Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
September 23rd, 2008
Apparently the Times called this film “Delightful”, and “4 stars” says the Daily Mirror. In fact, this films seems to have received rave reviews from critics across the bored. So it was with some confidence that Katie and I rented Mike Leigh’s latest offering last night.
The only accolade I can think of to give this bore feast of a film is that it holds the record for putting Katie to sleep in the least time possible, I think she lasted 2.65 seconds. Sally Hawkins was the only saving grace in the “feel good” picture, I hope she goes on to better things than this.
I’d love to give you a run down of the plot, or at least the basic premise, but there really was none. Follow any 30-something Londoner around for a week, observing them at even the most mundane task and you’ll have an experience a lot like Happy Go Lucky. About 45 min in I took to forwarding through the chapters on the DVD to see if it would eventually go somewhere - it didn’t. Thank goodness I didn’t waste my time on it. I feel sorry for the people who sat though it (trapped like rats on a sinking ship) at the cinema.
My advice is avoid this film at all costs. 0/10.
4 Comments »
May 13th, 2008
Gadgets - I flippin’ love ‘em almost as much as I love web geekary, so a system that combines the two sounded right up my street. (Actually, what is right up my street is a cost-cutter and a pizza place, but that’s another story).
Nike have just launched their new Nike+ Sportsband. This is a small USB pen type device that straps around your wrist and links wirelessly to a small accelerometer in your shoe. After running (or walking) the device connects to your computer and uploads all of it’s data to your online Nike+ account, where you can set challenges, goals, training programs and (even better) compare your stats with those of other runners from all over the world.
Performance
In terms of accuracy, the Nike+ system is spot on. I calibrated the device using a know 1/4 mile and it got it dead on. Even using a small pouch to hold the sensor rather than the official Nike+ shoes the accuracy is perfect.
The website is a bit of a hit and miss affair - The runs get uploaded ok, but the training section doesn’t really work for me at all. They need to debug that thing big time. But, there’s enough other features on there to keep me happy - and it’s the tracking of the runs that really interests me anyway.
Price
As I’ve only just started running, I didn’t want to invest in an expensive pair of running shoes - So I brought a £40 pair of New Balance 736’s. To attach the Nike+ sensor to the shoes I used good old eBay to get a neoprene pouch that threads through the laces for £8 (inc P&P). That works really well, it’s only just bigger than the sensor so it holds it very tightly - which is important for the accuracy of the sensor.
The actual Nike+ band (including the sensor) is £40, which I thought was quite reasonable.
I really wouldn’t recommend that anyone start like I did though - Get to a proper running shop and get yourself on their treadmill. They’ll be able to tell you what kind of shoes you need to support your particular style of running. I need to do this sharpish!
Verdict
I love it! Perfect for keeping me motivated and challenged, and at £40 it’s reasonably priced. I just wouldn’t go buying the expensive Nike+ running shoes.
UPDATE! Mon, 19th May
Ok, I’m not so happy. A couple of times the band failed to load my latest run onto the nike+ website. As this is the main functionality of the band, I’m pretty disgusted at this product right now. I’ve emailed the support guys, so lets see what that say… Watch this space.
8 Comments »
February 29th, 2008
I have to applaud the BBC who have been pioneers of pushing new web media web services since the inception of www.bbcnc.org.uk (BBC Network Club) in 1994. And though a little rough around the edges sometimes, they always managed to achieve something special. They really thought about their output - which is what you want from a name as prestigious as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
Then The iPlayer. And in one word, wow! Gone is the terrible terrible choice of RealPlayer, replaced with the much more robust and reliable Flash (not to mention the wide-spread support of the Flash-plugin). The design is fresh and very functional. The ajax is usful but not overcooked and most importantly of all - I can watch whatever I want, when I want. Truly the BBC embracing the way programs will be accessed in the future. They’ve seen that transmission is dead, and have taken a BIG step towards content on demand.
