Dummy

13 September 2013

Review: Underwater Video Photography with the Kodak Playsport ZX3

I’ve long been a fan of the Kodak Playsport ZX3. It’s been my mainstay action camera for a few years because of its excellent balance of value, quality and durability. It’s also got one of the better external microphone systems and brilliant image stabilization.

If you’ve ever seen any of my action films you’ll know that I feature 4×4 vehicles and the reason I’d selected a waterproof camera is because they are usually required to splash through rivers or more typically survive the rain of Welsh mountains!!!

Well, here at Geek & Dummy we have taken delivery of some very promising new action cameras (reviews to follow) that may well be ending my love affair with the Playsport. I thought it was time to see what it could do underwater. If the claims made by Kodak prove to be bunkum and this kills one of my beloved Playsports, maybe I can live with that now replacements are at hand!

Before I start the review in detail, I always feel the need to qualify the ZX3. It’s pretty much end of life and is an action camera that has been on the market for 5 years+. Before I first reviewed them they were selling

for about £45. Unfortunately they now go for £60+, which may well be my fault for shining the spotlight on them. Amazon does have the successor ZX5 listed for £156 and whilst I wouldn’t pay that because of the abuse I give them, I’d still say that offered some value.

What we have then is essentially quite old tech at a bargain price.

The Zx3 is ready to go straight into the water as it is without the need for a secondary case. As I’ve described in a previous review all its compartments are sealed and water tight. What you do need to do is alter the camera’s software to cope with being underwater.

Anyway, enough chatting from me. This is just one of those reviews where you need to see the results. I’ve used PowerDirector 10
to edit the clips but other than slowing a few frames down or reversing it for fun, this is unadulterated and straight from the camera.

As I have already reviewed the main camera this review is purely covering the underwater usability.

21 August 2013

Review: Samsung 46-inch 3D Smart LED TV Full HD 1080p Dual Core Processor

Having moved house recently I decided I’d take the opportunity to upgrade my main TV. It’s probably the single most important tech decision I make for my home as inevitably it becomes somewhat of a focal point for the family and also because it’s usually the most significant investment.

I’ve long been a fan of the design of Samsung TVs and I must admit, despite friends in the know recommending other brands, I opted for a Samsung with the features that interested me. Namely a Smart TV with 3D capability: Samsung Smart 3D 46″ television

Out of the box, it was everything I had come to expect from Samsung design: sleek and clean. It was also very very thin. So much so it almost felt flimsy! I’ve tried to show in this picture which is from a top down angle.

Setup of this TV was simplicity itself, despite the amount of options there are to explore and tweak. I run this with SKY HD and an LG 3D Surround system and they all installed and integrated seamlessly.

I have cat5 network cabling in my house and connected the TV to that. Straight away, it detected software updates and sorted all that out for me with minimal effort required. Similarly, it recognised everything I connected to it via HDMI.

The ports on the back of the TV were all brilliantly laid out and labeled. I was really impressed with how they had done that because it made everything so simple and straight forward, especially when I forgot to plug the network cable in and had to squeeze behind the TV to find the port. Brilliant design.

It had no problem with my portable USB drive, which contains a number of films in a variety of formats, all of which it played seamlessly. I particularly liked the fact that the pause and fast forward buttons on the remote can control the USB movie playback. It’s a nice touch!

Next: browsing the net. I’d always said I wouldn’t get a Smart TV or at least I didn’t see the point because you’d need a keyboard for proper use. I tried out YouTube and tested the iPlayer app to check out a few BBC on-line shows and found it’s quite usable depending on what you want to do. YouTube in particular was brilliant. Even videos that were fairly average quality on my PC came alive on the crisp LED display. Anything more complex than simply selecting an option was clunky in the extreme and my theory about Smart TVs was pretty much confirmed: no keyboard, no fun!

So then, what about that picture because after all it is primarily a TV and the image is all-important. All I can say is that it’s unbelievably clear. Technology is forever improving and in my house we have lots of TVs. Very often I can buy a new TV and the picture is only as good as the 3 year old one in the kitchen. This however is a stellar leap forward. People will often use the phrase ‘it feels like you’re looking out of a window’ – this TV is a bit like that. In fact it’s like your window has been scrubbed spotless by a team of window cleaners and there is crystal clear sunlight bathing your garden – honestly it’s that good.

Now let’s have a little chat about the 3D. I can honestly say, much like the “Smart” aspect, I’ve always seen 3D in a TV as a massive gimmick and something that wouldn’t work or catch on. So much so that it was a good month before I even tried it on this TV. My kids were given a 3D film for a birthday present and I decided to do a ‘cinema’ hour for them complete with popcorn. The kids’ film: Despicable Me.

