Alexanders the estate agents currently have a banner on their web site which proudly proclaims their use of "State Of The Art Technology & Integrated Computer Systems".The effect of this boast is somewhat lessened by the fact that their site claims that today's date is "November 18 108". They also have a "rental property of the week" called "End of...

It’s almost a year since I first reviewed the LG Viewty, however I still get asked quite a bit about customising it, specifically in terms of getting new LG Viewty themes, some of which look like the iPhone interface. The LG Viewty was a great mobile phone when it appeared late last year and it still is good compared to many newer handsets that have been released since, however perhaps you’ve got a little bored with the 3 interface themes that come with the phone, could you do with a change of theme on your LG Viewty? If that’s the case, then you might be interested to read what I managed to find after doing a little research on this topic, here’s what I found… There’s a very active community (forums) of LG Viewty owners out there who create and share lots of...

I’ve always been a big fan of good things in small packages. I remember spending almost a month’s pay on the Toshiba Libretto 70CT. Known as a sub-notebook, it was about the size of a VHS cassette although slightly slimmer, but it weighed a lot more. It ran Windows 98 on a Pentium 120Mhz CPU, had a 1.2GB hard disk, and although it was no PC hot-rod (even back then) it was damn-good at what it was designed for, which brings me to the Acer Aspire One. The Acer Aspire One (referred to hereafter as simply the “Aspire”) comes in several different versions. The version I bought (and because it’s so cheap, the only version I’d advise anyone to go for) is, like all Aspires, based around the 1.6Ghz Intel Atom CPU. This version has 1GB of RAM, a 120GB SATA HDD, Wireless G and cabled...

Somehow over the last few years I have acquired two Google accounts. One of them is associated with my Gmail email address and the other is associated with my dave.org.uk address. Recently I heard that the G1 phone ties itself to a single Google account when you activate it, so if I'n going to get a G1[1] then I need to combine them as far as I can.This has proved to be a bit of a battle. And as it gives an interesting insight to how Google's tools aren't quite as integrated as they would like you to think they are, I thought I'd write up my experiences so far.My first approach was to find some way to just merge  the two accounts. That would have been great - just take the data from both accounts and combine it. But there wasn't an option to do that. I could add other email addresses...

Google have now added further features to it’s Google Mail web browser based service, it essentially combines the voice chat functionality from Google Talk as well as adding video chat into the mix. I’ve been using Google Mail (GMail) for a few years now, one of the handy things that you could do was have a live text chat / instant message session with other Google Mail users that you were friends with from within the browser without the need for a separate instant messaging client. Google have also offered a separate optional application called Google Talk that you could install and use to have a voice chat with your other Google Mail/Talk friends - this method of ‘calling’ your friends has always provided me with good service when I’ve used it and have...

It’s now quite a while since I first did a typing speed test, so when I stumbled upon this ‘10 key typing test’, I just had to have a go to see how good I was. Having done a lot of data entry work in the past and being a blogger now I know how much benefit being able to type quickly. This test is different from most typing tests which require you to type out words and punctuation, with a 10 key typing test, your speed is measured upon how fast you can enter information just using the number keypad part of your keyboard, which means you’re going to have to be good at entering numbers and mathematical functions! Anyway, this is how I did on my first attempt at this 10key typing test: Your accuracy was impressive. Your speed was 5435 Keystrokes Per Hour Evaluation:...

Viigo beta 3 is now available and I must say that it appears to have really moved on and developed well since I last looked at it a few months ago when Viigo was merely a mobile phone news reader application for your mobile phone. The RSS news feeds have been present for sometime in the various releases of Viigo, so this is somewhat old-hat now, but by subscribing to the news feed of your favourites websites, you’re then able to read the latest updates in an easily accessible format. No more awkward and time-consuming navigation using a clunky mobile phone internet browser for you! The latest build of Viigo now has several advancements and new features in addition to the previous standard features of being able to check your RSS news feed: Audio feeds/podcasts Weather Sports scores...

There’s always been something a little “hit and miss” about Microsoft Workgroup Networking. If the tides are right, if the lunar cycle is correct and you’re wearing compatible trousers, Workgroup networking might just work. This is why I run a Windows Server Domain at home and aside from the f*cking Mac (not mine, my dad’s), it’s reliable and flawless. The Xbox 360 doesn’t recognize Domains, so it’s back to the wiji-board world of Workgroup networking! This is not a universal guide and is presented “as is”. I do not guarantee that this will work for you, however all steps outlined here are innocuous and entirely reversible, so you’ve nothing to lose by giving it a go. I set this up with Vista Ultimate, but I believe it will also work with Vista Home Premium and XP...

