The Tassimo Show: Smart like my Tassimo

i - The Paper for Today

Today I picked up the first issue of a new national daily newspaper called i from the makers of the daily The Indpendent newpaper. It's great to be able to read a quality daily newspaper for a fraction of the cost - i costs just 20p, yet upon reading it I found it refreshing to read a paper that still has the quality of The Independent, or any other that sells for £1 a day!. I shall certainly be buying this paper again, probably on a daily basis, as it gives me a nice insight as to what is going on in the world.

Kai Warner

Recently I have started to listen to music by an artist called Kai Warner, the brother of the famous German band leader James Last. His real name is Werner Last - Kai Warner is a stage name he chose so as not be confused with his brother James. His musical arrangements tend to be in the same style as James Last, although he has also arranged in the style of the famous American band leader Ray Conniff. Like his brother James, he was signed to the Polydor label (until 1976 when he signed for Philips), and released 2 or 3 records a year, including releases such the Go In series, songs in the same style as James Last’s Non Stop Dancing concept.

On many of his recordings, while using some of his own musicians, he also used musicians that played for James Last and other German bands, and below is a YouTube video of the song “A Hard Day’s Night” from his 1976 album “Dance To The Beatles” with his orchestra and choir.

Leffe Blond Pouring Ritual

The best way to pour one of my favourite beers - Leffe Blond

Android Mobile

Bought myself a new mobile phone last weekend, a ZTE Racer on the 3 network. This a fantastic little smartphone, that has the Android mobile OS installed on it. I paid £99 for it in a 3 store, which included a £10 topup. ZTE may not be a well known handset maker - they are Chinese and known more for there mobile internet dongles, but they have produced a great handset.

The handset features a Touch Screen, 3.2MP camera, Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, 3G networking and a microSD card, along with all the other features you would expect on a good mobile. One of the best features of this phone, due it having Android OS installed is OTA (Over The Air) synchronisation included in the phone, with your Google account. This made set-up easy, as once the phone had my Google account details, my Google Mail, Calendar & Address book were all automatically set-up on my phone.

Having GPS is a boon as well, as once I updated the Google Maps software on my phone, the update added the extra functionality of Google Navigation, turning my phone in to a Sat Nav as well - great for when I’m walking somewhere and need to know how to get there!

I believe that the Android OS is a great OS for a mobile phone, and one that can rival Apple’s iOS 4 on the iPhone, iPod Touch etc. Being open source means it features on a range of handsets. which is great as it means that developers are more inclined to write software for it etc. and it does not have the restrictions on software development that iOS does.

There are only 2 downsides to this phone, one of which is only really a downside in my own opinion, as switching from a Symbian S60v3 FP1 phone, i’m used to the phone asking me how I would like to connect when going online (Wi-Fi or Mobile Network), something I think should be in the Android OS, as sometimes my Android mobile forgets that there is a Wi-Fi network available. The second downside is that, I suspect due to the smaller screen size (320 by 240 2.8 inch QVGA screen), not all apps available in Android Market are available for my phone, something I hope is fixed, as there are some great Apps I which I could download. Maybe once more mobile phone makers release Android phones with this size screen, more apps will be compatible.

All in all for the price ZTE have made a cracking phone, and I hope it lasts me for a while to come.

Calendar Sync

Just set-up a new calendar sync service on my mobile phone - syncme.se This service is designed to synchronise my mobile phones calendar, with my Google calendar, which then synchronises with BusyCal on my MacBook’s, thus ensuring that my home computer, my Google Calendar, MobileMe calendar and mobile phone have the same calendar entries in them. This is a great service, however on my mobile phone I have to load up the sync program to ask it to sync with Google, which means if I forgot to sync, then I might not have all my calendar entries, on my calendars, leading to duplicate appointments

This led me to thinking, if Apple can offer automatic “cloud” syncing via MobileMe on Mac’s, PC’s. iPhone and iPod Touch it was about time that either Apple released MobileMe sync clients for other mobile phone operating systems such as Symbian or Android etc. or mobile phone makers introduced their own service. Nokia has it own service Ovi and I would guess that that could have automatic sync services added to it, after all on a Mac there is the iSync program, which could probably be extended to sync with Ovi, if Nokia made a suitable plugin. I’m sure that on the Symbian OS there must be a way to program automatic sync with Ovi in the cloud, as there is Nokia’s Mail For Exchange tool, which could have additional programming to make it sync automatically, if it doesn’t have it already.

Life Changes

Have been thinking lately that it would be good to get a new job, one that pays more money, and hopefully would give me a much better working schedule - ideally Monday to Friday 9am to 5:30pm, as I'm beginning to find that working every other weekend is exhausting, coupled with some of my working days starting at 7:30am, as it means that every other weekend I'm working on a Saturday, and coupled with going to church on the Sunday, I end up only really having an afternoon to relex and recharge before going back to work the next day.

I also feel my present job is not really using my skills to the best of my ability, and would really like to be back working with computers, full time, as that is what I'm good at. I'm enjoying running Downings IT, and wish that it could become a full time job, but at the moment with the way the economy is, I can't see that happening for sometime. and maybe it may never happen.

