This one off drama from BBC One was filmed locally to me and yet it didn’t feel familiar at all. I’m sure the book that this is based on is much better than the production that we were shown tonight (Monday 31st August).

The story is about the National Gallery in London becoming flooded and the pictures being “evacuated”, as they actually were during the war, to a small town in North Wales called Manod. The works of art were kept in an old slate mine up in the mountains.

The production crew obviously didn’t realise that in North Wales we have a different dialect to that of South Wales. Getting Eve Myles (of Torchwood fame) to play a school teacher was a great coup, but to transform the entire population of that school from North to South Wales was a big mistake.

This seems to me like poor planning on the production company’s part. Surely they could have made a bit more effort in finding out about the town of Manod?

Apart from that the program was an OK watch. Not spectacular by a long shot. Definitely not up to the standard I would expect from the BBC. Trevor Eve made an excellent job of his character I thought. He was an a nice chap too according to a friend of mine who would pass him daily whilst out walking, albeit from the comfort of Mr Eve’s BMW.

It’s great that new drama comes to our screens but if they’re not going to make an effort to get things right why bother at all. Turning North Walians in to South Walians is like setting Eastenders in Newcastle. It just doesn’t work.

Right, that’s my rant over, normal service shall resume now.

I’ve been intrigued by the Amazon Kindle for a while now, but haven’t yet bought myself ’round to getting my hands on one. So when I stumbled upon the COOL-ER eBook Reader my interest was renewed in these gadgets.

I’m a big fan of reading and can often be found in my local library searching out autobiographies (I’m currently reading “Dear Fatty” - Dawn French’s one) and Colin Forbes books.

So what is it that keeps bringing me back to these devices? I’m not quite sure to be honest. I think it may be the portability of them compared to an actual physical book. But saying that, it’s nice to hold a real book and turn pages. The anticipation of what’s going to happen on the next page drives me on to read more.

So, back to the COOL-ER eBook Reader. This eBook Reader is apparently set to become the iPod of the eBook world according to some. The COOL-ER eBook Reader’s ability to store between 500 - 800 novels may be something to do with this.

Not only is it paper thin (excuse the pun), but it extremely lightweight too. The 6″ screen is comparable to looking at an actual page of a book and because it uses e-ink it’s pretty easy to read, even in direct sunlight. Putting eBooks on the COOL-ER eBook Reader is as simple as downloading, dragging and dropping.

The COOL-ER eBook Reader battery will charge in about three hours and is good for 8000 page turns. If you leave the COOL-ER eBook Reader unattended for whatever reason, it’ll shut itself down to save battery life. The COOL-ER eBook Reader is available in 8 different colours and a price tag of just under £190. Will this be the device that will finally get eBook readers to the masses? We can only wait and see.

Now this is something that I really, really want. It reminds me of a toy I used to have as a child called “Big Trak”. The “Big Trak” was a sort of futuristic tank that you programmed to move around your home by pressing a keypad on the top of it.

Things have definitely moved on from then (it was about 20 years ago!) and I think of the Rovio as a sort of sibling to the Big Trak. They look kind of similar too. But the Rovio is much more advanced obviously. The technology is better these days. Heck, the Internet didn’t even exist!!

So the Rovio has a pretty hefty price tag to go along with it’s great features. £250 is steep for a “toy” robot. But you do get a lot of bang for your buck. It’s not like it’s some sort of simple radio controlled car.

The Rovio has a built in webcam and microphone and is WiFi enabled. You can control it from anywhere in the world with almost any device that is web enabled. It has three wheels that allows for greater movement and built in GPS. Having the built in GPS allows the Rovio to go to any location at the click of a button (I’m wondering if it can climb stairs?).

Obviously the Rovio runs on batteries and it’s intelligent enough to know when it needs to recharge and will find it’s docking station in order to do so. I’m absolutely drooling over this new gadget and it’s going to be difficult to resist temptation and get a hold of one. I will obviously be using PriceGrabber when I give in.

A few days ago I posted about getting an Apple Extreme Base Station in order to share my external hard disks over the internet. Well yesterday I went about setting up the Apple Extreme Base Station in the house. Everything was going great to begin with. The setup process was a walk in the park, or so I though…

Whilst I was at the house everything was working fine; I could access the disks and printer over the wireless network with no problems. But when I went to my girlfriends flat and tried to access the attached devices I wasn’t able to. I could connect to the Apple Extreme Base Station remotely, but not gain access to the disks (which was the main reason for getting it).

Now I’m not an expert on wireless networks so I’m a bit stumped as to what’s wrong. I did a lot of research on the Internet to see if I could find the cause of the problem but alas, no solution was forthcoming. I even signed up for a full MobileMe account after discovering that a trial account wouldn’t work. I’m going to try a few things out tomorrow when I go back home to see if I can get it to work. I think that turning off the BT Home Hub’s Wireless connection might solve some of the issues.

