Save Tango

Is Tango truly in trouble, or are they just fun, creative marketing people? You decide. And then shut up about it - it's obvious.

Looking for a cheap DVD player with USB and DivX playback?

If you want a DVD player, chances are most now support DIVX playback, but if they don't have a USB socket then you'll have to waste your time writing your files to DVD or CD for playback, alternatively you can get a DVD player with a USB socket and plug in a USB pen drive or USB hard drive*. If you want one of these magic machines from the future, have a look at these:

Cheapest: BIOSTEK - XC-150 USB/MPEG4 DVD Player £20 Pixmania via Amazon UK

Sigmatek - XS-700 Pro DVD Player - £29 Pixmania via Amazon

Cheapest with 1080p: Sumvision PHOENIX HDMI 1080p DVD Player with SD/MMC/MS Slot - £35 at Datakits (excluding postage) or £29 at Amazon (exc postage) - also features SD card slot for photos.

Cheapest branded: Philips DVP3260/05 - DVD Player with USB £39 at Amazon UK

Pioneer DV-310-K - DVD Player With USB Input (Black) - £53 at Amazon

Cheapest branded with 1080p: Philips DVP5990/05 - HDMI 1080p DivX Ultra DVD Player - £55 at Amazon UK

ONKYO DVSP406 DVD PLAYER (MULTI-REGION) 1080p - £67 at superfi

Pioneer DV-410V-K - DVD Player with HDMI Output, USB Input and High Definition JPEG Playback (Black) - £68 at Amazon

* Some struggle to power USB hard drives - I use an LG DVD player, and a Freecom XXS 250gb USB hard drive and that works fine.

Best and Worst of 2008 List

Best things of 2008 :- Lots of great cameras, all cheaper than ever, loads with image stabilisation, and wide angle lenses: Best budget: Canon A590, Sony W130, Best compacts: Olympus 1030SW, Panasonic FX150, Best zoom Pansonic TZ5, Canon SX110 IS, Best DSLRs: Olympus E510 (or E520), Canon 450D, see more here. Expect even cooler stuff next year including Olympus' Micro Four Thirds camera.

Second hand cars are now seriously cheap eg Ford Focus 2005 model (new shape) around £3500 on Autotrader.

Interest rate extremely low - so if you've got the right bank and mortgage type your mortgage could be much much cheaper.

Best technology of 2008: In my opinion is the Intel Core 2 Quad Core - 2.4ghz quad core chip was around £100 at it's lowest price this year - excellent performance and amazing price.

Biggest dissapointment of 2008: Spore - nasty DRM, didn't live up to the hype at all, not worth buying. Oh, and the awful financial market throughout the world.

Reasonable Screen Recording Software For Nowt

Not sure if it'll be useful to anyone here, but thought I'd jot a note. Yesterday I stumbled across a bit of software to record video files of you doing stuff on your PC. The most obvious use is probably to record tutorials with voice overs and stuff. So the above link is to a reasonable bit of free software to do the job. I've not been able to find any help files or anything, so it's a bit of a "follow your intuition" approach, but using their "lossless" video codec, the results can be quite good. Camtasia Studio, I gather is a more polished, sexy non-free product, that seems to get a lot of use by the pros, but for the rest of us, this free product might just suffice.

Addictive game...

fun coconut travel game - best I've seen is 13 seconds 15 coconuts 100%

The IT Crowd - Season 3 - Starts Friday

BoingBoing - if it's anything like the last series then expect to be able to watch it online, on Channel4's website here (or on 4od).

What kind of sick freak...

Came up with regional DVDs, regional DVD players, unlocked dvd players (LG) that can't successfully play a brand new US DVD, region locked Windows DVD playback software (Windows Media Player), and DVD drives in computers that spin up so loud you can't even hear the sound on the DVD!!! Why oh why is the DVD system so full of crap solutions!!!???

Sony Ericsson C905 - 8mp Camera Phone

If you want a decent camera in a phone, then it looks like the Sony C905 is the best option.

American flight security...