Oh my! Have I been missing out! I’ve watched 3D films in the cinema and they have been just ‘okay’. Perhaps that’s why I was a bit disinterested in that tech in a TV. Here though, I was truly amazed by the quality and depth. The glasses are the active type that require a battery. If you look away into daylight you can detect a faint flash, but focus on the TV and the experience is awesome. Anyway, don’t take my word for it, see how my kids reacted to the 3D experience:

Following this success I’ve moved on to David Attenborough’s Micro Monsters and the odd football match and whilst not something I want to do all the time, it does lift and enhance any viewing experience.

So what’s left to cover? Oh yes, the sound. I’ve neglected this somewhat because as I said at the start, I’ve hooked it up to a decent surround sound system and for the main part it plays through that. My wife however isn’t a fan of surround sound so this TV has had the thorough ‘Coronation Street & EastEnders‘ test. When I’ve been the next viewer I’ve often not immediately realised the surround sound is off. In my experience thin LED TVs don’t have great sound but this is surprisingly good. Far more than adequate if not quite up to cinematic effects.

So a simple summary for this TV. It’s brilliant. The best bit of tech I’ve bought this year so far and at a bargain price. If your existing TV is 2 or 3 years old and you’re looking for an upgrade this will be like going from black and white to colour. Yes I really think it’s that good!

At the time of writing this I have reviewed model UE46ES6800. There is a model ‘F‘ out on the market which seems to be the same TV but £100 more expensive.

[easyreview title=”Dummy rating” icon=”dummy” cat1title=”Ease of use” cat1detail=”Very simple indeed” cat1rating=”5″ cat2title=”Features” cat2detail=”Honestly packed full of useful features. Smart is better than I thought” cat2rating=”4.5″ cat3title=”Value for money” cat3detail=”You need to shop around. If you get it at the price I did (sub £700) it is the bargain of the century” cat3rating=”5″ cat4title=”Build quality” cat4detail=”It looks great. It is so thin though it feels a bit flimsy” cat4rating=”4.0″ summary=”A tad disappointed at it not powering my USB drives but even so, I liked it enough to buy another for home.”]

1 August 2013

Review: Samsung S4 Mini v iPhone 5

Geek has been telling me for a while now that the iPhone killer had really arrived and I must admit I have been looking longingly at the Samsung S4 Mini for a while. When I got the opportunity to try one out and review it, I jumped at the chance with a view to perhaps breaking my 5 year love affair with apple and iOS. Geek has the more powerful big brother Galaxy Note II but I don’t get that phone at all. I guess I’m just one of those people that think a phone should be pocket sized.

Now anyone who has been an Apple customer for many years will have become indoctrinated into the ‘Apple interface’. I kept in mind from the very beginning that there would be a learning curve and that I would have to keep an open mind to change. Not my best quality if I’m honest but on with the review!

Out of the box I was quite impressed. I recall when I got the iPhone 5 originally I was equally impressed with the quality and feel but I’d say the Samsung might have edged that just slightly. Generally size and ergonomics, there is very little between the two to be honest.

Everything on the iPhone is based around the home button and the the touch screen interface where the Samsung has a couple of nicely disguised additional buttons alongside the home button. When not active they are virtually invisible. If you swipe over them with your finger, an additional menu feature button lights up on the left and on the right a back button.

As you might expect with a version of a phone tagged as ‘Mini’ its not just its size that has been shrunk; the internal storage and the processor speed are both a reduced version of its big brother the S4. Just trawling around apps, emails and settings I couldn’t really find any discernible difference or lightning performance. Certainly not an iPhone killer so far anyway!

The screen initially appears nice. Good vivid colours but when I hold up the iPhone 5 to the S4 Mini, to my eye the iPhone 5 wins on clarity and quality. Okay, the Samsung screen is a little larger, which is always good but not a major benefit in my eyes.

Enough about the look and feel for now and more about how it works, especially from the perspective of a brainwashed Apple fan!

To start with I found it a nice slick menu system. It felt bright and fresh. Perhaps not as intuitive as the iPhone but I put that down to my Apple ‘blinkers’ for now. I found the touch screen less precise than the iPhone. There was a lot of frustrating miss-typing going on and its not like I have sausage fingers or anything, honest!

I then started to go searching for all my mainstay apps that are essential to my mobile world. I was quite prepared that I might have to find an Android alternative if it was iOS specific. It’s here in this crucial arena that the credentials of this ‘iPhone slayer’ start to get shaky.

I’ve recently written a blog about the App store and the world’s fascination with it and apps in general. Its fair to say that apps are what set a phone apart from its competition and so far the Samsung and iPhone 5 were neck and neck. Tell me please what the App store interface is about on the S4 Mini? It’s simply horrific. I can’t find the simplest and most mainstream of apps. It’s clunky and poorly organised. It does give you the option of going to the Google Play store which brings it all back down to planet earth but again the route to this is not intuitive at all. I was very disappointed with this aspect.

