Information overload

It's been almost a year since I last posted on here, for which I'll provide no excuse apart from "Oh shit, I forgot about that! Sorry".

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Some time ago I started using Google's "Reader" service, where I can consolidate the RSS & blog feeds in to one handy to read site, mark them as read from either my phone or the browser and forward interesting ones on (interesting to other geeks that is).

I only have 4 RSS subscriptions (mostly Technology based) and 3 blogs (one of which is Chrissy M's - very funny by the way)...but that small number of subscriptions often generates around 300 new items every 24 hours or so.

Now I'm the kind of person who likes to 'file and organise stuff' - you should see my email inbox (personal & work), everything gets read quickly and filed efficiently (I think this may be commonly referred to as being 'anal'), but with that level of feed items I just can't keep up with reading them.

So now unfortunately I'm a geek who isn't necessarily on the cutting edge of technology news and who cannot keep up anymore...I feel a demotion may be heading my way in the world of Geek.

Is "geek-ness" hereditary?

I'm a proud new father (as of a few weeks ago) and this got me wondering...will my new daughter inherit the geek side?!
Will she want to start dismantling the PC as soon as she can reach it and handle the screwdriver?
Will she start evaluating new browsers as soon as they hit the Alpha phase? (Beta's are for wimps ;))

And if so...is it really a bad thing? (Well I guess I'd rather she didn't screw up the PC).
Given the technological era we seem to be living in, I imagine that by the age of 2 she'll understand what a PC is and why we use it. She'll also probably wonder why the PC has a mouse and keyboard when it seems so much easier to touch it (a la iPad/iPhone etc.)
I also imagine she'll have whooped my Angry Birds scores by her third birthday....but she'll never beat me at Fifa on the PS3!

'Super fast' broadband...what do you do with it?!

I wasn't overly surprised when the BT engineer told me I was the first one on our 'cabinet' to be upgraded to their "Infinity" product (ironic name by the way, but I'll come back to this).
So I'm now on a 37Mb/s download speed (roughly 4.5MB/s) which is around 3 times faster than what I had before...exciting times for a geek like me....but I'm now left wondering what I actually do with all this bandwidth and why I really needed to order it in the first place.

Websites these days load pretty quickly even on a 2Mb/s connection, so on my previous 15Mb/s connection they performed brilliantly, the new connection makes little difference to that.
Download wise, I don't really download that much (mainly applications / updates etc.) but these are not frequent and so I haven't yet seen the benefits.
Sony's PSN has been down for the last few weeks - so I haven't been able to see how well it affects the online gaming side (not that I have that much time to play it anyway).

So what does one actually do with a fast broadband connection? Answers on a post card please.

PS: The "Infinity" product name is ironic because BT can't handle more than a certain number of customers using it per cabinet. In my local cabinet for example, I believe they can have a maximum of 90 people on the new service. There are currently 500+ people using that cabinet for their phone lines. I wonder how they'll sort that one out!

"Fast" broadband affecting house purchases...WTF?

I know that t'Internet has become a large part of our everyday lives, but this story strikes me as not entirely accurate:
"Brits unlikely to buy homes with slow broadband".

Admittedly I have become very used to my 16Mb/s connection and would probably cry a little if it were to go down to 8Mb/s (God forbid)...but not buying my dream house because the broadband wasn't quite fast enough?? And paying more for a home because it had fast broadband?? I don't think so.

Finally a tablet to look forward to? (That isn't an iPad)

Looks like there's a pretty well specced LG slate on its way:
LG G-Slate

With a good sized screen, 7" is just never enough (as the actress said to the bishop), and the impressive Tegra 2 chip(s) and Android 3.0 I think they could be on to a winner with this one.

The dual camera/3D setup is a gimmick, but as long as they don't start charging a premium because of it then I won't hold it against them.

New Year...New Gadgets!

OK, my trigger finger is itching to press 'Buy Now' on some new gadget... but what is left out there to buy that I don't already have or have need of?

A new laptop would be great as my Macbook is now nearly 3 years old (still going strong, when the battery feels like it). However, I can't bring myself to spend that much on a new one when it uses old CPU technology. I'm hoping now that Nvidia & Intel have solved their differences that we might start seeing some 13" Macbooks with at least Core i3 CPUs in.

I then start thinking about a tablet and how I could make use of one of those. I already have an iPhone so have sold my soul to Apple/iTunes - so an iPad makes sense...but the lack of front-facing camera is a bit of a deal clincher. Of course that will be solved eventually (link) but not seen enough for me.
Samsung's Galaxy tab is the next best contender...but it's for home use, I don't want a 7" screen...I need the full 10 inches (as the actress said to the bishop).

A new desktop PC perhaps? But the old one is still going strong - and to be honest, I only really use it for the odd bit of video encoding and storage...so is it really worth it? I keep looking at the boxes from the Tranquil PC guys and thinking how I'd like one of their i5 machines. I'm hoping at some point they update them to have USB3 and then I think I'd be a buyer (they have to have that little bit more future proofing for me).

And then, after writing this all down, the feeling passes and I remember that I don't really need anything...until next time.

Isn't technology brilliant!

This year has been a busy one for me (and my wife).
After a long time trying (and some heartaches along the way) we've managed to get pregnant. Well, I say "we" but technically it's my wife that's pregnant, I'm just managing to produce a sympathy bump.

We were lucky enough to have ultrasound scans fairly frequently in the early phases (at 7, 9 & 12 weeks) and every time I was in awe of the technology they used to do it. The clarity with which they can see into the human body just by bouncing some sound around (obviously that's me repeating the complicated technological process that's involved in some laymen's terms).

The last scan we had was at 21 weeks and again I was in awe of what they could do. Scanning the baby's heart to check the four chambers! Scanning the brain to check that fluid development was happening. Scanning the liver, bladder etc. to make sure they were working! Measuring the head circumference, waistline (it's definitely my child!), leg/arm length etc. etc. etc.

Here's the scan photo we were given, which unfortunately doesn't do the technology justice (trust me it looked perfectly clear on the screen when the scan was taking place).




Note: We are indeed having a devil child (note the horns). If only others knew that before having their children, they might be able to cope with them better if they'd known in advance! ;)