Category: Gadgetry and IT

I’ve got very used to using keyboard shortcuts in GMail, especially “]”, which just archives the message you’re reading and moves on to the next one. Bang-bang-bang through my email, luvvly jubbly. Now, I know Google doesn’t really want …

OK, here’s the task: I wanted to build a discreet music system to go in a room with a bookcase, using an old third-generation iPod from about 2004, whose battery had long since died but which worked perfectly sitting in …

I’ve had my Apple iPad for 48 hours now, and here are a few observations on what’s happened so far.

It’s extremely covetable. The only person outside of the family who’s seen it took about ten seconds to decide she …

Stop Press: Full Panasonic SD 257 review – with video – now here.

My online review of Panasonic’s SD255 breadmaker has been one of the most widely-read pages on this site for the past three years. Now the Japanese …

OK, bit the bullet and had my Virgin Media cable internet connection upgraded to 50Mb/sec. Quite painless, smart guy did the installation. That’s the result above. The only problem is that my Devolo dLan 200AV, which I’d used to connect …

So, it’s the iPad is it? Lots of potential. My predictions were at best average, but considering so many people are saying the device is “nothing more than everyone predicted”, I can’t find a commentator who accurately described it beforehand.…

In a Cherry Hinton Blues exclusive, I can reveal full details of the new Apple “tablet” computer which has completely occupied the tech media for the past few months. To be launched next week at one of those Apple …

Took my Panasonic GH1 and new tripod over to the park yesterday afternoon and shot an hour or so of people in the snow. It was cold. There are a few rather over-long panning shots, for which I apologise, but …

Ever had this irritating message when you click “All Items”? Here’s the fix.

1. Add an “s” after “http” in the URL, so it reads:
“https:// www.google.com/ reader/ view/ #stream/ user%2 …etc…”

2. Er…

3. That’s it.

And …

Google seems to have decided it doesn’t want the money from many people using AdWords to drive traffic to thin affiliate sites, which it’s already been penalising out of its organic results for several years. The move became clear on …

I’m one of those obsessives who likes to reformat his hard drive and reinstall everything from time to time. Even if it doesn’t speed the system up with Macs like it so obviously does with Windows, I just feel better …

Well, here it is, my brand new Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH1 camera, which has just arrived here at Cherry Hinton Blues Towers. It took me several weeks of research and indeed soul-searching to opt for this groundbreaking camera, and I …

Sorry, we were just talking about sandwich makers, toastie makers, Brevilles, whatever you like to call them, and we wished ours was still working. I was surprised there seem to be so many on the market, so here you go… …

Cherryhintonblue’s Geek Chart

This is fun. GeekChart reckons it shows your activity on all sorts of social media sites in the form of a pie chart. I’m not quite sure about the accuracy of what it’s come up with for …

I won’t do a full review of my new Apple Time Capsule here because there are millions of reviews all over the place which you can read, but I want to address perhaps the only problem which most of the …

This is one of those blog posts which is more for my future reference as it is for general interest, but hey, if you’ve found this on Google and it’s helpful, glad to have been of service. Firstly…

What I …

This post is a bit silly. Sorry. Apparently, the 4-20mA current loop standard is important in widgets for the aircraft market. At least, it is as far as this page about 4-20mA Aerospace Widgets is concerned. I made the page …

I’ve just spent far too long (as is always the way) trying to find out what I should be doing when it comes to accounting for VAT with my AdWords, Amazon affiliate marketing and AdSense activity. The confusion stems from …

The power cable on my MacBook Pro started to show a few problems after about six months. Firstly, the little charging light didn’t come on properly until you waggled the ‘MagSafe’ connector around a bit in its socket. Then, eventually, …

My second gadget-related failure of the weekend was my Sky HD box, which had spent the last two days showing a couple of problems: scheduled recordings were showing “FAILED” even though their transmission time hadn’t been reached yet; and the …

Two electronic gadget failures on the same day, and in both cases the solution was online. I’ll blog about my Sky+ HD box showing “FAILED” recordings in a moment, but first, my second generation red iPod Nano from early 2007…

The Times seemed to get something of a scoop with its review of the Philips Warm Intimate Massager. Apparently it’s going to be on sale in Boots and Selfridges, which is nice, but I doubt that many people will be …

Several blogs have picked up on a post which appeared on a blog called The GoogleCache a couple of weeks ago, detailing the author’s experience with a new facility to integrate Google Analytics with Adsense. Oddly, the post disappeared, but …

Well, I’m one month away from the kickoff date for my new venture, Business Marketing Online, and we open sales for the first product, the Business Marketing Online Insider Programme, next week (8 September). I’ll be blogging its …

Interesting couple of days in Edinburgh at Jim Boykin’s SEOClass with contrasting presentations from the likes of Lyndon Antcliff, Ammon Johns from Fresh Egg, Brian Turner from Britecorp, Shaun Anderson from Hobo, the extremely entertaining Quadszilla …

So, my God-daughter called me a few months before her wedding in Canada to ask: “Would it be possible to broadcast the wedding live on the internet for the family back in the UK?”
And my answer was: “Er… I’ll …

I’ve just had a demo and an extended test drive in a Lexus RX400h. Very nice, and I’d certainly like one. But why is such a technically advanced car let down by such an antiquated audio system? The dealer kept …

I had a website of football reports which was managed by a homebrew flat-file database, and it really needed dragging into the 21st century and being managed by WordPress, or something like that. But how to transfer the hundreds of …

I’ve always had a problem that login items disappear under OS X, and it hasn’t gone away with OS X 10.5 Leopard. I’ll add something to the list in the conventional manner, and about 50% of the time, when I …

Let’s get things straight from the start. I upgraded to Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) this week, it was painless, and it’s a worthwhile upgrade (even if some of the interface changes are “insane”). At £79.98 from Amazon UK, …

There was a time when you had to wait for weeks to get a decent review of a new product. Broadcast media has never stepped up to the plate, and only dead trees would do. It may have taken ten …

I came up with a neat workaround this week which might interest those of you who like to get news on your mobile phones, or would like to if it was easier. There’s no chance this is an original …

No, only kidding. I don’t believe for one moment that I’m the first person in the world to think of this, and I really can’t be bothered to search Technorati to see how many people got there first, but I …

So how can owning a breadmaker actually save you significant amounts of, er, bread? Easy. Quoting from my own Panasonic SD-255 breadmaker review (highly recommended, by the way):…

OK, I think I’ve got my best ever smart playlist worked out for general day-to-day listening. What I want is to hear stuff I haven’t listened to for a long time, or stuff I’ve recently added, but not podcasts or …