Re-tyred

Over the last month, the car has had a complete set of new tyres (admittedly, bought two at a time) as it was definitely That Time Of Year when it’s a good plan., with the onset of winter with added rain, snow and ice. It’s been at least a year since the front ones were changed, and longer since I did the rears, and while they’re still well within the legal limits, I know they were nowhere near as good as they could/should be.

The front ones got changed a couple of weeks back – something I was really pleased about while I was driving last weekend. At that point, the road conditions were vile – heavy rain, standing water, and one particular section of motorway surface that could best be described as interesting – and the car stayed solid on the road, which is something that some others certainly weren’t.

I avoided using eTyres this time – partly because I’m not convinced of their services etc., but also because they didn’t stock the tyres I’d decided I wanted to try out.

Having looked around, I opted this time for Michelin Cross-Climate tyres, which seem to be a good option for going across the full range of road/weather conditions I’m likely to hit in the coming months. I’ve also never had a full set of the same tyres on a car, so it seems like it should be interesting.

The rears got changed today, and the change has been significant, even in the short time I’ve driven on them today. I’m pretty sure it’s not just a psychosomatic thing, the whole vehicle felt more rooted to the road, more stable.

We’ll see how things go. This morning was also the first serious frost of the year – I was driving through snow on the M1 yesterday –  and I’m pretty sure we’ll have a few more days like it in the coming weeks. I’ve got the best part of a thousand miles to cover over the next couple of weekends (not including the usual weekly travel) so by the end of that, I’ll know a lot more about how the car feels with the new setup.


Going (More) Digital

Over the last month, I’ve upgraded and/or invested in a couple of new bits of hardware for media, and it’s been an interesting journey so far.

The first bit happened once I’d bought the new TV, and has been the addition of an AppleTV – which gives me far better access to various streaming services etc., and lets me watch them on a decent screen instead of on the laptop or phone. So far I’m pretty impressed with it – although the initial setup was a pain in the bits, until I’d finally figured out one thing that wasn’t mentioned anywhere except on the first screen.  If you’re on that first screen – or if you’ve reset the bloody thing so you can see that screen again – you can touch an iPhone to the AppleTV and it gets all the settings across automatically. Wifi details, iTunes account details, etc. – which makes things very easy indeed.

There hadn’t been any real point in getting the AppleTV ’til I’d got the new TV screen – the previous one wasn’t that great, and once it had been knackered, I was more interested in replacing it, rather than in showing AppleTV/Streaming stuff on a knackered screen.  But it’s good now.

I’ll write more about it at some point, as my use of it gets more advanced and more noteworthy.

The second thing is more for the office than for home (although as and when I give up the office, it’ll come home and be used there instead) and that’s a digital radio. Yes, I could’ve just bought a normal radio for less, but I was actually interested in the channels that are digital-only (including BBC Radio 6 etc.) as well as the ‘normal’ ones.  And yes, I can listen to those stations via t’internet and streaming, but it still takes up bandwidth, and means the laptop is working harder, with less decent sound quality.

I’ve only used the radio for a couple of days so far, but I can’t deny, I like it. Set-up was an absolute doddle – turn it on, let it scan, job done. I’ve set up some favourite stations and so on, but in general it’s just a decent bit of kit with better sound quality, and it’s nice to use. And it’s good to have some music to work to, as well.  Sure, I’ll probably also set it up so I can play stuff from phone/laptop into it, but for now it’s good just to have the radio going.

 

Bloody hell, I’m entering the 21st century…


Missing Limb

This morning I somehow managed to leave my phone at home. (Well, I hope it’s at home – otherwise I’ve done something really stupid with it)

It’s quite an odd feeling really – you only realise how much you use the damn thing when it’s not there. The ubiquity of a smartphone for simple things is suddenly noticeable.

Already today I’ve had several thoughts of “Oh, I’ll just get the phone and…”, followed by the realisation that I can’t.

Calling it a “missing limb” is a bit hyperbolic, but it’s definitely a feeling of something missing, something you’re used to having around that’s not there any more.

I’ll be fine – it’s not like I’m surgically attached or anything – but every so often something will jar, and I’ll think “Bollocks” again.

Let’s just hope the damn thing is at home.  I’m sure it is, but there’s that nagging ‘what if you did something dumb?‘ mental voice going on…


Televisual

A couple of months back, I damaged my TV. Nothing major – the cats were being arseholes. I chucked a cat-toy near them, and hit the screen, resulting in a broken line of pixels, and a broken bit of display crystal so it had a bit of a blob. (Think how an LCD-display watch used to look when it broke/cracked, and you’ve got it)

It’s been a minor irritation since – not even big enough to be an annoyance, just every so often the line of pixels would flicker white and be noticeable, or the broken bit of display would be more noticeable with the rest of the screen (depending on what was on it at the time) and it was getting worse.

So anyway, this week I finally decided to replace it – and I’ve done so. It’s a bigger unit than the previous one – 32″ from the 24″ I had – which is a significant increase of screen size, that I hadn’t quite catered for in my head.  It still fits in fine, and doesn’t dominate the room the way I find lots of the really big ones do, but I think it’s at the upper limit.

