Review of the HTC TyTN II

Review of the HTC TyTN II at Pocket PC Thoughts. Sounds good. This device is currently at the top of my short list.

I Can Has Rubik's Cubes

My favourite website (I Can Has Cheezburger) has just combined my two obsessions - cats and cubes. Go Cheezburger!!

Let's study at Hogwarts

Which fictional school from the movies would you like to attend? This was the question asked in a recent poll by Pearl & Dean. The winner, with 38% of the vote, was Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Here are the top 10:

1. Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Harry Potter movies) - 38%
2. Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters (X-Men movies) - 17%
3. Boarding school St. Trinian's (some comedy I've never heard of from the 50s and 60s)
4. Rydell High School (Grease) - 8%
5. Horace Green Preparatory School (The School of Rock)- 7%
6. South Park Elementary (South Park The Movie)
7. Hill Valley High School (Back to the Future movies)
8. New York City High School For Performing Arts (Fame)
9. Shermer High School (The Breakfast Club)
   
10. Lake Forest High School (Ferris Bueller's Day Off)
    

I am with the majority on this one. Definitely Hogwarts.

The Aussie couple

Last week Peter and I went to a local cafe. The weather was nice so we asked for an outdoor table. There was a bit of a wait, so they put us on the list.

When a table became available, a different waiter looked down at the list, then up at the group of waiting customers, and said "which one of you is the Aussie couple?" I smiled, raised my hand and said "that would be us".

I realised at this point that the first waiter had never actually asked for a name when he put us on the list. This would never have happened in London. London is full of Australians.

Relative to population size, Australia has one of the largest diasporas in the world. About 1 million Australians live overseas (~5% of total population) and almost 1/4 of that group live in the UK!

Meowlingual

Meowlingual - a device by a Japanese company which claims to translate your kitty's meows. Hmmm. Not sure I'm convinced.

Read the news article here.

TomTom GO 910

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, we bought a car. Since I love gadgets, this meant we had to get a GPS too. After some research, we settled on the TomTom GO 910.

The GO 910 is not one of the cheaper GPS devices, but it was the right one for us because it had several features we wanted which the cheaper models didn't have, for example:

• Good range of maps pre-loaded. The GO 910 came with the US, Canada, and Western and Central Europe. Most of the others we saw here just had the US and Canada.
  
• Test-to-speech. Many of the GPS devices tell you when to turn left/right, etc., but don't tell you all the street names as well - the GO 910 does.
  
• Larger screen. The GO 910 has a slightly larger screen than many other GPS devices.

We've used it a couple of times and we're very happy with it so far. :)

What does "HTC" stand for?

I kept seeing the acronym "HTC" in the context of smartphones. I didn't actually know what this stood for, so I googled "What does HTC stand for?" and found this explanation on the PDAPhoneHome.com forum.

HTC stands for High Tech Computer Corporation. It is the Taiwanese company which is the OEM manufacturer for these phones.

I then checked Wikipedia and found an article on High Tech Computer Corporation. Cool.

Looking for a PDA phone

I've never had a converged PDA/smartphone before, having always preferred to keep my PDA and phone separate. However, since the manufacturers are pulling out of the high-end PDA market, if I want a new whizzy device, it's going to have to be a converged one.

I love my current PDA, the HP hx4700. What I was really looking for is a device which is basically the same, but with more:

-> processer - more powerful! faster!
-> main memory - more!
-> iPAQ File Store - more!
-> O/S - upgraded! (I'm still using WM2003SE)

Also, I'd want the device to keep all the things I love about the hx4700, including the large screen (pretty rare these days), dual expansion slots, amazing high resolution screen, etc. Unfortunately, such a device does not exist, other than in the hopes and imagination of other hx4700 fans. :/

I'm not too worried about the size and weight of the device. I'm happy for it to be on the heavier side if it means I can have a larger screen and more power/memory. Other thing is that I'm more interested in value-for-money than actual price. I don't mind if it's a little on the pricey side if you get a lot for your money and it's really packed full of features, power, memory, etc.

I really don't know much about converged devices, so I posted on the PocketPCThoughts for advice. Someone suggested I look at the HTC Hermes 100 and the HTC Kaiser, which I will. A friend also suggested the HTC Touch. If anyone has other suggestions, please leave me a comment!

Party animal

From SMH.com.au: Himalayan high for cat who cleaned up at party

"A Double Bay man got more than he bargained for when he took his highly agitated kitten to a veterinary clinic after it had been accidentally locked in a cupboard overnight - only to discover it was high on cocaine and benzodiazepines from a wild weekend dinner party." read more

Dearie me. Not good.

Mie N Yu

Last week we went to a Georgetown restaurant called Mie N Yu.

It was great. The decor was exciting and beautiful, the cocktails were fruity and delicious, the cheese was stinky and blue (just as I like it!) and the mains were mmmm...!