15 Apr 2008

Testing out the 3 mobile broadband service

Finally got the chance to give the 3 USB modem a good test run. I am blogging this via 3's mobile broadband service.

I shut of the wireless network in my house and used the dongle to connect to the net.

3 dongle

The first thing I did was to check the connection speed. Here are the results according to Speedtest.net:



The speeds are nothing to boast about but I look at the possibilities - it's amazing to think that I can access the net from almost anywhere in the UK. According to the 3 website, their "network covers 86% of the UK population."

baby

Found this old picture of my son (3.2 MB) in my computer. Uploading it to my Flickr page took around 10 minutes.

Next test area: Nottingham.

11 Apr 2008

Free online storage with MSN SkyDrive

Good news for all of you guys who have an MSN, Windows Live or Hotmail account. In case you are not aware, Microsoft's Free online storage service known as SkyDrive has now increased the storage limit to 5Gb from 1Gb.

You have the option of keeping your files "personal", meaning that they are only meant for your eyes. You can also put them in the "Shared folder" to share with friends or in the "Public" that anyone can access.

The service is available in 38 countries/regions. In addition to Great Britain, India, and the U.S., it is now available in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Finland, France, Guatemala, Honduras, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Portugal, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, and Turkey. Unfortunately Malaysia is not in the list as yet.

Do check out the SkyDrive team's blog for more information.

10 Apr 2008

Review of Blogger in draft



They have loads of new experimental features on the Blogger in draft site.

The best feature is the Scheduled Post Publishing which allows Blogger users to write a post which then appears on a scheduled later date.

There is also the option to add a "Blogroll" which some might feel is a replication of the existing "Link List" widget. However, the later involved multiple steps - first the url followed by the name, then you would have to click the "ADD LINK" button and finally clicking the "SAVE CHANGES" button. Now, you can import all your subscriptions from Google Reader and only need to paste the url of the blog then click "SAVE CHANGES" to add a blog to the blogroll.

Other features that Bloggers users have been demanding for a long time have been such as a Search box and Subscription link have also been added.

However, some of the features I really want to see as listed in my post "New features in Blogger that we want to see" are still not there.

Having said that, I was amazed at the number of widgets under the "fun and games" category that can be added to your blog - a total of 2776 at last count.

There are literally thousands of widgets available and you can add yours as well. Feels good to be a Blogger user.

WordPress users - Eat your Heart out.