Mostly This:

I thought I would compare the three EPG/ Sky+ remote record apps...

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:18:42 +0000

I thought I would compare the three EPG/ Sky+ remote record apps from sky, as they are an essential second screen, so in order of lovelyness…

1 Android Tablet - theres an extra hour on view and the Highlights bar moves out of view as you scroll down.

2. iPad, basically the same as the android version, but annoyingly the highlights bar is permanently taking up 1/3 of the space available - so its that little bit annoying and less useful when browsing the evenings viewing options. close but pipped by the droid.

3. Web, Wow this version is really bad, it’s hidden away below the fold, then theres an extra splash page that serves no purpose other than to annoy, then the same permanent bar as the iPad reduced the amount of channels to a poor 5. Almost 1/2 the screen is taken up with things you dont want or need, there’s a massive blue header that just says SKY, why do websites not learn to use the REAL space available, i suspect it was signed off on 27 inch monitors and A3 printouts.

Has someone at sky done the comparison I just did one simple change to the iPad/Web would be instantly obvious.

Unbearable blandness of unofficial olympic advertising....

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 12:07:20 +0000

Unbearable blandness of unofficial olympic advertising. Meanwhile Nike and Lucozade have fallen into the “can’t be bothered” camp too with there “stick an athelete on it” approach to trying to shave off some london 2012 glory.

If you can’t stand out - don’t waste your time.

Clearly the agencies involved had something better to do that afternoon. Plus the limitations of attempting to do a london 2012 advert when you can’t mention anything to do with the olympics.

3/10 could do better.

Lazy minds, think alike. BMW’s olympic campaign is one of...

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 12:03:16 +0000

Lazy minds, think alike. BMW’s olympic campaign is one of the least inspiring pieces of advertising ever, but when it came to the outdoor they seem to have reached new lows of blandness.

What you see about isn’t two BMW adverts, Its a BMW and a VW ad. They are bascially identical. Come on VW/BMW shake a leg, make your agencies earn their money.

Veet Petit! Here’s a PS Vita….. erm BOX, it’s...

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 17:36:49 +0000

Veet Petit! Here’s a PS Vita….. erm BOX, it’s what you get when you put a £25 deposit on one at game, has some PS branded headphones inside, and a PSN voucher for money £5 off selected titles, ‘early access’ to Frobisher Says and some virtual goods. Roll on Feb 22nd

Official ‘underground street art’ Disney Vinyl Toys,...

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 17:33:18 +0000

Official ‘underground street art’ Disney Vinyl Toys, once you had to score the backstreets of Hoxton or soho to find niche toys like this, now they are in the disney store!

Angry Bird’s Flapjacks with rice (uk translation egg...

Sat, 03 Dec 2011 12:23:41 +0000

Angry Bird’s Flapjacks with rice (uk translation egg custard slices)

I made this recipe from the angry birds cookbook with the kids:

The book is great fun, but very american. So a cup of flour = 110grams (4 oz)

and 1 cup of liquid = 8 fluid oz (1/2 an american pint).

The flapjacks turned out to be nothing of the sort, but were delicious all the same, I’d do again with some nutmeg and cinnamon, and serve with some spun sugar. The kids seems to like it once they realised it was just a custard pudding.

My friend Thayer’s tweets this morning reminded me to load...

Sat, 03 Dec 2011 11:55:03 +0000

My friend Thayer’s tweets this morning reminded me to load up some Nokia Music Radio Playlists, it’s a sweet free app, thats ‘very like’ Last.fm. The downloadable playlists are a major bonus when travelling/commuting etc. It’s basically radio without the adverts or presenters, a nice alternative to when your music is all a bit ‘last upload’

The Symbian iPlayer app was the only one that had this feature, download the shows at home, watch on the move. I hope the WP7 iPlayer app will continue this killer feature.

Angry Books: I went along to the launch of Rovio Books at Nokia...

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 22:03:00 +0000

Angry Books: I went along to the launch of Rovio Books at Nokia House this week, the star title being the Angry Birds Cook Book - a lovely illustrated book of egg related recipies from the games pigs. But they also launched some activity books called ‘Doodle Books’ as you can see these went down VERY well with my kids, as well as the cook book, which was pored over by my oldest.

The popularity of Junior Bake Off and Angry Birds making this a topical delight.

The books are out now, at amazon and several other retailers.

Sliding Doors…. I recently got a Nokia Lumia 800, the...

