Tag: geek

Me? Being geeky?? Well I never…

Yes, I’m tinkering with my kit again. (Insert crude innuendo here.)

Despite my delight in my iPhone, there’s just some things it doesn’t do. Like offer some choice in the little things – like what noise it makes when you get an email, or which kind of virtual keyboard you run (and honestly, when it’s a soft keyboard, why doesn’t the option of changing it to, say, Dvorak, come as standard?) or tethering your datanet to another machine wiothout getting gouged by your phone provider, or…

So I decided to jailbreak it.

After the months of consideration and trepedation I spent thinking about this, it was astonishingly painless – thanks to a new app called Spirit (Windows and Mac flavoured options available). Took about 5 seconds to JB, another 30 to reboot and that was it.

Then came the fun – playing with the amazing range of options available on the Cydia app store.

For those that care… I’m currently running PogoPlank, Winterboard, InfiniDock, BTstack Keyboard, Lockdock, SBSettings and a few sound/wallpaper tweaks as my basic loadout.) Had a couple of freezes and battery life seems a little hungrier, but so far it’s entirely splendid.

(Tethering, that Dvorak keyboard – and possibly a haptic feedback option!  – to come.)

So, that’s what I get up to between bouts of writing, hanging out with the wives and watching too much telly.

(And a little multitasking of course – this post is a test for the considerably improved Mac blogging editor MarsEdit 3.0)


…resumed

After that lengthy bout of Pig Lung, I’m back to writing stuff that’s longer then 140 characters. Feels good.

A few things to catch up on…

One of my perennial points of incomprehension is why people with ‘deeply-held’ religious beliefs find it so very difficult to step away from them, to consider that other possibilities are worth considering. A recent study may explain this – evidence is appearing that the brain processes fact and belief in the same place. Of course there are other studies which seems to show the complete opposite…

Perhaps the most fun I had while in downtime (that didn’t involve watching all of Lost – which I thoroughly enjoyed) was Twittering my little heart out on the inaugural International Blasphemy Day. Those who’ve been reading me for a while know that I consider taking the piss out of belief not only to be funny but also a necessary tool, even a human right. I think I managed to take the piss out of every major creed and belief system in there at one point or another… my favourite post being:

My god fucked your god. Your god loved it, the little slut.

Amusingly, the only direct responses I got complaining about my doubting their deeply-held beliefs came from atheists…

Also, downtime allowed me to get to grips with what was perhaps an inevitable tech upgrade… an iPhone. This solved 99% of my portable comms needs for the foreseeable future – excellent Twitter and RSS apps especially. Now if they’d come up with GPG encryption for mail, I’d be sorted.

Next up – a Guttershaman piece for the Halloween season, various rants and raves…  and maybe, just maybe, a little fun.

Playing catchup

Been a while since I actually posted anything original or updated on what I’m up to. Life getting in the way of blogging…

The latest Guttershaman has – finally! – reached the ‘sit down and write me’ stage, after much research. (Writing about the mysteries of the occult – pretty much second nature to me. Writing about money… now that’s weird!) So that’s next.

Geek news: after some fiddling (and deciding that a decent Evernote client was non-negotiable) I installed Mac OS X onto my Dell netbook – a process that, despite much fiddling and swearing, was ultimately successful and very satisfying. Seriously considering a iPhone.

Looks like the Loudtweet system has died, sadly… so News Felch is suspended for now. Twittering still occurs.

Right – Pink Floyd cued up, mug of Lapsang Souchon on the brew… time to get on with Guttershamaning.

Upgrades

After struggling loyally with my old-school Palm PDA (a Sony Clie UX50, fact fans) for too damn long, I finally bit the bullet and got a new pocket machine. I’m posting this from a Nokia N810 Internet Tablet – tiny, shiny and full of the Modern Stuff. Things like GPS, 2 Gig of memory (expandable to at least 10), a web browser that actually lets me log onto forums… And it’s Linux-based, which means all kinds of open-source ‘ware.
And to aid the transition, there’s a Palm emulator, so I get to keep my old favourite apps.

Geek-boy happy. I’m sure you’ll hear more on the subject.