Alex Kidman

Things were so much easier when I picked subject lines based on what I was listening to at the time. Still, the above subject line does make sense. Of a sort.

Firstly, the T-Shirts, over at PC Authority, where I’ve looked over Internode’s new “T-Shirt” 1TB broadband plans:

Internode enters the 1TB race with “T-Shirt” plans: “Internode’s new “T-Shirt” plans offer up to a tantalising 1TB of data. But will they cost you the shirt off your back? We investigate the real value.”

And then over at MacTheMag, my regularly weekly blog considers the exact details of Apple’s new product offerings, by working out how much choice is included. Fifty Cent makes a guest appearance, as apparently Apple’s new Ping social network figures I should follow him. Which I guess goes to prove that Ping may be many things, but a Genius it is not.

MacTheBlog: Please, Apple, can I have less? “The confetti has been swept up, Chris Martin has vanished off to … well … wherever it is Chris Martin vanishes off to when he’s not performing, and what we’re left with is, to my appraisal, not all that satisfactory. To put some specifics to this, it seems that Apple’s gone all out to remove elements of choice.”

You get the idea.

A very busy week wound up with a review at CNET.com.au and a whole bunch more of Gizmodo posts. Normal, slightly quieter service resumes next week, but it’s still not going to be “quiet” by any reasonable measure.

Dell Inspiron N301: “Dell’s inexpensive Core i3 Inspiron isn’t incredibly inspiring, but it’s not intolerably insipid either.”

And then over at Gizmodo, a whole bunch of not-always-all-that-brief posts:

New iPods? We’re Going To Need New Cases

Breakfast Wrap: Best Of Wednesday Night

Aussie Apple TV Owners Get Short Shrift

ABC’s Mobile Division Cracks New Records

Hitachi Gets A New Life(Studio) Down Under

Buy An Avatar Or Headset, Make A Wish Come True

3D Glasses – Perhaps I Need A Smaller Head

Microsoft’s Home Of The Future Is Suspiciously Clean And Shiny

Breakfast Wrap: Best Of Friday Night

Hands On With Telstra’s Ultimate USB

An Appropriate Solution To Australia’s Election Woes

Am I The Only One Creeped Out By What’s Happening To This Flash Drive?

What’s The Oldest Gadget You Still Regularly Use?

“Morning noon and night it’s drink and dancing, some quick romancing, and then a shower..”

If only the life of a tech journo was quite that simple. Also, I’d look dreadful in fishnets. You know it, I know it — let’s not go there.

Instead, we could go over to Hydrapinion, where this week’s column looks at a certain Telstra mystery:

Why doesn’t Telstra have a portable WiFi router?: “The thought struck me that for all Telstra’s posturing about taking a technology lead, it’s an area where the big telco is sadly lacking.”

Or over to MacTheReviews, where I’ve been delving into the dungeons of Torchlight:

Torchlight: “Guess what happens when you establish a mining colony on top of a huge pile of magical crystals? If you guessed “nothing, everybody just mines the crystals and grows rich on the profits with no side-effects at all”, then you’re clearly not built for games design.”

And that’s not counting this week’s guest editor spot at Gizmodo, which has seen me write the following diverse mix of articles:

Breakfast Wrap: Best Of Tuesday Night
The Apple Geniuses With Time On Their Hands
A Brief Crowdsourced History Of Time Travel
Microsoft Gets Moving On Aussie Kinect Launch Date
Foxtel Shows Off Pay TV, Xbox 360 Style
AFL, NRL Get The 3D Go-Ahead
I Can’t Have A Bat-Utility Belt
New iPods? We’re Going To Need New Cases
Breakfast Wrap: Best Of Wednesday Night
Aussie Apple TV Owners Get Short Shrift
ABC’s Mobile Division Cracks New Records
Hitachi Gets A New Life(Studio) Down Under
Buy An Avatar Or Headset, Make A Wish Come True
3D Glasses – Perhaps I Need A Smaller Head
Microsoft’s Home Of The Future Is Suspiciously Clean And Shiny

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m tired…

“I’m tired, tired of playing the game,
ain’t it a crying shame,
I’m so tired!”

You know that whole idea of a work/life balance? Right at the moment, mine’s so tilted it’s essentially a work/work balance with the life hanging onto an edge somewhere by the very tips of its fingers. In fact, I think I just heard it scream as it inevitably let go.

Inbetween running a household and running after three kids and supporting an overworked prac student (who happens to be the woman I love), I’m also writing. A lot.

From what could be called my regular assignments, there’s a MacTheMag blog entry:

MacTheBlog: A support issue: “It was at this point that I remembered the only other person I know of that readily identifies himself as a Genius. That would be Wile. E. Coyote, and I’m well aware of the success rate of his plans.”

