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M&S Airflex Shoes - FAIL

I wondered why i was getting wet feet. I figured maybe i had a small hole in my shoe or something but no -the whole sole had split open like a gaping mouth and was gulping up puddle water with every step!!

M&S Airflex Shoes - Split sole
M&S Airflex Shoes - Split Sole


"Not just any split sole, this is an M&S split sole". So, should a six month old pair of Air Flex shoes break like this?? probably not...

Well i was going to return them for a refund, but decided i would try to melt them back together!... 20minutes later, a burnt down candle, and stench of molten rubber in the air, i though i had managed to mend them...  Wrong - the repair lasted about 5 steps before opening up again. Time for  new shoes. (probably another pair of Airflex as they are very comfy)



The quest for a new laptop continues

So im still looking for a replacement for my Asus M50, but there seems to be nothing on the market. Im looking for 15inch hi resolution screen (better than current resolution),i7 cpu, SSD drive, lightweight, preferably with numeric keypad... There just doesn't seem to be anything out there!!!

If i ignore the numeric pad, the i7 15inch Mac Book Pro with upgraded screen and SSD option looks to tick most of my boxes, but its astronomically expensive!! With all the bits bolted on, Id be splashing out almost 3k!!

Am i being a tight wad? Is £3k a reasonable price for a laptop these days? Its over double the price of my trusty Asus M50, doesn't have the movable camera or fingerprint reader. And there i was thinking technology was supposed to get cheaper!! 

Samsung Galaxy S2 - Ice Cream Sandwich

Yesterday, my UK Simfree Samsung Glaxy S2 phone (on vodafone) started flashing a message saying "Software update available". Knowing that it was likely to be the Android Ice Cream Sandwich update,   I waited patiently all day until i could get home onto my home Wifi network before allowing it to upgrade. However when i got home and connected to the mothership,  it then said "no upgrades available"... hmmm

After a quick search i found i had to plug the phone into my laptop and let Samsung Kies do the upgrade...But first I found i needed to upgrade my version of Samsung Kies.
80mb download later (only 29Mb for Apple!??) and what seemed like ages for the installation to complete, and i was ready...
First hing i did was back up my phone. This took about 10mins as i seem to have quite a few photos and music files on there. Next the upgrade started.  A fairly painless process that completed whilst i was eating my dinner.

After dinner i was then ready to use my newly upgraded SGS2. First impressions were that the Pattern Unlock looks very strange, and the clock on the lock screen looked odd. Not the nice big round buttons i was used to - just little circles. not a big problem  i can live with that, and am now getting to like the new look.

Once the phone was unlocked i noticed all my shortcuts had been wiped and replaced with a bunch of default widgets and shortcuts which i promptly deleted. Where had all my carefully placed shortcuts gone??

After a few minutes messing about looking for new features, and discovering the cool new developer options and other new stuff, i started to realise the phone was not as responsive to touch as it had been prior the the upgrade. in fact touch sensitivity was appalling! I activated the developer option that "shows  touches" and when navigating around the phone, i could clearly see that i was lightly touching the screen as a circle would appear, yet the phone seemed to ignore my actions unless i touched for an extended amount of time. Very frustrating.

So what used to take just a light tap of the screen, now takes a more deliberate press-and-hold type action.
In reality this probably only adds about 10ms to the act of tapping, but  none the less, its noticeable, and its very frustrating...
Overall, not a total disaster, but also not really the enjoyable experience I was expecting from the much hyped, much anticipated Android ICS upgrade for Galaxy S2!

My advice to other SGS2 users?  don't bother with the upgrade - stick to what you have now until its been patched to cure the touchscreen sensitivity problems








Replacement for my trusty old Asus M50 Laptop

After many years of faultless service, the time has come to replace my trusty Asus M50 laptop.
Its been a great machine, solid, reliable and after the SSD upgrade it's more than sufficient for knocking out code or surfing the web.
However, its getting a little noisy, the fan is going most of the time, the battery only lasts a few minutes, and the palm rests are uncomfortably hot. I've tried sucking the dust out with a hoover, but to no avail - i guess its just starting to feel its age.
So the big question is, what will i replace it with? Ultrabooks are cool, but not big enough. Asus dont seem to have a direct replacement that offers all the same features (movable web cam, fingerprint scanner etc etc) so im open to suggestions.
Has anyone else out there found a good replacement for an Asus M50 laptop? if so, please let me know what you decided on, and how its worked out for you.