Caveat emptor: This review is UK-focused and may not be relevant to other World citizens. Prices and features are subject to change without me noticing and thus may be out-of-date.

I will not go into depth comparing phone features or even mention other smart phones exist – this describes my experience and conclusions based on doing a good deal of research as well as being somewhat limited to the two top-of-the-range phones in the UK today! Your mileage or opinions may vary. And now, without further ado…

iPhone and iOS versus HTC Desire HD and Android

The iphone is a mature phone platform which currently lags behind Android in terms of features and hardware choice, but lives off its strong market position and huge app-store.

Android is a less mature though rapidly growing platform, that offers tremendous choice and flavours (hardware & software), which is what your run-of-the-mill, common-garden-variety mobile phone user cares more about than status and wow-factor.

Having said that, the iPhone has the strongest brand values and is a great phone to use day-to-day. It’s a premium product with a premium finish and you will be paying dearly for this.

Let’s assume you have never had a contract phone or are fresh out of one and are looking for a top-of-the range smartphone that can do Facebook, Twitter, maps, GPS and HD video.

The HTC Desire HD as many features not found on the iPhone and its unique Sense user interface ties all your communication neatly together, so can keep abreast with all the goings-on more easily.

I won’t go into details here because there are simply way too many good, in-depth reviews of both the HTC Desire HD and iPhone 4 elsewhere. So you will have to take my word for it or spend days reading up on stuff yourself ;p

Even better, spend some time with both phones (or at least phone types) like I have and draw your own conclusions.

The HTC Desire HD has a bigger screen, better battery life, has a flash, better camera, better software / interface to use and slightly cheaper than the iPhone 4.

Next -> Giffgaff vs Vodafone vs Three

The same question is coming up with regular persistence on various camera forums: What bag for the EX3 (or similar)? Oh and it needs to fit carry-on luggage sizes.

You don’t want to end up having to hold your camera on your lap for a long haul flight or even a short one. Nor do you want to carry various bags with you from location to location. Travel light if at all possible!

There are many options out there, the one I chose may not be the right for you!

The way I fly

When I travel I want one bag to chuck everything into: charger(s), batteries, mic(s), cables, media, light, my 17″ laptop and last but not least the beast itself – my Sony EX3. Not a tall order at all then.

One bag? I was lying! There’s a lighting kit bag (3 lights), my tripod bag and a bag for my cloths and everything else I might need. The latter one is usually where I make stark choices: how much underwear do I really need for a weeks shooting? Can I make do with one pair of trousers and one pair of shoes?

Thankfully I don’t often have to lug around lights, so the damage is limited to one backpack, the tripod bag (which you can also take on the plane with you!) and my check-in trolley case for everything else.

There’s a well known size for carry-on luggage but not all airlines go by that standard. What it comes down to is what the staff tell you can go on or has to be checked in. Generally if you are flying from UK, if you can demonstrate that it’ll fit into their carry-on luggage frame at check-in you are golden. Sometimes you can cheat by taking stuff out, putting it into a plastic bag and then put it back in after. However, as with most things flying you are at several peoples mercy. From security staff who freak when they see your wireless mic adapter to check-in desk staff under strict orders to be as much as a pain as possible.

I show up with my bags and usually try to be as nice as possible. A bit of charm goes a long way! Especially with security staff who can get quite excited when you are trying to take so much electronics on board an aircraft.

The bag I chose is the Petrol Cocoon or PCBP-3N as Petrol call it. It’s a very comfy backpack, which weight you can barely notice even when loaded to the brim and lugged around all day! Yes, you will feel it after you take it off and have lunch.

When shooting I like to use a smaller rucksack instead but it depends on the situation.

The Petrol Cocoon will snugly fit your EX3 or EX1 or other camera of similar size. And it will do so safely!

I hope you found my little post helpful. What choices have you made? What is your experience flying with kit? I like to hear from you.

