I’m going to be attempting to draw a picture every day for the month of February (some days on paper, some days on the computer) for Thing A Day 2012. I think my drawings should end up here. Wish me luck!

The default Android keyboard is really bad compared to the iPhone but the SwiftXKeyboard goes some of the way to fixing that. The contacts manager really needs some work (although this has been fixed in the newer versions of Android… which unfortunately HTC can’t update the Desire to). The biggest gripe is that it’s always complaining about not having enough space for applications and the browser is still treated by some sites as a mobile browser which prevents access to some content (grr!) but apart from those things it’s a decent phone and I’d definitely buy another HTC or another Android phone in the future. And I have to say that I’ve had less frustrations with the Desire than I had with my iPhone 3. So a new Android phone running ICS would be pretty sweet.

My biggest single iPhone annoyance was iTunes – not just the software itself but the necessity to sync and rely on a computer… something it’s nice to get away from with Android. (Again, this is less necessary with the new iPhones but I’m just not really an AppSore or iTunes fan). And so far I don’t think there have been too many iPhone features that I’ve missed on my phone. But it’s still just a phone and I still need to use my laptop or my work computer or Ruth’s MacBook to do some things (mainly anything typey or anything involving FTP/editing websites).

My Asus EEE1000HE running Ubuntu is decent, battery life is good and it’s mostly a happy experience – and it’s definitely worth more than the £250 it cost – but Ubuntu isn’t as polished as either Windows 7 or Mac OS Lion, nor is it anywhere near as fast. Most irritatingly the world still uses Microsoft Office to make Word and Excel documents – Libre Office just doesn’t cut the mustard. Nor, to be honest, does Google Docs, no matter how much I love Google Docs the formatting can’t compare to Office. Wesbite editing and typing are fine, photo editing is just a bit too tedious.

I love Macs, especially the styling. I like Mac OS but I’m also fine with Windows 7 or Ubuntu. In fact if it weren’t that they cost so much I’d probably buy a MacBook Air and have a phone too and not even think about one device to rule them all. But I sort of think in this day in age that it should be possible so here are my requirements for replacing my phone and my laptop and my camera with one device:

• Independent device (no need for syncing to another computer)
• Decent sized hard drive
• Optional physical keyboard – Bluetooth would be fine
• 8 hours+ battery life under usage, 24h+ on standby
• The essential ability to send texts (and thus be 3G and wifi)
• The all-important ability to make voice calls – again, a Bluetooth headset would be fine
• Ability to FTP to a site, download and edit webpages
• A real browser (with Flash) – I’m looking at you here Chrome!
• A camera with a camera-sized sensor and a regular flash
• A screen of approximately 7 inches in size – small enough that it can still fit in my jeans pocket, large enough to be able to be seen as a laptop replacement… and if someone makes a screen that folds then that will do nicely
• Microsoft Office?!

At the moment there are several “contenders” but none are quite there yet. Amazon’s Fire isn’t a phone, nor is the iPad, Asus Transformer or Motorola Xoom. The HTC Flyer and Samsung Galaxy Tab both have 7 inch screen versions but have lots of other issues. Maybe when Google brings out the rumoured tablet it’ll tick more of the boxes. For the mean time? Can I get a new HTC phone and a MacBook Air for under £500?!

1. Ditch the bus and walk more – success. I saved a fortune by cancelling my Rideacard and lost a fair chunk of weight walking the 2.3 miles to work and back. It was also a time saving as the construction of Edinburgh’s trams meant that the bus was taking 35 minutes on a good day and I can walk it in 28!
2. Stop using normal deodorant and use salt rockcrystal instead – again success. I’m allergic to practically every other deodorant and one rockcrystal has not only lasted 12 months (big financial saving) but hasn’t even gone down a quarter and I (nor the people around me) have noticed me being smelly.
3. Stop using shampoo/soap – success. I read on boing boing! about this one and decided to give it a go. Basically needing to shampoo every day is usually a self-fulfilling prophecy and once you break the cycle your hair will look after itself. It was actually harder to remember not to reach for the shampoo that you can possibly believe! (I was still doing it in May!) The results have been boringly fine – for me shampoo was totally superfluous.
4. Try to cut down on unnecessary commitments to free up more time for what we’d like to do – still a work in progress!

qikipedia

For 87 years, the Portuguese kept the existence of Ascension Island completely secret from the rest of the world.

and

Boys in ancient Sparta entered the army at the age of 7 and were not allowed to wear any clothes until they were 12.

and

Under US law, Alcoholics Anonymous has the status of a religion.

stevegreer

Scene from busy bookshop. Parent, reproachfully: “You’re very loud.” Small child, happily: “I KNOW.”

and

Man next to me in shop buying 10-pack of lager, copy of Nuts and single rose. Best. Valentines. Ever.

FakeAPStylebook

The plural of apostrophe is “apostrophe’s.”

and

Avoid using “gadzooks,” lest your monocle pop out and land in your jar of mustache wax.

jephjacques

Http://www.fanfiction.net/games/SkiFree

neilhimself

Hilarious and sad. I’ve just discovered that a quote of mine from SANDMAN is now being misattributed to Shakespeare

hellobigfoot

Did not faint. Just hibernated very, very briefly.

make_tips

When rolling up power cords, start at the power source; unplug first and don’t get shocked if the cord is frayed.

rstevens

Everything is an interface.

and

Comicon: where they only trim the beards so you can read their t-shirts.

and

Red Bull Cereal. We need to make this happen.

radiomaru

Wow, I’d never heard of Muphry’s Law, the editorial version of Murphy’s Law. Hee hee. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry%27s_law

and

I enjoy labeling checks in my online banking “extortion.”

hanneloreEC

Some people meditate. I fold laundry.

and

“I Survived the Swine Flu and All I Got Was This Lousy Crushing Sense of Doom”

and

I’ve got 500 surgical masks, twenty gallons of hand sanitizer, and a flare gun. As ready for swine flu as I’ll ever be.

digiphotoneil

Go go gadget Finite Element Analysis!

wilw

Bad news: I just lost the game. Good news: the day can only get better.

and

I also insisted that Data carry a Tricorder that said BAD MOTHERFUCKER on it. There was some resistance, but it was futile, of course.

 

chucknorris_

Chuck Norris can strangle you with a cordless phone.

and

Chuck Norris’ house has no doors, only walls that he walks through.

RichardShove 

I want more wenches, more wenches and mead!

laughingsquid

Linus Torvalds has the best response I’ve seen so far to Facebook’s “25 Random Things About Me” meme http://torvalds-family.blogspot.com/2009/02/25-things-about-me.html

I wrote a novel for National Novel Writing Month in 2009 and, after skipping 2010, I have just completed NaNoWriMo 2011! Here it is - all 50k words of it! It’s a story about NASA sending some astronauts to colonise another planet then at the last minute doing something a little bad. It’s sci-fi but should be fairly approachable. Warning: the text is totally uneditited and there are a lot of typos and grammar mistakes… I can’t even guarantee that it’ll make sense! If the typos really upset you then you can either offer to fix them or stop reading – it’s been a long month and I’ll probably not edit until January!!

We Are Augustines - Book of James

Must try for our Halloween party for our party next weekend.

Link: Window Monsters — Easy, Cheap DIY Halloween Decorations (via GeekDad)

This is pretty insane – if you ever feel the need to become superhuman then you should definitely get these guys as your personal trainers!

Link: Strength Training And Conditioning For Parkour (via Laughing Squid)

It’s such a pity that Think Geek’s UK postage is so costly… otherwise I might just get myself a Star Trek Spock dressing gown.

Link: Star Trek bathrobes (via Boing Boing)