"“Maybe if you lit it on fire, he’d pay attention,” I said, risking arrest for making a joke at airport security. (Later, Schnei­er would carry two bottles labeled saline solution—24 ounces in total—through security. An officer asked him why he needed two bottles. “Two eyes,” he said. He was allowed to keep the bottles.)"

12oz Bottles of liquid labelled "Saline Solution" (for contact lenses) are allowed, other liquids over 3oz aren't allowed... link

The fear, the horror, of living in the 70s

Anyone use bloglines?

Anyone else use bloglines? My rss feeds seem to have completely dried up!? (Hence why I'm updating this to see if bloglines changes...)

Monkeys - the answer to all lifes problems...

Monkey serves in restaurant, and sort of a monkey solving a problem: man dresses as monkey to scare monkeys away.

Twitter?

Anyone use twitter.com? - I do and you can find me here. So far I see little point in it, as it's like your facebook status, and you can read other people's status. And that's about it. But it's much more focused, so if you wanted to follow some random dudes updates (for example you might be able to find interesting people to follow), it's much easier to use twitter than facebook, plus you can put your updates on there, and they'll automatically update your facebook status (when you add the twitter app to facebook).

Panda Stabbed In Face With Celery

You've seen a million optical illusions.  You're sick of them.  So here's another.  There's no panda.

Chuckle Brothers Film

'Bout time really, eh?

Google Chrome Browser to be released today...

Google to launch web browser today perfect timing really since Opera is now full of bugs.

Google Chrome Links:
Download from here
Google blog
Screenshots at Hexus.net

Would you pay for Anti-Virus Software?

I know we've talked about free anti-virus software previously, and also free anti-spyware software and backup software - but would you actually pay for anti virus / firewall / anti spyware software / backup software? Even when there's free stuff out there? I've recently been trying some anti-virus / internet security software and found the following, some of it seems fairly reasonably priced:

Kaspersky AV - £35 for 3 pc license, 1yr - does AV software, scans your email, even tells you when you're missing security updates. This seems to work well - but the full "internet security" version is only £30 which makes this one seem expensive. It seems to go further than the free AV software by telling you when Outlook needs a security update for example. However - it did detect a friends 12,000 MP3s as containing viruses and promptly deleted them all!

Bullguard Internet Security - £15 for 3 pc license, ?yr - this does anti virus software, anti spyware, firewall, spamfilter, and online backup. Appears to be excellent value for money, comes with a clear and easy to understand manual, and the spam filter and online backup could be useful, especially as you get 5gb (!) of online storage. The online backup could in fact be one of the most appealling features of this software as it provides full scheduling, some advanced options, such as keeping different versions of files, and allows you to compress the backup and even encrypt it with a passphrase. So, 3 PCs backed up online for £15, sounds like a complete bargain to me. The anti virus software scan seems quite quick, found a virus inside an email that avast didn't, and unlike some other software doesn't slow the PC down even on a fairly low spec Windows XP laptop. The software seems very easy to use, with a clear and logical user interface.

Norton Internet Security - is £40 for 3 pcs, and is rubbish, and to be avoided like the plague. Whenever I've used it on PCs or experienced it because it's come pre-installed it's always seemed to cause problems and slowness, and very little protection because the pre-installed versions only lasted 90 days.

McAfee Internet Security - £22 for 3pc license. We use Mcafee AV software in work, and it's generally good as an anti virus solution - with very regular updates - and generally good and finding and removing viruses. I've not tried the internet security so don't know what it's like.

Microsoft OneCare - £20, 3users. This seems to be a combination of anti virus software, anti-spyware, anti-phishing, and firewall - which is a bit odd, especially as Microsoft already provide a free firewall, free anti-spyware software, and free phishing protection with the latest versions of IE. It does offer auto defrag, backup and a few other features, and I guess this simplifies it all, so you can manage it all in one package without having to maintain different pieces of software, and I guess that's the appeal of using an "all in on" internet security package.

There's also AVG Internet Security (£40, 3 users, 2 years), and Panda Internet Security (£18, 3 users), Trend (£40), and Bitdefender (£18).

