My iPad

Well I finally did it, two weeks ago I gave in to temptation and bought myself an iPad (actually a more precise version of events would be that my wife gave me permission to buy one!!!!!!!!!). So now i'm going to give a brief review of my new toy.... but don't expect a detailed breakdown of specs, size, weight, screen resolution, processor speed.....except to say it's a good size and weight, screen is good enough and functions respond fast enough).

Well first I'll start with what it's not... That is a laptop replacement. I couldn't really use it to carry out edits to documents or update spreadsheets, but realistically I wouldn't want to, the form factor doesn't lend itself to it (although apps are available if you want to try). If I brought some work home I would just fire up my laptop and chug away, (although I am erupting this on my iPad so it isn't that bad).

There is no camera for still or video picture capture, but then I wouldn't really want to be walking around trying to use something this big to capture those magic moments.

It's not a phone.... Well not exactly "not"!!!!!!! I have downloaded Skype and am making free or fairly cheap from the iPad (using the home wifi network..... I'll test out the connection over 3G when I get back to Blighty). But again I wouldn't really use it to make calls on the go as my mobile phone is glued to my @ss fairly permanently.

What does it do well:

Always on, unlike a laptop it doesn't take five minutes to fire up, so the web surfing, mailing etc is quicker to access than on a laptop. So for ease of access it's the first port of call.

Speed, the iPad is very quick and responsive so lots of time isn't wasted waiting around for things to load up. The interface is fairly slick and easy to use as expected.

Web surfing (Safari) over the wifi is a joy, as I said its always on, the screen is good to look at, fast to load and most sites i want to look at are accessible. It's much better to look at the smaller smartphones, although occasionally it does direct you to the mobile version of websites which can be a tad annoying when you have a large screen to use. The lack of flash will mean that you may not be able to get the best of all sites, but for now I haven't any major issues.

E-mail (native app), checking and sending my yahoo and gmail is great. Again as its always on it's quicker to check than a laptop, however, iPhone/Blackberry/Android users would boast of the same benefits with the added advantage of ease of use on the go. A point to note is that not all accounts are fully supported in the native app (e.g. Hotmail) but it's just as easy to check on the web browser.

Photos, again it's great here, the screen size is ideal for showing off holiday snaps etc when you have guests, much better than smaller phones, quicker than firing up a laptop and space saving compared to physical albums. The app is great to navigate around as well.

Ebook reader, this was a great plus for me. Now I generally wouldn't have bought a separate ebook reader (even though I love to read), but having one handy is great. The free native app is easy to use but you can also get kindle and other readers for free. There are a wealth of free books available (mainly classics) on all the different readers. The big plus here is the ease of loading up PDFs. I can fire lots of these over to the iPad and use it as a reference source (again the always on functionality is key).

Music player personally I would just steal my wife's iPod or use my phone, so not a biggie in that department (music/podcasts etc). But its not a bad thing to have thrown in.

Apps and games, a wealth of free games and apps are available, however, i used to find the AppStore on my wife's iPhone a tad easier to use. There aren't the same number of apps for the iPad as you have on the iPhone but hopefully that should change over time.

Contacts and calendar are useful tools to have and sync with my PC, but again it's one of those things that a decent enough mobile phone could handle for you.

Videos, the native app means you have to convert movies to the iPad format which can be a bit of a pain (but there are plenty of free utilities out there to do the job). As with the iPhone there is a dedicated YouTube player which is great. The screen dimension means that there will be black bands above and below the screen when watching widescreen but it's bearable. It's definitely a jump up from a smartphone. It also has advantages over a laptop if you fancy watching a movie in bed or on a plane. One cool app I have found is CineXplayer which let's you play avi files on the iPad.

Negatives

iTunes and backups. iTunes is just about ok for file transfers. But the library function is a pain as it doesn't automatically monitor folders to check when they have been updated for pics etc. However, the biggest problem is backups. This part of iPad/iTunes blows away the myth that Apple stuff "just works". Depending on what you have on the iPad backups can take hours, this is something that Apple need to address as it is a major user complaint.

Computer needed. You can not use the iPad straight out of the box. Before you can use it you need to download iTunes and sync it before first use. So if you haven't got a computer you will have a problem. If you buy one while you're out travelling without a laptop forget using it till you're back home.

Marital discord has increased slightly since the purchase of the iPad. Firstly, I'm not trusted to not damage it so I'm constantly being told how to store and look after it by the wife (but I guess anyone who knows my record on destroying things probably sympathizes with her). Secondly, my wife complains that I spend too much time on it and not enough on her. Thirdly, we're always arguing over who should use it.... And as usual it's an argument that she always wins by laying the smack down on me!