Petrol Cocoon PCBP-3N with Sony EX3 camera

Hand baggage Sizes and Comparison

British Airways Carry-on hand luggage specifications:
56cm x 45cm x 25cm (22in x 18in x 10in)
Petrol Cocoon PCBP-3N specifications:
61cm x 40cm x 32cm (24in x 16in x 12.5in)

The important bit!

As you can see the bag exceeds the regulation size for hand baggage that you can carry-on a plane! However, don’t forget that it is a bag and not a suitcase – you can shove it in to the frame easily enough. Just be careful not to be too forceful and take out anything you don’t need to carry on-board! Chargers, batteries, … you only want to keep the EX3 and the laptop safe. Good luck and try to remain calm when staff advise you that the bag is too big. Show them that it fits and how light it is.

PS: I got my gear from Prokit in London. All professionals, most of the kit is on display for you to try and they make a nice cup of tea while you wait to process your credit card. Say hi to Mark from me if you see or call them

One moment you think there’s just one choice to be made and then Canon come along and make you think about it all over again!

Hands-on information and independent reviews are scarce, in fact after Googling for a while none really any exist bar the obscene amount of PR mambo jumbo. I found just one review by a cameraman who has in-depth knowledge of the EX1(r) and got his hands on a Canon XF305 long enough to write up a useful post.

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Head on over to Robin Schmidt’s website to read his comparison of the Canon XF305 with the Sony EX1R. Thanks Robin!

If you fancy, why not dive into the discussion on DVinfo.net about Canon’s new XF series camcorders? There’s also a rather longish thread on DVXUser.com.

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I’ve tried various methods and providers over the course of the last few years but Google always seemed to come out top. There is the very nice Mint, there is the OpenSource piwik and grand pa’s favourite AWStats and way too many others to list here. From online service – like Google Analytics (GA) – where you put some JavaScript on your site to server based software that churns through your web servers log files (and eats CPU and memory and disk space in the process). All have their advantages and disadvantages, but in the end GA’s easy to use interface and comprehensive feature set (especially the integration with Google’s own advertising programme) always brought me back to them.

Along came Clicky Web Statistics with a fresh and up-to-date look and feel to it. It does what GA does but in my (humble) opinion I find it easier to find the information I’m looking for and that helps me bring more content that’s relevant to my blog’s readers. In the end that is the difference between a successful website/blog and one that is not: drawing the visitors you want without spending (lots of) money on advertising.

Clicky Web Statistics helps me identify not only where my visitors are but makes it plain easy for me to see what they were looking for. It’s also enabling me to put the JavaScript on my own server which is something GA has still not been able to do (not without lot’s of work anyway).

See it for yourself – it’s free! I’ve evaluated their service and now signed up with the annual PRO plan, which is quite affordable and money well spend because it helps me be more efficient.

Before you say it: yes, GA is completely free, but you will need to spend a lot of time learning how to get the most from it whereas Clicky gives me everything without the learning curve.

 

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My test results: xBench Comparison Site

Machine Specifications:
- MacBook Pro 17″ 3.06Ghz (mid-2009)
- 8GB 1067Mhz DDR3 RAM
- OCZ Vertex 256GB SSD Hard Drive (latest firmware)
- Mac OS X 10.6.2
- NVIDIA GeForce 9400M GT 512MB PCIe x16 Graphics Card

PS: Don’t forget to donate to keep xBench free and the developers in food and cloths!

