emails if your mobile phone network provides email service, you have your own smtp server and know how to configure it to work with the SE K750I or you can find an ISP that provides a POP3 logon before smtp service.

Personalised SKY TV listings

2006-01-18T19:42:00.001Z

Good news for SKY Digital subscribers.

You can now have a personalised TV listings of your sky digital box, you no longer have to put up with having to scroll through all the 200+ channels.

Details at 50 Favorite Sky TV channels.

Misterhouse Home Automation system re-config

2006-01-09T16:50:00.001Z

I've recently had to spend some time changing the configuration of my Misterhouse based home automation system since it had started behaving erratically.

The problem was with some of the hardware used in the system rather than the Misterhouse software itself which I have been running for about 3 years and have found to be very reliable.

The first hardware to fail was the wireless router that connected the Misterhouse Windows NT4 computer to the internet and the main home computer. This meant I could not remote connect to the Misterhouse computer and administer the system, though the system was still running albeit erratically, as I could not reset the state of some of the X10 hardware used in my home automation system.

The other item that failed was a TM13 X10 receiver which was switching off the unit connected to it at times when it was not supposed to. I haven't gotten to the root of that problem, so I've removed the electrical appliance connected to it for the time being.

Everything is back to normal now after decommissioning the NT4 computer and running the Misterhouse software on my XP computer.

I now have to budget for a new wireless router, and I would like to replace the NT4 computer with a new PC which would double as a media storage device for my DVDs and music CDs, but it looks like my home automation needs will have to take a back burner, as I'm going to be concentrating my efforts on my hang glidingfor the first half of this year.

Yaesu FT 817 Transceiver Gadget

2006-01-06T09:45:00.003Z

Yaesu FT 817 Qrp transciever

In my last post I had the picture of my Amateur Radio Yaesu FT 817 transceiver gadget.

Amateur Radio was a hobby I picked up in the 80's when I was in Nigeria, and back then it was an elite hobby, as with no internet, and telecommunications very expensive, it was kind of cool to be able to talk with people all over the world from the comfort of my room without incurring any expensive call charges.

As a student, it also meant I learnt more about physics and Electronics, this was good for me, as I was ahead of my classmates in School. My knowledge of geography was also very good, as each time I made contact with someone, I would check the map to see where they were located.

Back in the 80's being a student, I could not afford to buy Amateur radio equipment or any other gadgets off the shelf (not that any was available in Nigeria anyway), so most of the equipment I used was homebrew from electronic parts easily found locally and using circuit diagrams found in magazines I was sent from overseas. I was also fortunate to also benefit from a United Nations program that donated electronic kits to the developing countries, and got a 20m transceiver kit. This transceiver kit operated on 14Mhz short-wave, and gave me the opportunity to contact people worldwide.

Being located in Nigeria meant that a lot of people wanted to make contact and get sent a card confirming the contact so they could get various awards, many friendships were made, one of the best benefits I had from the hobby was I was able to get a very good job in Lagos when I completed my NYSC having studied Electronic Engineering.

Coming to the UK, meant that while I could continue to pursue the hobby and play with more electronic gadgets, I didn't really enjoy the hobby that much anymore, as there is a larger population of Radio Amateurs in the UK, and thus people wanting to contact you are less. This is one of the reasons why I haven't used this gadget that much recently.

As someone mentioned in the comments, I might use the radio to keep in contact during my upcoming hang glider adventure, though I will not be able to use it when actually flying as the UK license does not permit this.

For the record, my nigerian call signs were 5N9GOM and 5N2KRC, I also had the UK callsign M1DMG, my current UK call sign is M0DMG

For more details about this Yaesu FT 817 gadget and amateur radio, see the links below.

Radio Society of Great Britain
American Radio Relay League

A Real Gadget Yaesu FT 817

2005-12-31T14:08:00.002Z

Here is a real gadget of mine, and to prove it, I can reveal I haven't used it more than twice in 2005.

Do you know what it is, and why I've got it?

It is a Yaesu FT-817 qrp transceiver and I got it to pursue my amateur radio hobby.

The japanese are well known for their electronic products, and this gadget is a testament to the fine engineering from the country, a multi band HF, VHF and UHF radio packed with many bells and whistles in such a small package.

Merry Christmas Gadget Fans

2005-12-23T11:54:00.000Z

I hope you all have a nice Christmas, and get lots of nice gadgets and toys for presents.

I got my wife a Sandisk 1GB MP3 player, so I might give you a review if I get an opportunity to play with it.

Email on Sony Ericsson K750i mobile phone.

2005-12-02T13:25:00.023Z

This post is mainly aimed at those who might need to send the odd email from their Sony Ericsson K750i phone or those who want to do some moblogging. While I will give a step by step guide on setting up email on Sony Ericsson's K750i, you should be able to use the information here to figure it out for you own mobile phone.

Why would you want to send emails from you mobile phone?
Well it allows you to send more text than a SMS message and you only get charged once no matter how long the message, you can send attachments, it can be cheaper than MMS, and is idea for moblogging.

What is required?
You will need your Sony Ericsson K750i or any mobile phone that has email functionality, this doesn't have to be a Pocket PC, Smartphone, just one that has an email client, many of the lower end mobile phones currently on the market now have this. You also need a connection to a mobile phone provider that supports internet access via GSM or GPRS.

Before I show you how to configure email to work on the SE K750i, a quick introduction on how email works.

For an email to be sent successfully from one point to the other, you need the following.