The usual suspects with anything "I" related are multitasking and a flash player. But this all depends on your usage. If you frequent sites that are flash heavy then this is not the toy for you. But for my web habits it's fine (especially since they made a standalone Farmville app). I'm also not going to use it for intensive work purposes so the lack of multitasking is no issue for me.

Future

I think the advent of a forward facing camera would be the killer tool in a net gen iPad. Using Skype on it is great and if I could make a video call I'd definitely pick up the next version. It would be nice to have some always on widgets on a home screen, but I don't think Apple are two keen on it.

Overall

It's a nice new toy, it's not a laptop replacement and does nowhere near as much, but what it does do, it does extremely well. I would recommend getting one but look at what you are going to use it for.

Return of the Slick

It's been just over a year since I last blogged. One of the big reasons for my absence was the subject of my last writing.....my dearest darling wife........ As well as my adventure in Libya.

Well now my Libyan adventure is coming to an end and i'll soon be returning to the UK. My time with Petro-Canada has come to an end.......I'll be job hunting as well shifting my life from one continent to another..... So there should be plenty to write about.....as well my views (or lack of) on current affairs.

My Wife

Hi to the dear fan club…. I just want to share with you the fact that I am very happily married (to my wife in case you are wondering!!!!!).

I am very lucky as I have a very very very beautiful and intelligent wife (but clearly not as intelligent as me). She can sometimes be a little moody – but I put this down to me being so irresistible that she gets upset being away from me!

Actually, on a serious note I do doubt her sanity – after all she did marry me and she is actually way more stunning then I thought I would ever get. She’s actually a girl I fell for a long long long time ago – but then she broke my heart and rejected me – it took me forever to recover – but she seems to have had a momentary lapse in sanity and she decided to marry me.

Like I say, I think I’m very lucky as she is way better then anything I deserve and ever dreamt of. I only pray that I can keep her happy (or keep her medicated so that she doesn’t come to her senses and realise what a mistake she’s made!!!)

Anyway, any tips on married life would be appreciated as this is more difficult then expected – women are weird!

Star Trek

Watching the latest Star Trek movie made me wonder……  how does the Federation in Star Trek survive... in every battle the shields go to 5% after taking the first shot and the warp reactor goes offline..... whatever evasive manoeuvre they try they get blown away!!! There photon torpedoes can't penetrate a tomato!!!!! Physically everyone else seems to be harder than them!!!

If it was purely down to who had the better hardware I know whose side I’d be on…….

Thank god we have Kirk and Picard on our side!!!

“The Italian Job” to be remade in Hindi

Now this could be a disaster beyond all proportions or a fantastic success (and lets face it, it can’t get much worse than the American remake).

I’ve just read that an all time cinematic classic is to be remade in Bollywood.

I’m looking forward to this in eager anticipation and trepidation. Anticipation because a well done remake of this classic could be great……

……But trepidation because…..

…..I’m not sure how humour from the swinging sixties can be effectively placed in modern India….

…..I can’t picture it with singing and dancing……

…..I have no idea what car they would use…..

and

….I can’t imagine how they’re gonna bring in the classing line….

"You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!",

(but one scene I can picture is some poor fruit sellers cart being overturned in the car chase)!

lets wait and see………………………….

Are you really you???? (Philosophy 2 of 4) – Are you same person who started reading this????

Part two of my ripping off a the BBC philosophy article is here…… again let me know of you’re thoughts!

“Consider a photo of someone you think is you eight years ago. What makes that person you? You might say he she was composed of the same cells as you now. But most of your cells are replaced every seven years. You might instead say you're an organism, a particular human being, and that organisms can survive cell replacement - this oak being the same tree as the sapling I planted last year.

But are you really an entire human being? If surgeons swapped George Bush's brain for yours, surely the Bush look-alike, recovering from the operation in the White House, would be you. Hence it is tempting to say that you are a human brain, not a human being.

But why the brain and not the spleen? Presumably because the brain supports your mental states, eg your hopes, fears, beliefs, values, and memories. But then it looks like it's actually those mental states that count, not the brain supporting them. So the view is that even if the surgeons didn't implant your brain in Bush's skull, but merely scanned it, wiped it, and then imprinted its states on to Bush's pre-wiped brain, the Bush look-alike recovering in the White House would again be you.