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 23:22:53 +0000

Sliding Doors…. I recently got a Nokia Lumia 800, the unlock screen has no visual queues as to what to do, so I took a photo of a shuttered shop and cropped it via the ‘set wallpaper’ tool, and now it’s easy to remember to pull the shutter up :)

So just take a photo of a shutter or blind etc and your unlock screen is 100% more fun.

or use mine…

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmmorrison/6377513697/in/photostream

X Factor: Likes <> Votes?Last year I looked at the number...

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 17:31:26 +0000

X Factor: Likes <> Votes?

Last year I looked at the number of likes in facebook for each of the act’s pages

http://mostlythis.com/post/1619576267/whos-going-to-win-x-factor-does-facebook-give

The correlation between likes and voting off was very close last year, this year there is less granularity between the acts. with two way out in front - Frankie and Janet. Frankie has already been in the bottom two. Sophie, midtable has gone, But theres not much between the acts, and the numbers are way down.

Last year several acts had around 100,000 or more, this year only Janet does.

Apathy seems to have set in a little.

Janet 232,684

Frankie 78,461

The Risk 35,592

Micha 35,022

Marcus 32,485

Sophie 31,969

Craig 28,760

Little Mix 24,826

Johnny 23,709

Sami 15,428

Kitty 14,079

Nu Vibe 13,550

Byron has taken it up another level with the Grizz-Mo burger,...

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 14:37:00 +0000

Byron has taken it up another level with the Grizz-Mo burger, its a burger with Welsh Raebit on top.

What’s not to love.

It’s for Movember, the month where growing a Tom Selek is suddenly ok. Well, it’s always ok, but you have an excuse :) 50p from each Grizz-Mo burger goes to Movember, and if like me you are taking part, from the 7th to the 20th you can get a free burger EVERY DAY from 3-6pm. I feel a lot of late lunches coming on.

http://www.byronhamburgers.com/movember/

My Movember Page, should you wish to donate :)

Tin Tin

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 21:26:02 +0100

Tin Tin was good, I enjoyed it and so did the kids (7 and 6, The 4 year old skipped it as it was too scary) Actually congratulations to the makers for not over sanitising it, there was plenty of death, peril and drunkenness.

I have no real history with the characters so I was really coming to it fresh, It felt slightly too british, Captain Haddock being Scottish. Frost and Pegg as the Thompson twins were good, but as both laid on such thick posh accents, it was impossible to tell who was who. But the styling was great, with the characters all being slightly cartoonish in proportion to stop them falling into the uncanny valley, It’s defiantly an animation not trying to be live action, even though it was motion captured.

The film is basically one set action piece into another in a constant state of out of the frying pan into the fire. Some of them are delightful, especially the pirate scenes.

I ended up at a 3D showing, as with all other 3D movies I’ve seen, it added nothing, in the first 5 minutes you are looking at the depth and going wow, then your brain just works it out and it’s effectively back to 2D.

Just what are QR codes useful for? Machines, not humans. QR...

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:02:24 +0100

Just what are QR codes useful for? Machines, not humans. QR codes were developed for manufacturing, so machines could identify and handle objects. And that’s where they work, and work well. Where they don’t work is when an artificial step of human interaction is forced, its always one, two or more unnecessary steps for a human to do, mimicking a machine.

Berg just launched a film showing some of there thoughts for extending that machine automation into the everyday world.

Clocks for Robots

One of the key thoughts I take away is, let the machines talk to each other - minimise human action. I particularly like the qr code reader that hides the camera display - which is unnecessary. Of course theres lots of other potential machine communication possible outside of human detection, thinks like NFC and scanning codes requires a human intent, theres other possibilities such as audio signals, radio waves, etc that may well allow devices to hear where they are too. All these time and place signals will give your actions a real context and linked to cloud - an index of actions and objects around you.

As devices get more powerful the ability to recognise objects and decode the real world will only get close to human abilities, negating the need for explicit markings and digital signatures.

Rugby Apps: As you all know its rugby world cup time, there is...

Mon, 12 Sep 2011 16:18:00 +0100

Rugby Apps: As you all know its rugby world cup time, there is an official app on Android and Apple App Store, but whats around for symbian? Well oddly theres a Nokia Rugby App, it’s a results based app, rather than a news/match report app, but if it’s live scores/results and tables you need ‘on the go’ it seems very comprehensive. Price FREE. Get It Here.

Also being pushed on ovi store is Planet Rugby

Planet Rugby is a news site and this app is a feed of news - categorised by teams / competition. So between the two apps you have a comprehensive set of content for all rugby fans, during and beyond the rugby world cup.

