Great Windows Weather Gadget

I still have Vista on my notebook PC, it works fine for what I want and I liked the weather gadget that was in the side bar. If you dragged the gadget out of the sidbar it grew bigger and and gave you a forecast for 5 days. This weather gadget worked well I thought and I had no need to update it.

We recently got a HTC Desire mobile phone and the sense interface is great. The front scree with the clock and weather looks fantastic. I have found a Windows version of this Clock/Weather gadget. It is called HTC Home. It workd well, doesn’t slow my PC and looks just as good as on our HTC Desire. The animations look pretty but I wish they didn’t animate quite so long, 5 seconds would be plenty.

I did find that although you have a choice of two places it can get it’s weather information from – Accuweather and MSN –  one was not very accurate, strangely it’s name suggests it is accurate. Remember I am in Australia so maybe they are better in the US, MSN seems fine. Give it a try and see what you think www.htchome.org/en/

Australian PS3 October Playstation Plus

I have just checked what I get as part of my Australian Playstation Plus subscription for October. Not mentioning the items like games and themes that you get a discount, just the free stuff as that’s all I am interested in.

I have a trial of the new Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light (2.3GB)

Beta access to the multi-player version of Assassins Creed Brotherhood Multiplayer (3GB) , not sure if I will bother with that.

A PS3 full game Street Fighter 2 Turbo – HD Remix – great classic bash’em up re-done with better graphics.

Another trial PS3 game – Ferrari The Race Experience – but this trial only works for 60 minutes even if you quit the game after 1 minute and want to return later – I am not bothering to download this poor effort – give us a proper trial or don’t bother. I hope no-one downloads this and then the games company might learn to do it properly.

Two mini-games – Yeti Sports and Aero Racer. Both seem OK, I really like these mini games on the PS3 (love last months VectorTD)

A Playstation One game Kula World

A couple of Dynamic Themes, Start The Party and Halloween – they say they are exclusive for Playstion Plus members, who knows.

Four avatars, I don’t bother downloading these either.

All in all , not bad. I am sure I am getting my subscription price covered with the freebies offered this and last month. Do others think they will get $70 of entertainment a year? That’s how I see it – To go and see a movie costs around $15 plus your popcorn so $70 for hours of entertainment seems good to me.

Assassins Creed Brotherhood multiplayer beta for PS3 Australia - GoldCoaster

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light for PS3 Australia - GoldCoaster

Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix for PS3 Australia - GoldCoaster

Australian PS3 now has Plus7 TV channels

Our family has a slimline Ps3. I don’t play games much on it but my son does – what I mostly use it for is watching videos that are on the external USB hard drive (it’s great that you can plug in any old USB drive), watch videos streamed from my laptop (it sees it as a media centre or via Vuze),  and watch catch-up TV with the great ABC iView PS3 application. The Ps3 and iView team up nicely and it’s great to be able to watch a whole range of TV shows when I want to. It is simple to use and works well – not like the god awful Vidzone application.

One thing I would added would be more catch-up TV channels – I know I can always go to them via the internet browser in the PS3 but that is too awkward – I want a nice neat app like iView.

Well yesterday I noticed that in the TV tab under the iView logo was Plus7 – the catch-up TV channel from channel7 and yahoo. Excellent, one more channel to choose, although I would rather the Ten network if I could choose one. I clicked it and it seemed to work well using it’s menu. I did notice that it had only 18 videos in total and nearly all were shows that really failed in the ratings (like the magician show), so not really catch-up TV but showing mainly TV shows that are not good enough for prime time Seven. Some of their 7Two shows would be good – 007, the UK mystery shows and home shows. A pretty poor effort and I don’t really expect much from the seven network as they are the ones trying to push Freeview (which has in it’s specs all types of things to restrict viewing and force advertising – no skipping ads). And they were the ones that tampered with a car crash site to make the photos for the news better looking.

I clicked on one of shows and it just waited and waited until I left, did  not work. Later in the day I tried again and I notice the layout was a little different, it still would not play any shows though. So I left it as a bad joke thinking the 7 network still needs to fix it at their end – probably to figure how they can add 15 minutes of adverts into every 30 minute show (because I know it will be that bad).

How to permanently delete your facebook account

With Facebook recently making their privacy conditions not for my liking and many others as well, I looked into permanently deleting my Facebook account. Maybe some people don’t care but I know a lot of Australians that don’t agree.

You can put on a kind off pause where no one can access the details but nothing gets deleted. To actually delete the facebook account and get rid of all personal stuff and photos etc, go to https://ssl.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account and choose delete. Just like this picture shows.

Simple isn’t it, even though it is a bit hard to find.

McAfee Antivirus renew is more expensive than a new version

We bought my 11 year old son a Dell laptop about a year ago, it was good value, does the job fine and best of all , he thinks it’s great. Actually it is pretty tough as well – it had a full glass of chocolate milk spilled over it while it was on. I ended up pulling it apart to give it a wipe down, put it all back together and it is still working fine!