The New Homepage
I really want to hate the new homepage, and to be fair there’s lots of things to hate about it.
Stuff I hate
- It’s not exactly (erm, how do I say this nicely) very professional looking. Come on BBC, you’ve been pioneering new media for the last 12 years, and you’ve come up with this?! You’d hardly describe this as having finesse. There’s little attention to detail - it’s all rather big and somewhat over cooked.
- It’s fixed width - which in itself isn’t a bad thing. I’m not about to slate a website for being fixed width when 99% of the things I design are. But in this case it just feels lazy. The BBC must have a whole team of designers working on their flag-ship web page, and they couldn’t solve the problem of catering for different screen sizes while still having movable content? Come on, Netvibes managed to do it.
- The text size by default is big - which again isn’t a bad thing. But this feels like the design would have benefited from a smaller text, then allow users to increase the text size through some cookie-stored accessibility options. So what happens when you increase the text size now? Well, try it. One text size bigger is OK (just about) but two causes all the boxes to crash into each other.
- There’s a LOT of functionality they should (could) have included, but didn’t. I’m sure there’s some important internal wrangleings that went on here - after all the bbc want only their own content, but think of this situation :- There’s a flood, and the BBC are the first to report on it. But, they don’t have any decent pictures - so make a call for public photos. A user has some excellent photos on flickr (or facebook, or whatever) and has enabled his “BBC photo viewer” which pulls in his photos to the homepage. He then simply clicks the ’submit these photos to a story’ button, et volia! The BBC have the photos. And they’re more likely to get submissions to as the process is now much easier. It’s catering for everyone - It just seems that the BBC wanted a content rich, Web 2.0 homepage, but have missed a trick somewhere along the line.
- One (tiny) niggle I have is that the navigation on the top-right fixed contact block controls the colour of the whole page. Why? What has this content got do with the rest of the page
Well, I said I wanted to hate the new page, but it’s growing on me. Yes, it could have been better - but it’s certainly a step in the right direction. I understand some of the decisions they’ve made in relation to text size, functionality and overall design but I really thought they could have done something far better. These are the guys behind the superb iPlayer after all. I hope they can continue to build on this step in the right direction.
What would I have done?
Well, I had a quick play a while ago (when the beta was around) and did a fixed width and fluid version of the homepage. Well, at least started to. They’re not finnished, but you’re more than welcome to give them as sound a thrashing as I’ve given the official version.
9 Comments »
February 11th, 2008
ebuzzing is a new pay-to-blog service from France, just launched in the UK. Their man Dan dropped me an email asking me to give it a look see, so here’s what I thought of it.
As a rule, I really don’t like pay-to-blog (P2B) sites as they’re usually really restrictive on what you can write about. Why would you write a review on a product you don’t own or particularly care about? Selling your integrity to the man has never been high on my agenda with this site, but Dan insisted that ebuzzing was different…
They basically have two ways to feed the blogger content - Network and Direct.
Network is the regular fare I’ve come to expect from P2B sites - there’s a big list of products and services that people want you to blog about with a price they’re willing to pay for you to do so. I say big list with some trepidation, as currently the ebuzzing UK site only has a request to review their own site (cue this review). Dan assures me that the French network is much bigger and they’re working hard to bring across some of their French partners as well as some big British advertisers.
Direct is what makes ebuzzing somewhat different. When you sign up for an account and add in your blog you’re given a recommended price per article (or you can specify your own). This is based on several things (technorati rank, inward links, etc.) but it looks like it’s mainly based on your Google page rank.
As far as I understand the idea behind this is - Advertisers that have a particular product or service they wish blogged. They are then presented with a list of blogs that write about that sort of stuff (via a number of tags you specify). I actually really like this idea - it means (at least if it works like it says on the tin) that you’ll only get offered the sorts of stuff you’d normally blog about anyway. And, if they’ve got any brains, the advertisers will have read a bit of your blog and know that what they have to offer will be well received. That way - less selling out and a nice little earner for you - just for writing about the stuff you normally would anyway.