What really surprises me – although it shouldn’t – is the difference in prices and screen sizes to fifteen or twenty years ago.

Twenty years ago, when I bought my own first new TV, it was the same screen size as the one now – but it was a massive beast, needing two people to lift it safely, and cost me about £800. It was a serious unit, to say the least.

Now, the same screen size – and I know, it’s an LCD/LED rather than a CRT display, which makes a massive difference – is easily carriable by me, and cost maybe a third of what that old Sony one did. Even the image quality is markedly improved. It’s quite remarkable, the way progress and changes in technology have come on in that time period. Food for thought, of what we might have in the next twenty years…


Fitbit ChargeHR

Over the last year or so, I’ve been using the FitBit Flex wristband to keep track of my daily steps, sleep statistics and so on.  I’ve been generally impressed with its ease of use and so on, as well as the integration/communication with the FitBit App.

As it worked out, the only thing I wasn’t too impressed with was the strap itself – in that year-ish, I got through two straps, and had just ordered a replacement for the second. That’s not ideal, and is something of a design flaw. (I’ve let them know about it, so we’ll see what happens)

At the time I got it, I was a bit annoyed by a perceived lack of functionality within the Flex, so I was interested to see that they’ve released some more wearable things with more functionality – the Charge, ChargeHR and Surge (which is almost a smart-watch in its own right) – and I ended up getting a new ChargeHR.

Because I’m exercising more and so on, I was wanting a device to track heart-rate and so on as well, and the ChargeHR does that. I don’t need the full functionality of the Surge (plus I didn’t want to be taking myself up to that price point) but this one does pretty much what I want, particularly in combination with the phone.

The strap on this is a bit more obtrusive than that of the Flex – I can feel it as I’m typing this, for example – but all told I’m so far impressed with the device. And it has some of the extra things I wrote about a year back – and the Surge has built-in GPS as well, which was another.

It’s interesting seeing how these devices improve over time. It’d still be nice to see more innovation, but at least they’re doing more, and still maintaining a decent battery life and so on.

I’ve only had it a couple of days so far, but will probably write more about the ChargeHR in a couple of months’ time, as I’m more used to it.


Writing Tools

Many many years back – before D4D even started – I used to have a couple of palmtop computers. I started off with the Atari Portfolio, then ended up with Psion devices, a 3a and then a Revo.  I used to love these things – they made things easy, and gave me a lot of time/ability for writing.  Of them all, the Revo was the best for also having a decent keyboard.

psion_revoThese things were tiny – far smaller than today’s tablet devices – but had enough power to do general organisational stuff, and plenty of writing along the way.

In 2015, I want to do more in the way of writing, and I’ve been looking for something similar to the Psions of old – the main requirements being small size, and a decent keyboard.  One thing I hate on tablets is the “on-screen keyboard”, which is nigh-on impossible to touch-type on. There’s no real feedback, and it’s hard to type clearly/cleanly/correctly on the poxy things. When one is wanting a device primarily for writing/typing, that’s hardly ideal.

There’s a couple of smaller tablets that also have decent keyboards – but then, if I’m looking at that I might as well get just a small/compact laptop. Mind you, a laptop (even a small one) is still larger than I was looking for.

Ideally I’d like something the size of the old Revo(ish) with a decent keyboard, and better connectivity. Doesn’t seem like much to ask for, does it? Particularly when you consider that such a device was in existence more than a decade ago. But it just doesn’t seem to available.  The best alternative seems to be something like the Typo2 keyboard for my phone – except that then negates the case/battery-pack I’ve already got, and also buggers up some of the other phone functionality. Which makes it a bit more pointless.

I feel the same about “smartwatches” like Apple’s iWatch and so on. Sure, there’s a lot of things that are cool on them, but when I think of what Casio used to do with digital watches back in the 90s – watches with calculators, databanks, thermometers, barometers, heart-rate monitors and so on – then the smartwatches are actually pretty dumb.

It’s just annoying – it seems that for all our technological advances, in some ways the devices we have now are less useful than those from a decade ago.


Backed Up

One thing that’s changed over the last four years is the way that I back up data. I used to have a big-ass (for the time) hard-drive that held all my backup files, but I haven’t (hadn’t) fired it up in years.

Now I use DropBox for most things – at least the things that aren’t commercially sensitive or need extra security, etc. I don’t necessarily trust/rely on them, but it tends to be where most of the stuff sits (as well as on through another paid-for service for my work stuff and so on) and it suits me to use them for the moment.  That may change a bit over 2015, there’s a more secure and privately-held service that might do better, but for now, DropBox suits me.

However, I recently realised that all my photos and music files were still sat on that old hard-drive. Which has sat untouched for four years, through four or five moves. Oops.

I fired it up over the weekend, thought I might as well bite the bullet and see if all’s well or if it’s dead and I’m screwed.

Thankfully, everything worked first time. I’ve pulled all the music data off, and that’s now sitting in multiple locations again. Next will be the photos – although I’ve also spent some time looking at old images and seeing what’s what (and just looking back at events of the last eleven years, which is what the drive holds)  It’s been quite the journey…