I’m typing this on my new QPad MK-85 keyboard. It’s not that I’m into PC gaming that I bought this; but I spend so much time on the keyboard that I wanted a decent tool for the job. So far it’s been great – the keyboard is very heavy for a keyboard, rock solid construction, and the keys are lovely to type on. Shame it doesn’t correct the spelling for me too.
Here’s a pic. Oh, did I forget to mention it glows in the dark 🙂
There’s an age old adage that you’re probably familiar with:
Measure twice – cut once.
Well for me it goes more like:
Measure twice – cut three or four times, measure it again and cut a couple times more.
I don’t know what it is; but I just can’t seem to get the measurements right. Take this afternoon for example. All I had to do was put two hooks on the back of the bathroom door to hang a bathroom “tidy” on.
Two hooks, same height up the door. Easy!
So I put the two hooks up, hung the tidy on it, stood back; goddammit it’s crooked. Had reposition one on the hooks to get it level.
Me and DIY don’t mix.
Up until now we’ve used a Miele S718 vacuum cleaner to quite good effect; but since we got a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel last year it was obvious that the Miele was struggling to pick up the pet hair off the carpet.
By the way these dogs are described as “moderate shedders” of hair. I’d hate to see one that sheds a lot!
So we decided to replace it with a Dyson DC23 “Animal”. The vacuum is a compact format, as opposed to an upright, and comes with a good selection of tools and accessories including the all important turbo head for removing pet hairs. The vacuum has reasonably well packaged and took only a few minutes to assemble, though I struggled at one point to figure out just how the hose fitted around the cleaner body.
Time for a try out. There’s a reasonable length of electric cable; but I did think it could have been a few yards longer to reduce the need to keep moving sockets. I had hovered the sitting room only the afternoon before and the dog hadn’t been in there so I was completely amazed by the amount of hair that the vacuum picked up. Hopefully you can see this in the image.
So that’s a result! If I had any criticisms on this cleaner it’s in the very plastic construction of some of the parts. Only time will tell if these stand the rigors of domestic life.
As well as the large turbo head you also get:
The large turbo head and the three small heads all fit neatly onto the body of the cleaner for easy transport from one room to another.
Here are images of the vacuum Cylinder and the turbo heads:
You can follow me on Twitter now. Just See http://twitter.com/ctswestcork and follow ctswestcork. See you there…
This software seemed like a great idea – something that would automatically backup my files as and when they'd changed. Unfortunately the reality fell far, far short of the promise with software that functioned very poorly and support to match. Functionally this software looks very good. You create backup 'plans' in which you decide where you want the backup files to go and then select which areas you want to backup. This you can do by selecting from a set of quick picks, e.g. My Documents, My Pictures, My Music etc; or you can select directories from the file system or you can choose files by their Tag. Grand. Once you chosen the files to backup the Memeo goes off and makes an initial backup of everything you've selected. CPU usage during this process is very high, which is only to be expected really, so it's best to start this process at night or let it run over a weekend. After the initial copy has been made then Memeo runs in the System Tray and every time you save a file it gets backed up. You can also keep a number of copies of files, which is good for things like documents. So things were going well for me and my Memeo. I created a few plans to backup everything I have on disk, documents in one plan, pictures in another…. Away Memeo went merrily backing everything up. However after a couple of days I noticed that when I saved a file there was no longer a little pop up to say the file had been backed up. When I opened Memeo I found that all the backup plans had stopped working several days before. There's an active support forum for this product so I posted my problem and got a response from someone in Memeo support:
Delete all the backup plans in the file system and start again.
Now to me that doesn't sound like a solution, it sounds like a desperate measure. Not being offered any alternatives that's what I did. There are instructions in the forum for 'reactivating' a backup; but these didn't work as documented so I deleted all my backups and started again. However the same thing happened again a few days later. I reported the problem again and was given the same response; start again. Even after emailing the log files to Memeo support the response was; delete all the plans and start again. To cut a long story short here I've done this 'start again' process at least 5 times now. I've had Memeo customer support do a remote access session on my PC to try to find the problem. After that they downgraded my Memeo version from Premium to Standard; but the same thing happened. After that their suggestion was (you've guessed it) delete all the plans and start again. In addition to the problem with the plans that stopped working I've also had he following issues with the software:
In defense of the software I will say that I'm running it on Vista Ultimate SP1. Maybe it runs fine on XP; but given the activity in the support forum and the huge FAQ list of issues I'm not convinced of this. I've given the software one star because
If I ever get the software working properly I'll update this review.
Review of ETEN Glofiish X800
Rated as /5 on Aug 17 2008 by David Hollingworth
I did a lot of research on-line before I bought this product, read lots of reviews, though most of these reviewed what was in the box. Unfortunately I failed to connect with the ETEN European Users forum. Had I done so I would have thought again about buying this device.
What really swayed me towards the X800 was the VGA screen. There’s no doubt that this is much higher resolution than similar products from HTC, Palm, Toshiba & the like available at the time. The reports that the CPU was ‘slightly under powered’ didn’t deter me. The lure of the screen pulled me in.
I also wanted a device with Windows Mobile 6 so that I could fully sync my Outlook calendar and use Microsoft Office and other productivity tools. The X800 also came with Spb Mobile Shell which is a great enhancement to the basic Today screen.
