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As 2011 draws to a close, thought it fitting to write a short piece recapping on a few major points and of course looking forward to what 2012 may bring. A lot of people I have talked to seem to think that 2011 was a bad year for them, while I cannot offer any thoughts on how they felt for 2011, I look at 2011 as a time for chance. So what happened in 2011 and how do I see the next year progressing?
Monthly archives for December, 2011
Happy New Year
Google plus – Geeks Only
Google plus has been open a while now, the initial wave of people were mostly the Geeks who were only to happy to jump on a newfangled social media ‘thing’ and to further there so called circle of friends. What is missing is ‘normal’ people, here is a comment someone posted:
Now, if I filter out Internet Friends, Following and Acquaintances from my main Google+ stream… I SEE NO UPDATES.
Why have the masses not jumped ship from Facebook or Twitter yet? What use does G+ actually have and how about the future?
The Xmas training rest period
It is said that when you are training, you have to let your body rest up, week after week of ripping the muscle and letting it grow back will take it’s toll if you do not allow the body time to fully recover. I had spoken to the gym owner and he told me that it closed 23rd Dec and re-opens 3rd Jan. As the gym closed lunch time on the 23rd Dec, that week I did a 4 day straight training session and this was hard work let me tell you. While it seems like a long time off the gym, the reality is at most you have one week off but as I am not at work also, my physical activity is lower than normal.
Smartphone Smackdown
The three main smartphone’s out there at the moment are Android, Apple and Windows Phone 7, of course there is a lot of makers of these phones (apart from the iPhone, only Apple make them). It just so happens that I have to hand three phones to compare, this been the HTC Hero (Running Android 2.1), a slow and small phone by today’s standards but it does give me a chance to compare. The wife has the iPhone 4S and I got a new work phone, the HTC Trophy, A Windows 7.5 phone. Is there a clear winner here? Will the iPhone wipe the floor with the rest? Onward to battle.
Streaming Movies to Justin.TV via VLC
Recently I tested streaming a movie to Justin.TV via wirecast and this worked very well indeed, the quality was as good as watching it local and it played without breaking up, lagging or anything like that. There is a few issues with using Wirecast though, the first is the fact it can only play certain file types (mostly MP4) and second, you have to babysit the process to swap movies. After some searching, I came across JTVLC - this can stream content from VLC which in turn can use a playlist.
Secunia Personal Software Inspector
While Windows update does a grand job or updating the core microsoft programs, unlike Linux, it does touch the other software. Enter Secunia Personal Software Inspector, this is a free program that not only scans your machine for updates, it fixes security issues as well. Head over to the website and give it a try, its free after all.
Is SSD a must have product?
I am sure that it may have crossed your mind to replace your main system drive from the old and slow mechanical SATA drive to a faster SSD. Looking at the prices of SSD will show that that it’s about £1 per GB (give or take) and to have full advantage of the speed on offer, you need to have a SATA III Connection (6GB/Sec). The main issue will be one of space; it is easier than you think to fill a 120GIG Drive. Recently I had a new works laptop (Dell Latitude E6420) and this came with a SSD Drive installed (Samsung SSD PM810) and the boot time of 30 seconds was impressive until you realise that this is a fresh build Windows 7 and not joined the domain.
