Lastaerie.com

So as some / many / none of you may know I have an iPhone. This was a bit of an isue for me because I hate apple  , not as much as I hate Sonys Video Game division but that gap is closing. I hate the way they are percieved as being ace and cool to the point of being flawless. Which they are not!!!

No1: headphones.
If anyone can give me a good reason as to why they sell a £300 audio device with the shittest head phones in the history of audio technology I would love to hear it. When ever you hear that tinny noise polution of someone elses “personal stereo” ( it’s called a personal stereo for a reason! If I wanted to listen to your music I’d ask you to turn it up and listening to really loud music onyour head phones doesn’t make you look cool it makes you look like a cock!) you can almost guarantee that they will have 2 White apple earbuds sticking in their lugholes. It’s as if they are designed to emit more noise in an almost but not quite entirely un recognisable dirge to the outside world than to the person wearing them. So anyway my white shit apple headphones sit in the plastic wrapper they came in. If I need a earphone and mic I’ll use the one that came with my blackberry. I now listen to my music using some sienheiser ones which twenty odd notes are several million magnitudes better.

No 2: Bluetooth
Dear mr jobs. Why do you have Bluetooth on the iPhone if you are going to prevent it from connecting to Bluetooth devices other than an ear piece? I have some very nice blue tooth speakers which work with every other Bluetooth device I have but not my iPhone… oh no.

No 3: network lost.(*)
Here is the scenario. I take a 1.5hr train journey nearly every day. This trip takes me through tunnels and through the country so as you can expect I drift in and out of mobile reception range a few times. Now my iPhone seems to think that a simple icon telling me this is not sufficent. Now this has been sufficent for the last 15 years i’ve been using a mobile but according to apple I now need to be told. Now how i need to be told appears to be a pop up message on the screen every time this event occurs. Each of these pop ups needs to be individually dismissed before you can use any other function of the phone. My current record is 17!!! how bloody annoying is that.

(*) I have now found a work around for this which is to change the carrier setting from O2 ( which is my carrier ) to automatic. Why this is either not a setting or even only create 1 pop up I do not know.

Well that’s it for now

Here’s one of my fave photos of the moment. Taken during vweekend away at some friends in Devon.

Just makes me smile

So after far too long by half the new first person shooter based on the Halo universe is upon us…… sans John-117 aka the MasterChief. Instead to are forced to play the roles of various characters from an “Orbital Drop Shock Trooper” platoon who whilst being super soldiers are not quite in the same league as the Spartans like the MC. However these shock troopers are superior to normal soldeirs in the same way that the SAS is a superior fighting force to a supermarket trolly attendant from Albania ( not that I have anything against Albanian supermarket trolly attendants and I’m surebthey make excellent combat troops but you get my drift). Anyway after a brief intro where the scene is set we find out that those pesky Covernant have been on a bit of a rampage killing off as many humans as possible and have finally found mans last great secret, the location of earth and one lone cruiser has started attacking. So on come the shock troops to the fictional mega city of New Mombasa.

Playing the game so far. ( and that’s been only a couple of hours ) it reminds me more of the original Halo: Combat Evolved than it’s sucessors and this is not a bad thing.

Some friends of mine have been using the Saitek A250 wireless speakers for a few years now and they work very well.  However they work via RF which connects a pc to the speakers via a USB dongle, in this day an age I’ve wondered why there hasn’t been more of a move to Bluetooth for such devices and this has (apart from the fact that the A250 is now discontinued) made me reluctant to buy some speakers like that.

After a bit of hunting recently i found the Logitech Z-500 speakers which seemed to fit my exact requirements….

So a few days later said item arrived on my desk at work and set about having a play.  the first thing that struck me was the size.  This 4 speaker unit is very compact (275mm*72mm*30mm)and comes with its own carrying case (although this doesn’t fit the charger for the built in battery) inside the case is space for the speaker unit and also the supplied connection accessories.  these include a USB cable, a 3.5mm to 3.5mm cable for input from non Bluetooth devices and a USB Bluetooth dongle – pretty much everything you would need.

as i mentioned previously the unit has a built in battery which is a great idea preventing the need for batteries to be carried around and replaced, I will be giving the unit a full work out shortly and so will update on how long the unit will last on one charge.

The sound quality is pretty good, I’m no audiophile so I’m not going to get into specifics, but for something you might want out in the garden to relay music its excellent. the range in open view is 10m+ but obviously stick a few walls in the way and that distance will drop.

I’ve hooked this up via Bluetooth to a number of devices and they all work seamlessly none more so than a PC with the supplied Bluetooth dongle that requires no configuration at all.  The only device I have had an issue with is my iPhone.  It seems that Apple have restricted the Bluetooth on iPhones to limit them to connect to headsets only for audio which seems crazy. however as I mentioned there is a 3.5 to 3.5mm cable supplied so it’s not a major hassle but certainly another annoyance with apples restrictive nature with regards to their iPhones.

Hmmm Not quite worked out how the gallery setion works yet but there a re a bunch of Photos of Cate on there at the mo.

Hopefully I’ll find some time to work out how to do a proper photo gallery.

Finally i’ve got around to setting up the website again.  Change of backend this time but otherwise normality is restored.  I’ve a few things to iron out but all should be sorted soon.