It’s worth nothing that Samsung loads its phones with supposedly “value added” apps that you can’t uninstall (without rooting). These apps usually are named “S “-something or “Samsung “-something. All in all pretty poor!

Lets finish by covering the basics.

Call Quality

The iPhone 5 has always had a big question over call quality. When it’s connected it’s quite good but all too often it drops a call for no apparent reason or goes straight to voicemail regardless of your signal strength. The S4 Mini has so far been faultless. It is very good at what its meant to be, a phone. The slightly scalloped edges seemed to make it more ergonomic to hold to my ear. – something the iPhone has lost between the 4S and the 5.

Camera

This is adequate but no more. It’s fine for quick snaps and it seems to let in plenty of light. Take a similar picture with the iPhone 5 and you can see that Apple has got this right and Samsung has missed the boat a little. I was only watching the Gadget show the other day which did a straw poll of people who bother to carry a camera or dedicated digital recorder these days. Because of the camera quality in smartphones the conclusion was that it was dying tech. Confusing then that the camera in the S4 just doesn’t quite cut the mustard.

Battery

It’s always a tough thing to gauge battery life accurately or realistically because what I’ve installed now won’t compare to what I’ve installed next week. It’s difficult to tell how the battery will be drained by different demands. What I do know is that my iPhone 5 was rubbish from day 1 when it came to battery life. With moderate to heavy use of everything I need daily it will require a top up charge during the day and a full charge over night. So far the Mini is performing far better and after a day of setting up, downloading emails etc, it’s only just slid under 80%. Not bad at all.

So is this an iPhone killer?

I desperately wanted to like this phone. I can’t help feel like I should be willing to look beyond Apple; Android receives so many accolades Google must be doing something right. Geek thinks it’s our saviour from evil iOS. At its core the Mini is like an iPhone 4S. It does all it needs to quite well but at the end of the day it’s just an iPhone wannabe.

I have to say I sometimes wondered if my frustration at struggling through the menus (i.e. my own reluctance to try a new OS) was at the heart of my mixed feelings for this phone and maybe that’s true. What I do know is that iOS is intuitive enough to let me navigate around and find my way. With Android on the S4 Mini Mini, all too often I had to go and pester Geek to find out how to do something. Not really what I wanted from the new hub of my mobile universe.

I’m going to give it another week or two to see if I can get over my ‘Android phobia’ and maybe I’ll come back and review the S4 Mini again!

[easyreview title=”Dummy rating” icon=”dummy” cat1title=”Ease of use” cat1detail=”There’s just too many ways to customise and change .” cat1rating=”3″ cat2title=”Features” cat2detail=”It’s got everything a good smartphone should have but it lacks a quality camera and a seamless App store.” cat2rating=”2.5″ cat3title=”Value for money” cat3detail=”Design-wise I love it. It does everything it should and you can get it very cheaply on a good contract.” cat3rating=”4.5″ cat4title=”Build quality” cat4detail=”I’m a little torn. It’s a thing of beauty and I love its lightness but also worry that it’s frail because it’s so light.” cat4rating=”4″ summary=”It’s a good smartphone and I like it but it is no iPhone killer!!!!!”]

26 July 2013

News: Porn For all or Save us From the Corruptions of the Net?

I love government do-gooders. Mr Cameron’s latest brain child. Apparently porn on the internet is bad, very bad! So much so that we must make it harder to access. Not prohibit it, just make it difficult to access.

It’s a tricky subject to discuss in general terms. Hypothetically speaking, I wouldn’t want to admit whether or not I might take a cheeky look on occasions and I certainly don’t like to be told what I can and can’t watch. But looking past that and any social and moral issues, what’s going on here? Who is it we are protecting?

If it’s with good intentions the government wants to protect young eyes, then okay, I’m all for that. If parental control at home is not sufficient already to filter out adult content however, I’m not convinced a simple opt-in/opt-out tick box is going to be of any help. We also have the question of the broad description of “adult content” which would normally include gambling and violence. I wonder if all the well-wishing parents who tick what they think is the ‘No Porn’ button realise that they might not be able to stream the latest “18” certificate film, have a flutter on the National or play cards or bingo.

I’m struggling to see what’s driving this and, in a world of economic and social turmoil, why this is so high on the agenda. If it is a priority, why this half-hearted, lack-lustre approach? Does this mean Sky’s Babe Station and other similar channels are going to be shut down? Maybe the government doesn’t consider that porn?

There are various definitions for the term porn: ‘Television shows, articles, photographs, etc., thought to create or satisfy an excessive desire for sexual content.’

Well when you put it that way, I guess it does sound like something unhealthy.

