One of my newest toys is this cool piece of running technology from Garmin. Basically it’s an oversized wrist watch, with builtin GPS, and lots of useful features for running and other sports.

For all its clever features, there’s really only one that I use – the Virtual Partner feature that lets me run against one of my previous runs. I just pick a previous run as my Virtual Partner, and the Forerunner shows me how far ahead or behind my ghostly other self I am. It’s definitely a weird feeling when you’re only 10 feet ahead or behind your Virtual Partner.

I pretty much exclusively run alone, and having a Virtual Partner is good motivation when I’m out on a run. And he doesn’t mind if I’m feeling fast or slow that day – I can just run at whatever pace I want and he doesn’t complain. When I am slow, at least it’s only myself on a better day that I can’t keep up with.

One important tip – if you own a Forerunner, resist the temptation to set a really fast run as your Virtual Partner. It’s only odd days that your body is up to running a personal best, and attempting to stay with a hard pace on a normal day will be unpleasant and possibly dangerous. A fast but comfortable run seems work for me.

If you’re a regular runner and enjoy your gadgets, it’s worthy of your consideration.

At the start of March, I posted my thoughts on the new Intel Mac Minis. I finally gave into temptation, and purchased the Core Solo model with 1Gb of RAM a couple of weeks later.

Having used it for almost a month, I’m ready to give my considered opinion. Please bear in mind that it’s being used in my living room for media playback, rather than as a desktop system:

Negatives:

• Price – it’s just a little bit too expensive, especially when you add a bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and more RAM. Either drop the base price, or the price of the upgrades
• The WiFi isn’t brilliant. I’m getting better results using a Belkin bridge connected to the Ethernet Port on the Mac mini
• The Front Row remote is a little bit too simple, and I’m not convinced that it’s particularly well made
• For compressing video content, the Core Solo processor is a little on the slow side
• The 40Gb disk is very easy to fill up. Unfortunately my wifi network doesn’t quite seem to cope with playing remote DivX files via VLC
• Front Row seems like a bit of a hack at times. No way to randomly shuffle a specific music playlist is a grave ommission, and I’ve also managed to crash Front Row a couple of times by turning on Visualisation through Salling Clicker while Front Row is running
• The DVD Player doesn’t have full aspect ratio control, and VLC (where you can control aspect ratios) currently has less than perfect DVD playback
• The Apple Bluetooth Mouse that I bought doesn’t seem to track very well. Might have to find a replacement

Positives:

• It’s incredibly silent and the form factor is amazing
• The DVI output into my Pioneer plasma TV looks fantastic
• FrontRow is a joy to use, despite its occasional bugs
• Much as I like my Squeezebox, having full iTunes on a plasma TV is great
• iPhoto Slideshows on a plasma TV with the Ken Burns Effect are gorgeous
• iTunes visualisations look great on a large screen
• Salling Clicker turns my Dell X50v into a killer bluetooth remote. A total bargain for $23.95 (assuming you own a compatible PDA or phone)
• 1Gb seems to be enough RAM for use as a media centre

In summary, although it has a few issues, and is far from cheap, I’m pretty happy with my Intel Mac mini. 1Gb of RAM and the Core Solo were the right choice to make, although I wish I’d bought a slightly larger hard disk. My Squeezebox will soon be on its way to a new home (to be fair to Slim Devices, I wasn’t really using all the advanced features that the Squeezebox offers).

Once Apple sort out PVR functionality and HD content via the iTunes store, they’ll have a great media product in the Mac mini. The current Core Duo system also makes a lot of sense as a premium desktop, assuming that you already own a monitor.

I previously posted about Opera launching a beta browser for Windows Mobile. While I was very impressed with the first release, it did tend to crash a lot. They’ve now released a new beta, and it’s far more solid. Sites like Yahoo! Mail and Amazon now seem to work fine. Based on this progress, I’ll definitely be purchasing the final release.

I was very interested to see the details of the new Intel Mac mini yesterday. I’m a real fan of Mac OS X, and I’ve been using a 20 inch G5 iMac as my main desktop for some time now. Below are some of my thoughts on the new system:

Positives:

• Choice of Solo or Core Duo processors – fantastic. It does mean that as long as you’re not doing disk intensive work, a budget Mac with decent performance is now available
• Use of a laptop sized hard disk. I originally thought that Apple should move to a desktop sized drive, but it looks easy enough to expand via USB or Firewire, so I think they’ve made the right decision to preserve the small form factor
• No iPod dock. I appreciate that some people really want this, but I just think it will look very odd
• Digital audio support – this is essential for using it as a media centre
• Fully loaded with Airport Extreme, Bluetooth, Gigabit Ethernet, 4 USB ports, and a remote control