It would be nice if a new job bought with it enough money for me to get a place of my own, as while living at home with my parents is nice, I think at my age it's time for me to be more independent and living in my own place.

Hopefully within the next year or so things change for me and get better!

Wheatham Cycle Ride

Went on a 12 mile cycle ride today. Started from my place in Petersfield, and went on a circular trip, via Stroud, Steep, Wheatham & West Liss. Interesting ride along the back roads, and it is certainly up and down, from Stroud until Wheatham, thankfully though the hills are not as steep as the one from Stroud to Ramsdean!

It was great being able to cycle along, get some exercise, and not have to think about work etc. while doing it. Had to stop along the route a few times - though I hope that eventually I can cycle these sort of distances, and maybe further without needing to stop. I guess once I get back in to the swing of things, and get my rear wheel gears sorted, I will find it easier to tackle hills.

Hopefully I can keep this up and go for a cycle ride at least once every weekend! Certainly feel better for doing this one!

EA SPORTS™ Active

Decided to try using a fitness workout program on my Wii, and plumped for EA Sports Active. I'm hoping to use it twice a day to help me with my new aim to loose a few pounds, tone up my body and get fit. Hopefully I can stick to my aim of a 5 minute workout in the morning, and a longer one in the evening.

Along with using this Wii "game" I am also planning to play best of 5 games on Wii Sports Tennis daily as well, as that is great fun, and also good for burning a few calories. If the weather is nice I also plan to cycle as well, and might start thinking about winter cycling as well.

This is going to be a tough regime to follow, as I'm not that good at sticking to exercise but hopefully once I get in to a routine it becomes second nature to do.

Boney M. Rasputin

Fantastic video of Boney M.'s Rasputin performed on the German TV show Musikladen. This video showcases why Rasputin is such a great song, and shows Boney M. at their best.

ovi by Nokia

Recently I have been using Nokia’s new ovi service on my mobile phone. For those who don’t know what ovi is, it provides users with an e-mail address, calendar, address book, task list, software store for Nokia phones etc. It’s great that I can sync my mobile phones calendar and contact list with ovi on the web but I feel ovi needs to be able to do a lot more.

I think ovi should offer some of the services that Apple’s MobileMe offers, such as push e-mail, calendars and contacts etc. It would be great to be able to create an appointment in my calendar on my Mac, and have it automatically sync to ovi on the net, and then to my mobile phone, without me having to tell the phone / computer to synchronise etc.

Hopefully one of these days Nokia will modify ovi and introduce such a service, as I’m sure it would benefit loads of mobile phone users!

Susan Boyle I Don't Know How To Love Him

Susan should have been discovered earlier! Fantastic voice in this video, she does the song justice!

www.themuppets.com

Today, for the first time in a while, I thought I would visit the official web-site of The Muppets - www.themuppets.com However when I visited the URL I was re-directed to Disney’s UK site, which has no pages for The Muppets.

I find it strange that Disney want to stop UK Muppet fans (and I suspect fans from other countries) from visiting the official web-site. This is brand damaging, after all The Muppets have a world-wide fan base, and therefore all Muppet fans have a right to visit the official web-site.

I think it is time that Disney allowed all internet surfers the chance to visit www.themuppets.com and I hope that other companies don’t start limiting access to their web sites because you don’t live in that particular country - after all an American could be wanting to look at an American site whilst in the UK, yet not be able to visit it due to UK internet users not being able to visit the site, and it would not be fair to them to stop them from looking at the site, just because they are currently in another country.

The Swedish Chef: Cårven Der Pümpkîn

Social Networking

Those of you who ready my blog on a regular basis, may have noticed that I have not posted so many entries recently, I guess this is due to posting on a regular basis to my Twitter account, and not always having ideas for a blog entry.

Recently I downloaded a new application for my mobile phone called “Socially” - it’s an interesting app as it enables me to connect to my Twitter and Facebook account, along with a Linked In account (if I had one). What makes this different to other social mobile phone apps, is that when someone is calling you, u get their latest post to their Twitter / Facebook account etc appear on screen the same time as the call notification. This is a great idea as it means I get to see what my friends have posted, without going through loads of entries in Facebook etc. just to find the one I want.

Having now got a program on my phone that enables me to connect to Twitter and Facebok at the same time, I’m wondering if I should start posting status updates to Facebook? Comments on this are more than welcome.

Tazo Black Awake Tea

Have not posted a blog entry in a while, but after drinking a great new tea variety for the Tassimo, decided to write about it in my blog.

Tazo an American tea brand owned by Starbucks, and they make one of their teas - Black Awake for the Tassimo machine. I have just had my first mug of this tea, having found an online store in Germany that sells some of the T-Discs that are only available in the USA.

Tazo Black Awake is not the strongest of teas I have tasted, but has a nice flavour to it. On the Tazo web site they describe the tea thus This eye-opening black tea has a full rich flavour, with hints of dark caramel, malt and black cherries. Perfect with milk. I really enjoyed drinking it, and would purchase it again.

I think it would be really great if this tea was made available through the European Tassimo website, and it would be great if they offered some more of the Tazo teas.