An email client (software installed on a PC, mobile phone, this composes the email and hands the message to the smtp server), a network connection between the email client and a smtp server (the smtp server acts a messenger and relays the message to the email server of the recipient). You will need details of the smtp server to configure your email client, this will either be provided by your mobile phone network if they provide this service (Virgin Mobile don't), you can pay for a smtp service from a 3rd party (ISP) or if you have the knowhow provide your own smtp server. Due to the increasing problem of spam, anyone providing a smtp server will either require you to send emails to the server from their network or ask you provide a username and password before allowing you to send.

Sending Email from a Sony Ericsson K750i using Virgin Mobile Network

Once you have your phone connected to Virgin's network and can make phone calls you need to visit Virgin's phone settings website page to configure your phone.
Here you can get MMS, WAP and Enhanced WAP settings sent directly to your phone. If you have a different Sony Ericsson model, or use a different network provider, visit Sony Ericsson's phone setup page where you can get the settings sent directly to your phone. Other phone manufactures have similar facilities, so visit their website and check their support section for details of how these can be sent to your phone.
With the appropriate settings sent to your phone, make sure you press the OK button when asked if you want to install the settings on your phone.

sony ericsson k750i manual email settings

On the Sony Ericsson Phone, press the menu button, choose messaging (envelope), scroll down to email and press select.
In email scroll down to settings (quicker if you scroll up), press select, scroll to account settings, select, and add new account (you can call the name anything you like).
Select connect using, and choose Virgin WAP for standard WAP (this uses your inclusive airtime minutes) or Virgin Enhanced (this uses the GPRS network and is currently charged at 0.5p per Kb). I use standard WAP, but will use GPRS when I go aboard as the cost is still the same (0.5p per KB).
Under Protocol leave as POP3, only change to IMAP4 if you know what it means.
Incoming Server Enter here the name of the mail server from which you will be downloading your mobile mail. Since Virgin does not support mobile mail, you will have to use a 3rd party mailserver, e.g. one from your ISP. Don't use the server you use at home for normal email, unless you want to download these to your mobile phone (this could be very costly if you get a lot of email/spam or large attachments).
Incoming port Leave as 110.
Encryption Leave default non.
Mailbox Enter here the username as supplied by your ISP/Network provider.
Password As supplied with username.
Outgoing Server This is the smtp server that you will use to send outgoing mail. Due to spam issues, you will need to use either your private one or one supplied by an ISP that supports send after POP3 authentication. No other form of smtp authentication will work with the Sony Ericsson K750i, as the supplied software doesn't support (someone correct me if I'm wrong) smtp authentication. I use my own private smtp server installed at home connected to a broadband line.
Outgoing port This is normally 25, but I have changed it to a different number to prevent my private smtp server at home from being used as a spam relay.
Email Address Enter the email address you want all emails from your mobile phone to be sent from. If you want to see replies on your mobile, then this will be the address supplied by your ISP/Network provider as above (mailbox).
Download I have this set as Headers & Text since I don't get any emails sent to my mobile address. To reduce cost if you get a lot of emails on your mobile address, you can change to headers only, this will give you basic information like sender, date/time and subject.
From Name I set this to Shola Mobile, you can put any name you want.
Signature You can put here any text you want added to the bottom of all emails sent, e.g. mobile phone number, text to indicate email was sent from mobile etc.
Copy Outgoing I have this sent to off, as I'm not sure what it does (copies of sent email are still left in sent emails folder).
Check Interval I have this off, but if you need to automatically check for emails, set to the required time interval (again be careful as this could run up a bill).

Once finished, select Done. You should now have configured a data connection with the correct email settings. Press back button twice to return to the Email menu. Scroll to Write New where you can compose a test email and send. If everything works you should see the phone dial (WAP) or just connect, find the server and send the email.
If you have problems, double check the email settings, the important ones are incoming server, incoming port, mailbox, password, outgoing server, outgoing port. If the problem is you can receive but unable to send, then check out going settings, if you can send without receiving check incoming settings. If you get server not found, then either your WAP connections are not working or setup properly, or one of the settings are not correct, you can get the settings resent and try again.

I hope this information is of use to someone with their Sony Ericsson K750i, let me know if you have any problems, corrections or comments.

Connect computer to your CRT TV.

2005-11-23T07:47:00.010Z

Update 2009: The original article is no longer available on the internet.

If you really do need a product that will allow you to connect a computer to a CRT TV for whatever reason, then you might be interested in the TV One scan converter listed below, which I currently use to connect my macbook laptop to a TV or video mixer in church (see article at the bottom of page).

Do you have a large screen Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) TV and wished you could connect your computer to it and obtain a decent picture, well have a look a the link below, I haven't tried the circuit, but it does look promising.

Reasons for connecting your computer to a large screen CRT TV include playing computer games, using your computer as a DVD player or just plain surfing the net on a huge screen.

If you have a large screen CRT TV that is far from giving up the ghost, you might try this before you shell out some money on buying a flat panel LCD or plasma screen.
The picture quality will not be the same, but the effect might just be.

You will need soldering skills or you can ask a friend to help with the soldering.

More Reading
Connect your computer to a video mixer

My Sony Ericsson K750i mobile phone - Update

2005-11-15T16:53:00.001Z

Remember the Sony Ericsson requirements that my new mobile phone was supposed to meet?

Well here is an update on how my Sony Ericsson K750i mobile phone scores against that list.

Camera Phone- This phone has surpassed this requirement as shown by my separate Hang Gliding photos blog. For my upcoming flying adventure, most of the photos I will be taking are either going to be of the landscapes I will be flying over, people I meet or places I visit, and the camera on the SE K750i will meet those functions without a problem. I might be carrying along a second camera, but that will be in the support vehicle.

Phone - I don't have any demanding requirements here, I need to be able to make and receive calls without too much ado, and the SE K750i does that.

