6 posts tagged “toshiba”

Pretty damn cool, eh?  TV needs a kick up the arse (ass for you North Americans) - perhaps this is it?  Gotsta love the remote though...

Apologies for the embedded video, it clearly doesn't fit properly and I'm too lazy to do anything about that!  Just double click on it and go to the source if it bugs you too much!

If you've got a newish S60 phone and access to some mysterious black and white codes, you too can have a bit of fun with augmented reality!

Just go to gofindit.net where you can download the application and the codes.  The codes will work just as well on an LCD screen as well as printed out.  Actually, I think they work better on a back-lit screen rather than 'old school' paper.

The clever technology behind all this is from HIT Lab NZ (the NZ stands for New Zealand, funnily enough) and they have a bunch of interesting projects on their site, including ones you can download and have a play with.  In this instance they licensed the technology to agency Wunderman for a Ford Ka campaign promoted by wearesocial.

So, T-Mobile UK have those ads for finding more minutes in the most unlikeliest of places.  They're not entirely accurate (but then they're ads, are they not?) and so 3 UK made a spoof ad.

Well I'm out of minutes, opps.  Can't find any cows as I'm a townie... 'what's a cow?'  Tried getting me more minutes by ringing 333 but that just turned out to be a comically frustrating call.  Good job I did find a friend to take pity on me, he'll be bunging me his spare phone tomorrow.  It's contract, he doesn't use it but contract has yet to run out.  Spare minutes aplenty!

Now to find the numbers for premium rate services in Outer Mongolia (only kidding!)

Him and his good wife have currently got my Eee PC as the muppet my mate spilt wine on theirs.  Kinda feels like Swop Shop!  Anyhoo, I hope talkToshiba don't want this Tecra M9 back anytime soon, I've grown very attached to it...

talkToshiba were very kind to loan me a Tecra M9.  I've rarely been apart from it other than to go to the loo (there are some places where tech doesn't belong!)  The laptop would (un)appear to be invisibly tethered to me.  So why haven't I been blogging about it?  Good question!

Other than the usual hiccups you get with Windows Vista (who am I kidding, with computers in general!) the thing just works!  Thinking about it, most things are software related and not hardware issues at all.  I think Microsoft can take the blame for the majority, not Toshiba.  As I'm no expert (as some know only too well!) I leave that aspect aside.  Want a review that digs deep, makes comparisons and benchmarks?  You are so in the wrong place!

What can I say then?  Well I've come to the conclusion that if I were to only have one laptop, I'd want one like the Tecra (ideally smaller, and perhaps a tad lighter) rather than a subnotebook/mini laptop/netbook.  Comparing chalk and cheese?  Perhaps, but many of us can only afford to buy one.  My Eee PC 900 that cost nearly $600 (£315 at the time) just doesn't compare.  I can fit both in my bag, both are portable, both can stand a full day (and my back and shoulder) can stand either.  But only one lasts around 3 hours on a single charge, handles HD video and can capture, edit and encode DV.

The Eee PC lasts only an hour (sometimes less).  It has trouble running Firefox with just a few tabs open.  It is absolutely useless, a piece of junk.  It is the Fisher Price of laptops (and I'm being unfair to Fisher Price).  I'm now struggling to find any redeeming factors.

Anyway, back to the Tecra... My latest videos were all done on the Tecra M9.  I've just used the basic Windows Movie Maker and to be honest it meets my needs.  More on that later as well as the things that bug me (including the fingerprint scanner).

I've been scanning a few things today and I printed out a bunch of brochures on Tuesday.  All as easy as pie.  Where should the credit go - Brother, Toshiba or Microsoft?  I don't know, all I know is that these things used to be way more complicated!

I'm currently using the Tecra M9 that talkToshiba kindly loaned me and it has become my main computer.  My desktop hasn't been used in a fortnight and, quite frankly, I'm not missing it!  I hadn't wanted to print or scan anything until this week, but when I did I was reluctant to boot up my PC just for a few minutes use.  It turned out I did need to...

I simply plugged the USB cable from my Brother DCP-115C into the Tecra M9 and both played nicely, did what I wanted and required no silly drivers, no need for updates, no stupid error messages and no fuss.  No manual required, no help file needed, no googling for advice, no anything!

We often hear about 'plug and play' but in reality it's often 'plug and pain'.  For me, it's a refreshing change for things to work so effortlessly.  Thumbs up to whoever made it happen.  Is it a Vista thing?  Might have to try my Linux-flavoured Eee and the Brother next.

Ordinarily I'd apologise for making such a mistake (blaming Tiscali when the fault lay with Sky).  But, as we're talking about Tiscali, I won't.  They don't deserve one after the 'service' I've received from them over the last year (and especially the last couple of months).  Maybe if they had given me back the money that they took (without authorisation) as swiftly as they took it, I'd consider a reluctant apology.  They didn't, so I won't.

Not off to the greatest of starts with Sky.  Hopefully this is a one-off blip and not indicative of their service.  Last thing I need is the hassle of changing supplier again.

I don't know what was wrong with their system that they believed the code was wrong to begin with.  At least now they've accepted it and things should be in motion.  Hopefully this hasn't delayed things too much as I've got this lovely Toshiba Tecra M9* laptop here and, as much as mobile broadband is useful, I need ADSL to make the most of it (I've only got the laptop on loan for another two weeks).

*thanks to talkToshiba