Alistair Dabbs is a freelance technology tart, juggling IT journalism, editorial training and digital publishing.
Will you soon be fingering your seven-incher?
The mill that grinds out iPad Mini launch rumours was hit by a hurricane this week, its normally creaking sails thrashing like helicopter blades.
I’d love to say that I’m bored by the whole thing but unfortunately it’s going to affect everyone at work. You spend six months preparing for the Kindle Fire UK launch – a “game- …
iPhone 5: the fab slab to grab
I have decided that the iPhone 5 is fantastic. Not that I own one, mind you. It’s just that the commentators slagging it off probably don’t own one either, so my ignorant opinion is just as valid as theirs.
It is, of course, the tallest iPhone ever:
OK, a bit of realism first: you can take hyperbole er… too far. A couple of …
Hapless Kate topless, toothless law useless
I rush back from town mid-afternoon in order to participate in an online conference, or what they prefer me to call a "webinar". At home, I discover that my son is sitting at his computer. It’s a school day.
This might not be such a bad thing: since his school doesn’t teach about computers any more - see 'Emotional Baggage' - it …
I spy: Drug drops and foxy couples
When I was a child, mid-September was the time when the holiday photos turned up in the post from the developer. It seems I cannot shake this photographic jetlag in adulthood, as I have only just this week removed the SD card from my camera to look at what I shot in the south of France last month.
I’m not very skilled in …
Emotional baggage
Two days before my teenage son was due to begin Sixth Form this week, the school phoned up to say that he's not allowed to study ICT at A-level.
This came as a bit of a shock since computing was going to be one of his principal subjects. He might not be one of those 'A-star' students that you read about on results day - jumping …
Safer conjugal rights via electronic skin
My wife is radioactive.
I'm terribly excited about this, to be honest. It's like living with a superhero or a 1950s B-movie starlet just before she grows to 50ft. And while the house may be host to the occasional randy spider on the lash at night, my wife was not bitten by some escaped bug from a science exhibit.
Radioactive …
Mr Bank Manager, help yourself to my smartphone contents
Hacking through the 1,100 press releases waiting for me upon my return from vacation has been a daunting task and has, as yet, revealed few surprises. Once I disposed of the misdirected (“I thought you might be interested in a case study from Golfbreaks.com...”) and semi-literate (“Hi hope your well?”) missives, most of the …
The problem with wireless: all those effin' wires
Those of you who choose to pursue the itinerant professional life will be familiar with the need to carry one's tools of the trade everywhere, usually in a heavy bag slung over one shoulder. Like me, you may have found that the number of devices you have to carry around has increased, for a variety of reasons that I have moaned …
Not a Cloud in my holiday sky
As I type this, the cloudless sky is a deep azure, while the bright green, sprinkler-assisted lawn offsets the ochre of the sunburnt wild grass beyond the untidy hedge of rhododendrons.
Our man on his mission Dabbsy spies out his nearest Wi-Fi hotspot
Evidently, Toto, I am not in Britain any more. I am on vacation. The bottom …
Tablet tech is really a Psion of the times
Excitedly but carefully, I tore open the tough cardboard packing and slid out my latest purchase: an iPad keyboard.
Not an Apple wireless keyboard, mind. That would be silly. That would be like buying a bicycle pump bigger than my bike. Instead, I purchased a keyboard the same size as the iPad, with the ability to click onto it …
IT support bod? Whatever you earn, it's not enough
It might amuse you to read that one of the senior IT support managers at one of my client workplaces confessed this week that his experience of IT support 'from the other side' was disappointing. By 'from the other side', of course, I mean as a user: my colleague is not a spectral secret shopper from beyond the grave.
Laurel …
Darth Vader is a pansy
American country music doesn't appeal to me, but Johnny Cash atoned for its worst sins. Whitney Houston’s foghorn cover of Dolly Parton’s funeral-favourite I will always love you could finally be forgiven when Cash returned the favour with his version of Depeche Mode's Personal Jesus.
But if you had turned up at the wrong …
Tablets, copycats and Weird Al Yankovic
"They are not as cool." With these five words, Judge Colin Birss became Samsung's friend and tormentor in one. He had just found in the company's favour in its defence against Apple but ruined the moment for Samsung by hinting that the Galaxy Tab was, well, a bit crap compared to an iPad.
