Hey gogga!

Just a shout out to GOG.com, who sell DRM-free "Good Old Games" at good prices.

I've been happy with the games I've bought from them. They sell DOS games (Like Duke Nukem 3D, Redneck Rampage), and Windows games, but I haven't really looked into other platforms. Whats really nice is that the DOS games are wrapped in DOSBox so they run under Windows. Yeah, I know you can do it yourself, but then you have to get the DOS game and the latest official patches and tweak DOSBox.

They also have Myst, Riven, Serious Sam, the earlier Fallout and Unreal games, along with a bunch of others, ready for download.

Countdown to Monday

It is not often that I look forward to a Monday. Like most people I look forward to the weekend.

However, this coming Monday, June 8, is when Steve Jobs is expected to announce the next generation iPhone during the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

It will be interesting to see what changes have been made since the pictures of the "Lost iPhone prototype" were published.

On a personal note, I'm hoping to finally upgrade my iPhone 3G. The date on which the next generation iPhone is to go on sale is also expected to be announced. Then it will be a waiting period until the crowds of eager buyers thin enough for me to get one without having to stand in line.

iPhone killed the MP3 Insider

My favorite podcast "MP3 Insider" has been killed off by the iPhone.
The writing seemed on the wall when Jasmine was reviewing iPhone Apps elsewhere on CNET a few episodes back.

I've listened to this podcast since the days of James Kim and Veronica Belmont (every geek's dream girl). I can't say that I've followed the "Buzz Out Load" podcast as closely. MP3 Insider will be sorely missed.

I wish Jasmin France and Donald Bell all the best in their future roles at CNET.

iPhone multitasking

So multitasking is coming in iPhone OS 4. I must admit being disappointed that it is not coming to the iPhone 3G. After doing some research, I found out the simple reason why - the iPhone 3GS (and iPod Touch 3rd gen) have double the RAM of earlier models, as well as faster processors.

Multitasking has been available on jailbroken iPhones for a while now, with some really sophisticated Apps, a lot of them of them free. Unfortunately for iPhone 3G owners, although these run on the iPhone 3G, they don't run particularly well.

Don't want an iPad

In the last few weeks I've seen a number of polls asking whether I was going to get an iPad, or wait for the next iteration. It just doesn't grab me though. My wife saw it's potential, but I didn't. I guess in my mind it is just an oversized iPod Touch, and I'm quite happy with my iPhone thank you.

Posted from Blogium for iPhone

iPod, iPhone, iPad

The news has been buzzing today with the much anticipated release of the Apple tablet.
The one thing I like is the name - iPad -it really seems so right. The other names bandied about just didn't sound right - iSlate sounds old-fashioned, iTablet just too obvious and sounding like just another tablet.

A Nexus for your Lexus?

Today Google started selling their own "Google Phone", the Nexus One. It runs Android OS version 2.1 (Eclair), referred to in Google's blurb as "Android Mobile Technology Platform 2.1 (Eclair)".

The phone costs $529 unlocked, or $179 with a two-year contract from T-Mobile USA.

Gaming machine

I didn't realize how long ago it was that I bought my latest (new) computer. March of 2008, wow. It still runs pretty fast, although that could have to do with the OS being Windows XP instead of Vista/Windows 7.

Anyway, because the machine was actually configured for Vista, it had a dedicated graphics card, something I would never have bothered with. Now I've discovered that it can handle PC games which are a few years old. Cool, because these older games are cheaper than PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 console games.

So back to PC gaming. I've started playing some of the GTA series. The operative word is started. The first "mission" in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, took me way too long, and when I finally got to saving the game, it complained about a cheat I'd forgotten that I'd used. Rats!

To Jailbreak or Not

My iPhone has been Jailbroken for a number of months now. At first I did it for the battery percentage lockscreen. Now I use a couple of Jailbroken Apps which I couldn't do without. There lies the problem of course.

I'm Back

Hey there, I'm back from the cyber land of paid blogging.

No App Store for my Touch

I'm delaying upgrading my iPod Touch to use the Apple App store. Instead, several weeks back I ran a "jailbreak" on the Touch, and I've been loading it up with applications including an eBook Reader, File Manager, Unit Converter and Dictionary with thesaurus among many others, and all free.

Tech Bargain!

When I recently bought a Dell computer (as an early birthday present), I got an extra $200 off the price with a discount coupon from TechBargains.com. It is not the first time I've used a discount coupon from them, the last time was for a PSP game. Thanks TechBargains!

Tale of two Wi-Fis

Okay, so I've got my hands on two gadgets. The first is a Nokia N800 Internet tablet, and the second is the Archos 605 WiFi. They both have wireless capabilities and great 800 by 480 pixel touch screens, but that is where the similarities begin to end.



Firstly the Nokia N800 is not a cellphone. It does a lot of things, but its main function is to browse the internet. Now, there are a number of devices which do this, but the N800 has a web browsing experience which is closer to a desktop PC than I've ever seen on a handheld device.

The Archos 605 WiFi is a media player. It is a bit of a stretch to call it a handheld media player, but it is portable enough to carry around if you have big pockets. It also does a lot of things, but its main purpose is a multi-format video player.

Now for my Wi-Fi problem. The Nokia N800 hopped onto my home wireless network as easy as a wireless Pocket PC. The Archos 605 is another story. I have been trying for weeks to get this thing to connect to my home wireless network, but no dice. It sees my neighbor's wireless networks, both the open and encrypted ones, but not mine. To test it I even briefly connected to a neighbor's wireless access point (sorry, default, it was for less than a minute). That worked. I tried disabling all security on my wireless router, but that did not work.