A tale of two burgers: One real, One fantasy. After yesterdays...

Fri, 09 Sep 2011 13:00:51 +0100

A tale of two burgers: One real, One fantasy. After yesterdays Uncle Sam from Byron delighting all taste buds. The second revivalist is the McDonalds 1955 Burger, I ordered without bacon, as I’m not sure bacon is a classic burger ingredient, and to ensure a freshly cooked burger to evenly compete with Byron. At £3.59 its less than half the price of the Byron Uncle Sam, but about 1/4 the value. As you can see what you get is a sorry sight, and somewhat unlike the promotional photo.

To be fair it didn’t taste as bad as it looks, but was very dry and over cooked, the burger is larger than a normal quarter-pounder, but much thinner, so it retains no moisture. It reminds me of the inedible big tasty, but much improved, as the ‘smokey sauce’, similar to big mac sauce, and cooked onions at least added some flavour. The previous ‘M’ Burger was a much greater success. This one felt that it wasn’t very well prepared, there was next to no lettuce in it, and a tiny amount of onion. Consistency and portion control is something that mcdonald’s is normally good at.

I would avoid and stick with the big mac or quarter if you are swinging by a mcdonalds.

Burger Time. There seems to be a revival for revivalist...

Thu, 08 Sep 2011 14:05:55 +0100

Burger Time. There seems to be a revival for revivalist burgers, Byron has launched their Limited Edition Uncle Sam Burger, It’s got a ‘Glazed Bun’ which is much nicer than the stock byron buns, Otherwise it’s just the classic cheeseburger ingredients, American Cheese, Pickles, 4 in mine :p, French’s Mustard and Ketchup. It is just a brilliant Burger, when I unwrapped mine (I had a takeaway) someone said “Is that a photo of a burger, it looks too perfect”. £7.50 and available until the end of September only.

I can’t believe I’ve not blogged about Utilikilts...

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 17:36:23 +0100

I can’t believe I’ve not blogged about Utilikilts before, my favourite non trouser wear. They come from Seattle with bags of attitude, are warm, cool, comfortable, practical and outlandish all in one. I have 3 The Survival (above) a Rugged Workmans in black and an everyday ‘original’ in green. Frankly they are wonderful, dont worry what people will think, its not that far from a pair of shorts really - oddly i wear mine more often in winter than summer (I also have a ‘real’ wool kilt I got married in - but that’s too warm/formal for every day wear).

They will ship worldwide, and quickly if in stock, they have stores in Seattle and San Francisco and - well go get one ;) If you have the balls to wear it!

styledeficit: Note to self.

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 17:27:54 +0100

styledeficit:

Note to self.

Ok - I WANT this set up - Two Play 360 speakers in my living...

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 13:04:00 +0100

Ok - I WANT this set up - Two Play 360 speakers in my living room, to play music at home, a bh-111 headset for music while im commuting and a Nokia N9 to play with meego and NFC loveliness to link them all together.

Why - well look at them, lovely. They OOZE ‘want’ or as the americans say jonesing. Nokia are the only company in my opinion making hardware with the industrial design and quality that apple have taken the lead position globally.

Also it’s a linked set of devices, so ease of use, NFC means tap to pair - what could be easier. This again is what apple do SO well, a complete linked eco-system - If it’s easy people will use it. Just as entering your google account into any android phone - make its YOUR phone. OVI never quite made it as that eco system support, and I suspect meego will be missing it too. Windows Phone will have it via the XBOX/ZUNE and windows.

But the best thing is more wonderful stuff from lots of suppliers, making for great choice for consumers. I love apple gear, but I love android and nokia, kindle and lots of over amazing devices too. It’s all brilliant.

This morning at the tube I was handed a NEW metro high street...

Mon, 05 Sep 2011 14:25:59 +0100

This morning at the tube I was handed a NEW metro high street edition, I took one thinking it was a metro in a new size, but it’s a separate publication - focused on fashion. So while the content a bit rubbish (much like a normal metro) the size is very nice.

Newspapers, even tabloids are too big, they need an armchair or table to consume at a leisurely pace. Times have changed, I would buy the guardian if it came in this size (and ONE piece - rather than the 4 to 6 bits that normally spill out - and into the bin) I know they introduced the ‘Berliner’ size a few years back, but that was not a big enough change, it’s still too big to compete in the digital consumption age.

In fact when last year they had a campaign of just giving out copies of G2 with vouchers for the next days copy, I was quite happy - I like the size of G2, it didn’t make me want to buy the whole paper.