28 Oct 2008

Gadget and software advisor site

I regularly prowl the net looking for gadget sites and love reading reviews about gadgets in development or have just been launched in the market. Just found out about the Gadget Advisor site - relatively new but has loads of good stuff.

The name "Gadget Advisor" may be a bit misleading. Besides news about new gadget releases and computer hardware information, the site is also a great resource for the latest tech news and software. As a Firefox fan, I found their extensive list of the Best extensions for Firefox really informative and useful. Needless to say, I downloaded a few on the list including the Google Cache Checker Firefox extension.

Do check out the site and tell me what you think.

20 Oct 2008

Showing off Google adsense cheques

One regular reader of my blog asked me why I don't show off my Google Adsense cheques. Apparently, he noticed that unlike the "Dot Com Moguls" out there on the web, I didn't do that. Actually I did write one post showing off "My Google adsense cheque" but that was it.

To tell the truth I don't earn that much from Google adsense but the main reason I don't post up pictures of cheques showing how much I earned this month is because I don't receive any cheques from Google anymore. I have opted to go green by signing up to receive my AdSense payments via Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT). Besides getting my payments faster I save on paper and thus do my little bit for the environment.

On the downside I lose the opprtunity of showing off my cheques. As I have menionted before "No 1 Tip to make money online - act like a millionaire". People want to go to blogs of sucessful bloggers (with loads of Google adsense cheques) because they want to learn how to start earning themselves.

Something to think about.

16 Oct 2008

The Motorola Krave ZN4

First there was the Apple iPhone, a revolutionary phone with a touch screen. Then came an improved iPhone. Google soon followed up with their own version of touch screen phone - the Google phone. Nokia was next with their "Nokia 5800 XpressMusic".



It took quite a while but the latest to join the fray is Motorola with their Krave™ ZN4. It features a transparent cover over a touch screen. Users can actually access several features without even opening the cover. It is expected to go on sale in the US on Tuesday for $149.99 on a contract with Verizon Wireless. No news about the UK though.

I am not sure whether it has GPS though. No mention about it on their press release.

SEO Expert Coventry

Sometime back a company approached me to do some SEO work for them. I refused because I had too much on my hands at that time including my PhD upgrades. Later I realised that I should have taken up the job as it was good money and as we all know, search engine optimisation is not a overnight job - it's an ongoing process (at least it should be).

Anyway, was pleasantly surprised when I found out that my post "SEO Coventry" on my ah ok lah blog is now #4 on Google for the search terms.

seo coventry

I don't want to brag but I guess I am one of the SEO experts here in Coventry.

Updated:

Feel free to contact me if you need help with Search Engine Optimisation.

13 Oct 2008

Choosing a mobile phone

Even though I am quite happy with my 3 Skypephone, I have been thinking of upgrading my mobile for sometime now. However, the problem is that there are so many choices and I have been having a tough time choosing one.



Top on my list are the two best sellers from Nokia, the N95 and the N96, their latest offering. Both have similar features and include almost everything I want in a mobile.
  • GPS
  • High speed connection to the internet
  • 2.8" screen
  • dual camera
  • main camera: 5.0 Megapixels with Carl Zeiss lens and flash.
I guess the only difference is that the N96 has higher internal memory and a built in TV tuner. The N96 is of course costlier, selling here in the UK at £535 (including VAT) while the N95 8gb costs £353 (with VAT).


Also on my list is another new offering from Nokia, the E71. What attract me to this phone is that it comes with a full QWERTY keypad. Has a 3.2MP camera, GPS and high speed connection to the internet. It costs £330.



One phone that I really like is the HTC TyTN II. Three of my friends here in Coventry are using this phone and they have nothing but praise for this PDA phone. It has a full QWERTY keyboard that slides out from under the phone. I was really impressed by the way the screen tilts up and it looks like a mini laptop. Another advantage is that it uses Windows OS. It also has GPS navigation, 2 cameras, high speed internet access and loads of other features.

Check out the video below:


I am really confused but I guess my decision will depend on the best offer I can get from one of the mobile providers.

9 Oct 2008

BlackBerry Storm unveiled

Every phone maker is coming up with their answer to Apple's iPhone. The latest to be unveiled is Research In Motion's BlackBerry Storm.

This touch-screen BlackBerry smartphone will be made available exclusively to Verizon Wireless subscribers in the U.S. and Vodafone subscribers in Europe, India, Australia and New Zealand.

In comparison to the iPhone, the phone is slightly heavier and the screen is slightly smaller (3.25-inch screen as compared to the iPhone's 3.5 inches). The phone doesn't have Wi-Fi Internet access.

Frank H. Rovekamp - Chief Marketing Officer of the Vodafone Group introduces the BlackBerry Storm.

Faster broadband speed

I had been quite unhappy with the broadband service provided by TalkTalk and even called them the "worst broadband provider in the UK". However, of late their service has considerably improved.

