Category Archives: Software reviews

Any software reviews will be placed in this category.

What’s the point in jailbreaking an iPhone/iPod Touch?

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It’s a little confusing really. I know that so many people love the advantages of jailbreaking an iPhone or iPod Touch, but I just don’t see them.

I experimentally tried jailbreaking my iPod Touch yesterday (yes, I am totally ashamed of myself – I will shortly be returning to official firmware), and it amazes me that Apple makes it so easy to jailbreak their devices. I mean there’s a simple procedure that takes about 45 seconds and that’s it, the patch is done.

It’s totally different to Sony – PSP users will know that Sony can’t help it but patch out every single hack and crack into the PSP firmware. Apple seem to be taking it very lightly.

It also makes me think what is the point? Yes, you can customize the iPhone/iPod Touch’s themes but it is such a faff – and none of them are particularly brilliant. And yes, you can install some random software, but honestly… I don’t see what is so fantastic about it.

And the amount of times that my iPod Touch has crashed since I jailbroke it. It hardly seems like there’s any point in it at all.

I know I’m often quite an “Apple basher” here on GEEK!, but this is the one thing that I like about Apple. Their firmware always works – it doesn’t crash and it isn’t slow. I can rely on my iPod Touch anytime I need it and I know it will be ready and waiting. I’m quite happy with my official firmware Apple for the long term.

Top 5 WordPress plugins for April – July 2009

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Back in February I did a top 5 WordPress plugins. Now, I think it is probably time I updated it a little, so I’m going to do another top 5 plugins. I use these plugins quite actively on GEEK! so I feel the creators of these plugins deserve a little thanks from me.

So, here are my top 5 WordPress plugins for April – July 2009:

  1. Executable PHP Widget: Sometimes it can be really annoying that sidebars in WordPress don’t support PHP code. Maybe you want to have a login/logout link to your blog in the sidebar. Sadly, the standard “Text” widget in WordPress only supports text and HTML, but not PHP. This plugin sorts that problem for you. Activate the plugin and then select the “PHP code” widget from the “Widgets” section of the WordPress dashboard. The new widget will accept text and HTML, as well as PHP, so it can be really helpful.
  2. Clean Archives Reloaded (external): This plugin lets you create an archive page for your posts really easily. It does all the work for you. You simply install the plugin and it does the rest. Simply create a page that you want to have the archive on, insert the code for the plugin, and the job is done.
  3. Full Comments on Dashboard (external): Find it annoying when WordPress doesn’t show full comments on the WordPress dashboard? I do, so I installed this plugin, and the problem was solved. There’s no configuration for this plugin – you just install it, activate it, and it starts working straight away.
  4. Lock Out: Need to do maintenance to your WordPress website or blog? This is a really simple plugin that locks all users out of your website, except yourself of course. You can set a customized message to let your viewers know that the site is offline for maintenance. It’s a very handy little plugin. Oh, a word of warning – the WordPress plugin site claims it only works to WordPress 2.5. However, I’m on WordPress 2.8.2 (at the time of writing) and the plugin works absolutely fine.
  5. Google XML Sitemaps (external): This is a great plugin that handles all of your sitemaps for you. It creates your sitemap.xml and sitemap.xml.gz file for you. It then hands over all the information to search engines such as Google, Ask Search and MSN Search (or Bing – whatever they call it now!).

Those are my top 5 plugins for now. I’ve used all of them for several weeks (some for months) and they’ve all been really helpful and easy to use.

I’ll do another top 5 in a couple of months, but for now – the above are my favourites! Enjoy.

New in Office 2010 – The new “dashboard” (as I like to call it)

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Well, as promised, I’m going to be doing some in depth previews at new features in Office 2010. Today, we’re going to have a look at the new replacement of the “ribbon button”‘.

In Office 2007, there was a circular “ribbon” button that users would click to get the general functions of Office – such as getting a new document, saving, printing etc.

Now, the “ribbon” button has been replaced by a simple rectangular button, as shown below.

officebutton

Click it, and you’ll get a brand new “dashboard”. Here is the one for Microsoft Word.

officeworddashboard

There are differences to the “dashboard” for every piece of software in Office 2010 – they all have their own colour and they each have different options specific to each piece of software.

In the “dashboard”, you’ll find all the features you’d expect in Office – new document, open, save, print etc. You’ll also find recent documents and ways to share the document with others.

