Category Archives: gadgets

blu-ray

14 Saturday Jul 2012

Posted by in gadgets, rants, retail therapy, television

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

, ,

After some surprising news from the gyno yesterday (I don’t have a cervix!) I felt so relieved to know that there was one less cancer-causing factor to worry about in my life that I decided to buy a blu-ray player. Yes, it makes sense.

Anyhow, was all excited about this new purchase (50 euros less than a slightly larger Sony model with WiFi I’d previously seen) until I got it home and discovered that it didn’t come with any connecting cords. WTF? I mean, bad enough there weren’t any cords in the box but why didn’t the salesclerk tell me this at the time so I could have picked one up while still at the store? And so, after a bit of delayed gratification while I went out to buy an HDMI cord I came home to set this baby up and… it doesn’t work!!!

I’ve tried everything but am pretty much stumped at the first step of any operation, which says “switch the input selector on your tv so that the signal from the player appears on your tv screen”. This doesn’t happen no matter what I switch. The only thing I’ve had appear on my tv screen is a notice saying there is no signal and that I should check my antenna. Huh? Maybe it’s the player? Or maybe I got a dud HDMI cord? Help?

time to upgrade?

11 Wednesday Jul 2012

Posted by in computers, gadgets, geekiness, work

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

, ,

I’ve been thinking of upgrading lately and am just ever-so-slightly miffed with myself for buying the iPad before a new laptop, but oh well. Shadow’s hard drive is pretty overloaded by now and I’m at a loss as to what files to eliminate (gosh, 3 years ago 250 GBs seemed like so much space!) and so I’ve been looking around. I still like Toshiba though lately their designs have been, well, kinda ugly. I did see a nice brushed metal one I liked, another 15 inch like Shadow, with pretty good specs. Then the guy at FNAC told me about this Satellite L870-10Z. For the same price (700€) I can get a 17 inch screen and a whole whack of RAM and HD. Which I think makes more sense than getting a smaller one as I really just want this one for working at home. When/if I travel I can either take the iPad or else a wiped-clean Shadow.

Thing is, this one has to be ordered in and I don’t actually know what it looks like. From this photo taken from the FNAC website it just looks plain dark grey, like Shadow is, which would be fine. But what if it ends up with some dodgy pattern on it? I know this shouldn’t matter, but it does. What I’d really like is another Sexy Beast, but ever since they discontinued that model Toshiba stopped doing sexy. So as long as this new beast isn’t plaid or anything I’m thinking I might go for it. I could probably have it paid off by Christmas if tapas tours continue to go well (and my flatmate gets some work!). But then I wonder if I should wait until after the next PET scan in September… what do you think? I hate putting my life on hold like that, but if the worst happens then I’ll need the extra cash to live on. On the other hand, having an efficient computer to work on from home would also help. Anyhow, you can see the specs below…
Continue reading →

quite interesting

23 Saturday Jun 2012

Posted by in computers, gadgets, television

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

, , ,

OMG! I have just got hooked on a tv programme that’s been running for 8 years! If there is anyone other than me who has never seen QI, it’s a BBC quiz show hosted by the super fabby Stephen Fry (heh, he’s one of my followers on Twitter).

Apparently QI is a 26-year-long project with each series covering topics that begin with a different letter of the alphabet. So instead of “series 1” the first series is called “series A” and so forth. I wonder if they will keep going until the end of the alphabet.

The other day I was looking at getting a new Blu-Ray player to replace my 12-year-old DVD player. A slightly more expensive model had a WiFi option so I could watch YouTube stuff on the telly and I thought “pah! don’t need that!”. Now I’m not so sure, especially as QI and lots of other older programmes can be found on YouTube these days. Technology, eh?

computer clean up

14 Thursday Jun 2012

Posted by in computers, gadgets, photos

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

, , ,

Time to bite the bullet and spend most of the afternoon doing what I’ve been dreading… cleaning out my photo files. Yes, I know I could just delete entire files without looking at them since I have them backed-up on an external hard drive but I’m loathe to do this for two reasons: the hard drive back-up might fail, and I prefer having easy-access to all my photos by keeping them in the laptop files. But poor Shadow is clearly overburdened and has been slowing down a lot lately. Funny how I remember thinking how massive his 250GB memory was! These days the norm is 600GB.

Of course that is my other option – to upgrade my laptop. Which is probably what I should have done before splashing out on a new iPad, but that one has already sailed.

And so there will be several hours of mind-numbing tediousness ahead of me (after I get back from the gym). Here I go…