It’s at this point I did a complete about-face on this subject. I started writing this firmly believing I didn’t want the nanny state telling me what I could and couldn’t see and then I did a quick, relatively innocent image search on Google for what I thought would be a witty picture for this post. Do you remember Calendar Girls? A light hearted film in which aged WI woman stripped off for a calendar and strategically placed buns to hide their modesty? So I typed in the search terms ‘calendar girl buns covering’.

Now as you’d expect the top searches were broadly what I wanted but as I scrolled down the page, the porn drifted in. I experimented with search terms and do you know what? In this world of ours it seems someone somewhere always twists something innocent to sexualise it, or adds an innocent search term to an adult image.

My children are still young but I mentally wound on a few years and imagined them doing homework in bedrooms and innocently typing in some random search term. I wouldn’t want them exposed to this kind of result, but is this what Mr Cameron has in mind?

It appears to me that this is proposal is a cross between a moral vote winner for the government and a knee jerk reaction to recent events – revelations that have emerged of sexually motivated child killers having previously viewed pornographic material. Don’t even get me started on the alleged correlations between screen violence and real offences. I’ll leave Geek and the Mary Whitehouse brigade 😉 to deal with that one because I do not advocate the level of censorship that she did. I simply don’t believe there is any evidence to back it up.

The depiction of criminal sexual acts, rape or anything involving children etc., that’s just an obvious no-no isn’t it? Why isn’t the focus on forcing ISPs to filter this content out?

The big ISPs out there can accomplish what they want. Don’t be fooled by the excuse ‘It’s a huge task’ or ‘it’s impossible to filter out all that content’ They can police what they choose to easily. Why then is this not a law strictly banning the ISPs allowing ‘criminal’ sexual content in the UK? Instruct the ISPs to enforce it on pain of hefty penalties or even a loss of licence in the UK.

If I cut through the veneer of this subject I see a typical well-meaning, Big Brother approach that’s become so watered down and toothless that it will be useless. If not useless it will target the wrong people and perhaps drive some things that may have been relatively harmless, underground. Once in that shadowy domain, who knows what it will become and what harm it might do.

In the meantime, if you’re a parent of young or teenage children children, I suggest you brush up on your internet security and perhaps look for a product that will allow you to filter content from your ISP. If you rely on your ISP or the government to do this and still want to enjoy ‘all’ aspects of the internet, I think you’re in for a rude awakening.

25 July 2013

How-to: Improve or enhance your website’s SEO

As part-owner of this fledging website, SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is something that interests me out of necessity. I mean if you create a website, you probably want it to be visited and if you want it to be visited, you need it to appear high in the search engine rankings.

Geek always told me SEO was basically snake oil purveyed largely by people with poor morals and that in any case, it’s a moving target. Search engines constantly change the algorithms they use to rank websites. Taking all this into account I made it my mission to gain a better understanding and then try to use that in the real world, with good old Geek and Dummy, to see if I could improve our ranking.

I’m going to keep this basic because after all, I am just a dummy but hopefully some simple bullet point tips might prevent you losing all hope or from straying into ‘black hat’ SEO territory.

The first thing to be clear about: if you’re relying on search rankings for traffic, then Google is your friend. I say your friend, but unlike a real friend, Google will be extremely intolerant of your transgressions. It won’t understand your foibles and will penalise you mercilessly if you offend its sensitive and ever-changing algorithms. Yeah Google is nothing like your friend, Google’s like your wife!! 😉

You may have heard people allude to the algorithms used by Google. At a basic level they analyse your website in detail and rank it based on a number of mysterious factors. These factors change quite frequently – sometimes drastically. You may also have heard of Panda and Penguin as the names given to recent iterations of Google’s ranking engines.

You can spend forever reading about various aspects of SEO that people claim will affect your search rankings. The truth is however, Google don’t want you to know because to make that public is to give away the tools that more unscrupulous web masters want to use to manipulate the system.

If you find your page ranking plummet overnight, unless you’ve made some changes to your site around the time this happens, usually it’s down to a change made by Google – no anything you’ve done wrong. This site has suffered from that on occasion. After much soul-searching and analysis of what we could possibly have done to upset ‘the wife’, within a few days it went right back to normal. This left us to surmise it was a tweak to Penguin that temporarily affected us.

So that’s a very simple background introduction to SEO. Here are my tips for improving your rankings in Google searches and more importantly, how not to losing that all important front page position.