What seems to be somewhat strange about all of this is the fact that some of these solutions don't tell you how long the subscription will last - this could have a massive effect on value for money, and PC protection, ideally you'd want something that will last several years without you having to spend money every couple of years. The prices seem to vary quite dramatically from £17 to £40 - with £40 obviously seeming a little too expensive, especially if you have problems with the software, or can find free software instead. And do you really need a 3rd party Firewall when Windows XP (SP2) comes with a built in firewall?

I guess you could setup free software to do everything these programs do, but pc security, data protection and backups have become something even people with very little PC knowledge want to do - and this software can simplify the whole process dramatically - and for this reason I guess it could be worth buying this software. Just think of the time saved by using one of these programs.

OneCare seems like it would integrate the best into Windows, and provide better automatic updates, and PC performance optimisation, and whilst it does provide backups, it doesn't provide online backup, whereas Bullguard seems to provide the best offsite / online backup solution.

Very clever video editing technique...

Engadget have details (and a video) showing how photographs can be inserted into (low quality) video to increase resolution (by 4x), increase dynamic range (making HDR video), enhance exposure, remove objects from video, or alter content in video in other ways - even change a pic of you baby for a picture of Dave Mustaine rocking big time with Megadeth.

Chicken Run on BBC iPlayer

Chicken Run on iplayer. Till the 16th of August.

lightning in super slow motion

made me go wow anyway. link

Radiohead Nude Remix made with a Spectrum, Printer, Scanner, and numerous Hard Drives...

It takes a little while to get going but this Nude remix has to be one of the most awesome things I've ever seen* - for reference this is the original Nude - Radiohead track, and this is how you turn hard drives into speakers! * I may have seen more awesome things, I can't remember.

£250 for a Quad Core PC!

Need a PC upgrade? Want a quad core? You can get the following for £257 including postage and VAT. This will get you a 2.4ghz quad core that should easily overclock to 3ghz with little effort.

Case (inc PSU) - Asus TM982 Black MicroATX Case with 400w aPFC PSU £27.50 £32.31
CPU (includes heatsink) - Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0 SLACR, Kentsfield Core, Socket 775, 2.40 GHz 1066MHz 8MB Cache, Retail £99.49 £116.90
RAM - 2GB Dane-Elec Celenade Major, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800), 240 Pins, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 6, Retail £18.99 £22.31
Motherboard (with VGA, Sound etc on board) - Gigabyte GA-G31M-S2L iG31 Express, S775, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 667/800, SATA II, SATA RAID, uATX, VGA £31.00 £36.43
HD (sata) - 160 GB Maxtor STM3160211/15AS DiamondMax 20, SATA II, 7200 rpm, 2MB Cache, 9 ms £21.33 £25.06
DVDRW (sata) - Samsung TS-H653N 20x DVD±R, 8x DVD±DL, DVD+RW x8/-RW x6, x12 DVD-RAM SATA Lightscribe Black OEM £12.49 £14.68

Although if you have a little spare cash, I'd personally get 2x 1gb as the ram or 2x 2gb as ram so that it's being run in dual channel mode (quicker), and upgrade the HD. You can also get free postage (basically £10 off) if you're a participating member of Hexus.net forums.

Apple iPhone 3G Reviews...

Here's a quick 3 person review of the new 3G iPhone. It still lacks some pretty essential multimedia phone features that have come to be expected for several years now, and I'm pretty sure if your latest Sony / Nokia / Motorola / Samsung phone didn't have these features you'd be pretty "pissed off"... and yet for some reason people still buy the iPhone, even when it's missing:

Video recording
Copy and Paste
MMS message sending
Java
etc

Neat Opera Tweak...

here is a great tweak for Opera Speed Dial - it lets you add more "buttons" to the speed dial. For those of you not familiar with Opera speed dial - it's basically your home page but with 9 links to your favourite sites... this tweak lets you add as many sites as you want. If you haven't tried Opera or don't use Opera, then this feature may convince you otherwise! :)

Firefox 3 is out...