This Island Apple I remember Betamax. It was superior to VHS in many ways. As it turned out, that really didn’t matter in the format war. VHS was backed by the most companies, was a little cheaper and was “good enough” for most of us. The fact that it was the best didn’t make Betamax the right format to back and the same is so true of the Mac. Everything interesting always happens on the PC, because everyone interesting is almost always using one. The PC market is so overwhelming that innovators and developers will always focus their attentions there. Of course, the truth is that there is now no compelling reason to choose one format over another. Except for.. well.. it’s Windows isn’t it? You know it will work with whatever you’ve got and anything you get will work with...

We rarely cover space tech related stories here on Digitpedia but this is a biggie! We all know about humans going to the moon, and by now it is still amazing but also slightly boring. So how about humans going to Mars! This could be the next... [ To read the full article please click the article title above ]...

Twitter Technology Blog: We Got Data Overview of the current options for Twitter integration. (tags: web2.0 web twitter tech statistics socialnetworking search rest programming tweetmarks xmpp social-networking) IHTFP Hack Gallery: Fire Hose Drinking Fountain This is such an ace photo that I had to share it (I found it from reading a comment on the Twitter blog, go figure). (tags: history funny education mit firehose fire-hose fire-hose-drinking-fountain drinking-fountain firehose-drinking-fountain photo)...

Whatever is left of the government’s reputation for protecting data took another hit today as news broke that a memory stick, containing the usernames and passwords for a key government IT system, has been found in a pub carpark. From The Guardian :: The Mail on Sunday said ministers had ordered the emergency shutdown of the Gateway website - which covers anything from tax returns to parking tickets - while experts checked to ensure people’s private details were not compromised. The loss of the memory stick is another embarrassment for the government in a long series of data mishandling incidents which began with the loss of the entire child benefit database. Members of the public can register on Gateway to access hundreds of government services including self-assessment tax...

This is a cross-post from the Wardman Wire, singing the praises of editing your blog offline, rather than using the Back Office of whatever blog application you use.Offline blog editors are PC-based editors that allow blog posts to be written on a local PC and then uploaded as a separate operation. I was asked about the benefits I've been using an offline Blog Editor called Blogdesk by Johannes Oppermann. I am very pleased with the software. This is only suitable for a PC, but there are other editors available, and I have a list at the bottom of the article. Here is what Blogdesk looks like: Click on the image for a full screenshot.Offline Editor BenefitsThese are the benefits of Blogdesk which I came up with. This is not exhaustive.I do maybe 95% of my editing offline, and can then...

My current mobile phone contract has finished so I'm looking around for a new phone. This means that I've spent some time over the last few days looking at phone company web sites. And it seems that although they might be selling cutting edge technology, phone companies still get their web sites built by the same idiots as most of the world. I came away distinctly unimpressed. Here are a couple of the best examples.My current phone is with O2. Whilst I was on their site I wanted to contact their customer service department. They provide a web form for this on their site. I went through a couple of filtering forms (what kind of customer are you? what is your query about?) until finally I had a text box where I could enter my question.I had quite a complex query, so I typed rather a lot -...

Google have just released a new application for the iPhone, now you can have Google Earth on your iPhone or iPod Touch. I’ve been using the Google Earth application ever since it was first released back in 2005; I try not to use it too often as I find I end up flying around looking at all the satellites views of various locations, zooming in and out all over the place for a good hour or two once I do start using it. Now you can access all the great features of Google Earth on your iPhone including some specific ones just for the iPhone version: Tilt your iPhone to adjust your view to see mountainous terrain View the Panoramio layer and browse the millions of geo-located photos from around the world View geo-located Wikipedia articles Use the ‘Location’ feature to fly to...

You can now get a lego brick USB memory stick keyring to carry around your all important data around with you! In recent years I’ve somewhat re-discovered Lego after leaving it behind as a kid, but now this memory stick means I may have to add to my growing Lego collection. In the past, I’ve covered and reviewed various USB memory stick devices that are out there, such as the Corsair Voyager, Sandisk Cruzer Titanium, Star Wars USB memory sticks and even a USB humping dog! Obviously some of these are more novelty than others, but in this case though you get the best of both worlds. The lego brick USB memory stick comes in capacities of 2GB or 4GB, a choice of three colours - red, blue or yellow. Also, given it’s only the size of a regular lego brick, it makes for a great sized...

