Technology

Recently I upgraded my mobile phone to an Android phone, actually a Samsung Galaxy S, and at the same time I bought a Samsung Galaxy Tablet with a data plan so I can be online 24/7 if I choose and not have to carry my laptop everywhere.

The arrangement works well, both devices have Internet access, but the way I use them differs but I do have the issue of syncing documents between them. Bluetooth can be used to send files between them, but it isn't really convenient because there is a lot of fiddling to open the Bluetooth connection, then accept the file transfer on the receiving device.

So now I use cloud storage services like Dropbox and Box.net, and in some cases Google Docs, then I made sure both devices automatically sync on a regular interval so I know they both have exactly the same files on them, and also the most uptodate version. Read More

In the next few months I'm going to be heavily dependent on technology to communicate, and not just normal email, I'll be travelling extensively through Europe and need my staff to be able to reach me wherever I am, by email, social networking, instant messaging, in fact any service that I can use, so I read a lot of Tech Guides.

This means I need access to 3G and Wi-fi, and when it becomes available, 4g. But just as importantly I need to be able to read documents that are sent to me. It isn't always necessary to be able to edit documents, in fact I could probably record instructions by voice, and then ask one of my assistants to transcribe the instructions.

One thing I won't be doing is giving serious consideration to any Windows 7 phone after reading about how flaky the OS is. Sure it has the power of Microsoft behind it and the obvious advantages of seemless integration with Exchange Server, but in my professional life I use a Mac, and my staff are all contractors who may use MS products, but we typically use Google for mail and online documents.

Ultimately this means I'm looking for a Mac or Android system, though I'm not sure if a phone or tablet is more useful. My current Nokia phone does a good enough job of making calls, but I also carry a Blackberry for messaging, but it would be nice to have a single device that lets me do everything, including read books while I'm away.

With that in mind, I'm curious about the differences between the Ipad vs Kindle, I realise they are different machines with different target markets, but Kindle seems to have a very loyal following, and the screen is optimised for reading text, whereas the iPad is optimised for mobile applications.

Right now there doesn't seem to be a single device that does everything needed, I'm going to need a smartphone and a tablet or Kindle, but the more I look into the latest Android offerings, the more I think an Android phone with a large screen would be perfect.

A lot of people only ever read the specifications of a motor vehicle when they are looking to buy or lease a new car, and often enthusiasts only look at the specs to compare their own vehicle against some standard they think they need to attain if their car is to be considered cool or awesome.

I look at Car Technical Specifications because I'm interested in the engineering of a vehicle to see if the designers have gone out of their way to improve on a design or make the vehicle safer etc. Far too often we see a great new model released, then over time it gets bloated into something that isn't fuel efficient, seems overly safe, or is rushed to market just so the manufacturer can say they have a current year model.

But when you look at the technical specifications you find that things haven't improved much, or they've got worse, either against the previous model, or another model in the same class. Generally the exceptions to this rule are the manufacturers who really lead the pack in innovation, and each successive model release handles better, has more performance, or is safer.

Reading Honda Technical Specifications over several upgrades of the same model immediately shows what can be achieved when a manufacturer cares. Plot the incremental improvements on a graph over 5 or 10 years and it is amazing that almost every Honda model shows a steadily increasing graph.

So too with my favourite German manufacturer, again look at the BMW Technical Specifications for different years and you see a similar trend. Sure BMW sometimes switch a marque from sport to luxury or vice versa, but even with this change you still see improvements.

Paying attention to the stats over a longer period of time shows immediately how powerful the knowledge is, and makes it really easy to choose the brand of your next vehicle.

Walking through Ronda the other day I saw this big American Corvette parked, I took a bunch of photos, but this is the one I like the best. That is a car designed to turn heads!

Anyone who is a regular reader of this blog will know I'm quite passionate about cars, it all started when I was a boy, I had a scrap book of newspaper clippings from the auto section with all my favourite cars, I actually wanted to build a collection of photos of every car ever built, and luckily the auto section of newspapers in those days used to cover the auto industry including car shows.

These days I don't bother with newspapers because I get all my motoring news from the web, and websites these days usually offer video and podcasts, aside from written articles about car repair or the latest model.

Actually I enjoy watching videos of cars, especially production model spycams, or race spec custom builds, I think it's only natural, guys like cars and we like to see what designers are testing on the roads even if we never get to drive these autos ourselves. I subscribe to Motorward's RSS feed, and a bunch of other lesser known auto sites, simply because I can't be bothered using search engines to find the latest car news. Read More