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Let’s get a quick overview of what’s available. This list is by no means complete and is intendent to give you a quick overview of what is out there. Thanks to Pure Mac’s List of Browsers for a more complete and informative list:

• BumperCar
  Browser for kids with great parental controls.
• Camino (Firefox/Mozilla)
  Based on Firefox but written exclusively for the Mac. It’s lean and fast but lacks the plug-ins FF has (still).
• Firefox
  Secure, stable and highly customisable thanks to its plug-ins. Sadly it is also a big memory hog.
• Flock (Firefox/Mozilla)
  Another fine implementation of the Firefox source code, geared towards the social media revolution.
• iCab
  A fast browser build exclusively for the Mac.
• Internet Explorer
  Microsofts version of IE, even worse on the Mac and no longer supported or developed!
• Mozilla
  Mozilla is the umbrella organisation for Firefox, founded by Netscape. You source of fine open source software for the web. Not really a browser per-se… .
• Netscape (Firefox/Mozilla)
  If Mozilla is Firefox’s daddy, Netscape is Mozilla’s. Nowadays the grand daddy of web browsing is build from stable parts of Firefox’s source code.
• OmniWeb
  One of the few that want you to pay for them but it’s a good, fast browser with some nice and unique features.
• Opera
  Apparently the fastest browser on Earth, it has a lot of features and is both secure and stable. Available for a wide range of operating systems, including mobiles.
• Safari (Safari/Webkit)
  Apple’s own development and the Mac’s default browser. It’s fast and relatively stable and mature.
• SeaMonkey (Firefox/Mozilla)
  Based on Mozilla’s Firefox, this is a community efford to create a one-stop-shop solution by integrating email, IRC and web browsing in one app (just like the Mozilla suite).
• Shiira (Safari/Webkit)
  Another variation of Safari/Webkit and developed exclusively for Mac, aiming to be better than Safari.
• Sunrise (Safari/Webkit)
  My pick, it’s the fastest and lightest. Lacks plug-ins and other fancy stuff, but it has got tabs now and … well, it just works!

Finding the “right browser” for you is a difficult question to answer as everyone has different requirements. For example, I need a web browser to test my websites with, so using Firefox with it’s miriad of web-developement aiding extensions is the only choice (unless I want to use web-based tools). Wait – those handy plug-ins are simply web-based scripts wrapped in a tool bar or button!

And that’s when it hit me, I need all key browsers (Safari/Webkit, Firefox/Mozilla, Internet Explorer, Opera, OmniWeb…) to test my sites with as all of them have a slightly different take on what web standards should apply for them (the bastards!). But as my primary browser and tool, I require something fast and stable.

My choice would have to be Sunrise. It may look a little rough around the edges but that’s what I expect from a throrough-bred, web-racing machine just like I would expect a racing car to be without of a stereo or air-con. It’s brill. Try it!

Just looking for something free, stable and secure to browse Facebook and Gmail with? Use Safari or Camnio on the Mac, or what ever else takes your fancy. They are pretty much all the same, with varying degrees of usability and performance. Some have a feature or two you might find you cannot live without but essentially a web browser should do just that: enable you to browse the web.

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Flexiscale.com operate a pay-as-you-go (PAYG) billing model where you can set up a virtual server appliance to your liking (mine is 512MB RAM, 20GB HDD, 1 CPU running CentOS 5) and pay for what you use (i.e. CPU time at £0.05 per hour). You can change those settings any time you like and scale it up or down, without having to worry about buying memory or moving your files.

The minimum amount you need to charge your account with is £10 and I’ll be looking forward to seeing how long that will last me. All I’m running on the Virtual Server is Webmin (control panel), Apache2 with PHP5 including xCache and Zend to improve performance. My site runs on WordPress CMS which receives on average 150 unique visits a month, generating just about 700 page views. That’s according to Google Analytics anyway and is by no means the whole picture.

So far I’m impressed by how easy and fast the server grid performs. Compared to the cheap VPS the site ran on before, I feel like it has gotten a lot quicker.

Setting up your virtual grid appliance or virtual server is very straight-forward: Just pick a name, an operating system template (i.e. CentOS), add RAM and suitable hard disk space. Then tell the cloud grid system to start your server and lean back waiting for those worker processes to get it done.

All in all it way quick and pain-free. It took just a couple of minutes for the server to be ready. Thanks to a local YUM repo mirror updates and software installs were fast too.