If this actually works remains to be seen - but at least ebuzzing have thought outside the box a little.
The only other thing I’d like to say about their service is their website. Good idea, slightly rickety website. It’s still a little rough around the edges (for instance, some of the Javascript popup alerts are still in French). The whole site needs some serious interaction re-design. It’s not really intuitive or easy to use. But I think once they’ve sorted that out they’ll have a potential killer service.
In summary - ebuzzing is a great idea that hinges on them getting some big blogs together with some decent advertisers. Do that, and they’re in the money.
This is a sponsored article
10 Comments »
November 13th, 2007
That’s right, the moment you’ve been waiting for is just around the corner. Thurs 15th sees the boys return in series 3 of the Boosh on BBC 3. If you’re a UK dweller, you can see it now on the BBC 3 website - That is if you can put up with the turd that is Realplayer… Why oh why did the BBC choose such a cack media type?
Oh well, You Tube has it too (no, I’m not going to link to it - where would be the fun in that?). And yeah, they’re back in true form. Maybe not quite as quality as the genius that was Old Greg with a funky ball of tits from outer space, but good things will come.
Episode one, Eels, sees the return of the Stitcher and his Chelsea boots - and some obvious increases in production budget. Genius genius genius all the way. They’re back! Get in!
3 Comments »
October 22nd, 2007
One word - Genius!
And all from a 22 year old singer / songwriter who hails from London. If you’re not familiar with the name then you’ll probably know his song ‘Dream catch me’ which has been getting quite a lot of radio play. Personally, I’d not heard him until Dan was going on about him last night. Like many new bands and artists someone tells you about - you tend to go “yeah, cool” then forget all about them.
But then he showed me this.
LOOK at that body slapping! HOW does he do this, and sing and play the melody too?! How do you get your brain to process that much all at once? Man… this guy is good.
So today I got his album ‘Hand Built by Robots’. Again.. Wow.
Check him out. See him live. Hook him up with your mother… Or even better get his album, which is available on iTunes and (i’m sure) in all good record stores. And yes, it includes that amazing version of Teardrop.
5 Comments »
July 5th, 2007
I’ve got a cool new icon on my dock, that of Joost - an on demand Web TV service. First impressions are pretty good, for a ‘friends only’ beta it works well and the programs load and buffer pretty well (although that could have something to do with my shiny new ADSL connection).
Joost is a stand alone application that links to their service. It starts up in full screen mode, and works pretty much like any other digital on demand service. You can pick your channel and show from an easy to use menu. There’s also a ‘My Joost’ menu with things like an on screen clock, but I didn’t really see the point in all this.
It’s an ad paid for system, but that’s cool, and you only get one 30 second advert for each 15 min of TV.. Which is a lot better than ITV.
One thing I did miss was an indication of how much of the program was buffered. I really missed the ability to pause and let the stream catch up with itself, this would have saved a little jerkiness I noticed later on. Maybe when some of the US users were logging on and slowing the servers?
It performed pretty well in window and full screen modes, although don’t expect HD quality. The compression is pretty obvious on a 15″ screen, although it looks mint in window mode.
I’ll be looking forward to this system getting noticed and attracting some (much) better programing, as to be honest the shows they have at the moment are a little pants. Anyway, if you want to check it out, drop me a line and I’ll invite you..
6 Comments »
June 29th, 2007
So Rob tells us all about Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount, specifically the part where Jesus is talking about the law ‘and eye for an eye’ and he says
But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. (Matt 5:39)
Which is arguably one of Jesus’ most quotable moments. It’s fundamental to some people’s understanding of who Jesus was. If someone hits you, stand there and take it, don’t hit back, don’t do anything. The message bible even translates what Jesus said as this. But last night, Rob explained it in a way I’d never heard before.
