Design

Well, it's definetley on par with the other products made by apple. Featuring the quirky curves and glossy finish you would expect from any product that pops out of Apple's dream factory. It basically looks like a gigantic iPhone/iPod touch. Featuring the same home button, headphone jack, built-in speaker, microphone, 30-pin standard apple dock connector, volume rocker, sleep button and interstingley a screen rotation lock. This seems like an incredibly handy addition (compared to an iPhone). When watching a video on iPlayer, it sometimes is tricky to get in a comortable viewing position; and have the phone at the right angle to both see the screen and have the video rotated the right way. It's obviously something they've thought about!

Tech Features

It's easy enough to make a long list here but i'l try and pick out some interesing ones. The iPad is available in two flavours. Wifi, and Wifi + 3G. Each of these comes with either 16GB, 32GB or 64GB of solid state flash memory.

• The Wifi model comes with 802.11a,b,g,n - pretty standard these days - and Bluetooth 2.1 with ERD (for erm faster voice communications?!?)

• The Wifi + 3G model wiill work on UTMS, HSDPA, GSM and EDGE networks. But, this is restricted to data only; so you wont be able to hold it up to your face and call anyone through the phone network - which could be ammusing (for others atleast!) Of course this model also comes with the same Wifi and Bluetooth package mentioned above.

Both models have the digital compass built in. (This remains a mystery to us all! - A compass.. digital? eh?) The wifi can be used to work out it's location. However the 3G model has assisted GPS (more accurate) and can use the cellular network to figure out where abouts it is - say for example if you move from your living room to your bedroom in your mansion..

Battery life is said to last up to 10 hours with constant Wifi surfing, and up to 9 hours with constant 3G surfing. It is also said to have over a month of standby time. This is quite believable as apple are known for achieving great standby time in most of their products.

Like it's iPhone and iPod cousins, it features an accelerometer for telling which way is up - this is how it decides which way round to show a movie. Also featuring is an ambient light sensor that enables it to adjust the screen brightness. For example, if you are in a brightly lit room, the brightness of the screen would automatically brighten up so you could still see what your swiping your fingers over. And if you were using it at night in the dark.. ..the screen would dim slightly as not to hurt your eyes. This is a proven technology that has been featured on many of their mobile devices in the past.

You can plug it in your telly or monitor (with, of course, one of apple's overpriced cables) and watch whatever on a bigger screen.

Your common files are supported - for email attatchments etc. - docx, xlsx, pptx etc. and it will play all of your common audio formats in the usual 20 - 20K spectrum.

Software Info

The iPad will run a slightly adapted version of the iPhone OS users are familiar with. But, because of the larger screen, it appears somewhat stretched. All apps that have been designed for the iphone will work on the iPad. They will appear smaller in the center of the screen however, with the option to stretch them and make them full screen. The developer pack for the iPad has been out for a while now; so expect some propper full screen versions of the most popular apps around.

Apple has re-designed it's 'office' suite to fit in with the new full touch screen interface. I won't go into too much detail about this, but I will say that you need to learn a whole bunch of new gestures to fully use the software.

It will sync with iTunes in a similar way to the iPhone and iPod etc. Mac or Windows.

Books

Apple have been pushing their new Book Store. When you go to the books app, you will be presented with a bookshelf with all the books you have purchased displayed.

When reading a book, it is displaed on a "book coloured background"?! - sort of off white. There's even a nice page turning effect.

The first books that apple showed off are priced at around $15 (£10 ish).

To conclude

So will I be getting one? probably not. I have no need for a gigantic iPod touch. I fear that the back-lit glossy screen may strain my eyes after a few hours of reading a book. Starting at $500 (£328) and climbing up to $830 (£544) it is quite expensive. However this cost may be spread over a contract deal with a mobile operator. We shall have to wait and see for the announcement in the UK. A friend of mine said they were planning on getting one as a desktop replacement. I have to disagree. This is designed for casual browsing; say sitting on the sofa or watching a film on a long journey. I wouldn't have said it was designed for business. Hovever i'm sure that there's still a market out there for businesses to find uses for them. Such as showing clients designs, maybe on a building site - carrying round plans etc.