But the view faces a problem: what if surgeons imprinted your mental states on two pre-wiped brains: George Bush's and Gordon Brown's? Would you be in the White House or in Downing Street? There's nothing on which to base a sensible choice. Yet one person cannot be in two places at once.

In the end, then, no attempt to make sense of your continued existence over time works. You are not the person who started reading this article.”

and if you want here is the link to the original article..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7739493.stm

VAT cut - its not to help the average person!

I think that the proposed cut in the VAT rate from 17.5% to 15% is a pointless exercise. Its not been clearly thought out and won't really help those at the lower end of the income scale anyway.

Will the high street really pass the VAT cut on????

Most high street retailers pick price points i.e. they pick prices that appeal to the public, at a price they think the public will be ready to pay i.e £9.99, £10, £15 etc etc - they don't think..... I'll sell this for £x plus VAT!

Do you really think that most retailers will sell a £9.99 product for £9.77 or a £25 product for £24.47 after the rate has been cut?

The answer is NO - most will stick to the price points that have already been identified as attractive to consumers.

If a retailer has identified that it can sell its product for £10 then they will keep the price at £10 and pocket the difference (23p). That might not seem like a lot for the average perosn - but actually it amounts to billions in the pockets of the businesses.

Retailers are more than capable of changing the total cost (inc VAT) as necessary i.e £5 off in order to have attractive price points.

Before you say that I'm being cynical - I thik that retailers have already shown that they are ready to exploit loopholes to keep as much money in their pockets as possible

http://images.vnunet.com/v6_static/oracle/pdf/fd/nov_vat_fdbrief.pdf

No I think the savvy retailer will simply pocket the difference in order to bump up its own profits!

The only way to truly test this is for someone to keep a track of all prices pre and post the cut - but no one is really goingto do this now are they!

Will it make a difference??????

The actuall impact in the retail price of a product will be just over 2%. When a retailer has a sale they would normally slash a minimum of 10%-25% of goods to get people through the doors. Just imagine how busy the January sales would be if the offer was 2% off everything???? Not very I would guess!

In these depressing times are you going to celebrate being to save 20p off a box of chocolates or £10 of a £500 plasma tv!!!

Why

Ultimately, I think it a sound bite - "look what we've done to help the public".

I guess you're going to ask what would I do - to be honest I don't know - but this is too little, poorly targeted and pointless!

What makes it worse to my mind is that none of the mainstream media (tv, newspapers) seemed to have picked up on this pointkess exercise!

Moral dilemma - what would you do??? (Philosophy 1 of 4)

It was world philosophy day last Thursday (20 Nov)... and to celebrate this the BBC decided to post four philospohocal questions which may have made your brain hurt - that is if you had one in the first place...

As I am running out of things to write about I am just gonna rip of the material via a cut and paste exercise and let you guys pnder on them... (I was gonna apologise for making your brains hurt - but I doubt if it will cause you guys much pain as its a rarely used organ for most of you...).

And before you bother asking - philosophically speaking - I think its perfectly okay for me (and me alone) to rip of other people's material (and atleast I give credit....

Anyway here is the first philosophical dilemma - let the world know what you think.......

Should we kill healthy people for their organs????

Suppose Bill is a healthy man without family or loved ones. Would it be
ok painlessly to kill him if his organs would save five people, one of whom
needs a heart, another a kidney, and so on? If not, why not?

Consider another case: you and six others are kidnapped, and the
kidnapper somehow persuades you that if you shoot dead one of the other
hostages, he will set the remaining five free, whereas if you do not, he will
shoot all six. (Either way, he'll release you.)

If in this case you should kill one to save five, why not in the
previous, organs case? If in this case too you have qualms, consider yet
another: you're in the cab of a runaway tram and see five people tied to the
track ahead. You have the option of sending the tram on to the track forking off
to the left, on which only one person is tied. Surely you should send the tram
left, killing one to save five.

But then why not kill Bill?

I'll publish the rest whenever I feel like it...

My new hobby…. (fighting back against the morons)…

Have you ever been annoyed by stupid e-mails and forwards saying rubbish like….

• forward this to a million people in a few days some random fool will send you some money…
• this kid is dying and xyz plc will give them money for a cure if you forward this e-mail…
• reply to this mail and you will get free cash…
• oh my god have you seen what these evil people are doing… forward to everyone you know to stop…
• beware of this ridiculous scam were people will steal you’re body parts…
• forward this to a million people in the next five seconds or your sad and miserable life will become even worse!!!!
• have you seen this impossible thing… it proves aliens exist….
• etc etc etc

Well I get tons of them for people who I would otherwise say are quite intelligent (although when I get these forwarded mails I sincerely doubt it!!!). To add to the ridiculous nature some of these are things that I have seen in circulation years ago…… and I’m sure you guys have to!

