Yes, I'm A Nerd...

...and I have a badge to prove it.
Bill G. Bennett - Apple Certified Product Professional :)

Back To School Fail

Spotted this at Sainsbury's in Street. Maybe they need to send their manager "Back to Shcool" for some extra spelling lessons...

Reasons Not To Go To PC World: No. 1

Fifty quid to repair a keyboard?!??? You could buy a new one for a tenner...

iPhone 4 Camera

Having had my new iPhone 4 for a couple of days now, there are a few things that have impressed me - multitasking, the processor, and the battery life. However, one thing has truly blown me away - the camera. Take a look at this shot I just took - click the image for a full size view. Truly amazing, the autofocus with tap-to-focus just makes it superb.

The Train

...it could sound like a horror movie title, couldn't it? It may well be.

I've just arrived at the train station to get a train to Bristol, before changing to Manchester. Even though First Great Western boasts regularly about its' new line of flashy trains, it looks like i'm stuck with one from the 1980's or whatever. It's really old and rickety.

That's not the worst part though. The worst part is that it stops at every possible stop along the way, hasn't even left Taunton yet, and looks like there's no buffet car, so breakfast will have to wait another hour.

You may commence feeling sorry for me.

Orange Rockcorps

So, later on this week (Thursday to be precise), I'll be heading up to Manchester to take part in Orange Rockcorps.

I hear you ask... what's that?

Here's a quick video to give you an insight.



Basically, along with a load of other Orange employees, I'll be taking a day out of normal work to go and make a community in Manchester a better place for everyone. There'll be some painting, some scrubbing, some digging, and possibly some hammering too.

And afterwards, I'll be off to the Manchester Apollo to see Snoop Dogg, Vampire Weekend, Mr Hudson, and Tinie Tempah.

Rock on.

Nokia 2323 Review

For the last few days, I've been using the Nokia 2323, a basic phone I had lying around. I thought it was going to be hell but it's not actually been that bad.

First thing to note is that the Nokia 2323 costs under £40 SIM-free and unlocked, but is available for about £15-20 through the usual prepay providers when locked to a particular network as a pay as you go phone.

It's specifications on paper don't seem that amazing. No camera. No MP3 player. No memory card slot. But once you see beyond these, it packs an impressive punch.

First of all, the battery life is awesome. I charged it nearly 48 hours ago. It's been used a good amount, and still has 3 of the 4 possible bars of battery.

As you can probably see, the display is nice and bright, and the keys are spaced a good amount apart - nothing too fiddly.

It looks good, and feels good in the hand too.

As far as entertainment goes, it does have an FM radio, but I've not had a chance to try that out because I can't find the proprietary headset which I'm sure was in the box when I procured this phone last December. This it needs to operate the radio, as the phone uses it as an antenna.

Internet connectivity is a big plus for me. For the times when I can't carry my iPad around, I still like to be able to get at my emails, and check up on the latest goings-on on Facebook and Twitter. The Nokia 2323 has me covered.

As far as email goes, as soon as I pressed Menu, then Messages, there's an email option. I would expect it to have a go at me and demand my email server settings, but no - I'm asked "Do you already have an email account you want to use?". Great for the basic user, as selecting "No" proceeds to offer the user a free Ovi.com email account. However, I pressed "Yes", so the phone asks me for my email address. Nothing else.

Upon entering my email address, it goes away and finds my email settings. It decides that, since I'm using GMail, I'd be best off with IMAP rather than POP (so that my phone inbox synchronises with that on my gmail.com account), and asks for my password. After entering that, job done. Not an IMAP server address or port number in sight.

Lo and behold, my email inbox appears.

As soon as a new email comes through, I'm notified with a popup, since it seems to be maintaining a constant data connection to GMail. Happy days.

Web browsing is really good for such a budget handset. Not only does it come with the standard Symbian WAP browser, but Nokia seem to have decided that pre-installing Opera Mini would be a good idea too. Brilliant choice.

Opera Mini works brilliantly as a web browser, and satisfies all my internet-related cravings on the go. It's not hidden under the Applications menu either - it's right there in the place it should be: Menu, Internet, Browser. Job done.

It goes without saying that the call quality and signal quality of the Nokia 2323 are both really good. In my bedroom, where other phones struggle to pick up much signal, the 2323 doesn't have an issue.

Oh, and it's got the one feature that every Nokia should have:

Yes, it's Snake.

All in all, top marks to Nokia for proving that "budget" doesn't have to be a painful experience.