While I swelter, be a good chap/chappette and head over to CNET.com.au for my latest review. And bring back some iced water when you’re done.
Compaq Q2009 LCD Monitor: “HP’s budget line 20-inch monitor doesn’t deliver any surprises, either nasty or nice. You just get what you pay for.”
While I recover from the rigours of a nineteen hour day that included Byteside, a refurbished flour mill, a secret garden that somehow had a concrete floor and naturally enough nowhere near enough sleep, amuse yourself with today’s iPhone App guide at PC Authority:
Amazing Apps For Your Phone: What’s the weather like out there? “Spring is upon us, but the weather remains as variable as ever. Here’s the best iPhone Apps to keep you dry.”
It always bothered me that the Master said that. It indicated that the Gallifreyans, an ancient race, used classical Greek letters. And what’s more, they used them to describe particular bits of mathematical theory in exactly the same way that the human race would, billions of galaxies away.
And if you understood all that, congratulations. You’re as big a geek as I am.
iPhone owning geeks my age let out little squeaks of joy this week with the announcement of the release of a C64 iPhone emulator via the iTunes App store. A little too excited, as it turns out. I’ve weighed in with my opinion of matters at MacTheBlog:
MacTheBlog: The 64k Question: “Realistically, you’re going to be of a certain age — thirty or above, mostly — to be interested in Manomio’s Commodore 64 emulator at all. I would throw up an iTunes store link for your enjoyment if that describes you, but I can’t, as Apple’s withdrawn it from sale almost as soon as it went up.”
I’m also throughout the October 2009 issue of Australian PC User, in various guises. With my Test Bench hat on, I’ve reviewed the HP 2309M monitor. With my Cool & New hat on (because I count as both, I guess), I’ve reviewed the Kogan Blu-Ray Player 2.0, Nokia’s N97 smartphone, HTC’s Touch Pro 2 and the Targus APV11AU, AKA “The Electric Coffee Cup Of Death”. Finally, with my sports gamer’s hat on, I’ve reviewed The Bigs 2 and Fight Night Round 4. The October issue of PC User should be in stores now. Well, not all stores. Those that sell magazines, mostly, and presumably doctor’s waiting rooms in about eleven years time. I wouldn’t wait if I were you.
Yeah. Not one of Prince’s better efforts, that particular song. Or that entire album, the truth be told. He badly needs a producer willing to tell him “No”. Not that I think he’s likely to value my opinion much. Still, if I don’t say it…
What with it being Wednesday, it’s time for my regular phone Apps column at PC Authority. This week — the best smartphone twitter clients.
Heh. That was 139 characters long. Would have worked as a tweet. Just.
Amazing Apps For Your Phone: Top Twitter Clients: “There’s no shortage of twitter clients available for mobile phone platforms. We investigate some of the best.”
Ooh.. something new to promote, featuring a rich trove of my own dutifully handwritten content!*
The new thing in this case is MacTheMag issue one, the brainchild of the exceedingly brainy Matthew Powell (seriously — don’t argue with this man about anything trivial except professional wrestling. It’s his one hidden trivia weakness. Otherwise, an impeccable brain.. anyway..). It’s full of reviews, tips, tricks and tablet Macs (no, really!). And the best part of all? It’s 100% free.
Head over to MacTheMag and read issue one (and sign up for a subscription now!)
Now, back to my own self-promotion, which has to do with exactly the same thing I was talking about up there, namely MacTheMag. Within its beautifully bound pages (if you print it out and bind it yourself, that is), you’ll find me investigating which type of monkey goes best with an iPhone, whether Peggle retains its description of “digital crack”, whether a brick-like NAS can cut it in the style-conscious Mac world and what the first iPhone GPS app is like.
But I’m not done! You’ll also find out how to annoy your cat. Whether any of the Mac rumour sites are actually worth reading. How to plug a clog into your Macbook Pro. Ad breaks that you can actually enjoy, and even how to build a Mac using only products found on sheep (albeit not a terribly functional one).
And before you ask, yes, all that content is really in MacTheMag. You’ve just got to read it to find it all.
*Well, OK, hand-typed. Finger typed, really; if I mashed the keyboard with my palms, all you’d end up with is µµ,x,;mlAm,xmcm,,,,,fffjkjsuy
Would I still buy that for a dollar?
We currently get our fruit and vegetables through a co-operative arrangement with a company called Harvest Hub. Incredibly good value for very fresh veggies and fruit, and I’m now stunned when I go through the average supermarket at the vaguely slimy stuff that gets passed off as “fresh”.
Anyway, the one minor drawback with outsourcing your vegetable provision is that you lose a certain element of choice. This is OK by us — we’ve informed the Harvest Hub people as to the relevant allergies and extreme dislikes that the family won’t eat — and it works well within what’s seasonally fresh anyway. You could pay a fortune for out of season fruit — but it’d be that largely flavour-free snap frozen stuff anyway. So what we get is sometimes a mild (but not unpleasant) surprise.
Today Di unpacked this week’s box of wonder, and pulled out a bunch of radishes. With a glint in her eye, she turned to me.
Di: “You know what I could do with these, don’t you?”
Alex: “What?”
Di: “I could make Fraggle traps!”
There’s a reason why I love that woman with all my heart.
Meanwhile, the march of publishing carries on. Contrary to the experiences of many, I’ve had a reasonable week with Apple’s new “Snow Leopard” operating system, and I’ve noted my observations of this over at MacTheBlog:
MacTheBlog: Snow Fun: “Snow Leopard told me it would take around 45 minutes to install, so I went and made myself a sandwich and watched a previously recorded episode of American Dad. Around 45 minutes of munching and giggling later, my Macbook had rebooted and Snow Leopard was all mine to play with.”
Mmm.. bacon.
What a bizarre week, filled with unwell children, unco-operative chicken coops and difficult questions. And, naturally enough, yet more work published online. PC Authority covered off my thoughts on scoring cheaper iPhone apps:
Amazing Apps for your Phone: Here’s how to get cheap iPhone apps: “Pricing varies — and there is a lot of free content out there — but even if they were all only priced at the lowest local paid price, $1.19, you’d be looking at $77,350 to buy them all. And about forty iPhone 3GS units to hold them all, but we digress.”
Meanwhile, CNET.com.au published my review of Dell’s stylish iMac-a-like:
Dell Studio One 19: “It’s a fair guess that anyone buying a system from Dell will know who they’re buying it from. Dell’s not taking any chances however, and every single component of the system bears a prominent Dell logo.”