Parking in London is a pain in the arse. As I drive an electric car, I'm spared the cost of the Congestion Charge, but I still have to stalk the back-streets looking for an available parking bay - or pay through the nose for an NCP space and hope I can squeeze in between the concrete pillars. That's where London-based startup Vallie comes in. On-demand car parking in London for £5/hour - with a …
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I love my keyboards. I mean, I have an unhealthy obsession with them. I spend a lot of time typing and the cramped keyboards which come with most laptops and MacBooks just don't cut it for me. Their poor ergonomics leave my wrists in pain. For years I was a devotee of the Microsoft 4000 Keyboard. It's a big old beast - and that's its main drawback; it's just too large to carry around. It…
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This is a quick unboxing / set-up / review of the Chipolo. This was a nifty piece of schwag from the Twitter Developer Relations team, to whom I'm grateful. The Chipolo is a multi-purpose Bluetooth Low Energy tag. It's like a high-tech version of one of those things which you attach to your keyring which will beep when whistled at. As the box says, it will work up to 60 meters away. It'll …
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This isn't a review of the new Star Wars film, it's a diary entry about my experiences at the première. No spoilers, sweetie! I love Star War. Probably more than is healthy. When tickets for the new movie were released, I snaffled up a pair... for the next morning! Look, I'm getting old, and I didn't fancy watching a midnight screening full of screaming fans. So I booked a 10 am showing on …
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Last year, the battery on my Motorola Nexus 6 died. It got hot enough to melt the glue holding the phone together and started bulging - so I replaced it. Now, sadly, the new battery has failed. The phone will suddenly switch off as though the battery were yanked out. After a few minutes it will happily turn on again. Most frustrating. Rather than go to the expense of replacing the entire…
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The good folk at THZY-UK have sent me a gadget to review - the YHDO Security Camera with Night Vision. I'm comparing this to other cameras I've reviewed in the past - including Y-Cam and Sercomm models. The first thing to note is that this is one of the cheaper cameras on the market. At around £40, it's a third of the price of the Y-Cam models. But does that low price means it …
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I was recently gifted a Satechi WiFi Travel Router & Charger. Currently available on Amazon for £35. It's a clever little device with several useful functions: Travel adapter. Plugs into most power sockets and has a universal plug on top. Two USB charging sockets. Connect to Ethernet and share the signal via WiFi. Connect to WiFi and share the signal via WiFi or Ethernet. …
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A few months ago, I blogged about how cost efficient electric cars are. Last week I took delivery of a BMW i3 REX - so here's a quick review of the vehicle. A warning, I'm a grumpy, demanding, sod. I really like the car - but that doesn't blind me to its flaws. But first, and brief diversion into PHYSICS and MATHS! Physics Imagine a kilogram weight (1Kg) sat on an ice rink. You want to…
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by Terence Eden, aged 35 & ⅚ths. I often wonder how much I read during the average day. A few thousand words of tweets, couple of hundred in Facebook posts, a dozen articles on blogs and news sites - and an unhealthy smattering of Reddit and other fora. All told, I am probably reading the equivalent of half a novel per day. (Now, there's an idea for a "quantified self" app - "how much have I r…
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I'm currently test-driving a BMW's all-electric i3 REX. One of the options the demonstrator model has is a web browser! Yes, for just £95 per year, you can get a slow and painful browsing experience IN YOUR CAR! (Only to be used when fully stopped - or in autonomous drive mode.) Here's a quick run-down of its features. HTML5 A fairly miserable score of 268 out of 555 points on …
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I love my MS 4000 keyboard. it's one of the best pieces of hardware developed by Redmond. It has some drawbacks, sure, no USB ports, weird function keys, no backlight - but the real problem with it is its heft. It's a chunky-monkey that's really only suitable for leaving in a fixed location. It's far to big and bulky for a laptop bag - and life's too short to type on a non-ergonomic keyboard. …
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As much as I love my MacBook, 2 USB ports just isn't enough! Between phone charging, memory sticks and a keyboard and mouse, I'm sick of swapping cables in and out of ports. I wanted a USB hub which didn't have a trailing wire (one more thing to get tangled or lost) and would fit neatly onto a laptop. Enter the Sabrent 4-Port USB 2.0 Rotatable Hub a £6 hub available on Amazon. It's a tiny hub …
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