Number one piece of advice for improving SEO: create a site with integrity. The days of creating a sham site to host links and adverts are gone for all but the most skilled of dark web masters. Google really is in control. Uf you want to get in there then you have to play by the Big Boy’s rules. You can have limited success trying to buck the system but eventually they will find you and punish you.
As I’ve described, Google can be a fickle creature. Log all your website changes. If your rankings drop suddenly and don’t recover, check for a correlation between changes and the drop.
A day in the life of your website is not enough to gauge a problem. If your rankings drop for a day or even a week that can be normal. If that stretches beyond a week then you have work to do. Go to it Sherlock!
If your rankings have plummeted and not recovered, make sure you haven’t been hacked. I’ve read of sites being hacked by adding links in a hidden div and those links have offended Google!!!!!!
Is your content original and relevant? Don’t underestimate the intelligence of Google. Are you plagiarising someone else’s work? Does your content actually make sense and contain relevant language for the subject? If you’re dropping keywords into sentences but they doesn’t fit the subject, Google’s algorithms can detect it and penalise this. No really, it’s that good!
Use links that are relevant to your content and that are ‘blue chip’ sites. If your posting links into content that take a viewer somewhere undesirable, that site’s offences can be associated to you. Google wants good links and access. You can add depth to your own posts by sharing and linking to other sites, but do so wisely.

The big question I guess is, followed this advice ourselves, what results have we seen?

We started off with very few links in our content but have started to increase these, taking care to keep them relevant and mainstream. As you can see, our content is unique and nothing is plagiarised. We have also gone big on security and our site is clean.

What we have seen as a result in a very short time, is modest viewing figures but figures that have doubled week on week. We have hit page 1 rankings on most of our keyword search targets and this seems to be nice and stable.

The last update to Penguin resulted in the decimation of our viewing figures and not following my own advice, I despaired for days. Our update log revealed no changes. A check of our content, security and links showed nothing nasty. After 4 days we were back to where we started – actually our viewing figures have improved significantly within a week. Panic over, but just goes to show that you need to be aware of the Google update path and avoid jumping to conclusions (something I am very good at).

So there you go, a low-level Dummy guide to SEO but a decent start to give you a back story in the murky world of Search Engine Optimisation.

10 July 2013

News: Apple’s App Store, Populated by Zombies??

App Store Game Changer

In the recent times, Apple boss Tim Cook, has lauded the power and effect of the App Store claiming it has ‘fundamentally changed the world‘. 50 billion apps downloaded to date and that’s a statement you would be hard pressed to deny. Clearly the launch of the App Store in 2008 has been a game changer for how technology is produced and delivered.

However 5 years on, is this ‘game changer’ living up to the hype and impressive figures?

Zombies

I heard this term for the first time today and when I read its definition it made me think about my own experiences with the app store. Zombies are apps which never appear in Apple’s master-list of the most downloaded apps worldwide. Its a bit of a sweeping statement but it’s probably fair to say we are talking about ‘junk apps’. I’m sure I’m not alone in having searched for a clever app that will help me with a specific task and to be lured in by a flashy description and amazing claims. Then in the wrapper of the App store, which gives it credibility, you pay your money and very much take your chance. I mean this app is being sold by Apple through its prestigious, ‘game changing’ technology store, what could possibly go wrong?!

Well by all accounts out of a total 888856 apps in the Apple database with 579,001 being classified as Zombies, by the analytics firm Adeven, it seems a lot can go wrong. In fact you could say that you have a 65% chance of buying a chocolate fire guard. Okay, I’m a bit disappointed that a prestigious company like Apple would allow a shoddy app to be sold but they would never leave me, their loyal customer, dissatisfied and out of pocket…

App Economy

Have you ever bought one of these lemons, complained and had your money back? Is it even possible to be refunded after buying a bad app? I’ve yet to find anyone that has received a refund. Lots of excuses and slippery shoulders yes, refunds, no! The closest I can find is the recent cases where parents had found themselves facing unexpected bills as a result of in-app purchases by their kids. I’d say that was less a refund and more a payout for fraudulent activity!

If we look a little deeper, Apple take a 30% cut of all sales through its on-line marketplace. That’s a vast revenue stream to start denting with refunds so perhaps they have a vested interest in rogue developers making unfounded claims to secure sales or maybe I’m getting old and cynical?

Don’t get me wrong, some developers have delivered the goods. The viral popularity of Rovio’s Angry Birds is a fantastic case in point, not only delivering an addictive app but one capable of moving outside the app store and becoming its own brand. A multi million pound brand spawned of the app store and perhaps representative of a change in the game publishing model. Maybe we now want our games and tech instantly gratifying, cheap and throwaway?

The Future of the App Store

It’s clear to say that the App store is here to stay and has revolutionised the mobile world. The other big boys in the marketplace like Google, Microsoft and Blackberry have followed suit and types of App stores are available across all platforms. Its a big, fast moving beast of a business worth multi-millions. My only concern is who is policing it, and with the money involved, policing it will need.

In this vast and transitional industry of instant gratification and throwaway app purchasing, are we going to miss the truly inspired apps and talented developers? With hundreds of thousands of apps out there, a significant percentage being the proverbial lemon, how are the quality apps going to be noticed? Worse still, if you can’t rely on Apple to vet the apps you have to select from, how can you make an informed purchase?

