Until now.
I signed up for a trial with Unotelly, a DNS-resolver / cache-based solution. They claim its VPN free, but the only way I can see it working is that they redirect the supported list of channels through to their own application proxies, which then mask you from the content provider.
Who cares; it works well, its relatively cheap, easy to install and I had it up and running on my home network in minutes. And best of all, works equally well on laptop, tablet, smartphone, etc. Neat!
I had written before about the Galaxy Nexus; I've upgraded it to Android Jelly Bean, and so far loving the new notification framework, and the overall smoothness and perceived speed jump in usage.
The ability to mass dismiss notifications is also quite cool. Not cool is the auto-resizing / scaling of widgets. Sometimes, you want widgets to stay just where they are dammit, and this sometimes gets in the way. Pity there is no way to "lock" a widget / home screen.
Time to go play and discover more :-)
So, the big decision; do you buy the Samsung Galaxy S III or the HTC One X ? I'm not a fan of change, and I'd really appreciated the HTC Sense interface; I felt it enhanced, rather than detracted from, stock Android.
I ordered both, and played with both (the Samsung for about 10 minutes, and the HTC is now my primary device). Samsung's TouchWiz just seems to get in the way, and over simplifies the phone approach. I can see how this works well if their goal is to convert people from the iPhone to Android. It frankly pisses me off, and I spent most of yesterday helping a friend clean it off and install Cyanogenmod 9. He spent most of yesterday evening telling me how great it was over the stock interface, and based on my extremely limited time with it, I'd agree with him. He's going to love Jelly Bean when it arrives.
The One X seems on the surface not dramatically different from previous phones and iterations of their overlay. It just feels polished, smooth and natural. You can see that they've tried very hard to abstract the interface issues away from Android and provide a more consistent interface.
It feels good in the hand, and although the non-removable battery and lack of micro-SD (almost standard these days in any phone other than from Apple) is a concern, frankly it feels better and more well constructed than its equally large competitor. No doubt the Samsung will get more sales, but is it a better device than the HTC ? Not convinced. Battery life is sucky on both.
Both are still too damn big to be used with one hand, so it will be interesting to see what the iPhone 5 looks like size-wise. Its going to be a touch act to follow though, as the 4S appears positively dated compared to these new giants. Lets see.
Disclaimer: I did get a discount on these from the distributor, but would have bought them at full price regardless.
I have an irrational love of torches (as opposed to a rational love of pocket knives, which I can squarely blame my grandfather for). Not extreme military-grade torches, but I'm quite careful about planning for power outages and for non-traditional weapons in a pinch. Within stumbling distance at home I have Mag-Lite 4 cell torches (with LED lights), and two sets of replacement batteries. In the cars, I have Mag-Lite 2 cell torches, also with two sets of replacement batteries. But these torches are quite heavy, and quite bulky.
Specifically the car-intended ones, while very bright, are near useless when needing to do something that requires two hands (e.g. changing a tyre, fitting mud flaps, etc) - which more often than not is what you need a torch for in a car. You end up balancing the torch, it falls, and much frustration while you try and figure out how to stand the damn thing. So score 1 for weaponry, 0 for practicality.
Enter left stage, the Joby Blade. Joby are the same crazy guys who brought us the funny looking tripods, and have recently augmented their range with a bunch of cool torches. This one specifically attaches the wrap-around legs, which are magnetized (very cool!), to a very powerful 60 lumen LED light (which has a "boost" mode up to 130 lumen) which is rechargeable via USB. Nifty! It seems durable and compact, and has already replaced one of the car torches. Score 5 for practicality (and unfortunately 0 for weaponry).
Recommended! Its distributed locally by Wintec Solutions, a bunch of guys who bring in some really neat brands and back it up with great service.
Disclaimer: I did get a discount on these from the distributor, but would have bought them at full price regardless.
Carrying multiple portable, battery driven and USB-chargeable devices is painful. At any given time, I'm carrying 3 cell-phones, at least one tablet & a compact camera. Travelling with chargers for all these things is a nightmare. Thank goodness so many of them are standardizing on being chargeable via USB, and there is some movement on recent devices to standardize on the connector - micro-USB. Except of course for Apple. But even they have an adapter for their ridiculous connector.
But there is still a decent risk that you'll have forgotten to charge one of them. And thats where the Powertraveller Discovery comes in. Its a compact portable battery, that can recharge any of those devices I've mentioned above while on the move. It does what it advertises it does, and comes with a travel pouch/bag, which for me shows a massive amount of consideration around how you protect this thing when you throw it in your bag.
It comes with a set of connectors (micro-, mini-, Motorola, Samsung, Nokia), but I carry around micro-, mini- and Apple dock cables as a matter of course, so don't use the supplied ones.
Highly recommended! Its distributed locally by Wintec Solutions, a bunch of guys who bring in some really neat brands and back it up with great service.