Negatives:

• Although the amount of memory it ships with isn’t too bad (512Mb), expanding it to 1Gb or more is expensive. £70.01 for an extra 512Mb from Apple. And as they ship it with both of the two available slots occupied (256Mb in each), buying a 3rd party upgrade isn’t going to be much cheaper
• Front Row still hasn’t been upgraded into a full media centre system. It still appears to be just a nice, but overly simple frontend for other programs. It looks slick, but I suspect I’d run into its limitations too quickly for my liking
• The Mac mini is crying out to be used as a high definition media player, but there is little content available. Once Apple start providing HD content on their store, or ship it with either Blu-ray or HD DVD support, the Mac mini will make even more sense
• No PVR functionality. I appreciate that this is very complicated, but if Apple could build in support for this (preferably via Freeview in the UK), it would really interest me

So am I going to buy one? If I was going to buy my first Mac, I’d be very tempted by the Core Duo version, upgraded to 2Gb of RAM, with whatever large LCD monitor Dell have on offer at the time. And the Core Solo version with 1Gb is nice as a beginner’s desktop, although it does look rather expensive compared to some of the deals available from Dell.

Given that I already own an iMac G5, I would be buying one as a Media Centre, to replace a Squeezebox. I was ready with my credit card, but in the end, I’m going to sit on my hands for a while. Once the RAM is upgraded, and you add a wireless keyboard and mouse (necessary as Front Row is too basic), it begins to look too expensive for something that isn’t a PVR, or even a proper Media Centre. Still, I may yet be tempted if the reviews from owners turn out to be very positive.

For the last year or so, one of my favourite mobile applications has been TomeRaider 3. This is a rather nice database reader for various mobile devices (I’ve used both the Palm and Windows Mobile versions).

What lifts TomeRaider 3 head and shoulders above all similar programs I’m aware of, is the availability of snapshots of various Wikipedia versions in the TomeRaider 3 file format. Thanks to the efforts of Erik Zachte, TomeRaider 3 files are available for download and for purchase (if you want the latest version with images in a hurry). He also makes the script he uses to generate the files available, and I can confirm that it works very well.

I originally started with a sub 1Gb version (I used Erik’s script to generate the file myself) of the English Wikipedia on a Treo 600 phone. Having an entire Wikipedia on a phone in your pocket is wonderful. If you’re the curious sort, and read a lot, having a enormous encyclopedia in your pocket means you can never be bored. And it’s great for resolving any questions people raise (usually in the pub). Obviously similar results could be achieved using an Internet connection, but here in the UK, GPRS is too slow and expensive to make this a good option.

I’ve now moved on, and while the text only Wikipedia on Palm was impressive, the sub 4Gb file with images that Erik offers is on another level altogether. I now use a Dell X50v as my reader – the VGA screen and the dual memory slots (SD and CompactFlash) make it almost perfect for TomeRaider and Wikipedia, while still being pocketable.

As the 4Gb file with images will take many days to generate, I now find it easier to regularly buy the latest version directly from Erik. His prices are very reasonable, and he posts the DVD very quickly. As the Wikipedia keeps growing, I just hope that flash memory prices continue to fall, as my 4Gb CompactFlash is already starting to look a little small 🙂

Erik deserves a lot of praise for his work, but I’ve also made several donations to the Wikimedia Foundation over the last year, so that they can continue to develop and support the various Wikipedias. If you use any of the Wikipedias frequently, please consider making a donation.

Trial versions of TomeRaider 3 are available, and several full versions of Wikipedia are available for free download, so if you’ve got a Palm or Windows Mobile device with a good sized flash memory card, it’s well worth a look.

I’ve recently read that subtle lighting behind a screen can improve the perceived quality and comfort of the viewing experience. A thread on AV Forums mentioned some affordable LCD strips sold by IKEA called TRETTIOEN, which seemed like good value for £21 a set.

As I was going to IKEA anyway, I decided to pick up two sets of those lights in blue (they’re also available in green and white). One set has been stuck to the back of my main Plasma TV, and the other set is on the back of my 20 inch iMac G5 (see the photo below).

So far I’m pretty impressed with the results for £21 a display. The effect is definitely similar to the backlit displays you can buy in the shops. I’m not sure whether any real difference is made to the quality of the image, but I certainly prefer the look of the both the iMac and the plasma with the backlight on, to having the backlight off.

The configuration I’ve used is one strip on each side of the screen, and two strips at the top. This seems to give a good distribution of light.