::Griffblog::

I’ve been following the progress of Adonit ever since they launched their Writer project on Kickstarter. Although I already have a ZAGGMate keyboard it’s not perfect, it doesn’t protect the iPad fully and is a little cumbersome to deploy.

When I first saw Adonit’s solution it seemed to be much closer to my ideal. A folding BlueTooth Keyboard combined into a clever folio style design that allows for screen angle adjustment , easy removal and full protection when closed. But, by the time Adonit had launched Writer for iPad, I had upgraded to an iPad 2 and so I was forced to wait a little longer whilst they re-tooled.

And so I was delighted to hear that they were pulling out all the stops and to get the iPad2 version into production in as quickly as possible. It launched last week, I placed my order and 4-days later I received it. Not bad considering it was shipped from Taiwan and our beloved Royal Mail struggle to deliver my first class post in the same time frame. Another very pleasant surprise was that Adonit charged a flat $35.00 for UK shipping with no extra fees and no nasty customs bill.

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I’ve long been a hobby photographer. Aside from the need to take photographs for the day job, I enjoy photography as a hobby.

My first ever ‘proper’ camera was a Zenit E, which gives my age away. Built like a Russian tank, large, heavy, basic but reliable and perfectly capable of capturing great images when in the right hands.

Fast forward to the digital age and my camera collection more recently included a Nikon D70, one of the first affordable consumer DSLRs, and two Canon compacts, an iXUS 65 which pulls duty as the holiday camera and a TX1 which was bought as a camcorder replacement.

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Funny as some of the comments are following the iPad launch, the ethos of computing may very well have changed with the launch of iPad.

How many of us spend time supporting the PC installs of family, relatives and friends? Who hasn’t taken a call from a family member asking why the laptop won’t load the internet or why, when they click on an application icon, nothing happens?

The vast majority of computer users ask no more of their little boxes of magic than they should power on when commanded and that they should be able to browse the web, send email and write a letter when they wish?

Few of these users even know what multi-tasking is let alone need it so all the hyperbole about its absence is a red herring. They don’t do a dozen things at once on a computer and they methodically open and close applications one at a time.  It’s a prayer to the computing gods in the hope that the next time they need to, it will power on and behave!

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There can be few who don’t know that later today Apple are holding a product launch event and that, if fevered speculation is to be believed, a new tablet style device will be announced. And as my close friends will attest, I am a Mac user and a huge fan of their products.

So what is it about Apple that drives this fanboi devotion to their product and the fever pitch of anticipation whenever they launch a new product? Why do Mac users display a unique devotion to their chosen platform that is quite unlike anything you see from users of other products?

Apple have the unique ability to whip up a storm of rumour and gossip months before any new product is unveiled. This free publicity is priceless but in this case all the hype has been whipped up despite the actual product being unknown. Can you think of any other company who can cause such excitement ahead of an event to discuss an ‘unknown’ product?

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I’ve long been interested in alternative fuel solutions for vehicles.  Good as LPG was at reducing running costs, it was never a truly practical alternative with the bulky and inconvenient tanks, the need to start on petrol and switch over to LPG on some systems and the scarcity of LPG equipped stations.

Electrically driven vehicles powered by Hydrogen Fuel Cells, with their only by products being electricity and clean water, seem to be the perfect solution.  But they are still some way off being a practical option.  The necessary infrastructure to supply hydrogen and the difficulty in actually producing it in the first place mean there a still some large hurdles to overcome.

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