I’ll keep you updated on how my grid hosted virtual server will perform and more importantly how much it’s going to cost. Stay tuned and watch this space.

Alexander Stigse from Denmark has made it happen and almost entirely by accident whilst creating an advanced version control system and demo app to show it off. When he got in touch with Allan Odgaard – the creator of TextMate – he found more synergy than he could have imagined.

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Funnily enough they both studied at the same Uni and Allan’s parents have a summer house in the same village Alex lives! How’s that for a small World? Anyway, on with my impressions and a big “thank you” to Alex and Allan.

Although I have come not to expect too much of any Windows softwareware, I was extremely delighted to see how well Alexander’s version called “e” works. Starting with a small download, a very fast install and automatic fetching, installation and configuration of add-ons (like cygwin).

For me TextMate is life-blood, my craft now depends on it and seeing the same look-and-feel translated to something as gruesome as the Windows GUI I cannot help but being impressed.

The most important part right after the interface design (usability) is that Allan agreed to let Alex use the wonderful bundles that help making TextMate such a breeze to use. Although there is still some way to go (e is still in beta) it’s a usable replacement even now.

Don’t be scared or put off by the fact that it’s beta, it’s actually working nicely. Also, get a personal license key now! It will help support the development and you are actually getting quite a lot thrown in if you do it now rather than later. I suggest you read Alex’s post on licensing and what’s on offer for more details.

And now, go download the beta and find out why I’m actually happy using a text editor on Windows for once

I was looking for a small camcorder to accompany the big one, to use as backup and those hard-to-reach places where big broadcast ones cannot go. Saving up for the big gear takes time and I wanted to get my hands dirty right away. The wishlist therefore was quite comprehensive considering my budget of around 400 Euros: DV-in and out, good manual controls, best possible image quality and of course mini-DV.

Since most mid-range consumer level camcorders are now DVD or HDD the choices appear to be a little limited if you look in the high street. Also, the reviews I had from DVinfo.net and camcorderinfo.com are US focused, so getting the “editors picks” over in Germany prooves a little hard. Why don’t I use German review sources? Simple, I don’t know them and the way Germans are testing gear is not what I’m looking for (Germans have a funny way of testing things, too clinical IMHO).

To cut a long story short, I found an gem in the Canon MVX 20i. It’s small, yet not too small and it has everything I wished for, for under 400 Euros from an online retailer called dnet24.de.

You can find a great in-depth review of the Canon MVX20i and its not very much bigger brother 25i on SimplyDV.net.

The only shame is that I spotted a dead pixel on the fold out screen already. It’s not really that bad but it’s a little annoying nevertheless. Also, a little camera noise can be heard and the colour viewfinder is – as on most consumer camcorders – absolute rubbish. Again as with most consumer camcorders, there’s no way to manually adjust audio recording levels. Other than that, it’s a great little camcorder for the money.

Although it’s only intended as a backup cam and tape-deck, I recommend buying the Rode VideoMic to get the most out of it. The difference between the build-in mic and a proper external one is tremendous! You can find a decent review on the VideoMaker.com test bench. The VideoMic can be found on eBay for under a hundred Euros / Dollars plus shipping.

Amazon Product link.

Sources:

http://www.canon.co.uk/For_Home/Product_Finder/Camcorders/Digital/MVX20i

http://www.simplydv.co.uk/Reviews/canon_mvx25i.html

http://www.videomaker.com/scripts/article.cfm?id=12163

http://www.rodemic.com/?pagename=Products&product=VideoMic

What you can expect for 200 Euros is 1440x900px resolution, (sometimes) DVI and SVGA connectivity, 8ms response time, 300 cd/m2 brightness and 500:1 contrast. The HannsG HW191D for around 190 Euros is one of those choices and looks great on paper, has a high contrast of 700:1 but no leads (around 10 Euros). Acer’s new Value Line 19″ Widescreen also looks like a fine big-brand monitor and would make a sound choice.

