Author: jamesclay

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TomTom Car Kit for the iPhone

Oh I don’t know sometimes you wonder if companies realise that you might actually want to buy something… you know pay out money for goods!

Having got an iPhone 3GS and purchased the TomTom Application from the iTunes Store I was looking at ways in which I could mount the iPhone in the car.

The obvious choice appeared to be the TomTom Car Kit for the iPhone.

tomtomcarkit

The TomTom app on your iPhone 3GS or iPhone 3G puts award-winning technology at your fingertips, like IQ Routes which gives you the smartest, most efficient route any time of day. That’s just the beginning. Combine it with the TomTom Car Kit to experience enhanced GPS performance for the ultimate in-car navigation.

  • TomTom Car Kit features
  • Secure docking
  • Enhanced GPS performance
  • Clear voice instructions
  • Easy charging
  • Hands-free calling
  • Your music on the move

Now I know that I could buy a £15 generic phone holder from Tesco, however the extra features did seem to make the £99 seem like quite good value for money. Enhanced GPS performance is always welcome, I remember having lots of problems with GPS reception with an Acer PDA running Co-Pilot. Hands-free calling would be useful and the FM transmitter was something I had been considering buying for sometime. As it says

The Car Kit dock is compatible with all iPhone models…

This meant that I could use my main iPod in the car when I wasn’t using the iPhone, and listen to podcasts and music through the radio.

Seemed like a good idea, so where could I buy it from.

I initially checked the Apple Store and was disappointed to see that though it was going to be released on the 5th November, it was going to take 4-6 weeks for shipping, which in Apple speak means seven or eight weeks! So I checked Amazon and was pleased to see that they could ship within 24 hours of release.

Yay!

I placed my order on the 26th October

I waited.

Amazon sent me an e-mail on the 6th November, which said that they now couldn’t deliver on time and also couldn’t give me a revised shipping date.

On the 9th November I got another e-mail from Amazon, cancelling my order…

Hmmm.

Well that didn’t work out did it.

So with a little reluctance I went back to the Apple Store and though it was still saying 4-6 weeks shipping, I placed my order with them on the 13th November. The confirmation e-mail gave me a delivery date of the 28th December! Just over six weeks.

You can imagine my surprise (and a little delight) when on the 20th November, just one week later, I got an e-mail from Apple saying that my order had shipped.

So not 4-6 weeks, under two!

Once I have it, I will let you know how I get on.

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BBC iPlayer launches Wii channel

According to BBC News

The BBC iPlayer is relaunching on the Nintendo Wii in the form of a dedicated Wii channel on 18 November.

The BBC iPlayer has been on the Wii since April 2008 but many console owners reported problems with the original interface.

Will check this out on the 18th November.

I have tried using BBC iPlayer on the PS3 and that works okay, though actually prefer to use iPlayer with an iPod touch connected to the TV.

Though my main issue with iPlayer has to be that fact that my broadband connection is too slow to take real advantage of the service.

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But it’s not Christmas…

So there I was looking to buy some Halloween music from the iTunes Store for a Halloween party (by the way it was rubbish music, but a great party).

It amused me that the Halloween music was in the Christmas genre…

halloween

But it’s not Christmas…

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Printing from your iPhone

So the iPhone has a really nice camera…

Okay so the iPhone has a camera! It doesn’t take bad photographs and ascamera phones go it ain’t bad!

Now with the Nokia N95 which does have a very nice camera, 5MP compared to the iPhone’s 3MP, and a Carl Zeiss lense, it is relatively simple to print images from the phone without needing to dump the photographs first onto a computer. I have printed the images via Bluetooth and USB.

With the iPhone it has been a little more challenging.

I first saw hope with the HP iPrint Photo (iTunes link) however your HP printer needs to be connected to a wifi network. Alas my A618 Photo Printer which is excellent for printing photographs, is not wifi capable; it does memory cards, USB and Bluetooth, but not wifi.

I then heard about the Canon Easy-Photo Print for iPhone (iTunes link) and as the owner of the wifi capable MP600r I thought ah ha a way of printing from my iPhone.

IMG_0242

Alas the application only works with the Pixma MP990, MP640 and MP560. As a result it couldn’t find my printer.

IMG_0241

Of course I am not going to change my printer so I can print from my iPhone.

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Tech Stuff goes mobile

Having upgraded the blog back end you can now view the blog on your iPhone with a built-in mobile theme.

It’s a great theme which works for individual entries too.

Simply go to tech.jamesclay.net on your iPhone or any other mobile device.

So how was this done?

Well with the WPtouch plugin that if you host your own WordPress server can be easily installed.

WPtouch is an entire theme package for your WordPress website. Modeled after Apple’s app store design specs, WPtouch makes your WordPress website load lightning fast on touch mobile devices, show your content beautifully, all while not interfering with your regular theme.

If you have a WordPress.com site this is now built in.

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Ordered new iMac

Well after much waiting I have ordered my new iMac.

In the end after much thinking I went for the 27″ model with the…

2.8GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor with 8MB shared L3 cache; Turbo Boost dynamic performance up to 3.46GHz; Hyper-Threading for up to eight virtual cores

imac27inch

I also upped the RAM to 8GB.

I did consider getting the 2TB drive as I do use a lot of storage, however the upgrade was £187 and I know I can get two external drives for that. I current have 4 1TB drives so not too worried (and two of those are empty).

All of which means it should be a lot faster than my current iMac which is a Core 2 Duo and only has 2GB of RAM.

I had considered ordering a Mac mini to use with the iMac, but not sure how the display thingy is going to work, so going to test it with a MacBook Pro first. There is no hurry as Apple won’t deliver it until November… that I am guessing will be the end of November and not the beginning.

I did consider getting a slower one which I could get in three days, but in the end decided that going for the top model means I will feel it will last longer!

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At last, new iMacs

Apple today announced a revision to their iMac range.

Coming with 21.5″ and 27″ widescreen LED screens in a 16:9 aspect ration, which is great for HD films, though it’s a pity that there is no Blu Ray drive. If you want HD you are going to need to download HD.

The new iMacs come with a new improved wireless keyboard and the new Wireless Magic Mouse which yay has no scroll ball!

I think my old iMac is about to be replaced…