Hope I've informed you somewhat! I'm off to play on my normal sized iPhone...

Sources: Apple

I have completed a new site for a client: James Wade Singer/Songwriter. Have a look at his new site!

http://www.jamescwade.co.uk

Cheers!

James. ;)

Today, I thought i'd take a quick look at the new facebook. (Since mine swapped over today!) So what's changed? It's mainly layout improvements; supposedly making it easier to find things. If I'm honest, keeping it the same for more than 6 months would make it easier to find things!

So if you have been locked in a small room without internet access for the past 5 years, let me explain simply what facebook is..

"Social Networking" is a term now widely used by both the media and professionals to describe websites such as Facebook, Myspace & Bebo to name a few. They are designed to let you socialise with friends, let you meet new people and effectively take over your life. They are based around you connecting with people and becoming 'friends'. Lets look at Facebook. Everyone has a profile where you can enter info about yourself, upload photos and videos, and post status updates onto your wall. Anyone can write on any friends wall to send them a message that anyone can read. (Sometimes not as some websites have privacy settings, but for now lets keep things simple.) Events can be created for parties, gigs, meetings etc. and friends can be invited to attend. Facebook also has a realtime chat system 'popchat' that lets you talk to your online friends (Instant Messaging like MSN)

So, hopefully you have an idea of what facebook is now. (If for some random reason you didn't..)

Right, down to business. The re-design... Here is a screenshot I took (whilst trying not to be distracted by whats happening in the news feed.. no honestly that didn't happen..)

(Yes the photoshop blur tool came in handy..)

So Here is what the layout looks like. Fairly similar to the older one.

1) The new side-bar

Okay, so this looks fairly neat. Everything you could need in one nicely organised place. Not too sure what's happening with the photo's page. Seems to be lots of random photos and albums. Perhaps some sort of ordering is needed? Maybe it's just me not paying attention but I can't say I'd find it handy.

The rest of the links are as they were before. Notice the 'Live Feed' is now called 'Most recent' I have no idea why I wouldn't want to know what's happening 'now' as most users are logged on quite alot. The news feed is down to facebook to decide what's hot stuff in you life and what you might be interested in. Greeeaatt..

2) Comments Etc.

Well, this part has stayed the same really. Comments and Likes are all in the same place.

3) Search Bar

If I remember correctly, this was at the top right of the old page. I personally didnt use it much. But as I discovered today, it's come in handy. Perhaps this was because I didn't instinctively know where anything was? But it works! and will probably be used quite alot! (Searching for friends etc.)

4) Requests

Yep, all still the same. Still not sure why people bother inviting others to applications as I rarely accept them. You never know; I gues something may come up that pushes the right buttons!

5) Online Friends

This is a new addition to the update. Showing who's online on the home page in my opinion is a great idea. It really encourages people to talk to one-another; rather than opening up pop-chat occasionally.

6) Pop-Chat

Talking of pop-chat.. Remember all the times where is hasn't worked? Well, so far it seems to be better. Not sure if anything has actually changed or if it's just me. Although it did seem to slow the whole browser down alot; freezing frequently. So not quite there yet. (I do like the fact that the bottom bar has disappeared!)

So there it was, a quick rough review of the Facebook Update. Sorry to have bored you; I'm sure there'll be more opinions in comments below!! :)

James.

What did I have? Well I decided to retake some cause I kinda didn't do all that well the first time round.. So Maths C2, M1, ICT G061 and Geography GE01 I retook whilst also doing Physics G494 and Maths C3 (sorry if the codes mean nothing to you :p) I think they all went fairly well but it's never easy to tell. We shall find out in March!