Well plenty of these mails are clearly fakes, spoofs etc… and as I said people who are normally quite sane end up sending me this rubbish…

Well I don’t want it and I’ve been trying to ignore it…. and no I don’t forward it on….

Don’t you imbeciles realise that these are fake just from the context (who in their right mind is going to give money away)! We live in the world of the internet (and you must be on it to read your e-mail), So pick your search engine of choice (Google, Yahoo, MSN etc etc) and look up the damn subject. And guess what you’ll find…. its all a crock of $h1t. (Their are good sites like snopes, urban myths and hoax slayer which research this crap and tell you exactly how stupid it is).

Well I woke up one day and thought enough is enough… its time to fight back against all you idiots out there…

Ideally I would like to remove the senders of these e-mails from the human gene pool with carefully placed baseball bat to the brain… but while the bleeding heart liberals are in charge its down to the next weapon in the arsenal…….

ITS TIME FOR NAME AND SHAME

Everytime I get one of these useless pieces of mail in my inbox… I look it up… then I reply to the person who sent me the offending piece of crap… but not just them, I include everyone they sent it to, and everyone in the e-mail chain… I explain how stupid the mail is and hope simple it is to spend ten seconds of their useless lives researching this stuff so they don’t waste my lives.

And guess what miraculously I don’t get any of these mails anymore… either people have seen the error of their ways (which I doubt as you’re all morons) or more likely they don’t want a barrage of e-mail abuse from me with all their nearest and dearest cc’d.

I would advise anyone who gets one of these mails to spend five minutes looking it up before blindly forwarding it… and to top it all of do a “reply all” to humiliate the sender into sending these again.

Things to do in Libya

Here is the first of my soon to be legendary lists.

Well the there are a number of things for people to do while Libya - but the first thing to do is remember that the sanctions have only recently been lifted - so its not quite a Morocco or Tunisia. And alcohol is illegal (which is fine for me as I'm a Muslim) - so theirs no bars, pubs etc. But there is still enough to keep people entertained.

Resident (expat) or Tourist - Whether you're a tourist or a an expat staying here will be important - as tourists probably won't be interested in the societies etc - I'll list items of interest to ex-pats with (E) and those to tourists with (T).

Some more things to note before venturing out...

Libya is still a fairly conservative Muslim country so you should dress appropriately. Avoid criticising the regime, cultures, values etc (i guess this applies to any country in the world that we visit as we are guests and should be respectful to our hosts).

Okay now lets get going with the list..... I'll try and update this as and when I discover new things....(ps its likely to be Tripoli centric as that is where I am based - but I will try and make notes of other things as I discover them).

1) Beaches (E & T)

Libya has a phenomenal amount of coastline on the Mediterranean coast (the just check it out on a map). So needless to say there are some nice beaches. I haven't been to many so will tell you more at a later time.

2) The Souk (E & T)

The Souk in the old city is fantastic for shopping - there are shops selling virtually everything from modern new appliances,to the more traditional rustic things and gold. Its a good experience to wander around. And unlike other countries you don't get constantly harassed to go into shops and buy things (and even when you go in you don't get the hard sell).

3) The Hash (mainly Expats - but I'm sure tourists could attend to)

And no its not what you think. Its basically an eccentric, worldwide running club (but I tend to walk and use it to chillout and socialise). Its good fun and theirs no pressure to be fit - its just for fun - checkout the global home page http://www.gthhh.com/ 

As well as Tripoli Desert Rats Hash House Harriers, their is also a hash based at Benghazi. On a side note they are a world wide group so you'd be more than welcome to check them out in any country!

4) The Caledonian Society (E)

As the name suggests its a Scottish society - but you don't have to be Scottish to be a member or attend events. As with the hash its an excuse for people to get together and socialise. Great fun with a great bunch of ex-pats from various companies and countries.

5) The Royal Society of St George (E)

Again as the name suggest its an English society but all are welcome to be members and attend events - great fun and just an excuse to meet people and socialise.

6) The Archeological Society (E and T)

Another society - as well as meeting people - it provides you with the opportunity to get out and about and see some of the more of the city. And before you write it off as some fuddy duudy event, its actually a good opportunity to get out and about and see more of the country which you may not normally get a chance to see.

Well that's all for now. I'll try and some links to the above and if I find anything new I'll let you know.

As the famous bunny kept saying... that's all for now folks.......