28 June 2013

Review: GPS Receiver for Apple Devices – GNS 5870 MFI

As is commonly the case with the technology I review, I have had a real life requirement for the device; I haven’t simply been handed the gadget to review. This is particularly the case with this GPS unit, the GNS 5870. I have been using it for the last year to enable my Apple devices to obtain and process GPS information, commonly for satellite navigation. It’s safe to say that this has been tested to within an inch of its life; you will see that clearly enough from the pictures.

My iPad isn’t 3G enabled. Although I can tether it to my iPhone, I find the 3G signal to be flaky at best. Whether you’re using your device to navigate mountain trails or Birmingham motorways, the last thing you want at the crucial turn is for the signal to drop.

When I surveyed the tech world to find a solution, it quickly became apparent that unless you want to jailbreak your Apple device, the GPS options are limited. A lot of devices claim to be Bluetooth enabled generically. I’ve discovered though that fickle Apple devices only work consistently with GPS receivers that are certified Apple-compatible. As is usually the case with Apple, that then means they can charge silly money for the device. A receiver for which everyone else is charging £20 goes up to £60+.

I wouldn’t usually spend that kind of money on a device like this, but I’d tried 2 of the generic type without success. Frustrated that I couldn’t get my iPad to work as a proper Ordnance Survey Map navigation tool, I bit the bullet.

So what do you get for your money? To be honest, a fantastically designed and very reliable device. It’s very small, almost too small for the £69 price tag! Happily, the majority of its surface is covered in tactile and grippy rubber. Brilliant for when you want to sit it on your dash to receive that all-important satellite signal. The next thing you notice is the complete absence of any buttons. Gulp! Not sure I was ready for that but do you know what – the touch screen panel and operation is intuitive and seamless. I’m already realizing why this device commands its price. Okay, it doesn’t always register my finger swipes instantly but given it’s been sliding around my dash for a few months and covered in mud, I’ll forgive it that!

First thing to do is connect it to your device via Bluetooth. Switch it on and immediately all my Apple devices see it. Pairing is an utter doddle with the pre-stored passcode. Switching it on and off with a swipe of my finger across the touch screen, I’m starting to feel like Captain Kirk.

It charges via a mini USB connection. So far I’ve found it charges in about 3 hours and lasts about 15 hours, although I usually plug it in the lighter socket in my Land Rover and then chuck it on the dash.

Friends of mine have a variety of other GPS receivers, although they use them with laptops. This GNS will almost always connect faster and more reliably that theirs so another feather in its cap!

Just two slight wrinkles. Firstly, I have found that very occasionally, when I use it for the first time in a while, it struggles to connect via Bluetooth smoothly. Following Geek’s mantra (“Switch it off and on again!”) I restart toggle Bluetooth on the Apple device and it then connects flawlessly.

Second wrinkle: a word of caution for any fans of jail-breaking. This immediately stopped this device from working. Nothing I tried could make it work while my iPad was in that state. I reinstalled iOS and everything was back to normal. The GNS doesn’t seem to like jail-broken devices.

In summary, if you use software like Memory-Map (see my recent how-to) or any sat-nav apps on Apple kit and don’t like relying on your 3G, then you need this in your life and it’s worth every penny. Grab it here or on your favourite online store.

[easyreview title=”Dummy rating” icon=”dummy” cat1title=”Ease of use” cat1detail=”Once you’ve sussed the swipe ‘on and off’ feature, it’s so simple it’s genius.” cat1rating=”4.5″ cat2title=”Features” cat2detail=”It’s designed to interface and feed GPS data to Apple devices. It does that almost faultlessly” cat2rating=”3.5″ cat3title=”Value for money” cat3detail=”It’s the most expensive of its type but it’s the only one that works.” cat3rating=”3.5″ cat4title=”Build quality” cat4detail=”It’s real quality this. You won’t be disappointed.” cat4rating=”5″ summary=”Another star buy for me. I’ve really enjoyed using it and perhaps it’s ignited the frustrated photographer in me.”]

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18 June 2013

Review: Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ48

Let’s get something straight with this review, right up front. I am no David Bailey and I don’t really have any aspirations to be a photographer. When I bought this camera I had one objective: to improve the quality of the pictures I took beyond that of my existing point-and-click happy snapper. I wanted something simple to use with menu options that a non camera buff could understand without sitting a 2 day course.

Okay then, that established, on with this review.

I’ll start with my usual first impressions. I may not want to be a photographer but I feel like one with this kit in my hands. It’s a completely different beast to my usual compact in so many ways. But it also feels familiar, with simple and obvious buttons; you can take it out of the box and immediately start taking ultra-sharp pictures. It’s ergonomic to hold and I had no problems while traversing rocks and perching in strange positions for interesting angles on my pictures.

It’s here I really started to feel the appeal of this camera, which Panasonic bills as a “bridge camera”. Don’t know what a bridge camera is? (I didn’t.) From Wikipedia:

Bridge cameras are cameras which fill the niche between the single-lens reflex cameras (SLRs) and the point-and-shoot camera.