2 Conditional offers from Derby (C in Maths) and an interview at Southampton Solent to come soon. Wish me luck everyone!

Panto's first show tomorrow. We were rigging last weekend and had a rather late dress rehersal. (Which went quite well for a dress rehersal!) www.springfieldfollies.org.uk for more info. Expect some pics soon as well on the sound page.

That's all folks!

James.

James.

iTunes Series Clicky

iTunes Theme Tune Clicky (called We Are Rockstars)

So, I got an Iphone a few months ago.

I've gotta say, im well chuffed! It's the best phone ive ever had and does everything i want it to do! £180 up front, and £35 a month. It's expensive but I think it's a good deal for what your getting. Phone, Email, Web, Ipod, Maps, Compass, Camera, + More! The jam packed app store is immense. Everythin you can think of. It truly lives up the the tag line "there's an app for that.." Because there is!

I went to London recently. I downloaded the Nearest Tube App. It was so helpful. Using the phone's camera , it uses the accelerometers, GPS and compass in the iphone to pin point your position. Then, it overlays arrows and boards pointing to the nearest tube station. Here are some screenshots I took...

That came in handy ;)

So another favourite app? Need for Speed: Undercover. Now it may not be the best graphics in the world but it's use of the iPhone's controls are pretty good. It automatically accelerates for you. A quick tap of the screen will brake, a swipe up on the screen activates the NOS speed boost; which is always handy. To steer, you have to tilt the phone. The track on the screen stays horizontal which makes it a whole lot easier to see what's going on.

Another great feature is the ability to listen to you own music whilst driving. Some apps cust out your music if your listing to some tunes but this one doesn't. It mixes in the FX from the game (engine noise etc)

It also roughly follows the story line from the Xbox 360 game so it is in the same series of Need for Speed.

With 12 cars, 24 race tracks it's not one to miss!

And finally it's one to play with your mates. It's a simple version of twister for you iPhone. It's called Knots. Basically put your finger on a dot, and then another, then take it off when the circles come round it. Then it's on to another, etc. Then more appear! In 2 player mode you get 2 colours (in the screenshot on the right.) And then, you can make the difficulty harder; and the dots appear smaller! Great fun with your mates.

Knots

More App Reviews to come!

So many Apps, So little time. ;)

James.

James :)

If like some people your sitting there wondering what firefox is, then let me explain. You know Internet Explorer that you use to go on the internet? The little blue E logo? well that's not the only program that will access the internet. Firefox is a free open source program that will do exactly the same and more! Google have recently released a browser, Apple have Safari, theres also Opera and one or two others floating about. Internet Explorer (or IE) and Firefox are the main ones.

So head over to www.mozilla.org/firefox to find out more and download!

James.

:)
James.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/glastonbury/2009/artists/pendulum/index.shtml

Found this amazing web 2.0 application from adobe. It's a colour swatching tool that will use colour theorey to generate a load of colours that will compliment or clash or whatever you want it to do with a set of colours. It's built on the Flash platform and has an account system built in that lets you save your colour swatches. If you are lucky and have photoshop CS4, then you can  login to kuler through a photoshop interface and it will download and generate swatches right from photoshop.

Clicky..

I discovered this through a podcast called Layers TV (for everything adobe ;) ) But more on that later.

James.

James.

Cliky..

It has one or two new colours for some applications and it looks like the ribbon style menu at the top is here to stay :) Aparently it runs smoother than 07.

It's aparently set to be released in July so not long to wait now!

James. :)

Quite interesting I thought. So what is the difference between HD 1080i and 1080p?

1080i

“i” stands for interlaced. The picture is scanned in two passes, each lasting 1/60th of a second. The first pass fills in the odd numbered lines, leaving the even numbered lines blank, which are filled in by the second pass. Because each field takes 1/60th of a second, and there are two of them, 1080i actually needs 1/30th of a second to convey a full frame.

1080p

1080p stands for “progressive”. This means that the picture is scanned in a single pass (rather than in two passes with interlaced formats), which makes for a smoother, cleaner image, especially with sports and other motion-intensive content.

