Posts by dylanh

Netflix announces UK debut

As others have pointed out - Sky's the limit

No UK service (LF or Sony's own VOD service), offer a decent selection of films. The odd blockbuster, and then stuff that is already available from the 3 quid DVD bin at Asda. I remember being profoundly disappointed, and when I tried to find out why I read this is partially due to Sky's exclusive rights to film content. Surely with News International taking a lot of punches over the summer, the time is right to investigate some of the near monopolies Sky has?

A bit stupid really, given that if you have a good enough connection to stream, have all the kit required to stream to a TV, you are more than likely to know how to go the freetard route. It seems the lessons of the music industry were not learned.

LaCie LaPlug

laCie: not so very NAS

Same as other posters. Slow, frequent reboots required, poor DLNA server, no updates, but lovely black slab looking thing. Oh and did I say it was slow? After a year, I prised the device open and donated the drive to a Synology NAS.

BBC crowdsourced mobile map: A bit quirky, but useful

I wonder about the specifics of how the data was filtered?

I ran the app since it was announced, and was anticipating seeing the map. I noticed a few little quirks. I can see a single spot of 2G centred on home in on our part of town which is otherwise 3g. I'm guessing that's due to the app logging a 2g signal when I'm home (in fact most of the time the phone is roaming from t-mob to orange at home).

Also, areas where I had driven (Strines Road from Penistone in particular), show no data, yet I'd driven that route twice since installing the app, so I'm wondering if they filter out values unless there's a enough points. Annoying in rural areas, where there haven't been that many data points logged, as even some data is better than nothing.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

My own impression

My wife bought one. She'd rather have got the iPad2, but as we both already have android phones, I thought it would be best to stay android.

My positive impressions:

lovely bright screen (especially compared to similar tablets in the shop), very smooth and fast user interface. Excellent browser. Competent email client etc. Nice feel in the hand, and really pleasurable to use for casual use.

The lack of USB and micro SD bothered me as a techie, but honestly, as a non technical user, it would probably not matter much. If you want a more general purpose machine, then a laptop really is better for that sort of thing.

The negatives:

lack of video support in Skype (in fact skype seemed to bugger up rendering facebook on a web page bizarely until I uninstalled it).

No official facebook app. The samsung supplied social hub lacks features such as not being able to read comments on facebook updates.

No BBC news app for honeycomb.

The browser gets served mobile versions of many websites, as they detect andriod as the user agent, and direct you to the mobile optimised version. Not the fault of the browser per see, but annoying (anybody know how to change the agent string in the browser?).

As the browser is very, very good has a decent resolution and has flash, the need for apps is less important than on a phone, as typically the regular HTML site is fine. However, I'm pretty peeved at the absence of skype video, as the ipad2 bearing fanbois have it, and it's a natural on a tablet.

Overall, it's a nice alternative to a laptop for casual use, and not a bad way to consume catchup TV services. If you want an expandable general purpose device, get a laptop!

Olympus Tough 8010 rugged camera

Nice camera

I have the previous generation of this camera, the 1030 SW. It's a really, really robust beast of a camera. It's been in water plenty of times. I've dived with it beyond 10 metres a few times.

In fact, it's been to 14 metres (worked perfectly), 16 metres (buttons wouldn't work beyond about 15 metres), and 19 metres and survived. 19 metres of seawater is lot of pressure, and it's really amazing the camera survives this, as most photography at that sort of depth involves specialist camera housings.

Under water it takes OK pictures. Nothing amazing, and back scatter from the flash ruins pictures unless the water is very very clear, or you are very close to your subject. But, being able to take a pocket size camera with you on a shallow dive is really great. If it can take being shoved in my BCD and spending 45 minutes below 10 metres, it can pretty much take anything.