The New Luddite Blog

The Hunt for Silly Bandz / Bands

Have you seen these! 

    

It seems as if my kids and their entire school are obsessed by them and now I'm forced to acquire some.  If you haven't seen them they are small rubber bands that kids can wear on their wrists or in their hair that when relaxed have take the shape of an animal, vehicle etc etc.

I hadn't realized how "popular" these were until I found myself in the 6th store with 4 other parents asking whether they had any and finding out that indeed they were also out of stock.

Update: actually made a purchase today at the local 99c store - yay search over!.

For those of you who may be still looking I did find a vendor on Alibaba.com who is willing to sell 10,000 at $.03 each!

 

Goodbye pbase - hello flickr

So after being with pbase since 2001 it is time to leave Slug and Emily behind. Don't get me wrong I love pbase but the lack of functionality is really what has force me to leave.

I started using pbase before we had a family and I could invest a few hours to get pictures prepared and ready for the web, create and manage galleries etc etc. But now with 3 kids I don't have the time and frankly getting it just right isn't as important as getting it done.

So I've moved to flickr and so far so good, key features (for me) are;

* Upload tool - last night I uploaded 600+ images, just lined them up and let it run
* Flickr doesn't care how much space you use - so no more image resizing
* Great online image mgt tools, easy to use and fast.
* RSS feeds andemail notifications
* Blog integration - posting this from there!
* Easy to share from camera phones

I'm sure that there are more reasons, but so far no regrets.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

How good is the iTunes Genius?

Since downloading iTunes 8 and upgrading my Touch I have to say that I love the Genius, it's way better than shuffle, but is it really a Genius?

Certainly the jury is still out on that, and according to Apple this is a learning system that will improve as more people participate, but some of the choices are definitely strange.

For example this is the playlist that was created from KT Tunstall's Hold On........should New Order and the Travelling Wilburys ever co-exist?

Itching to invest..

Invest that is in some new stuff, so before jumping in with my credit card I decided to make a list.  Which really is just to placate my inpatience as the item at the top of my list isn't available yet - boo hoo.

But it did give me a chance to test out a new site www.wishlistr.com which did a commendable job at enabling me to get the job done.

Registration at wishlistr was a breeze, as they use OpenID, after that I had my list up and running in a couple of minutes and was also able to import my Amazon wish list - all good stuff - and here is the result.

Which will I buy - I don't know yet - but as soon as I do you'll be the first to know!

 

Summize - Feel the pulse of the world

I have already written about Twitter, and now I discovered Summize - Twitter Search.

Enter a few keywords in Summize and see what the world is saying, for example....

Apple
Microsoft
Paris Hilton
Rafael Nadal
iPhone 3G

An easy way to waste time......

Round up of iPhone 3G Reviews

The web is abound with reviews of the new iPhone 3G today, as I haven't purchased one I won't be writing another but I can provide a list of links.....

Edward Baig (USA Today)
Walt Mossberg (Wall Street Journal)
New York Times
Timesonline
Engadget Teardown
Engadget Q&A
Apple Store Lines

EDIT here is the Twitter iphone 3G noise from summize

EDIT More reviews

Stuff.tv
Daily Telegraph (UK)
CNET

Full Engadget Review

I managed to resist the the first iPhone and purchased a Touch instead, however the addition of exchange did make me think about dumping my Blackberry, but the no Turn by Turn GPS, poor camera and no video will make me wait for the Blackberry Bold.

Still a great device but not for me.

\if you find any other reviews post the links in the comments below.

Loving Twitter

There are some great new web trends and tools, I'm not sure that they are all useful but they are certainly fun.

One of these is Twitter the leading mirco blogging site that lets you submit bursts of content 140 characters at a time.

Your posts can be submitted directly on Twitter, by SMS or Google talk as well as through a number of third party apps, such as Digsby (more on that later)

Why? you may ask as I did at first and the answer might be why not.

When you first sign up Twitter helps you find other people you know on Twitter, for me that was just 4 out of an address book of 900 - so adoption is hardly mainstream (yet)

But a quick search and I found some of my regular services and blogs all had twitter accounts, such as Engadget and Mashable which is a great way to track blog posts, even your the 2008 Election candidates are there.  (Barack Obama and John McCain

If you haven't tried it yet you should and of course you're welcome to follow me - watford68

Liar Liar Pants on Fire (or more on the Ipod Touch upgrade)

Previously I had stated that I wouldn't be buying the Ipod Touch upgrade for $20.00.  But I have to report that being one of a weak disposition when it comes to matters of technology have since handed over my $20 to Mr Jobs.

Was it worth it?

Well all the features (Google maps, email etc) ar cool and work beautifully, but they don't give me anything that my Blackberry doesn't already have and I'm limited to WiFi only.  So for me no it wasn't worth it.

On the other hand it did leave me wanting more from my Blackberry which leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to web browsing and apps, but still rules for email.

The joys of moving...

We recently moved house which has put me into a hyperbole of new electronics purchasing (more on this to come), but one thing i didn't expect to buy was a new video card for my 6 yr old Dell Dimension.

I connected up our P3 1ghz beast last night and all was right with the world, when the monitor went into stand by and I couldn't restart it.

My diagnosis is that the video card has gone south in the PC so today the search begins for a very cheap replacement and an education about PCI, AGP and PCI express etc etc - joy