Calendar - I use my office outlook calendar a lot to help me keep track of my personal activities, and since I got the SE K750i, I now have a full copy of my office calendar on both my SE K750i as well as my home PC, so now I won't forget to pay an important bill because I've got a day off work.

FM radio - I'm not sure why I put this on my requirements list, as now that I have the phone, I hardly use the FM radio! It might have something to do with the fact that the reception on the radio is not very good inside buildings, and that since the headphones act as the antenna, you need to leave it hanging free to provide decent reception.

Voice Recorder - The Sony Ericsson K750i does have a voice recorder which will allow me to record notes as I undertake my adventure, but unfortunately the audio clips are not recorded in MP3 format, so I will not be able to podcast directly using these recordings. If anyone knows or has found an easy way of converting these recordings to MP3 format, please let me know, As that would really make life easy for me if I'm able to podcast directly from the SE K750i.

MP3 Player - I have used the MP3 player on the SE K750i more than I anticipated, a favourite use of mine being listening to the Bible. I'm not a sophisticated user, so can't comment on playlists, as I just have one playlist which just repeats the MP3 tracks that I listen to. If you are really interested in a phone with a better MP3 player, you could check out Sony Ericsson's W800i, or if you are an iTunes fan, Motorola's ROKR.

One added bonus for me has been the email function of the phone. I'm not a SMS addict, and thus don't like using mobile phones to send text as it takes too long to type out a decent message (at least for me it does), but my Virgin Mobile tariff includes standard wap access in my monthly free minutes bundle, so I can send pictures and a some text to my blog without incurring extra charges, thus saving me 35p for each picture message I would have sent.
By the way I was unable to get picture messaging to work with Flickr, so at the moment if you want to moblog and are on Virgin, then picture messaging will not work with Flickr, it seems Virgin's MMS to email gateway changes the way the picture is sent, and thus the picture is not recognised by Flickr. I also tried sending a MMS message to my home address, and that did not come out as well, so don't waste you money trying to send a picture or other MMS message to an email address via Virgin. MMS to other mobile phones seems to work okay though.

So in a nutshell I'm happy with my Sony Ericsson K750i mobile phone.

Home Automation inspiration?

2005-11-08T20:14:00.000Z

If you are looking for some ideas on Home Automation in your home, have a look at Palm Lodge.

Jabra BT130 Bluetooth Headset

2005-11-03T23:01:00.003Z

I got the Jabra BT130 bluetooth headset as part of the package when I bought my Sony Ericsson K750i mobile phone. I didn't choose this particular model, as there wasn't an option to select a bluetooth headset model during the ordering process, so the Jabra BT130 just happened to be what I was sent.

The main reason for getting the headset was for use in the car when driving, as it is an offence to use your hands to hold a phone and talk while driving in the UK.

After opening the package, I put the Jabra BT130 on charge and had a little read of the manual, and to be honest there isn't really much to say about the headset.

With the Jabra BT130 fully charged and switched on, I enabled bluetooth on my Sony Ericsson K750i, and paired it up with the headset, the default passcode on the headset is 0000 (4 zeros), and the manual does not give any information on changing this. My K750i discovered the headset without any problems, and I chose the in-car profile for the device, and that was it. I set the bluetooth visibility of my K750i to hidden having read an article on bluejacking.

All that I needed to do now is to make a call, this I did in the normal way, and the phone then asked if I wanted to transfer to headset to which I said yes, and bingo, the headset worked.

I have used the headset for a while now, and it has been working okay, no dropped calls, the sound quality good, and when the phone rings, all I have to do is tap the headset once and the call is answered. It also has a last dialled function, which is activated by pressing the headset button for about 1-2 secs, in summary, a useful bit of kit. The Jabra BT130 has a voice dial function which I haven't used, as I haven't set up any voice dialing on my SE K750i

The only problem I have with it, is that I can't seem to get it to sit comfortably in either of my ears, not sure if this is due to my ear (nothing special about it) or the headset design.

Liteon LVW-5026 DVD/HDD recorder review

2005-11-01T20:14:00.001Z

Okay this is not a true review, but merely my opinion of the Liteon LVW-5026 and how it meets up to my requirements of a DVD/HDD recorder

I got this player as my old Samsung 709 DVD player was on its last leg of providing service, the main problem with it was freezing while playing a lot of rented DVDs. So I needed a new DVD player, but also once in a while I need to transfer a home video onto DVD, so a DVD recorder would be useful as my computer does not have a DVD writer, but more importantly I need something my wife would be able to use. The HDD was added as a last requirement to allow us to record programs from the TV, as we don't have a VCR connected to our SKY digital receiver, A HDD recorder meaning we don't have to mess about with tapes.

Having set these requirements, I had a look at various models, and settled on the Liteon, based on their proven reliability in the DVD writer world, and affordability. The Liteon LVW-5026 is a multi format DVD recorder with a 80GB hard drive, there is the Liteon LVW 5045 which has a 160GB drive for those who need more storage space.

The first thing I noted about the Liteon LVW-5026 was it took a long time to boot up. Now I've never had a DVD/HDD recorder before, so I can't say if this is normal, but compared to my old faithful Samsung 709 DVD player it was too long.

Once it is booted up, there wasn't any problems playing DVDs, all my current DVDs (not a lot I must confess) play fine, this includes my region one DVDs. I got my Liteon from SVP and it looks like it was multi-region out of the box.
Some people on the Liteon User Forum have mentioned some problems with widescreen switch when playing DVDs, but I have not had any such problems with my player.

The DVD recorder works fine, though I have only used it with DVD +R media and CDs (to produce a VCD) without any problems. The DVD interface is very basic, so don't expect to be able to create fancy DVD menus, you will need a PC for that. This is a single layer recorder, so you can expect about 2 hours of video using standard Play quality, more if you reduce the quality.

