Over the past few weeks I’ve been back and forth to Dallas, Amsterdam, London, Brussels and a trip to Hungary too and for each trip I’ve carried at least two adaptors or chargers. But that’s all about to change I’ve switched my trusty adaptor for a new adaptor like href=”http://images.maplin.co.uk/300/N16HW.jpg”>this one. It has the various european and US plugs plus crucial 2 USB sockets which allows me to charge both a phone and an iPad at the same time. So no more multiple adaptors just one from now on. Plus the adaptor has a blue light on it, which is great for testing which socket is live in airport lounges, no longer do you need to plug a phone/laptop in aswel, but just the adaptor itself.

We’ve had the Boxee for over a year now and it’s had it’s issue in use, which included the old wireless router not able to stream data fast enough and needing to be replaced with a new Wireless N router.

But now it”s connected to this new network it’s been flawless. iPlayer works like a dream on it and 4OD also works via the browser pretty well as well. So time-shifting TV is pretty easy and reliable now, which is great.

But what’s not working so well is the films, streaming them from the USB HD connected to the router works fine, but it’s the hassle of getting the disks there in the first place is the problem. Ripping some of my DVD’s has been easy, some have had their chapters muddled up in some attempt to prevent copying and others refused to rip at all.

So this is where LoveFilm streaming comes in, I currently have a LoveFilm account and get 2 DVD’s a month, but would happily swap it for streaming on demand to the Boxee and cut out the ripping.

There’s various upsides to a streaming service too, no more back ups, no more worrying about how long the USB HD will last. Music has already reached this position with Spotify which is on Boxee, I wonder when Boxee will get it fixed?

i noticed that i hadn’t blogged for a few months, it dawned on me as to why, I had an iPad, I stopped producing and started to consume more.

so I just got a Logitech Zagg keyboard and it’s all changed, what a great device, small, acts as a case and has a superb keyboard

I just installed Jetpack onto my blog, it consolidates a few plugins into one which is nice

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A while back I used to take ‘desk of the day’ photo’s capturing all the different desks and different locations I got to work out of, I stopped for a while but I’ve not started visiting some interesting place again, this was my desk on Friday the 20th of May whilst at GE’s AMSTC in Michigan

For the last few years I used Remember The Milk (RTM) to track my personal to-do lists, but found the annual subscription a little too high. So I looked for an alternative and Toodledo (http://www.toodledo.com/) is it.

Firstly, it’s a crap name, it sounds like some kids game, but putting that aside it’s a neat service and the key part is there’s app that sync to the web service for the iPad, Android devices and Blackberry too.

I just bought Taskjot (http://www.taskjot.com/) for my Blackberry to get my to-do’s on it and it works a treat, so all the pieces are there for me to run and have access to all my up to date actions on pretty much any device.

I start a new Job tomorrow (28th), I’ve left Orange Business and I’ve joined GE. It’s Telecoms sourcing still but I’m extremely excited to be joining such a huge and dynamic business.

I’ll need to update the about me page, Linkedin etc etc, but when I get a little more time.

just had an idea, could you develop a service whereby if someone tweeted in Chester with the hash #ch100pub and location switched on “wanted pub 5/10 with music and real ale” it returned a tweet with with the nearest pub meeting that criteria?

Following on from last years 40 beers for 40 years, I’ve got a new challange for 2011 and beyond, visit pretty much every pub in Chester and record it here http://100pubsinchester.wordpress.com/

I’ve lived in Chester for over 13 years now and I’ve probably been to about 20 something different pubs in all that time, so it was about time that changed.

The ability to check in before you get to the airport is awesome, it saves so much time and speeds up getting through to the get hugely. Printing off a boarding pass at home is pretty straight forward, but the problem comes when you can’t yet check in for the return leg. You can only check in 24hrs before and that usually means checking in whilst your travelling. That’s OK if your in an office with a printer say your own company for example, but if it’s someone else’s office you’ve got to print to PDF transfer it to a USB memory stick and beg someone to print it out a right hassle.

Now, forget the printing, just have the boarding pass emailed to your smartphone. My recent trip with KLM to Vienna was mobile boarding pass enabled and made checking in at home and whilst travelling a breeze. No more thinking how am I going to get this printed or how much extra time will I need to leave to queue up at those self service machines, it’s just in your inbox.

If you get a chance to try it, I recommend it as it works great. Out of the 4 flights I made last week, 1 flight attendent grabbed my phone and scanned it, but most just asked me to place it on the scanner my self. The security guys at the scanners just wanted to check the date so there was no issue their either.