Getting Photos Off A Verizon LG Accolade

Just a quick one, I suspect that there are a few people out there who may be searching for a way to get their photos off a Verizon LG Accolade mobile phone. The problem is that plugging it into the USB port only seems to want to act as a modem, and using the LG PC Suite over Bluetooth seems flakey at best, returning a "Cannot Get IMEI" error most of the time.

May I recommend BitPim. It's free, and lets you get all your stuff - texts, calendar, and most importantly photos - off the phone over USB, without having to do it the way Verizon wants you to do it, by paying to email each photo to yourself over the network. It's worked great for getting a few photos off my Verizon phone from my recent trip to Texas.

You can download it free at bitpim.org, then simply let it auto-detect the phone, toggle the button at the top to allow editing the filesystem, then navigate all the menus until you find the one with some files that are 10 digit numbers for names (date and time stamp), usually around 100KB to 300KB (shown as between 100000 and 300000 in size, because BitPim shows file sizes in bytes).

Hope this helps someone!

Deal Alert: HP Touchpad 16GB Tablet - Around £120

EDIT: As at 1.42pm today, they're all sold out. Deal over.

The HP Touchpad is HP's competitor to the iPad, a very similar product for web browsing and email. It sells in the UK for £349, which is a bit of a mediocre price, but in the US it's just come down the $99 due to HP killing off it's hardware business.

With this in mind, you can buy one at Best Buy for $99 (about £65), and then get it shipped to an American address using the Bundlebox service, who will then forward it to the UK for you. Their fees and shipping (and customs fees included) look to be about $70.

All in, you should be able to get one to the UK for about £120.

Go forth and shop!

Microsoft in Gender Prescription Shocker!

Lucky me - I "won" an XBox.com "contest" for a free t-shirt for my on-screen avatar to wear.

Unfortunately, it decided that my avatar won a "female cut" one. This wouldn't be a problem, except for the fact that Xbox won't let my avatar cross-dress, instead providing a scathing error message:

"This code cannot be redeemed because the item will not fit your avatar's gender. You may want to share this code with a friend who can wear it."

Now, from when I last checked, Microsoft doesn't know my build. It doesn't know that it won't "fit". I might be a very skinny guy with a feminine frame. Whatever next - will it be telling fat women "Sorry, this female t-shirt won't fit your avatar because in real life you're lardy, why not let it wear this bin bag instead?"

The LGBT community would be outraged. Or something. Maybe.

Although, Amy has a very good point when she comments that "for all you know the Kinect is watching you ;) It's been measuring you while you sleep and reckons your shoulders are too broad". I suppose that's Big Brother for you - which, coincidentally, launches on Channel 5 tonight - but I will not be blogging about for reasons of integrity as a human being.

London Riots: Heist Of The Century?

Throughout history, many great heists have taken place. Bank vaults emptied with military precision, crown jewels sneaked past guards in the dead of night.

But tonight will go down in history as the day that one man excelled all previous records and earned his place in the record books, and probably somewhere in the tabloids too, as the dumbest looter ever...

Sainsburys - The Nanny State Supermarket

Of course, it's probably all for our own good. For you see, I have just found out that they wanted to see my ID to buy non-alcoholic cider...

That's some fine police work there, Lou...

Luckily, I was allowed to buy as many beefburgers as I wanted, without let or hindrance.

I'm expecting some kind of response along the lines of "human error", maybe the cashier didn't notice or something - but no, that won't wash, because it's obvious that the tills are set up to stop minors purchasing this particular product.

So c'mon Sainsburys... what's the story?

NHS Healthspace - A Complete Waste of Taxpayers' Money

The NHS has an ongoing project, known as Connecting For Health. The basic idea was that they wanted to save money and increase efficiency by linking everything (patient records and so on) up to one big computer system, to be shared between hospitals, GPs, NHS Direct, and other services.

A great idea at the time, but many years on, still a damp squib it would seem. Basically, it's involved the NHS paying craploads of money to various private IT companies - I think IBM is in there somewhere amongst others - and not getting a lot in return.

One service that it has spawned is called HealthSpace. The idea for this is that you, as the patient, should be able to view your own information on a secure website, to be able to maintain it, and notify them of any errors. It should also be available as a "Summary Care Record" to places like hospitals, so they can treat you more effectively if you end up in A&E.

Being one to try a new service, when it was announced back in early 2009 - yes, two years ago - I was at the front of the queue to sign up. I dutifully filled in the forms, and trekked on a specified day to my doctor's surgery to meet with someone from HealthSpace HQ, who would check over my ID, verify who I was, and provide me with a "Secure Log-in Card" - basically a grid of numbers and letters to log in with. It's worth noting that this card was supplied by Entrust, who I assume were being paid a lot of money to dole them out.

After logging into the HealthSpace website, I am greeted by a notice that there is no information about me at the moment. OK, maybe it's taking them a little while to upload it all. I try again a few weeks later. Still nothing. I give up.

Now, two years on, I've suddenly been notified that my information is online. Hurrah! I log in, remembering my credentials from two years ago, and rush to view what information is on there about me.

Yes, it has my name. It has my address. It lists Nadine's mobile number as my own, but that can be forgiven, I guess. On to the meaty stuff. I click "View Your Medical Record".

What do I see? No mention of any of my medical conditions - nobody viewing this would know I was epileptic, and nobody would know of my allergies either. The only thing you can view is the medication I'm on, but it doesn't say why. Apart from this, the only other piece of information about me is my address history going back about 8 years, with every address from when I was at uni, and everywhere since, with "From" and "To" dates.

Seriously, the NHS spent all this money on developing a system that has less info about me than the electoral roll and the Medic Alert card in my wallet.

Something about me feels galled that so much public money has been ploughed into something so, well, crap.