Butterflymind

Finally, WordPress works on the TouchPad

Butterflymind — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 15:32:33 +0000

A small thing I know, but blogging is so much easier for me on mobile devices. I had tried the webOS WordPress app last month but couldn’t get it to work. Fingers crossed that it all sorted now.

It’s in the bag!

Butterflymind — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 14:18:55 +0000

I know Olympus are going through scandal mill at the moment, but I have to admit to still be a great fan of their products. I still own my original half frame Pen F. That was the reason that I bought their Pen E-P1 and again why I recently bought a cheap E-PL1. I love both and would like to carry at least one of them everywhere with me. I always worry about damaging my stuff when I’m out and about and find that rather than risk the beautiful E-P1′s gorgeous looks, I leave it at home. Silly really.

Thanks to a free Amazon voucher, I have just bought myself an Olympus Pen Street bag. Reminiscent of those early flight bags of the 60′s only much smaller, I think it looks pretty cool. Lined in a soft but very bright orange interior the bag hold both cameras fitted with 17mm pancake and 14-42mm zoom respectively. There is a zipped outside pocket for my spare batteries and sd cards, and the strap is long enough to across the body. Like I said, cool.

Tagged: e-p1, e-pl1, Olympus, Olympus Pen, Photography, street bag

After the update is over……

Butterflymind — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 09:21:20 +0000

Since I updated my HP Touchpad to 3.0.4 last week I have notice some improvements but also a few changes for the worse.

I can now use any of my phones via bluetooth and there is a video camera which is nice. However, battery life seemed to fall off a cliff. Charging before bedtime, I awoke to find that even with wifi and bluetooth off that the battery meter was on 48%. A quick google suggested that the meter itself needed recalibration. I let the Touchpad run down until it switched off, then gave it a full charge via the sync cable (not Touchstone) it seems to have done the trick.

Charging via the Touchstone itself have become a bit hit and miss too. Fine out of the case, nothing whilst my Touchpad has it’s Belkin iPad case on. Apparently the latest update has reduced the power of the internal charging coils, the extra padding on the case is proving too much to get through.

Don’t get me started on the super efficient autocorrect! My smelling mistakes have doubled as the autocorrect kicks in whilst typing each word, and I have to double check everything as I go along, aaargh!

No doubt solutions and patches will come through the grapevine pretty quickly, so for now, I will put up with it all. But it would be nice if both WordPress and Picsel SmartOffice actually worked properly on the Touchpad. Evernote would have been nice too, but they have abandoned webos it seems.

Tagged: autocorrect, evernote, HP Touchpad, Picsel, touchstone, webos

Goodies from SilverPrint

Butterflymind — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 12:00:30 +0000

I have received a box of SilverPrint goodies to aid my return to analogue photography. I have used more black and white film in this past month than I have in the last few years. My first year at college is all film based. I’m not complaining, the first day home after my darkroom session, I smelt of fixer, aaah, heaven.

I would eventually like to set up my own darkroom at home again now that I have a spare room, but I’m not in a hurry. The college facilities are fine for now. I’m happy for as long as I can get quality materials like these at a reasonable price. Thank goodness for silverprint.co.uk.

Tagged: agfa apx, analogue, black & white, Film, fomapan, Photography, silverprint

Zen & the art of 125cc scooter maintenance

Butterflymind — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 10:55:56 +0000

Getting ready for the onslaught of winter, I thought I should buy myself a book on scooter care. There are not that many books about. As I have had no luck in getting any answers about a service manual from the SYM importer (are you deaf motogb?) this little book from the RAC wil have to do. Now where are my spanners?

Tagged: motogb, Scooter, sym

Another notebook?

Butterflymind — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 15:44:38 +0000

I could not resist the new Memories range from Paperchase for obvious reasons.

Picsel Office on my HP Touchpad

Butterflymind — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 14:58:49 +0000

Yes I was one of the lucky ones who managed to nab a 32gb Touchpad from Comet during the HP firesale. Overall I’ve been very impressed with it. My main gripe has been the lack of good apps so far, but I see from places like precentral.com that there is a thriving community out there.

My Touchpad came pre loaded with a free copy of Quick Office, which for the most part, I’m quite happy with. However, having used Picsel way back in my Palm/Sony Clie days I thought I would give the brand new shiny Picsel Office for the Touchpad a go. Very early days at the moment (it was only released yesterday) the pdf viewer is excellent, very snappy too. As much of my course is out putted to pdf, a good reader is essential to me.

I hope the word processor lives up to my expectations too, I’m off to try it out now.

Picsel Office (made in Scotland incidentally) on the webos app store now, £7.49

Tagged: apps, HP Touchpad, Picsel, webos

Sketchbook Homework – Joiners

Butterflymind — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 14:23:58 +0000

Ok so I didn’t know what a joiner was (apart from the woodworker thing). When my tutor explained that David Hockney was a great exponent, the penny dropped. So you take loads of pictures of something and stick them all together to form a whole. Or something like that anyway. Off we went round the college, with our cameras. In my case my new Olympus EPL1 and 14-42mm lens. This was my bargain from Jessops this week £249.99. I had only wanted the lens but it was the same price on it’s own!

After printing the pics off in the library (black and white only I’m afraid, it’s a cost thing, hey, I’m a student) I had to cut out all the little pictures (3x5cm) and stick them together in an artistic way (haha).

Here are the 4 I managed to do in the time allowed. The quality isn’t brilliant, the pics are taken from my sketchbook.

Click to view slideshow.
Tagged: Art, College, David Hockney, Olympus Pen, Photography, Sketchbook

The force is strong with this one

Butterflymind — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 08:58:47 +0000

The latest addition to my growing collection of Moleskine notebooks is the rather neat Star Wars special edition with the scrolling script in bronze on the cover. I was chuffed to find that it has a reproduction cinema poster in the back pocket, a nice touch. Bought from Amazon for £10, pricey yes, but I love it. Even though this is a special edition it will be a user, my college notes are going inside. Ah college, a force of darkness if ever there was one

Tagged: Moleskine, star wars

Oh, I’m back.

Butterflymind — Fri, 20 May 2011 13:40:45 +0000

Talk about the lost weekend, I haven’t blogged for over a year. In fact last year, 2010 was not a good one for us so I am forgetting it completely. My perogative, lol!