Hopefully, someday soon I will get the wireless working. Until then at least I can still use the Archos 605 to watch videos I guess. Fortunately I have no desire to buy videos from the Archos Content Portal, otherwise I wouldn't be happy. It would be nice to use the other wireless features of the Archos 605 though.

Missed the List

Well, I seem to have missed the opportunity to give my Top 5+ List of 2007, since 2008 is well on its way, but here are a couple of the tech gadgets I'll hopefully be using throughout 2008:

The Asus Eee PC Notebook - a micro-notebook the size of a paperback novel running Linux. It has one of the easiest Desktop User Interfaces I've ever seen on Linux. Three USB ports allow attaching everything from external DVD drives and hard drives to printers and USB flash drives. The 4GB Solid State Drive makes for fast and silent start up, running and shutdowns. It comes with driver to install Windows XP, but that would really be a waste.

Apple iPod Touch - an amazing device - listen to music, watch videos on its widescreen, browse the Internet or watch clips on the YouTube channel via Wi-Fi. Now with the addition of Google Maps, and email client and a Notebook app this is on its way to becoming a useful handheld as well.

Still here

Just a quick note that I'm still around and haven't abandoned this blog. There will be less posts though as I currently have a blogging "gig" on BlogBytes under my real name (which starts with M..)

Candybar cell

On my recent trip back to South Africa, I couldn't help noticing that candybar style cellphones were much more popular there than here in the USA. This can probably be attributed to Nokia having a large market share there.



I had an up close look at one of the South African cellphones. It looked like a brick - but when I got it in hand I realized it was a Nokia E90 Communicator, with built-in WiFi (I was actually trying to check the wireless settings so I could apply them to my Pocket PC). It was definitely a smartphone, probably Symbian-OS based , and from the depth of the phone probably had a slide out QWERTY keyboard. Apart from the size I was impressed. Even though the Nokia was more responsive I still prefer my T-Mobile Dash as it is smaller and lighter.

A break and warning label

First of all I'll be going away on an overseas trip and most likely won't be able to blog from there.

Secondly the warning label. I'm not sure if Sony is going to put this anywhere on the box of their lower priced 40GB Playstation 3 ($399 in the USA), but one of the things they have dropped from this version is backwards compatibility with PS2 games (according to Sony rolls out cheaper 40GB PS3 in InfoSyncWorld). Considering that there are very few compelling games for the Sony Playstation 3 this is a possible deal breaker. This especially so since there are a lot of Playstation 2 games still available (and still getting released). From what I understand, to get backwards compatibility you have to buy the 80GB Playstation 3, which is apparently due for a price drop - probably down to $499 - before Christmas. Hopefully Sony won't decide to remove backwards compatibility from the 80GB version when they drop the price.

Deal of the Day

Deal of the Day, or Sale of the Day, websites are springing up all over the net, with some variations on the theme.

The first one I came across was woot!.com which is regarded as the best and most popular.Basically woot! sells one item a day, anything from computers to flashlights. Sometimes the items are new, other times they are refurbished. There is also a quirky funny story about the item on sale. Some people wait up until midnight (which is when the next day's item is put on sale) just to see what it is going to be. Some items sell out quickly (the woot website has stats), and others don't, but a lot are sold, like the refurbished 30GB Microsoft Zune MP3 Players on October 15 - over 10,000 units were sold in one day. From what I've seen woot's prices are good and I haven't had any problems with items purchased from them.

And the other sites? Squidoo has short descriptions and links to many sites (but for some reason maybe blocked by overzealous corporate website blocking software).

There are also several Roundup sites, like Deal of the Day Tracker and Bargain Jack. I would advise shopping around before buying anything on these bargain websites.

Since I have not had any dealings with any of these websites other than woot!, I would recommend checking out reviews and approaching any purchases with the normal caution you would use for other internet purchases.

Really Secure

This week I signed up on one of the Sandisk user forums. The password format they wanted was ridiculous - I'm used to providing one with alpha characters and a number, but they also wanted at least one uppercase letter and one lowercase one. I can understand requiring a tough password if Credit Card or other sensitive information was being stored, but this was a user forum, and the most sensitive information was my email address.

Anyway, I complied, then had to laugh, because they sent me the confirmation email with my userid and password in plain text. Really Secure!

iPods Hidden Feature

There is a feature on iPods which I haven't found on any other MP3 Player. It is auto-bookmarking, something very handy for Podcasts or Audio books. (Actually it is only hidden because it is not advertised or shown on any menu).

Basically if you play anything and then pause and exit through the menu, when you next play that particular track it will start off where you left off, even if you have turned off the iPod in between. This is handy for me since I listen to multiple Podcasts, and often don't finish listening in iPod one session (quite often I get home before an episode of "Buzz Out Loud" finishes). I can then finish listening to it later. It also works for videos.

Before I get howls of protest from fans of other MP3 Players - apparently if you are listening to a track on most non-iPods and just turn the MP3 Player off without pausing first, it will resume when you turn the player on again - I got this tip from CNET's "MP3 Insider" Podcast, and have tested it on a Creative Zen V Plus. I also know that the Creative Zen Vision:M allows you to set bookmarks in audio tracks and videos. It is possible that the whole Creative line has this feature.

Now my disclaimer - although I own a couple of iPods, I also own or have owned 3 iRivers, 2 Creative Zens and even a Sandisk Sansa. So I would suggest that anyone in the market for an MP3 Player shouldn't just buy an iPod without checking what is available out there, and buy based on what their requirements are. The Portable Video/MP3 Player Reviews at CNET are a good starting point. Then there is dapreview.net and anythingbutipod