So p is definetly better than i :)

James.

James.

So now back to work & School. A levels coming up soon. Just around the corrner. Can't wait.. No I really can actually. Driving Lesson Next Friday! :)

James.

I imagine all sites will be transfered eventually. New ones will begin to populate for now.

cheers,

James.

To begin with, it's Download Status Bar. When you first install firefox you get some sort of manager which involves another window popping up everytime you download something. Well, this takes that away and displays a bar along the bottom of the screen showing you all the downloads you have downloaded. Much more user friendly and well worth downloading. Click here to see page.

Next, Fast Dial. It's a clever addon that creates blocks on your home page. (similar to that in opera)You can fill these with your favourite websites so you don't have to keep typing in the address bar. But I hear you cry, "that's the link bar's job!" Well, yes but that takes up space on the page taking away your valueable viewing pane. This clever addon appears whenever you open up a new tab so it's there when you need it! It also has folders so you can have more than one screen! Click here to see page.

Thirdly, it's IE Tab. There are always going to be some websites that won't let you view their content if you have anything other than Internet Explorer. Well, this is where this comes in handy. A simple click on the logo in the status bar and the tab you are viewing turns into an Internet Explorer tab. Simples. You can even define certain websites for it to automatically open in an IE tab. Click here to see page.

Next, it's Link Alert. This is a fairly light weight addon. It will display a symbol next to your mouse if you hover over a link. for example, if there was a link to a PDF document, a little PDF icon would appear next to your mouse when you hover over the link. Very useful, particularly if your on a website you've never been on before! Click here to see page.

Finally, it's the Undo Closed Tabs Button. Ever close a tab accidentally and had to go back to your histors to try and find out what page you were on? Well, here's your answer. Not only does it open up the last closed tab, but it also restores the hostory for that tab so you can go 'back' to the previous pages on that tab. Click here to see page.

That's all for now folks!

James. :D

Now, onto today's tip off. I've been using this WYSIWYG editor for a while now and after looking around for another one, i've come back to this one, simply because it's the easiest to set up and use. I'm using it right now to write this blog post!

One neat feature that i've noticed since i've upgraded to the most recent version is the skins that are available. You can choose to have colour schemes that match in with Microsoft Office 2007. Unfortunately no categorised tabs (home, insert, developer etc.) But do you really need this for a web site? maybe :)

Click here to visit the website.

That is all for now. Check it out! it's worth including on your website to make it a little easier to use!

James.

Pretty cool eh? :)

Click here for link/press release.

James.

School work continues on. Maths continues to get harder, as does ICT, Physics and Geography. :D happy days..

Have a good weekend,

James. ;)

Might be building/updating an old computer soon! Should be fun :) i plan to have 4 hard drives but we'l see how that goes :s I'm trying to find time to do some sort of categories system maybe a comments system as well. I've alread sussed comments over on 4unetwork in the past but no one seemed to use it :/ Maybe, i'm just talking to no-one. hmm...

Anyway, Have a good week!

James.

Clever stuff eh? (watch more closley and you will see he returns with the colours in the wrong place... :D )

Read out loud the text in the triangle below...

More than likely you said, 'A bird in the bush,'! And. .......
If this IS what YOU said, then you failed to see
That the word THE is repeated twice!
Sorry, look again.

Hmm Clever stuff eh?

That is all for now. Have a happy new year!

James. :D

James.

Strangest thing in the world. Click here to go the site I found it on.. There's a video on there as well! Oh and it's only £1,814.70 !!!!

James. :D

Not bad for being online for 2 months :D

My other site 4unetwork.co.uk has had a total of over 1 million page hits since it started!

Lets see if this will be just as successful!

Cya!

Jame

So check it out and download it to see how cool it is!
Click Here to visit

The reason i'm sharing this with you is that i'm about to roll it out on 4unetwork. Now all I need is some pictures... which sets me up nicely for another blog post :)

Cya!

James.

James. :)