Apple iPad Cool tablet
Birss …
Ghost In the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Solid State Society on Blu-ray
First released in its native Japan in 2006, GITS:SAC:Solid State Society (to contract its convoluted full title) was not created for cinemas but as a feature-length original video animation (OVA) destined for TV broadcast and DVD sales.
Ghost In the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Solid State Society GITS:SAC:Solid State Society …
Door creaks and girl farts: computing in the real world
A few weeks ago I dissed the expensive new Apple MacBook Pro for trading a downgraded component spec in return for a pretty display and solid-state memory. In passing, I gave an example of this downgrade: the lack of a CD drive.
Several readers helpfully commented that they hadn’t used CD media in ages and wouldn’t miss an …
Dimming the lights on smart(arse) TV
"The TV has stopped working."
This is the kind of announcement that I both dread and am accustomed to in the Dabbs household. A bit like the bath-fitter who is expected to know how to fix blocked sewers, as a computer journalist I am held personally to account upon the failure at home of anything electronic... or indeed …
Why I love Microsoft’s vapourware tablet
When I first got into this journalism lark in the late 1980s, the exploding nature of the personal computer market would force the hand of IT companies to reveal products far in advance of their intended launch date.
Such was the race to give the appearance of being cutting-edge, they sometimes found themselves announcing …
Retina Display detachment
Those Cupertino Infinite Looping gits have done it again. I don't mean this in an upbeat, admiring, I-can't-believe-it's-not-butter kind of way. I mean it more in a they're-selling-us-less-for-more-cash, not to mention a downbeat now-everyone-else-will-do-the-same, kind of way.
As regular readers are aware of me mentioning at …
Focus groups are for mugs
Journalists can be a contrary lot and IT journalists are no exception. Whatever we get asked to test and review, we’re never really happy with it. But that’s OK because the manufacturers and their PR companies, and often the readers too, are never happy with what we write either.
While the risks that IT journalists run tend to …
You only want me for my BYOD
They've taken advantage of my goodwill yet again. The really annoying thing is that I pleaded with them to do it, so it's my own fault. And it may be yours, too.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. I want to talk about BYOD. For the benefit of sole traders reading this, it stands for Bring Your Own Device and is the latest craze in …
Passwords are for AES-holes
When did you reach burnout? For me, it was spring 2009. Looking back, I did well to last as long as I did but the constant pressure of coming up with something new, again and again, became too much.
I'm not confessing to an emotional crisis, by the way. I'm talking about my ability to create new system logins that I can remember …
Txt-speak is a sign of humanity 4 U
It barely warranted a mention in Reg Hardware's recent Retro Week, but mobile telephony will be celebrating a couple of anniversaries this year. Groupe Spécial Mobil (GSM) was founded 30 years ago and the first commercial GSM networks came into service ten years later.
First text
More significantly for what old farts call ' …
HP Envy 14 Spectre Ultrabook
The test unit I reviewed was forwarded on to me from the Harrods press office. That alone should tell you a lot about the HP Envy 14 Spectre. For you, Harrods may conjure images of oil sheiks browsing bling, affectatious middle classes buying ham and feeble-minded tourists ogling Saint Diana's soiled crockery, but Harrods makes …
Monty Python and the Holy Grail on Blu-ray
Round and round we go the video format bush. First you recorded it off the telly. Then you bought it on VHS. Finally, you acquired a perfectly brilliant version on DVD. And now, finally again, Sony Pictures has found yet another way for you to part with your money for the love of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Monty Python …
Jolly rogered
I note with dismay that the recent High Court ruling to force some ISPs to ban access to The Pirate Bay has been hijacked by lobbyists who are confused about what the interweb does. A classic example was heard on Radio 4's Today on Tuesday, which devoted eight minutes to John Humphrys inexpertly tying himself into a mesh of …
Lenovo U300s Ultrabook
A body made from a single piece of aluminium. Uh-huh. A case held shut with magnets. Righty. A multi-gesture trackpad with a glass surface. Ohhh-kayyy, I think I can see what's happening here.
