A good film.

Going to see Bright Stars at the Picture House, review when I can be bothered. Day was tiring but good, drank tea and ran around, no change there. Just had nice gammon steak at ’spoons, seen guy with amazing chin, Tori drawing him as I write.

Testing

Nothing interesting, just testing something out…

Willows and Pillows

As another weekend draws it’s final curtains, I look back and realise what a testing week it has been. I’m in no doubt that things will be better this week, but we will find out.
I’ve figured out the WordPress app on my phone, so hopefully I’ll be much more active now with updates and thoughts. More later, Chris out…

Posted by Wordmobi

Discovering things in shops…

So, after work, I decided that to lessen the blow of having to go to the Halifax to make an appointment to see a mortgage advisor, I would visit Bookcycle and see what they had in.  Of course I needed to go via Sainsburys which means a compulsory stop to The Boston Tea Party and an oppurtunity to ravage WH Smiths.
So, Bookcycle brought up a few gems.  First off, a book of Baudelaire’s selected poetry which was brilliant as he was mentioned by Luke Kennard at a recent book launch, and the inspiration behind one of his new poems in his new book ‘The Migraine Hotel’ entitled ‘Spade’.  One of the first French Symbolists, if not the first, his poetry was recognised by the surrealism and symbolic nature that came to be the signature of the movement. 
Most of the book is in french but has translations as well.  I also picked up a book of talks given by Betjemen about hymn writing and a book of poetry by Leonard Nimoy when he suddenly realised he was crap at acting anything else other then emotionally anal aliens, so he’d better try and find something else to do.  He seemed to end up doing photography in the end, but here was his foray in to poetry.
After that I had to go to Bostons and read through my acquisitions over a nice cup of house blend and a sausage bap.
Next was over the WH Smiths to root through the sale items, picking up a good notebook and a parker fountain pen for £2.00, I was also chuffed to pick up a copy of ‘The Bloggers Handbook’, a book/magazine thing that has the content of a magazine but strangely the price of a book.  I have looked through and the price of the information really isn’t worth it, so I’ll take it back tomorrow after work as really…£12.99 for tutorials you can get online and information that really is out there in the open domain.
So tonight, reading, eating and an early night.  Oh and some writing too.

My Christmas List

It is about this time of year that I keep being asked the same question.

“What do you want for Christmas!?”

I normally look at people with the sort of blank stare that I would give a University Challange question on the co-efficient triangulation of the construction of an equation to work out the width of a pea.

So, to help people I am have given some thought as to what sort of Christmas presents might be a good idea.  There are a few which are very much pie-in-sky but some which are attainable.  None of them are expensive.  I will edit this post as I think of new things.

•  Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers
• A laptop. Yes I have five but they are either old or broken.
• TK Maxx voucher
• Book token
• Second hand book shop (whole thing)
• Publishing contract from Faber and Faber
• A small island with nuclear bunker so that I can survive the end of the world.
• Nine large avacados.
• Something radio controlled and flyable.
• Anything by Hugo Williams, preferably ‘West End Final’
• Anything by Simon Armitage

OK so that’s it so far, not great but I’ll add to it when I come up with things.

Nokia 5800

Well I am happy to say I have a new phone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njEG9CcMs74

However, I am still trying to get my head around it, so new reviews about it at the moment.  Expect strange posts from me whilst I am trying to work it all out.

New phone euphoria

Hoping this’ll work? Seems ok so far. Now have nokia 5800. Not quite an iphone but nearly… Kinda.

Posted by Wordmobi

Nick Griffin, Question Time and the whole mess

Well, ‘the veneer of credibility’ has been pulled over our eyes, but it’s cracking. The whole thing smells of embaressment from the boardroom of the BBC, I wouldn’t pick a fight with Dimbleby though. I hear he’s got a black belt in Jiu-Jitsu.
But then why is Nick Griffin here? Because there is unrest amongst whites supposedly, but then is there really?
I reckon they should set Dimblebey on him…

Pixar’s Up in 3D / The Java Tarradiddle

I can now say, with some degree of self importance, that I have seen Pixar’s UP in 3D!  Great film with an unusual and emotional story, of course stunning animation and a whole lot of stunning scenery.  Watching it in 3D made the whole thing that more special.  Being a 3D virgin I was transfixed by the effect which was mindblowing.

First worry is that this is going to be another fad like Stereovision was in the sixties, second worry is the amount of energy that is expended on producing the glasses and third worry is that it causes headaches as my eyes were hurting by the end of the movie.  Moaning over, it was well writen and a definite recommendation.

I don’t tend to write film reviews as I don’t really watch that many films, although I love watching films and talking about them, there isn’t much chance for me to sit down and watch one from end to end.  I am, next Monday, going to watch the entire LoTR trilogy in a Tolkien fest of epic proportions.  After all that’s what half term’s are all about?

Tori and I have started a blog called the Java Tarradiddle, a coffee lovers guide to coffee shops in Exeter, books to read whilst drinking coffee and cafe society in general.  It’s a project that I hope might take off, or it’ll descend in to something else.  Like this blog, I am sure it’ll evolve in to a wider greater encompassing project, rather then jottings in a cafe.