It’s all fantastic, and I really love the new idea. However, it does have its problems:

  • When you are in the “dashboard” and you click the red X (exit) button, it closes the whole of Office, rather than just the “dashboard”. Ok, it is something you’ll get used to and remember not to do, but it can be really annoying. You just have to get used to using the ‘Back’ button at the top left of the dashboard. I’m sure Microsoft will do something about this before the final release, though.
  • The print button is a little unobvious – you click the ‘Print’ section, choose your settings, and then its quite hard to find the ‘Print’ button. The button you have to click is actually at the top left, but it was a little hard for me to find at first (yes I know – you’re thinking “well how dumb can you get?!”, but honestly – you don’t see it at first).

Other than that, I really like this new “dashboard”. It works really well, and it’s really easy to access. Good one Microsoft!

First looks at the Microsoft Office 2010 Technical Preview with screenshots

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Well, I was very pleased to receive an email from Microsoft early this morning letting me know that I’d been accepted for the invitation only Office 2010 Technical Preview. So I’ve got my copy, and I’m going to do a little review here so people can get an idea of what they are in for.

Well, to be honest, I’m pretty impressed with it. The GUI is pretty similar to Office 2007’s, but there are some pretty cool new features that have really brushed up the usability of Office. The image below shows a typical new Word document in Office 2010:

office2010

If you view the image full size (click it), you’ll see the ribbon from Office 2007 has gone – hoorah! It’s been replaced with a new button with the Office logo, which is a different colour for each piece of Office software. Click it, and you get a handy little menu of Options. Here’s what it looks like in Word…

2010menu

It’s quite cool. Anyway, that’s enough of a taster for now. Over the next couple of weeks, I’m going to do a series of blog posts outlining the highlights of Office 2010, so stay tuned to GEEK!.

iPod Touch OS 3.0 Full Review!

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Apple’s 3.0 OS for iPod Touch and iPhone was released earlier this evening, and GEEK! was of course right at the front of the queue. I’ve downloaded the update and installed it to my 8GB iPod Touch, so now everything is going fine and I’ve had a little time to play around with the new firmware, I thought I’d write a review for it.

Please note that this is a review for the 3.0 OS for the iPod Touch, not the iPhone. iPhone-specific features are not reviewed in this post.

Well the first thing you are going to notice is the price – £5.99 in the UK and £9.95 in the US. Personally I don’t think that is too bad, but I’m a little annoyed that iPod Touch users have to pay at all. Never mind, I’m not going to make a fuss of it.

Once you’ve paid the price, you then need to accept the terms and start the download. It’s thereabouts 240 megabytes and on a good broadband connection will take about 15 minutes to download. Once you’ve downloaded it, iTunes will proceed with an install.

The install is fairly simple. iTunes will back up your current iPod’s settings and then install the firmware. The process takes about 20-25 minutes depending on how much data is currently being stored on your iPod.

Providing everything went through smoothly, you’ll be able to use your iPod as soon as the update is complete. You can unlock your iPod and it will be ready to use.

Here’s a quick run through of the main new features in OS 3.0:

  • Spotlight search means you can search your entire iPod for data – whether it is music, videos, notes, photos, or emails. You can find it on the very left tab in the home screen.
  • New search bars in music, video, email and notes. Get it to it by scrolling up to the very top of the screen in each section.
  • Bluetooth music streaming means you can stream to bluetooth audio devices.
  • Upgraded onboard iTunes store means you can buy and rent movies directly on the iPod. You can also download TV shows directly from the iPod.
  • Upgraded Youtube browser means you can now sign in to your Youtube account. You can now browse your uploads and subscriptions, as well as rate and comment on videos.
  • The iPod Touch now supports Shake and Shuffle. This means you can shake the iPod Touch and it will shuffle the track.
  • Voice Memos is now on the iPod Touch, which is basically a dictaphone for the iPod Touch. You will need a microphone supported by the iPod Touch for this to work.
  • Restrictions can now be put in place as to which applications can be used.
  • Safari has been upgraded under the hood, so the web support is now better.
  • There have also been some bug fixes and minor software improvements.

That’s a basic round up of what’s in the update. In my opinion it is well worth the £5.99, so go ahead and get it if you have the cash to spare.

Thanks Apple, a good update there.