Lenovo U300s Ultrabook Lenovo IdeaPad U300s Ultrabook
With the IdeaPad U300s, Lenovo wants to convince you it has created the most …
Computer nostalgia is 10 PRINT 'BOLLOCKS'
"The music is reversible but time is not. Turn back! Turn back! Turn back! Turn back!"
A good sign that you've reached middle age - apart from making mid-1970s ELO references - is when you discover a colleague's date of birth and can remember exactly what you were doing on that day.
The sign of old age is almost the same, …
What kind of LOSER sits in front of a PC...
I have just wasted half a day at the London Book Fair, hoping to discover some new e-book readers with a view to reviewing them for El Reg.
Expecting to wade waist-high through stacks of competitive continental European brands, I was disappointed to find that the exhibition's Digital Zone was dominated by companies offering to …
Laptop computers are crap
Occasionally, the crumbs scavenged by the Dabbs clan are supplemented with purchases from a local food emporium, the expenditure being partly funded by product reviews that I submit to El Reg.
El Reg, by the way, is a real person in a kind of virtual concept common to all omnipresent beings. The last time I was granted an …
The iPad 3 would make me so horny...
In my Dad's generation, middle-aged men of means would buy new cars at the end of every July because that's when new licence plates came out. Their old cars would be traded in as part-exchange, sold to third parties through classified ads, or passed magnanimously to relatives.
This was regarded as civilised and financially …
Aliens Blu-ray disc set
James Cameron is often credited with turning science fiction from a cult or B-movie genre into a one that earned not just big money but critical success too. The breakthrough film was Aliens and the year was 1986.
Aliens theatrical release and special edition Blu-ray disc set Aliens on Blu-ray: Two films for the price of one …
Toshiba Portégé Z830-10N 13.3in Ultrabook
The last time I tested a Toshiba laptop, it had a glowing orange screen and the keyboard rattled like a box of Lego. Come to think of it, newspapers at the time were scaring readers about ‘house parties’, so it was quite a while ago. So perhaps you can imagine how utterly charming the pretentiously named Portégé Z830-10N …
Asus UX21E Zenbook 11.6in Ultrabook
Having already reviewed the slightly larger Asus UX31E Zenbook for El Reg, and quite liking it, I whinged that sending me the UX21E model would be a waste of time. It wasn’t, obviously, because you’re reading this. I loved it. In fact, I preferred it.
Asus UX21E Zenbook Core i5 laptop For such a small device, the Asus UX21E has …
Samsung Series 7 Chonos 15.6in Core i7 notebook
Surely someone is having a laugh. Having read nothing but five-star reviews of this luxury notebook on other sources, I find myself surprised to be staring at a four-star product on my desk. Four stars is pretty good, you know, but that’s one less than five.
Samsung Series 7 Chonos Intel Core i7 notebook All in good time: …
Wacom Bamboo Fun S Pen and Touch
Take TWO pointing devices into the shower? Not me, I use Wac-and-Go.
When I first saw this product demonstrated – a graphics tablet with pressure-sensitive stylus but whose surface equally supports touch gestures – I thought I’d seen the best creative gadget ever.
Wacom Bamboo Fun S Pen and Touch graphics tablet Wacom's Bamboo …
Asus Zenbook UX31E
I honestly thought it would take the industry a lot longer to start producing Windows Ultrabooks for under a grand that are this good. The Asus Zenbook is as flat and skinny and as light as a MacBook Air without trying to look like one, and is a darn sight better connected.
Asus Zenbook UX31E Smart notebook in size zero …
Apple Thunderbolt Display 27in monitor
After Apple’s hoo-ha about the Thunderbolt port on its newest Macs and MacBook Pros, it’s great to finally have something to plug into it. But I began testing this monitor with tainted expectations: less ‘OK show me what you can do’ and more ‘oh lordy, yet another locked-in connectivity standard’.
It ended with tainted love. …
Apple MacBook Pro 13in Core i5 laptop
Guilty, your honour. In mitigation, I would like to assure the jury that I do not automatically adore everything with Apple branding on it, nor have I any intention of jacking off over a Steve Jobs biography. I just happen to like the current range of Apple MacBook Pro notebook computers, that’s all. Is it such a crime?