The HDD recorder is simple to use, if you want to record the current program, just press the record button once after changing to HDD mode of course, this will set the recorder to record for 30mins, so 2 presses of the record button will give 1 hour etc. Pausing live TV again is just easy, press the timeshift button once and live TV is paused, as the recorder archives the current program to disk. You can also set up timed recordings, but note the recorder CAN NOT control a satellite or freeview receiver, this is not a problem for me, as I have SKY, and the receiver has an autoview function in the personal planner, so I put the required program in the personal planner with autoview, set the Liteon to record from the scart, and it works. If you have child protection on SKY you will need to disable this if recording a rated program other wise you will have a recording of a blue screen with enter your PIN. I don't have freeview so can't advise on how to use the Liteon LVW-5026 to do timed recordings with freeview, but you can go to the Liteon Users forum where you should be able to get some help.

One thing that I've noticed with timed recordings, is that expired recordings are not automatically deleted, something that Liteon needs to address, as one would expect this from a machine of this calibre.

Apart from the 2 negative points I've mentioned, I'm pretty happy with the machine, and I'm sure I will get to love it the more I use it.

Any questions leave a comment.

Liteon / LVW-5026 DV Recorder Review

2005-10-22T21:45:00.000+01:00

I am currently trying to put together my review of the Liteon LVW-5026DV Recorder, but am suffering from writers block, so bear with me while I try to put my thoughts together. Hopefully I'll get it sorted in the next couple of days.

In the meantime, just to let you know I'm enjoying taking pictures with my Sony Ericsson K750i mobile phone.

Mobile Phone Heaven

2005-10-15T15:07:00.001+01:00

Having recently upgraded my Nokia 3330 mobile phone to a Sony Erisson 750i, I decided to take an inventory of the mobile phones in our household, both retired and active. The result is shown below.

Mobile Phone Heaven - From left to right, my wife's Motorola , my daughter's Samsung, my office Nokia, and three retired phones, 2 belonging to my wife and my beloved Nokia 3330 cell phone.

I usually recycle my old mobile phones, which is why there are no old retired phones of mine in the bunch, in fact I recently recycled a very old Nokia phone belonging to my wife which I knew she would not miss.

For more details on recycling mobile phones, visit Recycling Appeal UK.

I wonder how many old mobile phones are hiding in your cupboard, bearing in mind that those of us in the first world countries tend to replace rather than repair most of home gadgets or electronic devices. I wonder what the case is in third world countries.

Thinking of getting a flat panel TV?

2005-10-11T18:32:00.000+01:00

With Christmas not too far round the corner, and the UK broadcasters getting ready to launch HD services, you might be thinking of getting a flat panel TV, and the usual question follows. LCD or Plasma.

Here is a link to an article that might help you make an informed decision.

LCD or Plasma TV.

If you still need some more opinions, you can visit the AV Forums where you will find people who are ready to give you advice.

Spread cost of SIM Free Sony Ericsson K750i

2005-10-08T17:13:00.001+01:00

Are you looking for a SIM free Sony Ericsson K750i phone or even a different SIM free phone, are happy with your current network provider, but don't qualify for a upgrade to the phone you want, and don't have the cash to pay up front for the phone, then here is an idea which you could use to spread the cost of that phone over 12 months.

Most phones, if not all phones sold by OneStopPhoneShop are SIM free, and currently due to fierce competition in the market, the majority of UK mobile phone network operators are keen to draw new customers to them, so they are offering phones free provided you sign a new contract with them for 12 months or longer.

So taking the SE K750i as an example, you could join orange OVP Vodafone Anytime 100 for 12 months at £22 a month, with 9 months half price line rental, you could get a brand new Sony Ericsson K750i all for a total of £165 ie 9x11=99 + 3x22=66!

You can not get a better deal anywhere, you also get the added bonus of 100 cross network minutes each month which you can use if your existing phone is SIM free.

A few points, first you will need to be signing with a new network provider, ie you will not be able to use the Orange tariff if you already are an orange customer, secondly you need to be discipline enough to remember to cancel the contract at the end of 12 months, thirdly most new phones are sold with free insurance deals for 3 months, make sure you either refuse this or cancel before the 3 months is up.

As the OneStopPhoneShop represents all UK network providers, you should be able to find something that suits you. They also offer a 14day returns policy on all handsets, so if the handset does not work with your SIM you can send it back, don't open the seals on the SIM packs though.

Also note Virgin Mobile is a virtual network of T-Mobile, so their SIMs are interchangeable on locked handsets, also Tesco mobile is provided by O2, so their locked handsets should also accept each others SIMs, though I haven't tried this, so if someone could confirm this, that would be cool.

As always make sure you know what contract you are getting into, and if you are not the disciplined type, this might not be for you. Also it is worth noting that a credit search is done when you apply for a new phone contract.

More on my Sony Ericsson k750i

2005-10-08T16:20:00.001+01:00

Here is a picture I took with my new toy the Sony Ericsson K750i mobile phone.
It shows my retired Nokia 3330 phone next to the box of the K750i.

I have so far been able to synchronise my calendar and contacts on my phone with my home computer. I will be taking the Sony software and cable to my office next week, so I can get my office calendar synchronised with my phone as well, once that is complete, then the phone will have completed one of my requirements.

Also got to pair up the phone with my Jabra BT130 bluetooth headset, and used that this morning in the car, though I am still trying to get comfortable with wearing the headset. It feels a little odd, and does not sit comfortably in my ear. I have hidden my phone, so it is not visible to other bluetooth devices, so no bluejacking of my phone thank you.

While shopping this morning, I also tried the FM radio, but the reception was not too good inside buildings.