Anyway this story isn’t really about the Dell laptop at all, it is about the anti-virus that came with it. It came with a 15month  subscription to McAfee Antivirus andit was OK except it kept nagging about renewing the subscription after around six months even though it still had 9 months to go.

When it got down to about 2 months to the end of the subscription and getting very regular emails ‘reminding’ me to renew the subscription I thought I would have a look. As you can tell by the two screen captures to renew the subscription to McAfee Anti Virus is actually a lot more expensive than just buying a whole new one. Crazy isn’t it. Why should the resubscription cost AUD$84.95 (and that was with a 15% discount) where as a new one costs $74.95. Nice way to treat loyal customers McAfee.

So what did I do? Well I hate the feeling of McAfee rorting money out of me for no good reason so I did what I am telling everyone else to do – get the free Microsoft Security Essentials. It works great and doesn’t bug you with popups, emails or money.

mcafee renew subscription price - why is it more than new?

mcafee new price - why is the renew subscription more expensive than a new copy

McDonalds To Offer Family Meals In Australia, Good or Bad

I received an email a little while back. A survey asking what I thought about some things that McDonald Australia was thinking of offering. What it basically was saying was that McDonalds were going to have Family Meal packs on offer after 6PM nightly.

It went through options and offers with lots and lots of varying combinations of burgers, fries, drinks and desserts. All were pretty terrible and all were not a very healthy or appetising option. And to be honest not one seemed to very good value for what was offered.

Here is a screen capture of one of the deals McDonald Australia are thinking to unleash on to us.

new McDonalds Australia are going to offer 'special' family meal deals at dinner time - do any of us really whant this.

 So what do you think, is this a good idea and is it actual value? I think No for both. I am guessing they are trying to go against the Hungry Jack family meals but no families really want this. I don’t believe it is cheap and where is something like coffee or tea for adults or juice for the kids rather Coke and softdrink for everyone? What about a little toy for the kids, I am sure that would only cost Maccas 1cent or even less (maybe they charge the companies for the advertising that the toys are doing)

Dell Australias Outragous Adamo Price

Just a quick update on my previous Australian Adamo post. The Adamo price in the US is $1999 which is about AUD2900 but here Dell has decided that the base model Adamo (the 1.2GHz model) will be AUD$3700 – what! The other model is AUD$4300 – super crazy and price gouging the public I think.

Australia also doesn’t get the higher spec white model either. By the way , the $4300 model has wireless broadband internet but only Vodaphone is an option and their coverage isn’t that good.

I have bought Dells before and have been very happy with them but no Dell, absolutely no Dell, computer is worth those prices. The lesser spec Apple Air seems a bargain by comparison – well nearly.

Dell Adamo Notebook Out Now For Australia

I am not sure how many people have heard of Dell computers amazing looking Adamo notebook PC, I only heard of it the other day. Dells release date is today and you can have a look at it on their Adamo website. I think it is pronounced Ah Dah Mo.

The notebook looks amazing, made of milled aluminium like some of the Apple notebooks and super thin – thinner than Apples Air PC !wow! A 13.4 inch HD screen that is flat glass to the edge, a fair number of ports and includes adaptors to use them (no extra cost I think) – eSata is great, my Toshiba has it and I connect my External HDD to it (and it can be used as a normal USB if needed) and the whole thing only .6inches thin (the air was a fat .76 🙂 ) .

The packaging is very iPod like and a first I would think for notebook marketing, I am betting others start doing it soon. The outer faces of the aluminium are an etched finish and look superb. A backlit keyboard with nice scalloped keys, I wish my current notebook had backlit keys, including my Netbook. Dell say the Adamo will get about 5 hours on the battery, not bad if true.

There are a few photos around but not many, I have taken stills from the Adamo video and it’s in black and white. Actually the computer will be available in two colours as well, Onyx and Pearl (black and white really).

The price will be around $1,999 US, not sure about Australian prices for the Adamo, hope it is not too bad as I would like to buy one if it is cheap enough with the Australian dollar as it is.

Australias Day Of Mourning

It is a pretty sad day in Australia today. Our National Day of Mourning for the poor people that have been effected by the terrible, terrible bushfires in Victoria.

I am sure all people in Australia know about this tragedy and many, many around the world do as well.Not only has many people died but whole towns have been destroyed. No one can imagine what it could be like – families gone, communities gone, livelihoods gone.

There is a memorial service to honour the 209 people who lost their lives in Victoria’s bushfires  in Melbourne. I have read that thousands of mourners have gathered around at Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena to remember the dead and missing. I am watching it on TV, currently a didgeridoo is being played – it has never sounded so sad to me before.

Australian Day Of Mourning for the Victorian bushfire victims

There will be addresses from political leaders, religious figures and other dignitaries including Princess Anne who is attending the service on behalf of the Queen. There will also be words from bushfire survivors and will end with a speech by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

I find it hard to imagine how much people have suffered and I hope this day is a way of showing people they are not alone. The ABC has a stunning website showing the tragedy with audio from survivors .

I have donated to the Red Cross and please, please find it in your heart to donate as well, even a few dollars can help.