Poundland's £1 Signalex iPad iPhone Stylus

Not that I frequent Poundland much you understand, but when I noticed a Signalex iPad stylus for £1.00 I thought it was worth a try. But wait, there's more! For £1.00 you get not one but two styli. One is a typical pen-like stylus whilst the other is much smaller and as a consequence difficult to hold. So how do they perform?

Stylus for iPad - Boxwave and Kit Universal compared

Whilst using apps on the iPad just with your fingers is great, there are times when holding a pen just feels more natural. This isn't just for those artists amongst us, but for anyone who needs to make a small sketch now and again.

For example, I regularly attend meetings and conferences where as well as taking notes, I need to visualize some idea with a little drawing. Whilst using your finger to do this works, to me it seem hard to get the accuracy you would expect when using a pen or pencil.

Hence I decided to buy a stylus for my iPad, and based on the reviews I found decided to buy a Boxwave and so ordered one from Amazon UK for just £12.31.  But it just so happened that the same day I was in our local Tesco grocery store and noticed they had a Kit Universal Tablet stylus on sale for just £2.47  (and who would have imagined that one day your local grocery store would be selling iPads? But that is another story).  At that price I couldn't resist and so decided to give it a go.

So, how do they compare?

Keynote for iPad and PowerPoint

When I was recently given an iPad 2, I was keen to see how well it might function as a presentation device. I give a lot of presentations and training courses where all the content is currently based in Microsoft PowerPoint. So I wanted to see whether an iPad could substitute for my laptop.

The first task was to install Keynote. For just $9.99 or £4.99, there is certainly no need to worry about justifying the cost!

Then I needed to try opening a PowerPoint presentation in Keynote. The first step is to get the file onto the iPad.  There are a number of ways to do this.

BBC Trust Finally Respond to Appeal regarding HD Picture Quality

The BBC Trust have finally after many months responded to the appeal. (specific link to response to be added once posted on the BBC Trust website).

Well no great surprise that the BBC Trust came down in favour of the BBC!

Roma Solar Garden Lights

I had been looking for some new garden lights for some time as the low-voltage system we had in place for many years was looking a bit tired. I wanted something eco-friendly and cheap to run, but so far any solar-powered lights I had seen were very poor. Typically they just create a point of light in the bulb itself, but little illumination of the surrounding area. So, OK as markets, but of little other use.

Then I saw this comparison of solar lights in the Daily Telegraph. This suggested that recently "both solar panel technology and LED technology have proceeded at great speed", and singled out the Roma as being the best of the bunch and actually capable of replacing conventional powered lights.  So I thought I would give them a try.

BBC HD Campaign to Improve PQ - Visit to BBC

As a consequence of the complaints that many viewers made regarding what they saw as a deteriation in the picture quality (PQ) of BBC HD (including my own No 10 petition) , at the end of April I was amongst a group of people led by Paul Geaton who were invited to visit the BBC and discuss this with them.

A lengthy process followed to compile the group's feedback to the BBC, and I am pleased to say that is now finally published.

BBC HD Campaign to Improve PQ - No 10 Petition Comes to Nothing

Our new PM has temporarily let the BBC off the hook with my No. 10 Petition, as existing e-petitions will not be carried forward. Not surprising, but disappointing :(

From http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/

Existing e-petitions submitted to the previous administration, will not be carried forward to the new administration as part of this process. We will welcome resubmission on issues of concern to the improved e-petitions system when it is launched later in 2010.

I would like to think that the petition at least played a part alongside Paul Geaton's appeal to the BBC Trust in encouraging the BBC to improve PQ and introduce the recent changes such as VBR and the introduction of stat mux'ing.

Clearly if these do not have the desired effect, we can start the whole process off again.

Thanks to the 2385 people who signed it.