Reviews


Remap Your Keyboard To Include Media Controls

Friday, July 9th, 2010

Remap Your Keyboard

Loads of keyboards and laptops include buttons which allow you to skip or pause tracks, launch your web browser or simply alter the volume. When I moved to the Microsoft Arc Keyboard I was surprised by how much I missed some of these keys, specifically the skip and pause track options (note – the Arc keyboard does have volume controls built in). So what can you do about it?

I don’t know about you, but there’re plenty of keys on a keyboard that I hardly use,for instance why are there so many function keys?! I decided that it was high time I changed them to something more useful. However I had no intention of running some resource hungry, flea ridden monstrosity of a background application to do it. There is in fact a much better (and easier) way. (Windows only I’m afraid, although I’m sure there are similar methods for other operating systems).

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Create The Ultimate Pendrive

Thursday, July 1st, 2010

Ultimate USB Stick

My bag has been a semi-permanent home to a couple of pendrives since I finally managed to replace my detested floppy discs. Little did I know I haven’t really been using them to their full potential…

They can be used for a lot more than storage, something I always kind of guessed but for whatever reason never really got around to experimenting with. A few days ago I set about creating my self titled “Pendrive of Gold”, it’s nothing completely mind blowing but it certainly improves my productivity, especially when I’m away from home.

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How To Organise Your Mountain Of CDs

Monday, June 21st, 2010

Organise your CDs

If you’re like me, you’ve probably managed to amass an awe inspiring amount of CD’s. We’ve all got hundreds of the things cluttering up window sills and once empty drawers, most of which we use rarely, if at all.

The problem is no one wants to throw any of them away, leading to this ever increasing mountain of dusty jewel cases. (By the way if anyone ever has the need to install every version of Ubuntu ever released, or fancies going back in time and listening to Now 47, I’m your man.)

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t weed out some of the unnecessary junk we horde but many of these CD’s do come in handy, just very occasionally. A couple of years ago I came across what I think is the ideal solution…

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Remote Control Helicopter – The Ultimate Father’s Day Present

Wednesday, June 16th, 2010

Remote Control Helicopter

That’s right, an affordable remote control helicopter you can fly around your living room, how amazing is that! Sorry I just noticed it’s almost father’s day and it came to me that one of these would be the perfect present.

They were first released a couple of years ago, (I got one for my birthday last year) and they really are fantastic fun. Weirdly most seem to be bought for younger kids, but never for the young kid in all grown men.

In the pack you get a controller, which you then charge the helicopter from, the helicopter itself and usually a couple of replacement blades (though I’ve found mine to be extremely resilient). 15 minutes charge time gives about 5 minutes of flight (assuming you keep the helicopter in the air for the entire time, highly unlikely for beginners) and once you get used to it all sorts of manoeuvres are possible.

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Microsoft Arc Keyboard Review

Wednesday, June 16th, 2010

Microsoft Arc Keyboard

I’m one of those guys that loves a huge desk, the bigger the better I always say… Therefore when it came to buying a new keyboard my priority was to find something that was space efficient, but not in such a way as to be detrimental to usability. I ended up choosing Microsoft’s Arc Keyboard as it seemed to tick those boxes nicely. I’ve had it for a few weeks now, so I thought it was high time for a review.

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LogMeIn – Online Remote Desktop Service

Saturday, May 29th, 2010

LogMeIn Logo wide

…. And we’re back! Actually, that’s not fair – Ben is the only one around here with a good excuse not to have been posting regular articles recently! I’m sure you’ve all missed me – and you won’t find any sarcasm around here (see what I did there?)! Anyway, I digress. Today I’ll be filling you in on, you guessed it (or read it in the title, durrrr), a sweet online service which will allow you to remote-desktop any computer you fancy installing it on. It’s called LogMeIn. Kinda catchy, I guess. That’s beside the point. I guess I am easily distracted, huh?

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