Alex Kidman

“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!”

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…”

I was actually going to take today off as a sick day. Dropped everyone in at their respective places of work and education, and headed home to spend the day in bed getting better. But then the phone rang. Again and again. Couriers started turning up, and it became clear that my plans to recover would have to be put on hold, as would recovery. It’s enough to drive a man mad.

Which is a clunky but effective segue into this week’s Hydrapinion column, which is all about screen protectors:

Hydrapinion: The complete lunatic’s guide to putting on a screen protector: “In the interests of preserving the sanity of future screen protector applicators, I’ve assembled this handy how-to-checklist.”

I can’t explicitly say that iiNet’s gone insane. For a start, the company can afford really fancy lawyers. But I can imagine an iiNet advertising campaign shouting about KERAZY VALUES! in a distinctive Irish lilt after today’s announcement of new broadband plans, which forms the basis of my weekly broadband value column at PC Authority:

iiNet rejigs plan values, announces first 1TB download plan: “The ISP price war we’ve alluded to previously? It’s well and truly on. iiNet today announced the first plan in Australia to offer a combined 1TB of downloads.”

Today, it’s all about data, data, data and waves. First up at Hydrapinion, I opined about the odd nature of Optus’ latest data promotion:

Hydrapinion: Half price data pricing makes half as much sense: “I mean, really, which sounds better to you — the ‘fake’ 4 to 8c per MB, or the actual 0.5-1c per MB?”

I’m not done with data analysis yet, though, as Internode’s announced changes to its broadband plans go under the analytical hammer at PC Authority:

How do Internode’s new mega-allowance plans stack up? “How do Internode’s new plans compare to Telstra’s recent drastic price drops? We crunch the numbers to assess the real value.”

And then finally at Geekspeak, I go over the basics of Google’s soon-to-be-defunct Wave product:

Geekspeak: Waving Goodbye: “Not every tech product is an instant hit, even when it’s backed by a big brand name.”

That’s the subject of this week’s Hydrapinion column, in which I go head to head (sort of) with Vincent Kennedy McMahon.

He wins, naturally. I mean, he writes the script!

Hydrapinion: The best portable gadget ever: “Damn. Blast. Particularly blast, because my normal modus operandi is to chuck a point and shoot camera into my main camera bag, just in case I have some kind of catastrophic failure. Except, naturally, this time.”

A busy week here wraps up with Apple’s launch in Australia of the iPhone 4. I covered the queues overnight in Sydney for MacTheMag, and video blogged it as a result. It’s the first time I’ve bothered with a midnight opening, and the first time I’ve ever been pushed out of a venue by security. Apparently Optus didn’t want media coverage. Who knew?

MacTheBlog: iPhone 4 Arrival Events: “Alex Kidman and MJCP spent the evening flitting between the three telcos (and the hardy souls lined up outside the Apple Store despite the fact it wouldn’t be open until 8am) to check it out the launch of iPhone 4 in Australia.”

Keeping with an Apple theme, I also covered Ravon’s rather nice iPod Mini HiFi for CNET.com.au:

Ravon Fidelio Mini Hi-Fi: “This is an iPod Hi-Fi that eschews frills in favour of superior performance. It’s a striking pity it’s not shielded for iPhone use.”

At PC Authority, the last Vintage Tech for a while deals with a computer called Colleen:

Vintage Tech: Looking back at the Atari 400: “Like we said, this was back in the 1970s. Don’t throw your shoes at us.”

And finally, at Hydrapinion, I didn’t write (but did contribute) to Adam Turner’s guide to writing product roundups. It’s so good, frankly, that I’d link to it even if it didn’t contain some of my writing work:

Hydrapinion: The Golden Rules of writing tech “Round-Ups”: “Reviewing a dozen of anything at the same time is generally a nightmare. Tech journos might get to play with cool toys, but mostly the life of a product reviewer is far less glamorous than it might seem. Testing one product can be tricky enough, but testing a bunch of them can drive you mad – especially when you’re dealing with bleeding edge technology.”

A pair of different articles. I was remiss (OK, I was busy  rebuilding my office) in not plugging this week’s Hydrapinion column which went up yesterday:

What’s next? A high tech pocket protector? “Maybe it’s just my non-musical talent speaking, but I’ve never felt the particular desire to draw a piano keyboard and have it come to life. Perhaps later, though, when they perfect the technology, and it can draw a working automatic teller machine. Then I’d be very interested.”

