Alfred's musings

I'm posting this from a Pixel , and have my first chance to get my hands on it... and I'm impressed! Why? It's really well made and beautiful. The screen is exceptionally sharp, and the machine is lighting quick. Opening up my gmail account was instantaneous... no wait, no loading screen... and this is on a machine that has never seen me before. Back lit keys, key weight, screen image (from any angle), touch pad surface, build quality all count towards just a beautiful, slick experience. And I'm sure the touch screen will just become the norm over time. Triaging a few emails by touching the screen made for a welcome change, and it's very usable. I like it! On the down side: I'm looking forward to a UK keyboard, more touch geasture aware sites and built-in 3G or faster mobile data access. Would I buy one now? If money was no object, absolutely!

I've got a big plan to build a all singing & dancing lighting (& automation) system for our new home, and decided to use Arduino to act as controller unit (with lots of IO). I got hold of an Arduino board, and within a few hours of playing with it, I've got my own code on the Arduino now switching on/off a couple of relays based on other sensors. Next, in order to control the lighting from a tablet or phone, I wanted some way to address the Arduino via an IP network, some JSON API or something. One option is to get the Ethernet shield for Arduino, but as it was as expensive as a Raspberri Pi, I opted to buy the Pi. In again less than two hours of playing, I've got my RPi up and running with an Apache web server that I can interact with. The point is this: In under a week elapsed time (including shipping!), just spending a few hours in the evening in front of the TV, with no prior knowledge of Arduino or Raspberry Pi or even any prior Linux experience, it was eas...

I recently bought Hue Light bulbs , and I am very excited about the possibilities of these bulbs. And, as hoped, they can (subject to deep pockets as they cost £50 per bulb!) become the backbone of a nice lighting system @ home. Essentially, these are LED light bulbs that just screw into a 220V light bulb socket. (Cheap, compact bayonet cap converters are available .) They switch on/off like a normal light bulb, but save a bit of energy and fade in/out so it's a bit nicer. But wait. There's more. They can change colour too. And all can be controlled by an iPhone or Android app. And the idea is that you can set up a scene that has one corner of your room a bit more red, and the rest a bit more orange so that you get the feeling the sun is setting right in your living room, or blue & white to remind you of your Greek holiday... Technically, the bulbs contain some Zigbee 2-way device to device communication that talks to the Philips Hue hub. The hub connects via Ethe...

On turning on my Chromebook at work today (I don't bother brining my Mac to work any more), I noticed that, instead of the usual screen mirror or switch, I can now view my desktop on *both* my Chromebook screen and external monitor with no problem... at full resolution, just like what Windows or a Mac could do. If you spend most of your time on the web, a Chromebook really becomes more and more compelling!

Thanks for the tip  +Allister Frost  - the "Science of persuasion" is a good reminder of the things we could be doing every day to increase our ability to influence.

I've been lucky enough to receive a prototype Nexus 10 a few months ago to help testing. Thank you Google! And, until recently, I did not float my boat. Why? Well, my Motorola Xoom is pretty good too (and also on a fresh recent Android Build), and it was not very stable, being a new device that is still in Prototype stage. BUT, this all changed... all except for the Xoom that is still a great device, and now the preferred media player in our house (that also have a Windows Media Center machine connected to the big TV). What changed? The Nexus 10 got the latest Android bits which is just soooo sweet and smooth, and I'm now allowed to take it out of the office, and suddenly it's real value came to light. Being office bound (and pre-release) just limited the value so much. Now that I can read on the train, and productively clean my inbox AND create content (the keyboard is awesome), craft responses, plan the day productively... it's beautiful. The screen is fantasti...

Right now, my favourite three gadgets are these: My helicopter. This Syma S107G is incredible because it's so simple to fly (thanks to incredible electronics). It's lightweight and my son and I love to try and fly it around the table and then land it on a small Lego platform. I paid £12. (And then another £60 for 5 more... some of my friends have their Christmas presents ready ;)) It's really an engineering marvel: The quality of design, materials and electronics all really impress. Put it this way: If there was a life-sized version, I would not have hesitated to get in myself. My new heaphones. After reading this Machable article , I just bought 'em. (I think I was sort of spending my Christmas bonus early, without thinking it through!) But I love 'em. They are really a class *way* above what I'm used to compared to my fairly expensive floor standers and I even prefer it to my Google-issued Sennheiser HD 280 pro cups, and definitely over my Sennheiser in-e...