So what went wrong? Given that the phone was bought to support my business the reliability problems I experienced rendered it worse than useless.
Some time after buying the X800 I was surfing the net and came across what has to be the best kept secret ETEN users have, the European users group forum. There’s some real experts on this site providing updated firmware and fixes for the problems the X800 has. I’ve installed a fix for poor screen performance that greatly enhanced the response of the touch screen. However I’ve not tried a firmware upgrade yet as this can completely wreck the phone if it goes wrong.
The Glofiish X800 does have some good features:
So not many redeeming features. I’m now using a fairly basic mobile phone (review to follow) which also syncs with Outlook and gives me a lot more confidence that I’m going to be able to answer all calls and won’t need rebooting. Now I’ve an alternative I might try replacing the firmware with a version from the user group. If this fixes the issues I’ll update this review, otherwise I’ll just continue to use it for wifi access.
Review of Goalpro 2008
Rated as /5 on Dec 30 2007 by David Hollingworth
It was some time ago that I stopped using Goalpro 6 in favour of MyLifeOrganized (MLO) for organizing my goals and getting things done. At the time I felt that Goalpro had an outdated user interface and lacked certain functions that GTD requires such as contexts. Whilst Goalpro has some nice features, like the scratch pad, it just didn’t cut it for me as a tool for day to day use.
I was interested to try out the new Goalpro 2008 version released recently to see if there was any new functionality that would tempt me back to Goalpro. I have to say that I was very disappointed with what I found. Sure there’s a new set of icons that give the tired user interface a bit of a face lift; but really that’s where it ends. The “what’s new” list give a few other items that have changed like the ‘completely revised journal’; but when I looked at the journal it looked exactly the same as the previous version. Other examples include new Calendar and Success Tree options; but it fails to say what those options are and again the Success Tree and Calendar look exactly the same as in Goalpro 6 with the exception on new icons.
Then you come to the price. A purchase isn’t cheap at $89.95; but if this software fits your requirements then it’s worth paying the price. It’s the upgrade price that gets me; a whopping $59.95 for no new functionality. That is nothing short of a rip off and is certainly very, very poor value for money. I, for one, won’t be upgrading.
If you’re like me then you need a gentle prod every so often to remind you to work on the targets you’ve set for yourself. If this is the case then the Hassle Me site might be good for you.
A very simple idea, you provide the frequency you want to be hassled in days, the text of the hassle, like “Go for a ride on your bike”; and a number of email addresses. HassleMe then emails you a reminder at roughly (not exactly) the number of days you’ve asked to be hassled. The slight randomness helps to prevent the hassle just becoming part of the routine “select / delete” part of email processing.
Try out the service (it’s free). If it works for you then great, if not then simply put it back on the shelf.
Review of Topeak Comp 150 Wireless Cycle Computer
Rated as /5 on Jun 22 2007 by David Hollingworth
I bought this wireless cycle computer to go with my new bike for two reasons. One was the fact that it had lots of functions and the second was the fact that it said on the box that it was suitable for mountain bikes. Also it wasn’t cheap so I thought (erroneously) that it had to be good.
So I installed it, which was fiddly; but no more so than a wired cycle computer. The instructions specified a maximum of 18 inches (1.5 feet) between the top of the sensor and the display unit. However at that distance no signal was being received by the display unit.
Tests showed that unless the sensor was 14 inches or less from the display unit then the signal was lost. On a mountain bike with a 20 inch frame this distance is impossible to achieve.
So I’ve been unable to check out the functions of the Comp 150 because it didn’t do what it said it would do; support 18 inches between sensor and display.
Hust in passing I found the Topeak web site attractive to look at; but lacking is useful information. The FAQ section of the site didn’t work at all and there was no troubleshooting section that I could find.
If you’re anything like me you’ve probably got dozens of on-going goals or projects that you went to get done. How do you keep track of all of these and ensure nothing gets missed?
Part of the answer is in having regular reviews; but then you need to have something organized to look at when it comes to review time. Now you can either go high-tech (computerized) or low-tech (paper based) in this and there’s often an on-line debate as to which is better and what tool is best for the job. It’s not what you use that matters, it’s making it work for you that counts.
My current goal tracking system starts with an All Projects list.
The All Projects list is used as a high level overview of all the goals I want to achieve. An entry on here ensures none of my goals slips under the carpet and gets forgotten about.
I was amazed when I wrote out my All Projects list that I had so many things I wanted to get done. It was no wonder some things never got addressed – there were just too many of them to keep them all going around in my head. Here’s the first page of the list in full and thumbnails to the second and third pages if you want to take a look:
That’s one big list of projects; but some of these aren’t active yet. In fact I’ve only got eight active projects out of this list of thirty one. When I decide I’m going to address a project or a goal I move it onto a Current Projects card.
Now I can see the eight goals or projects that are currently active and need me to spend some time on so that’s narrowed the field down somewhat. However some of these projects are temporarily on hold so I use transparent sticky tabs to highlight those projects that can be worked at present:
At every review this shows me which goals I should and can be addressing now. At review time I can check my All Projects list for anything that has come into scope and needs further work; these get moved to my Current Projects list. I then check my Current Projects to see which projects need my immediate attention and which are on hold.
In a future post I’ll be looking at how the project cards integrate with task lists and to-do lists. Until then I’d love to read how you manage your high level goals, particularly if you’re using a low-tech system.