As you probably have already guessed, I'm a happy boy at the moment. More from me on this lovely phone in the future.

My Sony Ericsson K750i mobile phone has arrived

2005-10-06T23:11:00.001+01:00

My new Sony Ericsson K750i phone arrived yesterday, I charged it overnight, and having been playing with it on the London Underground on the way to work. As said in my previous post, I am moving from T-Mobile to Virgin Mobile, so the phone is free, but I am tied to Virgin Mobile for 12months, at a monthly cost of £24, with 4 months half price line rental. This gives me 100mins each month, which should be okay for me, since I have another phone for work. I also got a free Bluetooth headset and car charger, so I'm pretty happy with the deal.

I got the phone from One Stop Phone Shop, and was pretty pleased to know that the phone supplied is sim free, unlocked and unbranded, so after my 12 months, I can either go to another network or get reduced line rental if I chose to stay with Virgin.

The main thing I've noticed so far about the phone is the size of the keyboard, being slightly smaller than my present phone the Nokia 3330, so I'm hoping I get used to that.

I'll give full review once I've had the phone for a while, and will let you know if it meets my requirements as specified in my earlier post.

If anyone is considering this phone, and has any questions they would like to ask about this model, then feel free to leave a comment, or Contact Me.

I'm getting a Sony Ericsson K750i mobile phone

2005-10-04T18:41:00.003+01:00

Today I ordered myself a new mobile phone, the Sony Ericsson K750i. I am also ending a 12 year relationship with T-Mobile, which started in 1993 with a company called One2One who were new on the market, and where offering free local calls to landlines, bearing in mind at that time they only had network coverage within selected parts inside the M25.

I have been on the same traffic since then, and my monthly bill has pretty much stayed around the same £25 mark.

My main requirements from the new phone in order of importance are:

Good quality camera for mob logging during my upcoming adventure
Phone functions
Provide calendar functions preferably with ability to synchronise with outlook
FM Radio receiver
Voice recorder
MP3 player for the occasional podcast.

I will let you know if the Sony Ericsson K750i meets up to my requirements.

It's funny how my requirements have changed, as in my Sony Walkman W800 post, I had said that phone was not for me, yet a couple of weeks later, I go for virtually the same phone.

The only reason I didn't go for the Sony Walkman W800, was because of the design colour which makes the phone stand out a mile away, and is not good for anyone who takes their personal security serious in a place like London, I don't want to be a victim of crime, mugging or pickpocket.

Since I'm not needing the MP3 player facility, the reduced storage on the Sony Ericsson K750i is not really a disadvantage for me.

I'm looking forward to receiving my new toy, and will let you know how I get on with it.

OT - UK Religious Hatred Bill

2005-10-03T22:27:00.000+01:00

This is off topic, but as it affects me, and my freedom as a christain, I am going to give it a mention.

The UK government is currently trying to pass a bill in parliament which could potential stop christains in the UK from freely sharing their faith and the gospel as we know it today.

Full details of the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill is here. I have also included some links and the bottom of this post.

The Lawyers' Christian Fellowship is leading the campaign in the UK to oppose this bill, and has orginised some events to this effect.

Now is the time for all UK christians and those who value their religious freedom to rally together and oppose this bill by lobbying their MP and expressing their oposition to this Bill. There is already adequate laws in place to deal with terrorists and religious zealots, and no need for this bill.

Links:
The Christian Post article
Cross Rhythms article
Premier Radio article

MP3 Players - How much memory?

2005-09-30T08:29:00.001+01:00

While we are on the subject of MP3 players, I was wondering if the large song database that these devices can hold via their inbuit memory, is actually of benefit rather than just a sales gimmick to get people to buy their brand of MP3 player.

A lot of the MP3 players around nowadays can hold over 1,000 songs, so tell me how many of you have 1,000 tracks on your MP3 player, how long did it take to transfer them on to your device. Now the more important question, how many of these tracks do you listen to on a regular basis, and do you honestly need to have that many songs or memory on a portable device?

I'm aware that there are accessories that can allow your Apple iPod to be connected to home stereos and stuff, but how many people really use these. Someone, once mentioned the iRiver device, now that looks more interesting, being more of a multi-media device than confined to MP3s, also you can use it as an external data storage device.

I think having an MP3 player is more of a status thing than anything else, though you do need more storage memory if your portable device has video capabilities.

Is there anyone one brave enough to go on the London Underground with there original tape walkman?

I will eventually be getting a convergence device soon, but I will probably have it to listen to podcasts, rather than music. Just over a month now till my mobile phone contract is up.

By the way i-Mate recently launched a media campaign in the UK to promote their i-Mate Jam device.

Apple iPod Nano in the news again.

2005-09-29T22:10:00.001+01:00

The Apple iPod Nano is in the news again, and this time it's not the hype about how good and dazzling this gadget is, rather that there is a problem with the iPod Nano.

The full Apple Statement admits there is a problem with the screen on a limited batch of the iPod Nano multimedia player device.

Apple has agreed to replace all faulty iPod Nanos.

Users in the UK should know that their consumer rights allows them to ask for a refund if the item sold is not fit for the purpose it was advertised as being able to do, so if you think you want another brand of MP3 player instead of the Apple iPod Nano, then by all means demand a refund from the store where you bought the item. If you have any problems, contact the Citizens Advise Bureau and the Local Trading Standards office, who will be able to help you..

Even if you are reading this months after you bought the Apple iPod Nano, as long as you have the receipt, you can still get a refund if you have only discovered the flaw.

While this might be a minor set back for the company, I doubt this will not in anyway affect Apple's dominance of the portable MP3 player market.