I tested the download and upload speeds on Speedtest.net Here's the result:



Compare this with the speed test result in March this year. It is an increase of approximately 1447 Kb/s.



I had been seriously considering moving to another service provider once our contract ended but I guess I have to reconsider now.

6 Oct 2008

3 Skypephone S2 review

It's been sometime since I reviewed my 3 Skypephone and number of my friends have bought the phone based on my recommendations. Most of them are happy with the phone. On the other hand, some guys have accused me of not highlighting some of the limitations or weaknesses of the phone.

First of all, let me start of by saying that I never claimed that this phone is the best or the most advanced in the market. You can't compare it with the Apple iPhone. However, I have to admit that I neglected to point out some of the drawbacks of the phone.

There are some things I don't like about the 3 Skypephone:

1. First of all the screen - it's shiny and nice but it is near impossible to read or see anything in bright sunlight.
2. The camera does not have a flash and gives terrible results in bad light conditions.
3. The back cover is held in place by some short of magnet and it has a bad habit of getting left behind in my tight jeans pocket when I take the phone out.
4. The phone does not allows Skype in or Skype out. However, this might change soon according to 3 Mobile Buzz.

Having said that, the 3 Skypephone is not bad. It is among the most feature packed for it's price range. Yes! It's a cheap phone and I save loads of money calling my wife who also has one by using Skype.

I take loads of pictures with it all the time and most come out really well in bright conditions. I also use it as an alarm to wake myself up everyday. It has really come in handy when my internet line goes down or I am at a place without any internet connection as they an be used as a modem.

Rosman and Elayne who has just arrived in Coventry recently bought the new 3 Skypephone S2 after reading my blog. They are newbies and I helped them set up Skype accounts. The phone is slightly heavier and feels more solid. However, I didn't any significant change from the old Skypephone apart from the cosmetic ones.



I was slightly confused as the Skype website mentions that we can call "any landline or mobile abroad from your 3 mobile" but I did not notice Skypeout installed.

Anyway the phone now has a higher resolution camera (3.2 Megapixel). I like their new navigation system where you can scroll around a carousel of icons which reminds me of the Mac OS. The phone comes with a larger memory - 50MB expandable to 4GB (microSD) as compared to 16MB on the old phone. Besides Skype, the new Skypephone also has Windows Live Messenger, Facebook and RSS reader preinstalled.

The camera still lacks a flash and autofocus (another disappointment). However, for the price (£69.99 for pay-as-you-go) I definitely recommend this phone.

NOTE: The phone is available in the UK only for the moment.

Price of the new Nokia 5800

Th new Nokia 5800 will go on sale in Europe later this year and it will cost 279 Euros (£217) before7 discounts by service providers. According to a Reuters report, the phone might miss the Christmas season.

New Logo

As some of you might have noticed, my blog looks a bit different. I have new logo, thanks to Rebheka from Crewind. She had sent me five different designs but I liked the wording on one and the "a" design on another. So I made a few changes and voila! I have a new logo.

adamok.net

I like the clean design.

What do you think?

5 Oct 2008

Nokia 5800 XpressMusic launched

Nokia recently unveiled their response to the Apple iPhone - the touch screen 5800 XpressMusic. The Symbian 60 based mobile measures 111 × 52 × 14.5 mm and comes with GPS, bluetooth and wireless capabilities built in.



It also has a 3.2 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optical lens, auto flash and autofocus. However, the most attractive feature is not the phone but the service that comes with it. Nokia also launched their "Comes With Music" service which will allow their customers unlimited and free downloads on Nokia's Music Store for12 months. That's really amazing. However they got some artists woried but I think this service is what's going to be the iPhoen beater.

I don't have any info about the price as yet but is expected to be lower than the iPhone.

1 Oct 2008

Buffalo MiniStation Portable Hard Drives

I can't stress enough the importance of backing up your files. A computer crash can wipe out months of research work (and years of work in some cases). I personally know of a few cases where a PhD student lost all three years worth of research because their laptop crashed and he had to run here and there trying to find someone who could recover the information from the hard drive.

For this purpose, I have been using the portable hard drive I brought from over form Malaysia, all this while. At one time, 20 GBs of space was considered an enormous storage space, however, with all the photographs, movies as well as my research work, I discovered that 20Gbs doesn't amount to much now-a-days. My wife was looking for a new portable hard drive to replace her old one as well.

So we set off to search the web for a good one. We had a few criteria in mind:
  • Shock proof
  • small profile
  • Fast data transfer and
  • of course, reasonably priced.
We looked around on the net and we were intially attracted to the Iomega eGo External hard drives with their funky colours. However, we read some reviews mentioning that their transfer speeds were quite slow.

To cut a long story short, we finally decided on the Buffalo 160GB MiniStation, TurboUSB Portable Hard Drive. Surveying various online stores on the net, we found that the best deals were on the Misco site. We got two drives for £39.99 each. We had to pay a total of £98.66 inclusive of VAT and delivery charges for the two.

buffalo portable hard drive
Small outside but bigger inside.