Work looms tomorrow, but then next week I have off and a party weekend next week too with two birthday bashes and an Apple and Pumpkin Festival in Ide on Sunday.  Bring on ‘em Apples.

Review of a Disgo Net Browser 3000 / 64MB / 2GB / 7″ / Windows CE / Netbook

It never bodes well for any subject when after starting a review, you save the first few paragraphs and save your progress only to find it has dissappeared.  So lets start again.

Welcome to the world of the Disgo Net Browser. If it was a TV program?, well, it’s a little like Narnia, but more like Shameless or Silence of The Lambs depending on what you’re trying to do with it.

So let’s try and be objective, put aside the fact that it runs an aging operating system, it feels cheap and whines like a very tiny mouse sized jet engine.  Let’s also put aside that it starts almost instantly and has 4 hours battery life, that the screen is clear and compact and that it is as light as a paperback book nearly the same size.

What we have here is an attempt to bring a large degree of functionality on a platform designed for embedded systems.  Windows CE 5.0 is based on technology that has been around for 10 years or more. Do you remember the CE 2.11 device the IBM Workpad Z50? It was designed to be a thin client corporate notebook which would give users all the tools of the office in a small CE environment, so the idea and indeed the tech is not new.

So where exactly does the Disgo Net Browser 3000 fit in? It would be unfair to sit here and compare it to a netbook like the Acer Aspire One as it simply doesn’t match to an XP system. So what do we compare it to?  Think 1999, think the bastard child of a copy of Po Bronson’s The First Twenty Million Is Always The Hardest and the HP Jornada handheld PC which was produced up to 2002.

What does it do?.  Pocket Internet Explorer, WordPad, 2GB internal flash memory, 244mHz ARM processor, Word Viewer, Excel Viewer, PDF Viewer, Coreplayer (for watching YouTube), Flash Player for watching .swf files.  And thats it. oh and an email client which is arse.  There are rumours you can port Ubuntu on to it.
Cable connectivity, USB ports for keyboard and a mouse and  USB port for a memory stick or external HD (Western Digital MyPassports work with it).
Internet Explorer has the ability to change the ‘user agent’ from Pocket PC, XP and default Windows CE.  It also has WordPad which means you can do very basic word processing too.

Anything else? It is cheap.  HMV and Maplins sell it for £99.99, Play.com sell it for £94.99.  It is designed to browse the internet, yet its version of IE is to say the least primitive.  It won’t display flash based websites and larger graphics hungry sites don’t always display correctly. So the concept is already flawed.  Although saying that comments from forums across the internet are saying it won’t let you check Hotmail accounts, however Gmail seems to work fine.

It feels cheap.  Although by definition a machine that retails for so little won’t exactly be entirely fashioned out of brushed metal, (although the brushed metal effect is attractive) I noticed that the front of the keyboard bowed in the middle as if it had melted a bit.
It has bugs.  If I saved this article, it would not be here when i turn it back on.  This is obviously a flaw which needs fixing but for now everything is saved on a memory stick. If this is meant to happen, then without sounding a ‘hip’ WTF?

What doesn’t it do? The feeling that I get with this machine, is that the board of Disgo got together with a few bottles of wine, possible a sketch pad, a microscopic budget and a few evil laughs, then decided to create a machine for a niche in the market that is slowly closing up with the cheap linux machines, EEE PCs which can do more and store more.

The PDF viewer won’t view things it should view, for example a bus timetable comes out in squiggles and symbols, MSN messenger is temperamental and as said IE is slow and doesn’t always display things as they should, also the keys are so sensitive typos are pandemic no matter how carefully you type.  Third party downloads won’t load either, although there is not really that much out there that would install anyway (what else would you need though?)

So why exactly should you buy it? What exactly does this bizarre machine hold for consumers?
The main selling point of this machine is the fact you can view web pages, although they market it as ‘basic’ internet browsing, compared to IE8/Firefox, it is primitive but if you are moving up from a device such as a Jornada 720 or a NEC Handheld PC the browsing is a drastic improvement.  Coming up from a Jornada 690, it’s bliss.  What saves this machine is the weight, size, TFT screen and battery life of 4 hours. And the price tag.

Despite the criticisms, what do you expect for £100?  The HP Jornada originally retailed for over £500, it could do a bit more, but it could not be really compared to a laptop.  This machine is a companion to anyone who already has a laptop or a desktop PC and needs something very basic to carry around with them, even netbooks weigh enough for you to know about it, but this machine is so light that you can put it in your briefcase or satchel and not really know it’s there.

Anyone that buys a Disgo Net Browser should embrace its limitations, remember the foibles and try to understand a machine that can be misunderstood.  You cannot compare it to a laptop, and if you are used to Handheld PCs such as the Jornada range you will find this machine easier to figure out.  If you are expecting a fully functioning laptop then you will be disappointed.  If you want a small machine for writing on, for a bit of browsing and watching the odd YouTube video then this machine is for you. Coffee shop web browsing and a bit of posing? Just remember to cover the ‘Disgo’ logo.