SKY dominates UK Sports rights

2005-09-26T17:33:00.000+01:00

This post is a rant, and not necessarily technology related.

Recently a lot of noise was made in the cricket world about SKY corporation buying out the rights to screen all UK test matches from the England Cricket Board. The main issue was that having to subscribe to see these events would mean that a lot of people in the grassroots would longer have access to see the sport, and thus the take up of the sport would decrease, thus jeopardising England's future as a cricket nation. Not being a fan of cricket, I was not too concerned, as I don't really understand cricket, and thus don't watch.

SKY also has a major hold on the UK's premiership football screening rights, but I only follow football during the World cup, so again not a major problem for me.

However this weekend brought the issue home for me, as the inaugural stage of the A1 GP motorsport took place here in the UK, and I was unable to watch it, because I don't subscribe to SKY Sports. Now I'll either have to cough out some money or miss the who season on television relying on the papers to report the highlights. I was hoping that another TV station might even do the highlights considering that I'm an ex Formula One fan, but have become bored with the old routine of a few rich teams dictating what happens on the track.

I'm not anti SKY, it's just sometimes capitalism can be a bad idea, especially when one company holds a monopoly, and have no intent of putting more of my hard earned cash in the hands of the Murdock corporation.

Sony PD170 Camcorder and more.

2005-09-24T08:46:00.003+01:00

Here is a picture of me 'playing' with my Sunday church gadgets, the Sony PD170 camcorder being used as a VCR, the CMX07 video mixer and some PMR radios being used for talkback.

I am in charge of the Video team at my local church, and have access to some good equipment.

Not shown is an additional Sony PD170 camcorder on a tripod used for wide shots and a Panasonic 3 CCD S-VHS camera also on tripod providing the main shot of the stage.

I will do a review of the Sony PD170 camcorder in a future post.

I usually act as the director, but can also operate either of the 2 cameras, with other team members capable of directing as well.

Hitachi SD card HD Camera

SKY to deliver content via Broadband

2005-09-20T21:07:00.000+01:00

Further to my earlier post about SKY's plans to deliver selected content via 3G mobile phones, plans were also revealed on the same day that they also want to deliver content via broadband as well.

Well if SKY doesn't get your money via Satellite subscription, then there is SKY HD, that failing then maybe via SKY on Mobile phone otherwise it could be via broadband.

One way or the other SKY wants your money.

The full SKY press release is here.

SKY TV on your mobile phone

2005-09-18T21:56:00.001+01:00

SKY announced on Friday 16th sept. 2005 that they will soon be making live TV available to UK mobile phone owners.

According to the announcement, for a fixed monthly fee subscribers will be able to watch a selection of SKY's TV content live on the go via their phone.

While many might see this as a major break through for 3G mobile phone users, I see it as another ploy by SKY and the mobile phone network companies to further squeeze your hard earned cash out of your hands and into their own pockets.

Not only will you have to pay SKY, you will also need a compatible 3G phone, as well as suitable network subscription with the mobile phone company.

While there might be the odd occasion where you might want to catch up on news or a sporting event, I think most people would be able to get home to watch a programme, particularly when you have Humax FoxSat Freesat or PACE SKY+ 80GB SKY BOX WITH HARDDRIVE and TiVo TCD649080 Digital Video Recorder.

As always there will be those who just want to get the latest gadget in town whether it will be of benefit or not.

Will the 3G phone network be able to cope with the increased demand? I'm definitely sure that when you really would need such service July 7th comes to mind, the network will suffer meltdown!

Only time will tell if SKY TV on your mobile phone is just another one of those good ideas which never really takes off.

Sony Walkman W800 phone

2005-09-16T20:13:00.000+01:00

If your current mobile phone contract is up for renewal, are looking for a new mobile phone, but also want a MP3 player, then this might just be the answer.

The Sony Walkman W800 was brought to my attention by the Station Master, even though I had seen the advert on the telly, I had paid more attention to the car chase and explosions than the product.

The Walkman W800 is a Tri-Band phone, 2M Pixel camera and MP3 player with the supplied memory stick able to store 150 music tracks. Other features include a FM radio, simple organiser, message texting.

For full specification, check out the website, and make up your own mind. As for me, this isn't the one, as I don't need a MP3 player, more a PDA with phone and camera that will enable me to do some MoBlogging.

I've got a few months to make up my mind, but recommendations are welcome.

Apple Nano iPod - Bigger is not better!

2005-09-13T17:57:00.001+01:00

Most of you by now are aware that Apple have added a new music home gadget to their iPod range, the iPod Nano

As with all companies, Apple wants to continue to dominate the MP3 player gadgets market hence the latest addition of the iPod Nano to their range, and those who might have resisted biting the first two products now have a sexier little temptress calling for their attention in the iPod Nano.

As always I continue to remind you that there are other very capable MP3 players on the market, most of these gadgets will work with various digital download sites, while the Apple's iPods only works with itunes, meaning you are restricted to paying their higher prices for your music.

This month has also seen various new entrants into the digital download market, a big welcome to Virgin Digital andHMV Digital who launched their services in September, and you still have Stelios's EasyMusic.com and the now reformed Napster.

I must confess, that the Apple iPod Nano is a well engineered little beauty of a home gadget.

Site Atom Feed

2005-09-10T07:24:00.000+01:00

I have modified my site feed to go through Feedburner.com this change should be transparent to you, but if you do have any problems, please leave a comment, and I'll try and fix it. Thanks to all my subscribers, and I hope you continue to enjoy my rants.

My new DV Recorder - Liteon / LVW-5026

2005-09-09T20:32:00.000+01:00

In an earlier post I mentioned that I would soon be changing my Samsung 709 DVD Player, well yesterday my new DVD recorder arrived, it is a Liteon LVW-5026 DVD/HDD recorder.

