Underneath my TV is a collection of boxes, each with a different purpose in life and it was this that got me thinking – why is there not a combined all-in-one device that does all of these functions and more? What devices then are under there? The first is the cable tuner but this can be swapped out for a Freeview HD recorder for example. Freeview by the way is the UK Free to air channels and there is 50 TV channels and 24 radio stations. Next up is my DVD player, this is not used as much these days but always handy to have. Last on my list is my media player, this can handle movie’s streamed from my NAS box and such. My Goal device would be all of these combined into one box that connects to the network – but, do this thing exist?
Posts in category Personal
All-In-One PVR – does one exist?
Win a Pashley bike to celebrate Team Green Britain Bike Week
EDF Energy, Britain’s largest producer of low carbon electricity, is proud to be supporting Team Green Britain Bike Week (18-26 June). This nationwide event aims to get more people cycling more often and show that using your bike can be a low cost way of getting around that’s good for your health and the environment.
Find out how Team Green Britain members have been getting involved at teamgreenbritain.org. To help you be part of Team Green Britain Bike Week in style, The Independent is giving you the opportunity to win your very own classic Pashley bike. Head over to Independent Website to fill in the details needed to win – I am assuming this is UK only.
What is the purpose of Facebook?
Facebook has been around for some time now and it overtook MySpace back in the day. It works by you added people for which they have to accept and any posts that people do, be it a simple line of text, a video or photo’s – will appear in the time-line. It went further of later as it allowed you to put people into groups and then instead of writing a post that made no sense to work people, you can specify Family only for example.
I like to think Facebook is a big bulletin board that people you know can leave messages on detailing what they are doing, post new pictures and so forth. It is ideal for example if someone just had a new baby and everybody can get to see the pictures quickly. My question though is this – “Just what do you write on Facebook Status updates that people won’t deem boring?”
Running out of Tech Items to buy
There was a time when I was either looking on-line or in a large Tech store (such as PC World) and I would be looking at items I had no idea I needed but somehow bought anyhow to add to my collection. Eventually though, you can et to a point when the more sensible side of you asks that question in your head “Do I need yet another external hard drive?”. I think it depends on what items you buy in the first place that can cut down in the number of “other” items you need to buy and eventually as I stated, you walk around and see nothing on offer that you seriously need and thus save your hard earned money.
Twitter Versus Facebook
On the 20th Feb 2011 I finally created a new Twitter account and started to use it, before hand I started to use Facebook a lot more than I had before by adding a lot of people from work as well as friends and family. I thought I would pass on my thoughts on both medium and how they are working out, I would also like to get other people views on why they prefer one over another. Twitter is a limited medium in my own mind as it needs extra services such as Twitpic to share pictures and URL shortener to fit links into posts. With Twitter you only get half of the story which means unless I am following everybody on a certain list of people, I miss the tweets if I do not go to twitter account on-line and read the full flow of posts. How does this match up with facebook?
How to stay safe online shopping
In this modern on-line era, it is not uncommon to sit in front of the computer and use your credit card to buy various goods, from grocery shopping to tech goods. Combine that with the wealth of websites you have to provide a login information such as username and password. On top of remembering the online passwords, we also have to remember the Pin numbers of the cash point cards, the credit cards and passwords for work and so on – information overload.
People out there have various ways to remember the passwords used, some use a program that store all the passwords while other hope there browser will have them and finally we have a set of passwords people may use across the sites. The problem comes about when your credit cards get used to buy something, how quick can you respond to this? If you have a phone that has email on demand (such as an Android or an iPhone) then you will be aware of the fake transaction straight away. If you are not a ‘connected’ person, you may have to wait until your credit card statement comes in by which time the people will already have the money and you will have to file a claim via your credit card.
Amazon.Com Account Hacked
After my Paypal account got hacked I thought I had secured everything but it seems that this was not the case, on 7th April 2011 I got an email (two of them) telling me that I had gifted The Metallica Collection to bigredbus1@hotmail.com & williamclowny@hotmail.com at a cost of $99.99 each, both of which had left my credit card at 2:52am UK time. I started the process as soon as I work up, calling Amazon and getting this stopped dead in it tracks. I learned a few lessons here I think and I shall detail the process to locking down any future exploits.
Time for a New Smartphone
On the 4th April 2011 (or shortly afterwards) I shall be calling T-Mobile and saying with great Joy “I wish to give you my one month’s notice” and that will be the last payment from them. I have one month to use the phone and then it will stop. Originally I was going to just use my work phone until the iPhone 5 comes out but I have been hearing there is no such thing this year, this means I have to think about which platform I need to buy into, for how long and who with.
Preparing to Leave T-Mobile
If every there was a time I am happy I made at last one good decision and it was when I choose to only be locked into a mobile contract for 18 Months instead of 24. In my time so far with T-Mobile and buying into the Android market, I have disappointed by both and this has made me turn to buying into the competition. As I have not had a contract mobile before, I went into the local T-Mobile store and once he worked out that I already was a customer and was asking about leaving, his whole attitude towards me changed, not the jolly salesman any-more. He asked me to send a text message to 150 with the word UP and it tells you what it runs out. As it turns out, on the 4th April 2011, I have to call them up and give them a month’s notice.
Trying out Twitter again
In my time I had I think Three Twitter accounts (maybe even more) and for one reason or another I changed them, de-activated them or just plain never used them. Now my view of Twitter is a pointless exercise in life and I feel the people who use twitter to tell you about every second of there life probably do not have a social life were they interact with real humans. I do not understand why anyone would need to know that I have woken up, eating my breakfast, going to work, arrived at work, having lunch and so forth. Anyhow – I shall have another go at this and as my previous accounts are all now lost, I created a New One – Called LiquidTV. Fell free to Follow, I will follow back.