Firefox 3 is out. it's got lots of new features.

Goodbye formatted text clipboarding woes

Whenever you ask Windows to copy a selection of text, say from a web-page, if at all possible it keeps all the formatting details as well - whether it's in bold, underlined, in a variety of different sizes of font etc. Well, I don't know about you, but 99% of the time, I -really- don't want all of that. Perhaps I'm pasting into an email - then I'd usually prefer the text to be consistent throughout. For years, I've fired up Notepad, pasted it into that and then recopied it. It was a bit of a pain but it did get rid of all that formatting.

Then, today I started to think - couldn't I write a little application that sits in the system tray and lets me switch betweeen "throw away the formatting" and "keep it" modes of operation? Then, I thought - maybe somebody's already written it - I mean it's a fairly obvious idea, right? Well they have. And it looks pretty good. And now I've told you about it. Click the link and improve your clipboardy happiness.

Fresh.

BBC is going to make its entire archive available online.

Which is cool.

Opera 9.5 is out...

Opera 9.5 is now out, and ready for download. It's got built in almost instant web search in the address bar, that searches while you type, it lets you sync with your mobile phone (assuming it's got mobile opera), and has a new rendering engine... there's more features but you can read them for yourself here, and a new "cool" look... I use it for about 98% of my browsing, and the new version seems to have fixed the blogger bug! Hoorah!

1 gig SD Card, £0 + £3 p&p (brand new)

I dunno, maybe you could store pictures of a horse or pony on it.

Talking fish etc.

Man goes mental in office cubicle...

Security video here (liveleak.com) and cellphone video with audio here (youtube). found at gizmodo (who found it at neatorama). some more info on boingboing...

V for Vendetta, but in real life, in Russia

Gizmodo: "It's been digitally erased from the entire broadcast, a result of his being placed on a "stop list" of critics of the Russian government and Prime Minister Putin. Using digital manipulation to literally erase any critic of the administration is a pretty great way to stifle any kind of dissent, and it's pretty easy when you're in control of the national networks."

Fire NES is a Firefox add on that allows you to play over 2500 NES games without an emulator.

Foobar 2000

In the olden days, when you wanted to play mp3s, you may have used winamp, back when it was good, before it became bloated and slow. Nowadays everything is bloated, winamp, windows media player, itunes, and if you want a basic mp3 player, then why not try foobar?

Peep Show returns tonight...

Channel 4 10.30pm. Series 5.

Which town has the most pubs for its size?

BBC News - I think Colne's got a good chance - it's got a population of 21,000 (Census 2001) - and 16 pubs according to this list - I would have thought there'd be more pubs than this? can anyone confirm?

Too much stuff...

If anyone's interested, I have the following stuff spare...

- Sony A250 CD/MP3/AUX car stereo (£35 inc postage)
- Cambridge Audio A4 AMP (£35 inc postage)
- Hifi (bookshelf) Speaker stands
- USB / infrared Windows Cyberlink Remote control (£8 posted)
- 40GB external laptop HDD in caddy (USB) (£30 posted)
- Black optical mouse (PS2 - new)
- external usb floppy disk drive
- Sata DVDRW (LG, Black) £15 posted
- Sony XB 930 QS CD player faulty - skips last tracks on 1/20 cds (£35 inc postage, rrp £200, so could be worth fixing if you want a high quality hifi cd player)

I've also got a faulty car stereo (Tevion 4187) with USB/SD/CD/Aux Mp3 support - but it doesn't work anymore... someone electrically minded might want to play with it... although to be honest it's probably completely fried, as I may have got the red and black (+ and -) the wrong way round as they came out...

Any Video Converter

One way or another I end up tinkering with a lot of video conversion/video editing software. A lot of it's badly written crap. Lots of very crashy video software out there.

Have discovered a gem here, so I thought I'd spread the word. The free edition is free (which is a great idea), and offers lots of conversion options, including quicktime to xvid and stuff. It's also good with .mkv and .flv files and does a bit of MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 stuff as well.