Joost is a free TV video online service where you can watch a variety of different TV shows whenever is convenient to you; you’re not tied to TV schedules here. Since it launched as a public Joost beta around May 2007 it’s been developed and various improvements made to the service along the way. Now what’s probably the most notable of changes that has been made is the fact that you no longer need to download and install a separate application in which to view the Joost TV programming content. All you need to do now is visit the Joost website and register for an account - or login if you an account from using the Joost application like I did - for the first time in over a year I may add! I think the main reason why I hadn’t used the Joost service in that length of time was...

PS3 hard disk upgrades are easy to do, at least that was what was mentioned in the comments of our recent ‘new PS3 160GB’ post – with that in mind I thought I would go out and do a little research on this subject to see just what is involved. I was pleasantly surprised to see just how simple Sony have made the process of replacing a corrupted hard disk and also that of upgrading your PS3 hard disk to a larger capacity – which in turn means you don’t have to go out and buy a new PS3 to replace your smaller hard disk model. This also opens up the possibility of getting a cheaper PS3 if you’re currently considering buying one – for instance, the cost of a PS3 40GB and a separate hard disk (which could possibly be larger than the current largest standard capacity of 160GB)...

Artificial intelligence learning capabilities were recently covered in a TV show I watched about technological advancements which posed the question what the future might hold for us. I’ve always found this area of artificial intelligence quite interesting way back from when I was just a kid playing electronic games, watching the Wargames movie and programming robotic toys. Once I started playing with computers and inevitably games, which brought with them some basic artificial intelligence which depending on the game could either be very easy or very hard to beat – the classic, timeless games are typically the ones which had a good balance which in turn equalled, good gameplay! ASIMO is perhaps one of the most famous, advanced robots that have been developed in Japan that are...

I thought I’d give a little update as to how I’ve been using Twitter and what I currently think to it given my initial Twitter scepticism for the service when I first started blogging over 18 months ago – how times have changed, how those archives can come back to haunt you! If you’ve been following Zath on Twitter for the past few weeks you’ll already know that I tend to go through days of several Twitter updates to some where I may only reply to other people’s Twitter – essentially using it as a chat or IM service. Either way, I’m finding that the Twitter community is a great one to be a part of and have found people answering questions that I’ve Twittered even though we may not have chatted before. I’d say overall, the Twitter website is simple and easy to...

Do you need a WiFi Detector T-shirt? Well have you ever thought, ‘Ooo! I’d love to be able to have an item of clothing that will let me know when I’m in an area with good WiFi signal’. Well now all your dreams have come true because you can. Whether you thought that or not. So if you’re walking around and you’d like to check your emails, or browse the Internet, then gone are the days of starting up your laptop or fiddling with your PDA, just look down on your chest to see if you’ve got a signal. The T-Shirt has a graphical display on the chest which has glowing bars showing you the strength of the signal. The WiFi Detector T-shirt shows WiFi signal strength from 802.11b to 802.11g which for a T-Shirt is awesome. This cool T-shirt design isn’t powered by NASA’s latest...

Chris Cillizza explains on WashPo’s The Fix blog, how Colin Powell’s endorsement of his opponent may be the final nail in John McCain’s presidential hopes. It is widely rumoured that the retired General will offer his backing to Senator Obama on NBC talk show Meet The Press today. Cillizza points out that Powell’s support will shore up Obama’s foreign policy credentials - the one area where McCain still gets...

The successor to Windows Vista has now long been codenamed as simply Windows 7, but it would now appear that Microsoft are going back to basics in another sense and simply calling their 7th version of Windows (in terms of software builds), “Windows 7” when it comes to market. I wonder if this ties in with their new approach that they seem to be taking with their Windows products that includes their funny Microsoft TV Commercials and also they more mainstream ‘I’m a PC’ adverts. This is the first time that a development codename for the next version of Windows will be used as the official name when it is finally released. Previous Windows versions have undergone a naming development as follows: ‘Chicago’ became ‘Windows 95′ ‘Memphis’...

Would you be interested in having the opporatunity to write for Zath? We’re an established UK Tech Blog that’s been running for over 18 months and now get over 2000 visitors a day to the site. These figures are increasing month on month, so we’re now looking to recruit some more talented writers onto the Zath team so that we can better cover news and reviews of the latest in technology, gadgets and gaming for our readers. Have you ever considered writing for a website such as Zath? Have you got a interest in the topics that Zath covers? Can you write original content to a good standard about these things that you like? Being a blog writer for Zath has the following benefits: Earn money from the comfort of you own home, the local coffee shop or wherever else you choose to...