At Geekspeak, musings on the use of a 1TB broadband plan:

Geekspeak: What can you do with 1TB of data? “What 1TB does buy you is a fair amount of security…”

At CNET.com.au, even more iPhone 4 cases have been tested:

30 best and worst iPhone 4 cases: “It’s raining iPhone cases around here, so we’ve added more to our original story, bumping up the case count from 25 to 30. More choice is good, right?”

And that’s not getting on to the other big writing task for the week as I take up a guest editor role at Gizmodo Australia. In just two days, I’ve written the following stories:

Breakfast Wrap: Best Of The Weekend
Vodafone/Three Pump Up Contract Data Caps
Telstra Unveils Ultimate Wireless USB
Get Your Kicks (On Your Wave) On Route 66
The Best Free WiFi Is Fast Free WiFi
Breakfast Wrap: Best Of Monday Night
Internode Fetches IPTV For Early Adopters
Even Apple’s Making The iPod Refresh Obvious Now
Confirmed: Xbox Live Price Increase Isn’t Coming Nov 1
Is This The Ugliest iPad Stand Ever?
Nice Power Brick. But Will It Fly?

And it’s still only Tuesday. The week is still young, even if I’m not.

Lazy little stinging sods. I mean, all they do is hang around pretty flowers all day, only stopping for a bit of a dance when they feel like it. Compared to which, I’m slaving away on all sorts of projects tirelessly. Except that I’m somehow really tired.

Right now, you can read my review of the Clickfree C2 at CNET.com.au:

Clickfree C2: “The Clickfree C2 offers simple backup for PC or Mac, although regrettably not both.”

And then next week… I’m going to be a very busy little freelancer indeed, as I drag out my editor’s hat from its dusty corner of the office. It’s been more than five years since I had any kind of title with “editor” in it (back when I used to be the editor at CNET, as distinct from a contributor to it), but next week, for a strictly limited season, I’m doing a guest editor gig at Gizmodo.com.au, while Nick Broughall is overseas. As such, I probably won’t update this blog all that much during that time.

And after that, it gets even busier. Sometimes, it might be easier being a bee.

Just send $10,000 in unmarked bills to…

No, it’s not that sort of scam. In fact, I’ve been so busy, I haven’t even had time to sort out what kind of scam I should run.

Instead, an article detailing some simple tips to get the most speed from your broadband connection, live now at CNET.com.au. Common sense to some, rare mystical wisdom to others.

How to speed up your internet connection: “How can you make the connection you’ve got right now work that little bit faster? We can’t provide a magic bullet, either software or hardware to make everyone’s connections quicker, but we can provide some tips that may help speed up individual connections.”

Although I do like the fact that somebody’s already added a step #11: “11. Go to Tasmania for some NBN goodness.”

If you have that jingle going through your head now, my evil work here is done.

Well, not quite. But it is quite apt to describe today’s output. First up, at Hydrapinion, a discussion about why GPS “voices” are so rubbish:

Hydrapinion: What’s so hard about being able to speak, proper, like? “Thirty years ago, mechanical voices were struggling to get to the enunciation level of Daleks, and it seems as though we haven’t progressed much from there.”

And then at CNET.com.au, a DAB+ review partially inspired by the B52′s:

Grundig Roam portable DAB+ radio: “As a portable DAB+ unit the Roam works well. Stop roaming and connect it up to speakers, however, and the story is quite different…”

A couple of columns to keep the week ticking along. First of all, at MacTheMag, I cover the tricky area of predictions by way of a beloved British children’s TV show:

MacTheBlog: Dropping iClangers: “Somewhere in my office, there’s a Clanger that I’ve dropped. He’s gorgeous, with his little pink nose and strange honking noises.”

Then at Geekspeak, I’ve taken a look at the BBC’s Dimensions portal:

Geekspeak: Getting A Web Perspective: “What really grabbed my attention were the disaster superimpositions. It’s all too easy to forget about a crisis when it’s a thirty second news spot and the camera only focuses on a couple of people.”

Sometimes, you see, the subject lines speak for themselves. After much testing, snagging, dropping, bouncing and learning valuable lessons about screen protectors along the way, my comparative review of iPhone 4 cases is live at CNET.com.au:

25 best and worst iPhone 4 cases: “Apple can’t make iPhone 4 units fast enough to satisfy demand, even with woeful stories of antenna problems and the potential of a smashed phone. To get the most from your iPhone, it’s pretty clear you need to pop it into a case or protective screen of some sort.”

Pretty soon, these things are going to start turning up in cereal boxes. I wonder if it’s possible to enrich a router with niacin?

While you ponder that, I’ve reviewed another 3G WiFi Mobile Router over at CNET.com.au:

AximCom MR-102N: “AximCom’s unlocked mobile Wi-Fi router has a mix of good points and frustrating issues. If you’re after a decent performer it’s worth a look, but it’s stretching the definition of portable pretty badly.”