Sesame Tree

"Sesame Street have created a new show called Sesame Tree to bridge the gap in communities in my country - Northern Ireland. I hope Cookie gets to make a visit!!"

Irish Sesame Street, sort of.

Return of the Dead Flesh Keyboard

The 48K Spectrum had a legendary rubber keyboard, affectionately known as a "dead flesh keyboard". Sort of likely a rubbery calculator keyboard but bigger. I for one always really liked it. Now you can get one for your PC - yay! And what's more it rolls up and slips neatly into a Parka jacket pocket and can probably be cleaned under a tap with aid of a dishcloth. I've just had a go on one, and I have to say it feels gorgeous. If I didn't use a freaky keyboard for folk with RSI, I'd probably move to one immediatley. Fifteen pounds to you sir.

Self stirring tea... sort of

Little ball in bottom of cup stirs the tea for you one handed freaks out there. link. pretty awesome!

TrackMania Nations Forever is now Free!

TrackMania Nations Forever is a great car game where you can make your own tracks (well it was the last time I played one of the TrackMania games), and race high speed cars around it. It's now completely free with 65 track, single player mode, and multiplayer online modes.

...and it's pretty much a modern day version of Stunt Car Racer.

Check out Halosim. This free software allows you to simulate the atmospheric conditions that lead to halos, bows etc. Great fun.

Free CDs to good home...

Free CDs assuming you can collect, if not then I'll have to charge postage. This is because ebay/paypal are evil and won't actually give you the money till 21days after you've sold it! (details here)

Source

Several Firefox employees are looking to use Mozilla source code to create a paid-for browser with 'added functions'.

The final ever issue of ST Format for sale on ebay

What happened to Candy Flip?

Strawberry Fields Forever on Youtube.

ZX Spectrum Laptop...

Made with a little bit of help from a Toshiba Libretto 110. Full details here. Actually, a lot of help from the Toshiba: It's actually still a PC, but with a ZX Spectrum keyboard and case / styling, running Linux with a custom keyboard mapping so that the Spectrum keyboard works on the computer. Eh up, the chaps from Bolton as well.

A rackmount Atari Falcon...

from 1996. "complete Audio Workstation including rack mounted Atari Falcon"

Petition against further liberalisation of abortions

Please give it a ponder, and sign it if you feel you it represents your views. Maybe pass the link on too, to give others a chance to have their say.

Baltic Fleet album out now...

Baltic Fleet's new debut album is out now. It's only £8, from Amazon, so well worth the investment. It's got shades of Radiohead (the good bits), mixed with modern stuff, great drum beats, and was made while on tour with Echo and the Bunnymen. You can listen to some of the tracks on their myspace page.

PG Tips Monkey Movie?!?!?!?! Please let it be true!

Sexy Pictures At A Bargain Price!

OpenTTD

Looks like a good Transport Tycoon Deluxe clone. Not tried it yet, but it might also be an interesting Sim City alternative.

Beware of the phones!

Hooray for the police, protecting us from terrorists. Met Police Anti-Terrorism Campaign - beware of people taking photos, and also of people with "too many phones". Some funny alternatives here.

Nintendo Lovers Unite

Linkage

Nintendo's 8-bit games are now emulated online - play them in your browser.

My own Elmo? Could my wildest dreams be about to come true?

Elmo, Elmo, Elmo.

The News...

I don't particularly take much notice of the news, well apart from technology stuff, and keeping a general eye on whatevers on boingboing and bbc news, but the three following things struck me as interesting / somewhat unusual or perhaps world changing...

Castro steps down as leader of Cuba. This could be interesting... with regards to what happens next.

USA orders massive recall of Beef, not because of something serious like CJD / Mad's Cow Disease like the UK cows suffered from, but because lame cows were shown on video being mistreated, and entered the food chain. Could this be the beginning of animals actually being treated well, and food quality being important? (see Fast Food Nation the film or book and you know that food quality has never been important for beef / hamburger production for McDs etc)

Northern Rock to be nationalised! "Despite Tory opposition the bill was approved by a majority of 203 MPs. The emergency measure is expected to clear the Commons tonight. The decision to rush through the bill was criticised by MPs, but Chancellor Alistair Darling said it was essential." This is just weird - what was wrong with Richard Branson's offer of taking over the company?