The main reason I went for this model is I need to make some DVDs of video recordings I made for my local church, and the Liteon came highly recommended as a DVD recorder, I would have gone for a DVD recorder only, but since I currently don't have a means of recording programmes from my Sky Digibox, I added a little extra and went for a combined DVD/HDD Recorder, so now I can record programs onto the Hard Drive to view later, as well as create DVDs of my home movies.

I have had the time yet to go through the manual or get acquainted with this DVD recorder yet, so views will have to wait till later on.

Sony's Playstation Portable

2005-09-07T23:15:00.000+01:00

It is almost a week since Sony officially launched the Playstation Portable games console in the UK, and I hope those of you that wanted one have been able to get one.

According to the hype pushed in the press release, demand was supposed to out strip supply.

Lucky owners of a Sony Playstation Portable can visit Your PSP website for the chance of winning a free spiderman 2 UMD movie.

I currently don't have any plans to buy one, but there have been comments on a home automation forum I visit, that there might be some use for the PSP as a home automation browser device, so I shall be checking that out.

I also came across the following PSP article, which also hinted there might be more use for the PSP than just gaming.

Gadget Man

2005-09-05T21:52:00.001+01:00

I'm on-call this week at work, and as I'm a member of a team that supports the email system of a large legal firm, this is a great responsibility.

As I sit on the train home, I count the number of gadgets (electronic devices) I have on me, five!

One Blackberry, One Pager, Two Mobile Phones and One SecurID token. This is not Smart Working, but I have no choice.

The Blackberry is for the team, so is the pager, one mobile phone is mine, the other belongs to my firm and the SecurID token allows me to connect to the office intranet via my home broadband connection.

Now if I really wanted to show off, I could also have taken another gadget the on call laptop and the on call mobile phone (the service desk is given a central number to call irrespective of who in the team is on call).

It looks like I'm working too hard, and should be looking at ways of using technology to ease my job! I will when I own my own company, maybe a gadgets man dream.

Home Cinema

2005-09-03T13:53:00.000+01:00

If you have a bit of money burning a hole in your pocket, how about building a home cinema of your own.

Check the following link for some inspiration, and don't forget the gadgets for playing the movies.

Nice Home Cinema

More on Home Automation in my house

2005-08-31T22:38:00.001+01:00

Here is a run down of what home automation does in my house.

1. Provide audible reminders for tasks that need to be done, this includes the children having their bath at the right time, leaving home for school on time and me leaving for work on time.

2. Audible notification of emails to the accounts of my wife and I.

3. Switch off electrical appliances in living room when home is un-occupied or we go to bed.

4. Automatically turn on lights in the hallways at night on detection of motion.

5. Provide audible weather reports in the morning before I leave for work.

6. Allow me arm chair remote control of the living room, study, hallway lights.

The following are features that I would like to add when I get the time and money.

1. Connect the heating system to my home automation.

2. Automate the lights in the kitchen.

3. Install an alarm system that also allows some control of my lights via X10, will also have telephone interface so I can be notified of events as well as use phone to control security and home appliances.

4. Interface phone to TV, so I can display caller ID on screen.

5. Install CCTV system with remote web access as well as automatic motion recording both locally and to a remote location.

6. Smart phone access to home automation and security system via GPRS network.

7. Connect home automation system to HTPC when I get one.

Home Automation in Shola's house

2005-08-26T12:28:00.002+01:00

If you had read my accounts of home automation in my previous posts Home Automation and Home Automation II, you could be forgiven if you thought I was day dreaming, those accounts were true events that actually take place in my home, the only fictional part was the names used, which were changed to protect the identity of my family.

I currently have a X10 based home automation system controlled by a windows PC running MisterHouse.

X10 is a cheap system to implement, but more importantly it is very easy to retro fit to a house, so removes the need for expensive home redecoration or rewiring.
I chose MisterHouse home automation software because I'm a geek, and it can control almost anything with the right interface, is open source and has a large developer base which means if anything is missing, it is not long before someone will add it once a request has been made.

Home Automation is not as complex or expensive as you think, X10 and Misterhouse make it very affordable.

Home Automation part two

2005-08-26T09:30:00.001+01:00

In my first post about home automation, I started sharing my thoughts about what images the word automating a house conjured in my mind.

In this post, I will conclude sharing those thoughts, and look at home automation in my home.

It is 12:00 noon at home, my wife who works from home is busy in the house somewhere, a voice is heard in the study and the hallway 'Grace you have 3 new email messages', the voice then goes on to read the addresses that have sent the email messages. My wife can use the information to decide if there are any urgent emails she needs to check even if she is not on the computer.

A few hours have passed, that voice again 'Grace you have 15 minutes to pick up Tina from school'.

Its 6:00pm, I'm just leaving work, back at home, that voice announces to my wife the latest emails she has in her in box.

At 7:00pm, I open the front door, as it is winter, it is already dark, I enter the hallway, the hallway light automatically comes on, with the light on the landing at the top of the stairs also coming on. I put down my briefcase, take off my shoes and crash on the couch in the leaving room.

2 minutes after I had opened the door, the lights on the landing automatically switch off, followed 3 minutes later by the hallway light.

At 8:00pm my older daughter gets a verbal reminder by that voice to have her bath before going to bed, while I ask my younger daughter to go put her pyjamas on and I take her to bed. By 9:00pm my wife and I have the house to ourselves.

At 10:40pm the voice announces 'Misterhouse is going to bed, goodnight', we decide we are having an early night too so walk up the flight of stairs but forget to switch off the study light. One hour 26 minutes after we went upstairs, a voice announces on the study PC 'all systems will go off in 4 minutes', 4 minutes later, all power is cut to the entertainment cabinet and the light we forgot to turn off goes of too.