Apple …
Acer Aspire S3 Core i7 Ultrabook
The Acer Aspire S3 is a major new entrant to the emerging market for ‘ultraportables’ – ultra-thin but powerful notebook PCs with reduced components to keep the space and weight to a minimum. It won’t suit everyone, but if you like the idea of a portable Windows computer than can be carried in one hand or tucked under your …
Acer Iconia A100 7in Android tablet
Hey, tablet geeks out there, do you remember what you hated most about Samsung’s original 7in Galaxy Tab? The grainy display, the glitchy software, the lack of memory, the poorly located buttons that you kept pressing by mistake?
Acer Iconia A100 7in Android tablet Designed for portrait usage
I suspect Acer drew up the same …
Apple MacBook Pro 17in 2011
A slap across the face is what I need. It’s the only language I understand. My problem is that I have played with too many Apple MacBooks over the past 18 months. They were starting to look similar, a little standard perhaps, maybe even ordinary.
Apple MacBook Pro 17in Quad core as standard: Apple's 17in MacBook Pro
So I took …
HP Envy 17 3D Core i7 laptop
After years of computer journalists telling me – erroneously, I hasten to add – that my next desktop PC will be a laptop, it’s pleasing to see manufacturers such as HP trying to make it happen.
HP Envy 17 3D Viewing spectacle: the Envy 17 3D is a big beast but HP has managed to keep it looking clean and stylish
What do I hate …
Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1
10.1? The impression I get with the naming of this much-anticipated grown-up version of last year’s Galaxy Tab is that it has psychological hangups about (ahem) ‘size’. I imagine it loitering down the pub, boasting of its prowess: “It’s not just TEN inches, Al, it’s TEN-point-ONE!” It wants to be the Spinal Tap of Android …
Apple Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Part Two
You find me in better spirits compared to my anxious state during last week’s experimentation with OS X Lion. A weekend of sanity makes quite a difference. That is, sanity achieved through the cathartic process of a clean instal.
Apple Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Safari swipe Swipe your fingers sideways across your Magic Mouse or Magic …
Apple Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Part One
There was a time when I’d be excited about the launch of a new version of Apple’s Mac operating system. I’d count the days leading up to the launch with the same fervour as opening the windows on a yuletide advent calendar.
Apple Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Installing the big cat
The day of arrival was never a disappointment. The …
HP TouchSmart 610 touchscreen all-in-one PC
This is going to be good. I reviewed the first TouchSmart 600 all-in-one home desktop computer in January 2010, and loved it, frankly. I fondly remember Reg Hardware readers expressing their admiration for my gushing praise at the time... That was sarcasm. Enough, I’m over it.
HP TouchSmart 610 Finger friendly: HP's TouchSmart …
Apple iMac 27in
For those of you who revel in Mac versus Windows shouting matches, click the Comments link now. You’ve already made up your minds, so feel free to dive into the debate without reading the review. That’s what you normally do, anyway.
Apple iMac 27in Widescreen viewing: Apple's iMac 27in
If you’re still with me, let me confirm …
Acer Iconia Tab A500 10in Android tablet
PC manufacturers clearly haven’t been reading the script. They were supposed to over-hype their forthcoming Android 3.0 tablets as iPad-killers (check!), miss their initial launch dates (check!) and then let us all down by delivering a hunk of poorly designed, obsolete tat (er…).
Acer Iconia A500 Acer's Iconia Tab A500: lighter …
Sony Vaio VPCF21Z1E 16in laptop
Imagine my joy when asked to try out a 3D entertainment centre built into a Sony Vaio notebook. Imagine my disappointment, then, when I discover that the notebook in question is actually too big to fit in my notebook bag.
Sony Vaio VPCF21Z1E Sony's Vaio VPCF21Z1E: don’t think of it as an overgrown notebook but as a very …
Motorola Xoom
You will be aware that 2011 is supposed to be the year that Android tablets hit the big-time. In case you missed it, the explosion of new devices was supposed to happen at Easter. In the event, many launches have since been put back to later in the year, while other products have been launched but are plainly impossible to buy …