From the potentially cool to the painful to test at CNET.com.au, with Astone’s astonishingly bug-ridden media player:

Astone Media Gear AP-360T: “Astone’s web page for the AP-360T describe it as “An ultimate HD 1080p media player, DTV receiver and HD video recorder for your digital home”. We beg to differ. Buy something else.”

Wednesday kicks off with your choice of not one but two opinion columns. First up at MacTheMag, my musings on iPads, 3G reception and kitchen tables:

MacTheBlog: iPad on the move: “If the Road Runner cartoon I’ve just watched is any indication, your iPad will get blown up, then fall down a cliff before forming a perfect circle of dust. An anvil may or may not then fall upon it, depending on your choice of wacky scheme.”

Then at Hydrapinion, I’ve chimed in with my thoughts on the whole iPhone 4 reception debacle and how it may play out very well indeed for Android handsets generally:

Hydrapinion: Why didn’t Apple bump the iPhone 4 problem away?: “Nice try, Apple, but some credibility is shredded by this whole debacle.”

Having spent most of last week in Adelaide (or en route to and from Adelaide, as followers of my Twitter stream might have been able to work out), I haven’t updated with all of last week’s published works. There were, to put it mildly, a few articles going up while I was heading west.

First up, a new head of mine sprouts as I join Hydrapinion, penning a weekly gadgets column. This week spins off my recent Hong Kong Printer trip into a discussion on smartphones and icecream:

Hydrapinion: Are we smart enough for a smartphone world? “A phone made of Ice Cream would have its melting problems, to be sure, but retailers would love all the repeat customers.”

Keeping with the theme of using recent launches to write columns, last week’s Geekspeak was also rather printer-centric:

Geekspeak: Making The Most Of Your Printer: “Putting it simply, printing is sadly boring stuff, and something that most of us don’t care about a jot up until the printer jams or runs out of ink or toner.”

At CNET, I shifted away from printers into the world of iPod AV docks:

Pioneer XW-NAV1: “Pioneer’s NAV1 might have a silly, Avatar-esque name, but the design is straight out of the ordinary iPod Dock Designer’s Handbook, 2010 edition.”

At PC Authority, the latest (or is it late?) system to fall under my Vintage Tech gaze was the ZX Spectrum:

Vintage Tech: Looking back at the ZX Spectrum: “We were particularly impressed by this rather astonishing bit of code, which makes the Spectrum Twitter-compatible.”

And then finally a hearty four reviews at MacTheReviews:

LogMeIn Ignition: “The iPad client — and it’s a universal app, so if you’ve already purchased the iPhone client you’ll automatically qualify for it — is another kind of critter entirely…”

Marvel Comics/Comics: “The status of the iPad as an ebook reader is well understood, but when you say ebook, most people tend to think “Pride & Prejudice” a lot sooner than, say, “Power Man & Iron Fist”.”

iPad Keyboard Dock: “I’m not what could be called the greatest fan of Apple’s peripherals. Within a desktop metaphor, I’ve long held that while Apple’s keyboards are technically functional and certainly aesthetically pleasing, they’re outclassed by the competition.”

The Orange Box: “The Orange Box still represents value for money even though its components are a touch on the older side.”

Never let it be said that I don’t have some variety in what I write.

Well, OK, two of today’s articles might just have something to do with Apple. But the other one doesn’t limit itself to just one kind of fruit.

First up, at Hydrapinion, my stint standing in for Stephen Withers comes to an end with a column about Apple store locations:

Hydrapinion: Who chooses Apple store locations? “You’re probably aware that the iPad goes on sale in Australia on Friday. “On Sale” being a somewhat relative term.”

And then at PC Authority a quick guide on the best way to score an iPad tomorrow if you don’t already have one. In a case of dogfooding my own advice, I’ll be following some of the steps in this one myself — except for the camping out overnight bit.

‘Twas the night before Christmas…countdown begins for Apple iPad die-hards: “If you’re a die-hard Apple fan, it may as well be Christmas eve, with the iPad less than 24 hours from “official” on-sale date in Australia. If you’re one of them, here’s what awaits you.”

And now, as Mr Cleese used to be fond of saying, something completely different. Something that focuses on underwear, bins, pasta, cartoons and ultra-cheesy 80s teen comedies. Yup, that could only describe Pac-Man.

Vintage Tech: Looking back at the Pac-Man phenomenon: “We suspect you could grab every page that Google’s ever indexed, and you still wouldn’t match the mountain of Pac-Man merchandise over the last thirty years.”