You can make it as easy or as technical as you like; I found that the results were so good it started to encourage me to take more time and effort in composing my pictures. Very quickly my ‘happy snapping’ progressed to something altogether different – I found interest developing as the results improved. All in all, a very enjoyable process in which good results were achieved quickly. Just the way I like it!

The zoom on this camera is amazing considering the price tag. On a recent camping trip I was able to demonstrate this to its full potential when my daft brother climbed a hill overlooking our camp-site and I captured one image without zoom and one zoomed right in.

There are buttons and features aplenty. I have only started to scratch the surface but the image clarity is truly amazing. For someone who was very used to taking very average images the pictures it produces are nothing short of incredible. It uses standard SD memory cards which is a bonus for me as all my other equipment uses these.

Okay, so I’m very happy indeed with the pictures it’s producing but what’s this – it also records in HD? Now I wasn’t expecting much from this. In my experience a device designed to do one task that has a second task bolted on, tends to handle that extra task quite poorly. Not so in this case. I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the HD video and how easy it was to use that feature. Coupling HD video with the power of the zoom it is a brilliant add-on. There’s one drawback: the noise of the motorised zoom is intrusive and has to be edited out of the final video, oh yes and I guess I could do with a tripod to eliminate the camera shake.

As I felt like I was getting on better with the camera I became more ambitious and started trying to shoot wildlife. It’s here I found myself frustrated by the time it takes to process images.

I had this image in my mind of rattling off shot after shot but the camera needed a second or two to sort itself out between pictures. There may well be a setting to alter this but out of the box, a little slow, as demonstrated by my attempts to capture a Red Kite.

So just to finish, going back to my very basic requirements of this camera, I’m really happy with the results. I’ve literally picked it up out of the box and not read a thing from the manual. With a minimum of tinkering I’ve been impressed with the image quality I’ve been able to achieve. See the gallery below for examples of my first efforts.

[easyreview title=”Dummy rating” icon=”dummy” cat1title=”Ease of use” cat1detail=”For the results here I’ve barely scratched the surface of this camera’s abilities.” cat1rating=”3″ cat2title=”Features” cat2detail=”Certainly everything I need in a camera. So many automated focus settings, how can I go wrong?” cat2rating=”4″ cat3title=”Value for money” cat3detail=”It’s well over double what I would usually pay for a camera but the image quality is a big step up.” cat3rating=”4″ cat4title=”Build quality” cat4detail=”I must admit, I feel I have to take care with it. This is no action camera.” cat4rating=”2.5″ summary=”Another star buy for me. I’ve really enjoyed using it and perhaps it’s ignited the frustrated photographer in me.”]

11 June 2013

Review: Joytek High Speed 7 Port USB 2.0 Hub

Most modern PCs are designed with an abundance of USB sockets. Great; exactly what the doctor ordered. Then pop along to Amazon and eBay happily buying a plethora of USB gizmos from fans to phone docks and you realise that the cable with your device is 1m long and the PC under your desk is 10cm further away than the cable will reach. Then when I want to remove that device and attach it to another PC there is the great cable hunt as I root around spaghetti junction, invariably unplugging at least one vital device before I get the correct one.

So off I went shopping for yet another office gadget to help me with this problem.

There are all sorts of solutions out there, mass-produced in gay abandon by our Chinese cousins. I use external USB hard drives and charge my phone and tablet from my PC so I wanted a powered USB hub. As ever, when I look for desktop kit I want it to be compact, well designed and generally a nice item to have on my desk. With that remit in mind, I bought this High Speed 7 Port USB 2.0 HUB from Amazon.

Out of the box it looked the part. A sleek, piano black centrepiece edged in nice tactile rubber moulding with the option to sit it in a simple desktop stand. I thought this to be the best option although it also looked okay lying on its side.

On the side of the hub with the power inlet, there is a cool looking blue LED. In low light this slightly illuminates the other ports from the rear. All in all, a very nice looking bit of kit clearly designed with a little care and attention. A miracle considering the bargain price.

On to testing. The first thing I noticed was that the connection from the hub to the PC is via one of those square USB printer connection affairs (Geek tells me it’s a “type B”, whatever that means). The supplied cable is a useful 2M long. Luckily for me my PC wasn’t 2.1m away from where I wanted the hub!

This cable connects on the same side as the power adapter. On this side of the hub there are 2 standard (“type A”!) USB sockets. I started by testing my little BlueTooth keyboard receiver and found the connections were well made and solid. The connector located easily and immediately found my keyboard. So far so good. Next I tried my iPhone 5, which is usually very selective about what it will charge from; the hub sailed through that test as well. Similarly with my tablet and then my desk fan and all was looking great.