...and in other news HD-DVD is dead...

Link

Possible PSPhone pictures leaked?

Every Graphics Card Compared in one big list

I'm pretty sure I've posted this before but couldn't find it on here. It's a big list of every single video card in the world rated in one big easy to use list. On Gizmodo

Android Update

Android Demo'd.

Gphone is coming...

Link

Well, specifically the Android OS actually. Google isn't producing devices, just powering them

I cannot help thinking that they are going to need on hell of a badass killer application or feature because when the iPhone reaches 100 GB, has 3G, HSDPA, GPS and other new features, it's going to become pretty awesome and, as one of the many carrying high spec phone and an iPod, convergence is my nemesis.

Unless Android does something incredible this could be difficult for Google, unless their business model of free services to users based on ad revenue spells the death of mobile contracts and phone bills as we know them (that WOULD be worth it!).

Once the iPhone becomes a high spec phone I don't see anyone stopping it.

Best £8 I've ever spent on earphones

Creative Labs EP-630/A Earphones ... best budget earphones by a long stretch, punchy bass, and great clarity and crispness, I can hear things in songs I've never heard before.

Lego without the risk of embedding a piece in your foot at 2.00am

You can now build lego things on your computer instead of your carpet. How exciting is that?

Free Nokia Maps for your mobile phone...

Admittedly it's one of the most frustrating navigation systems I've ever used (and has made me want to snap my phone in half!) But it could be handy if you're lost and in the middle of nowhere. Free download here. Beware, it does use a LOT of data if you don't already have the maps on a memory card. Works with Windows Mobile 5, and Nokias from the 6110, E60, E91, N70, N73 etc through the N series to the N95. Update - you can loads maps onto your phone using Nokia Map Loader (run it on your PC - Nokia Maps Loader 1.3 doesn't work, use an earlier version).

Final Update (I promise) - none of the Nokia Maps Loaders I've tried have worked AT ALL - so I've gone with something else. But, if you can wait, the next version of Nokia Maps looks much better.

VIA Launch new 64-bit CPU call Isaiah

New low power 64bit CPU with speeds up to 2ghz, using the same socket as the VIA C7. more details here.

Pole Position for iPod

Pole Position for iPod (ipod with video, ipod classic, and new ipod nano).

केमरा देसिग्न्स.

Link

Despite the fact that I hate this article because it uses the phrase 'outside the box', there are some pretty cool and original designs here.

Mario's Secret

18 years after it's release someone ha found a new secret in Super Mario Bros 3. He should probably get out a bit more.

Apple Made Some Stuff...

Apple have made the world's thinnest laptop, the MacBook Air. They've also released a new network backup device.

Trusted Reviews have slated the MacBook Air for having no optical drive, only one usb socket, no firewire port, a sealed battery, a sealed hard drive, and more importantly, no ethernet (network) port, leaving the laptop to rely on a wireless network connection.

Update: Further design issues: USB devices don't fit.

Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps - Series 7

Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps is back. Episode 1 is now on BBC iPlayer (it was broadcast live!). Episode 2 can be watched online on the BBC Three Website (before it's on TV), but don't go there unless you've seen episode one, because they spoil the 1st episode which is nice.

Sim City SOURCE CODE now Free

Source Code released under GPL 3 - hacks / home grown mods expected - (found via boingboing)

Source

New photographic software which resizes intelligently - no distortion.

Transfer Jet is Sony's new technology which allows you to transfer files rapidly just by placing devices in close proximity to one another. It apparently dispenses with passwords until the security protocols are hacked and posted online?) and the need to search for wireless networks.

Transfer speeds are theoretically possible up to 560 MBPS (USB = 480) and it can be built in to the computer or added as a USB peripheral (thereby knocking down speeds to 480 maximum one assumes).

Seems to me that all of this fuss about how we move information is diverting attention away from the fact that we do seem to move rather a lot of it.