This is home automation at its best with control by Misterhouse software.

Home Theatre PC part two

2005-08-22T22:47:00.000+01:00

In my last post I gave my views on the Home Theatre PC. In this post, I will continue with a few solutions for those who want to buy off the shelf, some pointers for those who would like to go the 'Do it yourself' route, and discuss my current plans for my HTPC.

In the UK there are numerous companies that provide off the shelf HTPC solutions, a google search will provide you a list from which you should be able to find one that will be able to supply a PC that should suit your taste and budget. While most off the shelf solutions will be able to supply PCs in different cases, and specifications they usually supply Windows Media Centre as the operating system/software for HTPC operations.

There is nothing wrong with Windows Media Centre, and for the majority of people it is more than enough for their needs. There are two flaws with MCE as far as I'm concerned, it is limited when it comes to customising it to one's individual use, and currently it only supports 2 TV cards and these have to the same platform (i.e. 2 digital or 2 analogue), you can not thus combine Freeview TV with your SKY digibox. If you are interested in using an alternative software solution check with the supplier, as some do install alternative media software, with a least one offering Linux as the operating system.

If you want to go down the DIY route, visit Quiet PC for articles and components that would help reduce computer noise as you want your HTPC to not only be pleasing to the eye but also silent and non distracting in the living room.
There are many barebones PC manufacturers to choose from, Shuttle, ASUS, with the remaining components available from the normal PC component outlets. For operating systems, the usual choice is between Linux and Windows XP, both having proved to be very stable. For a list of HTPC components including software, click here.

For my system I have decided to use a Pundit-R barebones PC, operating system will be Windows XP and my software of choice is Media Portal.

I'm currently evaluating this on my home PC, and will give my impressions in a future post, you can also look forward to some posts when I start my HTPC build.

Home Theatre PC

2005-08-17T20:28:00.000+01:00

I'm thinking of getting a Home Theatre PC to replace my home entertainment equipment in the living room. A few years ago if you mentioned having a PC in the living room, you would not only be called a geek, but you would be asking for trouble from your spouse. A lot of things have changed, and now even though not very common it is becoming acceptable to have PCs in the living room.

So why use a HTPC to replace the normal entertainment equipment in the living room. With the advent of the digital revolution, it now makes sense to have everything in one place Music, DVD, TV, Pictures, Internet News, Weather Info, the list could go on. If enough storage is built into the system, you could get rid of those disgusting CD/DVD racks and have arm chair access to your whole Music/Film collection, flick easily between live TV and the internet checking the latest travel info or watch a slideshow of photos from your last holiday while listening to some cool jazz.

There are two main requirements for a HTPC.

The first being suitable hardware that wouldn't look out of place in the living room.
The second is a robust operating system running the necessary software to emulate all the devices that it would be replacing.

For non-technical end users, the easiest approach is usually to buy an off the shelf HTPC, these are available for a high premium, and can be tailored to your own specifications.

If however you are computer savvy and don't mind getting your hands dirty, then you can buy all the parts individually and build a system totally tailored to your specifications and at a much more modest price.

In my next post, I'll talk about some hardware/software solutions and what I'm planning to build for my system.

Home Automation

2005-08-15T23:24:00.001+01:00

What images do the words Home Automation conjure in your mind? A home filled with robots and talking computers or even something more sinister?

For me it looks like this:

I'm in bed enjoying a snooze and hear a female voice in the corridor announce 'Good Morning people, rise and shine this is the day the lord has made', I roll out of bed, glance at the bedside radio clock the time is 07:45am exactly. I walk down a flight of stairs wake up my children who always ignore the wake up call. As my children walk down the second flight of stairs, they hear a click in the living room as power automatically is switched on to the entertainment cabinet by misterhouse, another click in the dinning area confirms the TV and Video in that area are switched having been off through out the night (why waste electricity powering those appliances in standby mode while we sleep?).

I have a shower (we do that in the morning right?), get dressed and go down to the dining room where I make sure the kids finish off their breakfast and get ready for school.

I grab a breakfast bar or toast and some juice and make my packed sandwiches for lunch, an automated voice in the entrance hall announces 'Please standby for the weather report', the voice then continues to read the weather, no need for a coat today, its going to be 28 degrees Celsius and dry, I glance at the clock on the wall in the kitchen, it's 08:30am.

I check on my younger daughter who I have to take to school, get her dressed, meanwhile in the hall that voice again 'Angela time to leave for school' that is the first warning for my older daughter who goes to school by herself to finish off whatever she is doing and leave for school, my wrist watch shows the time as 08:45.

Tina my younger daughter walks down the stairs, I'm putting my lunch box in my briefcase, 'Attention Please', Angela zooms past me, the front door slams shut, 'Angela leave for school now!, Tina you have to go to school too come on!', Tina was miming the last words as I grab her hand say good bye to my wife and walk out the front door, the time is 08:50 am.

Home Automation 2 coming soon!

BBC and SKY HD Service

2005-08-12T21:49:00.001+01:00

In my Flat Panel TV post I mentioned SKY's HD service, well it seems that the BBC is teaming up with SKY to provide a HD service according to an article in The Times newspaper.

The article goes on to suggest SKY is gearing up for a major marketing campaign to promote this service and increase its share of the UK Digital TV market.

Well as I said in my earlier post, a point re-iterated by The Times article there will be a limited HD program content initially, but more importantly not all those who have already bought a Flat Panel TV will be able to benefit from the service, so when those Adverts start rolling, think twice before you commit yourself to a high definition service that you can't fully enjoy or don't have enough programmes on.