In Jewish culture at the time of Jesus people had a ‘clean’ hand (right) and a ‘dirty’ hand (left). The right hand would be used for greeting people, eating, working and all manor of task you couldn’t really use your left for as your ‘dirty’ hand was often engaged in matters of personal hygiene and it was considered unthinkable to use it for anything but it’s intended, very specific, job.
So when you hit someone, you’d obviously only ever use your right hand.
There’s something else about the culture at the time that you need to know. It was a highly class driven - Everyone knew their place, and everyone had their place. So the way you hit someone depended on who you were to them. A master hitting a servant for example would only ever slap them, they would never ever use a fist as this would validate that servant as an equal. And if all the other servants are watching, well, you’ve got yourself anarchy on your hands.
So if someone strikes you on the right cheek, with their right hand… They’re not making a fist.
No, they’re slapping you. They’re saying ‘you are not worthy of a fist’. In other words, they’re better than you. And in Jesus’ time, the most likely people to think they’re better than you are the conquering Romans.
So turning the other cheek is an act of defiance, it’s saying ‘you cannot take my dignity’. It’s saying ‘take your best shot, but this time as an equal‘. Jesus doesn’t go for the hit back or do nothing approaches, no, he goes for the third option. The option which takes infinitively more courage and imagination than the first two.
And this is how Rob Bell started his hour or so talk, I’ve no where near done it justice here. There’s what I think I knew about Jesus, and there’s what I find out when I actually look at the scriptures and what they’re saying in the context of the society of the time. Jesus wasn’t a passive, weak individual. He was a subversive, who stood up for the oppressed, weak and poor. I for one want to find out more.
Rob Bell continues his tour in Glasgow on 30th June. If you can, go check him out.
6 Comments »
October 27th, 2006
I dunno why I found this so funny, well, interesting I guess.. Paul in the office brought a Loyd Grossman soup that supposedly you can fit in the microwave. When he discovered that it actaully wouldn’t fit in our stinky office micro he decided to exercise his consumer rights by writing a review of the soup on a certain review site…
Paul said:
Hey Loyd! Next time you design the packaging for a soup suitable for microwave heating why not make sure it stands up in the microwave?
Which I thought was a pretty resonable thing to say, the people at the review site however had other ideas…
Dear poppa999,
Thank you for submitting your review of Lloyd Grossman Maris Piper Potato & Leek soup to Review Centre (www.reviewcentre.com). Unfortunately it has not been approved for one or more of the following reasons.
1. Your review was too short and hence may not have contained enough valuable information.
2. Your review may have been on a religious or political topic or contained sexual content.
3. We feel that you may be reviewing your own or a competitor’s product for the good of your own business.
4. Your review criticised other people or a business in such a way that to publish it might make Review Centre liable to legal action.
Please do not let this discourage you from re-writing your review or writing further reviews on the website.
Kind Regards,
The webmaster
So it seems that even when you have a valid point, you can’t get it aired. Hmm.. maybe I’m just running out of ideas of what to write. More soon.
6 Comments »
October 23rd, 2006
The place? Little Chef, Oxford Peartree Services, A34, England. The breakfast? A sausage, a rasher of bacon, a hash brown, baked beans and scrambled “eggs”.
In an attempt to bring you wholy interesting and original content.. Here is a review of a breakfast I ate while visiting the very fine and historical town of Oxford. Traditionally the Little Chef was something that filled my heart with dread, the childhood memories of long car journeys and sweaty pancakes are still all to clear in my mind. It was then with a sense of trepidation that I boldly ordered a “early starter” (it was 12 noon) breakfast.
To be fair it was mainly yum, and the hash brown (an old Roobottom family favorite) went down a treat. It was only when I came to consume what I could only presume to be scrambled eggs that things started to look down. As you may be able to see from the photograph, the eggs were very skillfully avoided while the rest of the breakfast was polished off with aplomb.
So, there you have it, another exciting incite to the wonderful world of Roobottom. Comments on the subject of breakfasts in general are welcome, although specific comments about the Little Chef would be applauded.
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