Category Archives: gadgets

pippin II

24 Thursday Mar 2011

Posted by in gadgets, geekiness, home, work

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

, , ,

At long last the day has arrived … picked up my new iPhone4 today from Vodafone and am syncing him on iTunes now. So far so good.

Yeah, I guess I could have – should have? – waited for the iPhone5. But my old iPhone3G has really been acting up lately and I got a good offer on this one, both on price and monthly contract fee, so what the heck. And who knows when the iPhone5 will actually be released – and then when it will make its way to Sevilla?? With the (bad) luck I’ve been having trying to find an iPhone4 in town it just made sense to go with the phone that was actually there in the store.

Thus ends the whole Movistar nightmare, as I also switched my internet and landline connection over to Vodafone, and my tv service is now by Digital+ satellite. So I now have a faster internet connection and the same television channels as before, but for about 25 euros less a month. I also expect to save about 20 euros a month on the iPhone monthly rate. So it turns out that I’m actually quite lucky that Movistar screwed up so badly as I am much better off now with this new set up.

My new Vodafone router also came with a wall mount, which I just thought was the coolest thing ever – why don’t they all? So I was able to mount it on the wall next to the phone and electrical plugins – love how much tidier it is. And of course now I don’t have my tv service sucking the bandwidth out of my router and, if anything goes wrong with the internet connection, I can not only still watch tv, but the Vodafone system comes with a mini-modem that I can use free-of-charge during down-time emergencies, or else as an external modem (for a fee) when I am travelling.

Okay, iTunes syncing is done! Time to go play with my new Pippin.

scarlett

23 Wednesday Feb 2011

Posted by in computers, gadgets, work

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

,

Meet Scarlett. This tiny 7cm x 11cm external HD has 500 GBs and I was way overdue for a backup. Of course, I have this other LaCie HD that I bought almost three years ago… well, I have it somewhere.

Something very weird has been going on here with things we have unpacked and know we have held in our hands and that are now nowhere to be found. First it was Nog’s hair trimmer. He’d used it to trim his beard but we couldn’t do a haircut because it was low on juice and he couldn’t find the charger. Then he found the charger and – you guessed it – now can’t find the trimmer. Last week I saw the LaCie HD on the living room table. This morning I found the USB cable, but no HD. And yesterday a DVD I’d been meaning to watch is no longer, well, anywhere. It’s crazy.

And so, I was supposed to get together yesterday with the fearless Ana, who helped me move, to help her set up a blog and other social media stuff. But she got in touch to say her laptop had collapsed and she had to take it to computer hospital. And then she said – “thank goodness everything is backed up” – and I felt a chill down my spine. Shadow hasn’t been backed up since … well, I can’t remember. Which sent me on a massive house search for my HD, which then sent me over to FNAC to buy this new gadget. Well, as Mudhooks has pointed out before, it’s prudent to have back-up copies on more than one external HD, and my old one was actually too small. So now that I have this new back-up HD I’m sure my old one will turn up some time today.

In other news, my iPod – which has been missing in action since The Move – has finally been found! In fact, it was in the very place I thought I’d put it (my laptop bag), which I checked about a gazillion times these past three weeks, but then suddenly it was there! Perhaps the same thing will happen with all the other mysteriously missing articles. I suspect Loki…

buddy

16 Sunday Jan 2011

Posted by in birthdays, friends, gadgets, health & happiness

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

, ,

This is Buddy.

A couple of weeks ago Sledpress warned me that an Amazon birthday prezzie was coming my way. I immediately thought she’d checked out my wish list and expected a book or dvd to arrive, so imagine my surprise when I picked up a massive box on Saturday and found this inside. A percussion massager with four different attachments (soft, medium, firm … and HEAT!). What an amazing gift, which I can say after having tried it out. It feels sooooo good that I can imagine it becoming quite addictive. Haven’t tried the heat attachment yet but I’m sure that is going to be awesome.

Have to say that I had quite a chuckle over the WARNING on the device which says:

Caution: this product was designed for use on broad body areas only. To avoid pinching keep smaller body parts such as fingers and hair away from heads and the gap between the heads and housing.

Thanks again, Sled. A truly fab gift.
And you’ll be happy to know that Azar and Loki like it too…

Continue reading →

sevilla tapas app?

14 Friday Jan 2011

Posted by in gadgets, tapas, travel, websites, work

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

, , ,

The idea to create a smartphone app for Sevilla Tapas has been suggested many times, but so far I have hesitated to seriously consider it because 1) I have no idea how to go about getting an app made and 2) it always seemed to me that there wouldn’t be much demand for an app just for tapas in Seville.

You may recall that a couple of years ago I was considering doing a small e-book tapas tour guide, but somehow never got around to learning how to do that. And now it seems like this idea is probably a bit passé.

Anyhoo, during my last tapas tour on New Year’s Day, one of my clients was telling me that I really had to come up with an app for Sevilla Tapas because it would be the perfect option for people who maybe didn’t want to take a tour but still wanted to have my tapas blog info at their fingertips – and I’d also make money. But you know, who’d buy an app just for info about one city? Well, my client Mike was convinced that it would be a very good seller. And then today I went to a small tapas bar called La Cantina, which I hadn’t been to for awhile, and the girls there told me that since my last visit people had been showing up saying they’d found out about their bar on my blog. They also said that some of them actually pulled out their smartphones, showed them photos of the food and said “I want this and this”. Cool!

So what do you think? Is it time for a Sevilla Tapas smartphone app?
And if so, how would I go about doing this?