I moved on to my external USB drives and it was here that this funky bit of kit came unstuck. It simply didn’t have the juice to run the drive which was a real shame because up till then it was looking like a faultless piece of tech. I could hook it up to a powered external drive and it was fine; for some reason it wasn’t getting the juice it needed from the hub that it could get from a PC.

A bit disappointing but weighing it up as a whole it has allowed me to remove a load of inaccessible cables from behind my PC and does mean I have a nice looking accessible USB port for any new desktop paraphernalia, providing it isn’t too power hungry.

On the downside I need to finish up this review now and go and pull my hard drive from the back of my…………

[easyreview title=”Dummy rating” icon=”dummy” cat1title=”Ease of use” cat1detail=”The very essence of plug & play” cat1rating=”5″ cat2title=”Features” cat2detail=”Perfect performer until it fell at the last jump” cat2rating=”2.5″ cat3title=”Value for money” cat3detail=”I have seen these going for as little as £4 but for the £8.93 I paid, it feels like good value” cat3rating=”4″ cat4title=”Build quality” cat4detail=”It’s nice, it’s tactile, it looks cool!” cat4rating=”4.5″ summary=”A tad disappointed at it not powering my USB drives but even so, I liked it enough to buy another for home.”]

11 June 2013

How-to: Put Licensed Version of Memory-Map on your Samsung Note (Android)

[easyreview title=”Complexity rating” icon=”dummy” cat1title=”Level of experience required, to follow this how-to.” cat1detail=”It all make perfect sense and it’s very easy to do. Why Memory Map just don’t share this with us all, no idea!” cat1rating=”1″ overall=”false”]

I do a lot of off road driving in my spare time and navigating using OS maps is essential. So imagine my excitement when the Samsung Galaxy Note tablet hit my radar claiming to have inbuilt GPS. So no more cumbersome laptop with a separate GPS unit and instead a much more portable tablet. Then when I checked with Memory-Map, Android is fully supported and I thought this was going to be a foolproof installation.

I have used Memory-Map on the iPad before and it has always been a pain to set up. I have to say that the support of it as a product is complete comedy. I would have thought that with every half-decent tablet that emerged on the market, Memory-Map would be looking to investigate and provide detailed instructions. That can only aid their sales of their mapping product, surely? But oh no, that’s too much work for them. Instead I was wading through half-baked, inaccurate ReadMe files before I finally gave in and asked Geek to help me out.

So then, without further ado, how do you put a licensed copy of Memory-Map on your Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet?

Firstly, you will need your own licensed copy of the software (which has come down a lot in price of late) and that will need to be installed and registered on your PC. Happily the instructions for that are very simple. Just create a Memory-Map account and hey presto you have access to whatever number of licenses are allocated with your version, one of which will be dedicated to your PC.

Next you need to connect your Samsung tablet to your PC via the usual USB lead and go to the Memory-Map site’s mobile downloads section and download the Android app.

It’s here that you can sometimes stumble at the first fence. The mobile install appears to be designed to encourage people to buy the rights to chunks of OS map via your Memory-Map account. Doing this puts a file on your system called a .DMS, which has the effect of signalling to your tablet that all map content is currently unlicensed. I guess I can understand why Memory-Map doesn’t go into detail with that but to be honest in the majority of cases if you don’t know about that and remove it, it’s never going to work! For now, don’t worry about that aspect.

Copy all content from os_50 or whatever your Memory-Map program folder is called. There will usually be 4 files in here. Memory-Map says just to copy the .qc3 file, which doesn’t work. Even if you copy the .qc3 and .qct files, the place name search function wont work. Better to get them all.So far so good. Now what you should find is that you can browse to your Samsung tablet via your PC. In the download directory there will be a Memory-Map folder and very probably a .DMS file. On your PC you will have a Memory-Map folder in your Programs directory from the install I discussed previously. The name of it can vary depending on what Memory-Map service you have bought, usually prefixed with os. Mine is os50. From here its a matter of a step by step approach.

Next paste them into a directory on your Samsung tablet where the Memory-Map software can see them. The correct location to copy the files is /Download/Memory-Map. You must be precise about this. No sub-directories. The software will only check that directory for content.
Check for the presence of a DMS file. In some cases (I’m not completely sure how but probably linked to accessing the digital map store or original Android download), the system will have created a “DMS” sub-folder under Memory-Map. Within that, files indicate you have not paid for any of the OS maps, so it wont show you unscrambled OS maps but will prompt you to pay for them.
If this folder has found its way onto your tablet, you will need to remove it.

That should be it. All files loaded in the correct place with no restrictions.

If you open MM on your tablet and select Menu then More Maps you should now see your OS map listed. Just select it and the software should check your online licence and add this device to your account using a further licence.

Now why can’t Memory-Map include these simple bits of advice. I mean rocket science it is not!!

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