Author Archive: Matt

More than 20 years in the IT industry. Blogging with a passion and thirst for new technology since 2005.

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By July 22, 2006 Read More →

New Acer Laptop

This post is a bit of a double recommendation really.

Firstly I just bought myself a new Acer TravelMate 3012WTMi laptop. Although I’m only just unpacking it now I’m already over the moon with it! It’s small and light enough so as to be portable but not so small as to be unusable.

Acer TravelMate 3012

When I decided to get a new laptop I knew what I had in mind. It had to be small and light as I do a lot of commuting and would be using it on trains. I also needed decent battery life and it had to have a PCMCIA slot for my 3G Datacard. I was amazed at just how many of the smaller laptops now come without the PCMCIA slot, most of them now shipping with just a CF slot.

Up until now I have been a big fan of Dell laptops, the previous 3 laptops I have had were Dell. I really liked the Dell X1 but this only has the CF card slot. No good to me!

I briefly looked at getting one of the new UMPC‘s and toyed with the idea of the Samsung Q1 but the reviews of the UMPC platform in general have been pretty poor.

So a friend suggested looking at the Acer. Acer wasn’t really a brand I had considered for laptops before. I’ve had some Acer monitors which have been pretty good so I decided to check it out.

The specification of the 3012 was exactly what I was looking and more to boot. It’s powered by Intel’s new Core Duo processor and supported by 1Gb of RAM. The hards drive is a spacious 80Gb, more than enough for me. The screen is 12.1″ Widescreen with a res of 1280×800, again this is ideal for me. It also includes a 1.3 mega pixel webcam which is a nice addition. Finally it had the PCMCIA card slot that I desperatly needed.

So I shopped around for a while, getting prices, looking at the excellent reviews and decided that the Acer was the one for me.

This is where we come to my second recommendation. A friend told me about a new company called expedIT that he had used recently. So I gave them a call and asked them for a price for the Acer model I wanted. The guy that I spoke to there said that Acer wasn’t a brand that they stocked but that he would see if he could get a price for me.

About 15 minutes later the guy called me back and gave me a quote. It was the same as the best price that I had seen on the web but what made me buy it from them, other than that they had been recommended to me, was that they actually took the time to find out about the product that I had enquired about and had come back to me so quickly with the price. What’s more they were able to promise the delivery within two days. Sold!

As promised the laptop arrived yesterday and I’m just getting to play with it now. I’ll probably follow up later.

Matt

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Posted in: Laptops
By July 19, 2006 Read More →

Orange SPV M3100

If you are looking for the M3100 review it’s HERE

During the MoDaCo Summer Event held at Orange offices last weekend I got a chance to get my hands on a nice new Orange M3100.

The M3100 is the latest in Orange’s SPV range of ‘signature’ devices. A number of other carriers will be providing the device (Codenamed Hermes by manufacturer HTC) but none have been as sexy as the Orange version.

SPV M3100

Orange M3100

I’ve used devices from the Smartphone and Pocket PC Mobile range since they first appeared back in 2001. This is the one device that I’m really excited about! It seems to have all the good bits of each of it’s predecessors. The design is similar to the K-Jam (HTC Wizard) devices with a keyboard design similar to that of the M5000 (HTC Universal).

Matt

Thanks to Sporkyguy for allowing the use of the excellent photos!

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Posted in: Science & Technology
By July 17, 2006 Read More →

Discovery Home Safe

Discovery has just landed safely, more to follow!

Matt

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Posted in: Science & Technology
By July 17, 2006 Read More →

Deorbit Burn Complete

Deorbit burn has been completed. During the burn Discovery was flying upside down and backwards. The shuttle is now committed to landing today.

Matt

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Posted in: Science & Technology
By July 17, 2006 Read More →

Discovery Go For Deorbit Burn!

Mission control has given Discovery the go for deorbit burn! The thunderstorms have cleared and weather is forecasted to be good for the landing, scheduled for 9:14 a.m. We are 10 minutes away from the start of the deorbit burn.

Matt

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Posted in: Science & Technology
By July 17, 2006 Read More →

Discovery crew prepare to return

The crew of Discovery have been told to begin fluid loading, which means that they drink large amounts of fluids to aid them in their re-acclimation into Earth’s gravity. Each crew member will drink approximately 40 ounces of water. They are now dressed in their pumpkin-orange launch and entry suits.

Matt

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Posted in: Science & Technology
By July 17, 2006 Read More →

Shuttle due home

Space shuttle Discovery is due to return home today which will end it’s 13 day mission STS-121. The weather is looking good for a landing at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 0914 EDT. The crew will fire the shuttle’s engines at 0807 to begin the orbiter’s descent.

The landing will bring to an end a mission that the US space agency (Nasa) hopes will help reduce safety concerns over the shuttle programme that have been heightened since the loss of the Columbia ship.

More news as we find it!

Matt

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Posted in: Science & Technology
By July 17, 2006 Read More →

MoDaCo Summer Event

This weekend saw MoDaCo’s 2006 summer event. The event, held at Orange’s offices in Paddington, was the sixth such event organised by the Smartphone community forum.

This year’s event was certainly one to remember with the hosts Orange and contributors Microsoft pulling out all the stops. Throughout the day there were breakout sessions covering subjects such as programming for mobile devices, mobile gaming and mobile music.

Orange also gave their guests the unique opportunity to get hands on with new and unreleased mobile devices such as the Orange M3100 (HTC Hermes) and the Orange C100. It’s very rare to be allowed to play with unreleased devices!

Im sure that the highlight of the event for many was right at the end when Orange announced that they had a gift for everyone that attended. The gift was a special edition white Orange C600 with the MoDaCo logo printed on the back! Every attendee received a phone.

MoDaCo is a community forum with over 140,000 dedicated members and is the world’s largest Smartphone and Pocket PC mobile device website.

Matt

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Posted in: News
By July 14, 2006 Read More →

Vista Install Marathon

I registered for and downloaded Windows Vista Beta 2 a while ago and last weekend I finally got round to installing it.

I had a spare laptop that had Windows XP pre-installed so I thought I would use that for trying out Vista. The first thing that bothered me about Vista was that it comes on a DVD. Just how big does an operating system need to be?

I put in the DVD and it spins up and I get a Window popping up asking me if I would like to install Vista. I say yes and choose an upgrade install, put in the serial key and sit back and wait.

It was a long wait. A very long wait. Copying files from the DVD, expanding files, locating files(?), multiple reboots.

Total install time: 4 HOURS. 4 hours to install an OS?! You have to be kidding me. I know it’s a Beta and my laptop isn’t ultra spec. but really?

So was it worth the effort? Not really, my laptop doesn’t have the 128mb graphics card that seems to be required for all the nice stuff and my 2.4ghz coupled with 1gb Ram still mean that Vista runs like a wounded dog. To cap it all off Media Centre cant play any of my videos although strangely Media Player can?

Good job I took a backup before I installed Vista!

Matt

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Posted in: Editorial
By July 13, 2006 Read More →

Astronauts get day off

Following the 3 marathon spacewalks by Mission Specialists Mike Fossum and Piers Sellers and the rest of the crew of Discovery and ISS working hard transferring the cargo and supplies to and from Leonardo multi-purpose logistics, STS-121 and Expedition 13 astronauts have been given the day off.

What do astronauts do in space on their day off? Drink beer and eat pizza while playing Playstation??

Matt

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Posted in: Science & Technology
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