Walking into my next door electronics supermarket (MediMax) I was suprised to find a gem with all the bells and whistles for just 220 Euros (including both DVI and VGA cables!). The new HP w19 19″ widescreen TFT monitor. Considering it has a slim case, comes in Apple’s PowerBook silver and includes all the cables, I felt compelled to just take it home with me.

Plugging it into my 15″ 1.67Ghz PowerBook’s DVI port it worked as I advertised. OS X correctly identified the monitor as the HP w19 and automatically set it to its native resolution and own colour profile. The picture is crisp and clean. Better in fact than the build-in screen of my PB, which shows some uneven brightness (darker patches). This I assume is due to the thin casing that holds the screen.

One important thing to bear in mind when considering going widescreen is that they do in fact have (a little) less real-estate than their 4:3 brothers. I’ve compared my new HP w19 with a standard Philips 190S6 19″ TFT monitor and here are the shocking(?) results:

HP w19: Screen width 41,5cm x height 25,5cm = 1.058,25cm
Philips: Screen width 37,5cm x height 30,0cm = 1.125,00cm

My new w19 has a native resolution of 1440x900px (1.296.000px or 1.29mpx) whereas the Philips only has 1280x1024px (1.310.720px or 1.31mpx). In terms of total resolution both are pretty much the same, however a standard 4:3 has slightly more.

As with the gross space of your living room the same holds true for monitor gross screen sizes: It’s the shape and indended usage that counts. I chose a new monitor based on playing games, watching DVDs and editing video in Final Cut Pro. As a graphic media designer I have a lot of pallets to accomodate (i.e. Photoshop) or a timeline and two preview screens in FCP. Another bonus of a widescreen is that I can have my bookmarks/downloads/etc open in the Firefox sidebar and still have a large browser window to fit big portal sites. Having a wide screen simply helps to keep things nicely organised and convenient for me. A standard 4:3 simply doesn’t work as well.

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Links: Manufacturer Homepage, Product Specifications (PDF)

Unless you are 16 or have spent the last 10 years in the remote desert, you probably remember that web-portals were all the rage back in the late 90s. After a decent amount of crashing and burning shortly after, we all thought things would mature and the hype die down finally. Hold that tought because it appears that the survivers of the great search engine wars are running out of ideas, so they are re-heating the same old junk that a lot of people found not-so-very-exciting even when it was first brand new.

Check out the all new My Yahoo! and give Google’s Personalised Startpage (or Dashboard as I like to call it) a try. It’s the same old concept of cramming a lot of content into a single page. Now all this seems even easier thanks to RSS. Google allows you to simply pull your listings from anywhere with an RSS feed. Yahoo counters with top-class content from the major news and entertainment providers, plus a lot of other goodies (like cartoons for example). Yahoo offers the use of RSS / XML feeds as well.

Google being Google, I find their Dashboard easy, fast loading and it does what it says on the box in a professional manner. My Yahoo on the other hand, which used to be my startpage of choice a few years ago, does what it did back than: confuse, clutter and generally be hard to use as much as hard on the eye.

Where Google uses fantastically easy to use AJAX containers which can be dragged and dropped around the page, Yahoo! requires users to go through a submenu page and then some. Google’s clean, sometimes a little bland design works especially well with loads of content on the page. You simply never get lost.

Yahoo on the other hand offers lots of themes to choose from, none as easy and fast as Googles and sadly their default theme also comes with an eye watering patterned background image.

On the whole I find Google’s Dashboard much easier to use, more grown up and a lot quicker. It’s what I want and need. My favourite links, top five latest news entries from my top three news sources, the weather and some usefull bits on the side.

In my humble opinion My Yahoo! fails even more than it did back in the days. It’s too much clutter, too many options that are even harder to use by being burried under menus and other stuff all over the place.

If you are looking for the worlds best search engine combined with a useful starting page, choose Google. If you have too much time on your hands choose My Yahoo.