Tag Archives: review

iTunes 9 Review – A definite improvement

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As most of you will already know, the Apple conference on the 9th of September brought a lot of news to iPod users. As well as the new iPod Nano and “new” iPod Touch (I can’t say it’s new, all they’ve done is made a bigger size), Apple also released the new iTunes 9. Sadly I wasn’t able to get it right away as I’m going through small problems with internet bandwidth, which also explains why I haven’t been able to post reviews on the new iPod Touch/iPhone firmware yet – don’t worry I will get round to it as soon as I get my unlimited bandwidth back which, as far as I know, should be next week.

Anyway, as for the new iTunes, I am surprised to say that I’m actually very impressed with the new release. The new features aren’t ground breaking, but the new performance upgrades have finally arrived.

The new iTunes packs new features such as Home Sharing, which allows you to share your music between other computers in your home, and a brand new redesigned iTunes Store. Both of which work very well. I haven’t checked out the Home Sharing yet but from what I’ve read online it looks very good. The new iTunes Store is certainly very tidy and works very efficiently and I much prefer it over the previous version.

But I’m happiest about the much smoother performance. The load-up time has improved dramatically and actually browsing through the application is much more speedy.

What used to be a misery is now much easier to use and much less time consuming. I still don’t think iTunes is brilliant, but the new version has definitely made syncing my iPod much less of a chore.

Well done Apple, this is a big improvement.

If you’d like to download the new version, open up iTunes and click Check for Updates in the Help menu. Otherwise, you can head over to apple.com and download a copy from there for free.

Are in-ear earphones worth it?

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Sorry I’ve been away for ages. Been on holiday and really haven’t had much time for GEEK! in the last week or so. But have no fear, I’m back and all will resume from now on! 🙂

Anyway, while I was on holiday, I bought some brand new in-ear earphones, mainly because I needed a new pair of earphones and they were only £9.99 at HMV. I thought “what they hey it’s only a tenner” and bought them – I was pleasantly surprised.

I’m actually really pleased with them – they sound brilliant and for £10 they are the best value earphones I’ve ever had!

However, the main reason I’m so happy with them is that they don’t need to be half as loud as my normal earphones. I’m amazed at how low I can have the volume on my iPod with my in-ear earphones and still be able to hear my music very clearly.

In addition, the earphones don’t fall out of my ears all the time, because the earphones are directly in your ear. It used to really bug me when my old earphones constantly fell out of my ears, but I don’t have that problem anymore.

So yes, if you want my opinion, go and upgrade. For what you’ll pay compared to what you get, it is very much worth it! They are more convenient than headphones but less fiddly than standard earphones – perfect!

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.

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.

Review: Logitech EX100 Cordless Mouse and Keyboard

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I got this keyboard and mouse today from my local Curry’s store as I accidentally broke my old wireless mouse. I’ve been trying to cope with using VNC to access my computer without a mouse, but my patience didn’t last long so I decided I had to go and get a new mouse/keyboard.

I paid just under £20 for the mouse and keyboard, so I was relatively pleased as that isn’t too bad at today’s standard.

In terms of quality and performance, I’m really happy. Set up was really quick and easy. I simply connected the receiver to the computer via USB, placed the batteries in the keyboard and mouse, and off I went. I installed the optional software to provide the function keys on the keyboard, although this isn’t vital and quite a lot of people probably wouldn’t bother.

The keyboard has a really nice comfortable feel which makes it a pleasure to type on. It’s feedback to your fingers is really good – it’s not too hard to press the keys that it becomes tiring to type with, yet not to easy to press the keys that you start double-pressing keys by mistake. Compared to my previous Advent keyboard, it’s really good (my old Advent keyboard was just too hard to type with – made you tired of typing very quickly).

The keyboard’s function keys are handy. It has all the obvious keys you’d expect – Internet, Email, Music player, Skip Track etc. However, the keys are built in to the keyboard itself rather than using separate buttons which makes the keyboard very compact. It makes the keyboard very useful if you are using it on a small desk.

The mouse is also very good. It’s a fairly big mouse which I prefer (I’m not a fan of the mini mice!). It has the usual 3 buttons – left mouse button, right mouse button, and a scroll wheel in the middle with a clicker. The mouse has a really comfortable feel which I would be happy to use for several hours continuously.

The included software is pretty good. Not only does it let you handle which function buttons do what, but it also lets you handle things like “gaming mode”. I actually like the idea of this (I am aware that this is probably not unique to this keyboard). How many times have you been in the middle of a full screen game and then accidentally hit the Windows start key, and the whole game minimises and your start menu appears – arghh! Well that’s solved with this keyboard, as you can have the keyboard’s software detect that you’re in a game and disable the start key. That is a lifesaver.

On top of that, the software also alerts you if either the keyboard or mouse battery is running low, which is helpful. That neatly brings me on to the only downside I can really think of for this keyboard – it doesn’t have a mouse charging cable or dock. Instead, it just uses simple standard AA batteries. Of course, you could just use rechargeable batteries and charge them externally, but this can become annoying when you need the computer and the mouse batteries are on charge. But then for £20, it’s not going to be perfect.

Overall, I’m very happy with the keyboard and mouse. If you’re in need of a good cordless mouse and keyboard set on a budget, this one is a good idea.