If that doesn’t solve it, I think I may have to do a factory reset of the Apple Extreme Base Station and do a fresh setup. As I said in my previous post I didn’t want to take the Apple Extreme Base Station with me to Bolton, but it looks likely that I’ll have to if I can’t get this sorted. It will be usefull at Bolton too though because I’ll be able to plug the University network into it and share it wirelessly with my MacBook.

Hopefully though I can get it sorted soon. Wish me luck.

I was browsing the Internet for something completely different when I saw this nifty little gadget. The WoodStation is a motion sensitive LED clock and weather station the likes of which I’ve personally never seen before.

Made from wood with a laminated finish, the WoodStation displays the weather in a cool and instantly recognisable way. You won’t have to do this by studying numbers on the WoodStation’s surface, oh no, this displays actual graphics so that you can see at a glance what your day is going to be like.

The WoodStation can be placed on a table top or hung on the wall and has quite a few features:

• Barometer: weather symbols; sunny - partly cloudy - cloudy - rainy / snowy and stormy
• Temperature (interior)
• Humidity (interior)
• Hour
• Calendar
• Alarm / snooze

There is a drawback to this glorious device and that’s the price. It’s not cheap at nearly £90 but if you’re in to your novelty items then this would be a great addition. The WoodStation would also be a great gift to anyone who’s interested in the weather.

I don’t know if I’d buy this personally, because I’m not that into the weather, but though it would be a good thing to post about for the benefit of you guys. I’m sure that someone will find it useful. To be honest, it’s hardly done anything but rain over the summer and I don’t fancy looking at the rain clouds on a piece of wood that’s sitting on my bedside table.

Ok, yesterday I decided to hook up the Nintendo Wii to the Internet over the wireless connection. The first problem I had was that I didn’t remember what the parental control passcode was. Not a good start really, but a quick search on the Internet showed me how to reset that.

The next thing was setting up the Wireless connection, which was easy enough to do. The Nintendo Wii did mst of the hard work there with me only having to enter the WAP passcode. I had to download a new update for the Nintendo Wii which took an absolute age. Once this was done I was connected.

I wasn’t that impressed with it to be honest. Sure there were good things, but I didn’t have any games that I could play online. So the next step is to get hold of some games for the Nintendo Wii that I can play over the Internet.

It wasn’t a bad experience really and I can see that many people must get enjoyment from connecting the Nintendo Wii to the Internet (ones who have games to play online obviously), the set up process is simplicity in itself.

Suggestions for games to buy in order to make the most of the Nintendo Wii’s connection would be appreciated. Leave comments on this post for me. I can assure you that I do read all of them.

I’ve decided to buy one of these. It’s an Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station. I got thinking the other day when I was looking at the portable hard drive to use as a Time Machine, that an Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station would be a good idea to get.

I don’t really want to take all of the external hard drives that I have with me to Bolton when I move in a month or so, so I decided that a Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station would be a good idea. It can be used as the broadband hub in the house, and in addition to that, I can connect a USB hub to it and then share my external hard drives through it and the printer. This means that I’ll be able to access my drives and printer wirelessly when I’m in the house.

Another major advantage is that I’ll be able to access these drives and printer over the Internet (you need a MobileMe account to do this) so my information will be available to me wherever I am. Investing in an Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station is a good idea for anyone who’s thinking of doing the same thing.

As I said, it’s a great solution for me because when I’m home I’ll be able to have access to the drives physically (although wirelessly) and when I’m away I’ll have access to the files.

PriceGrabber, as always have found the best prices for the Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station so that you don’t have to. Pick yours up today.

I seem to have an obsession with buying Western Digital Drives. This will be the fourth one that I have. I don’t know what it is about them that I like so much. The Western Digital MyBook that I have has served me well for over two years now, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to quit any time soon.

I have two passport drives too, which I use to transfer various files related to my studies and other work. I like to keep things separated, so that I don’t get confused as to what I’m doing. All my Western Digital Passport drives are different colours for that reason.

I’m now about to purchase a new one and I’ve decided to go with a 500Gb White Western Digital Passport this time. I chose white because I’m going to be using it as a Time Machine for the MacBook. I considered getting a Time Capsule, but the funds don’t stretch that far at the moment and I don’t want to use my credit card to get it.

The thing about Western Digital drives is that they are so quiet when you use them. I’m sat in a room with the MyBook and one of the Passport drives plugged in to the MacBook and I can’t hear any of them. The only sound I can hear is the rain hitting the window as I write, which is nice.

The 500Gb should give me more than enough space to Backup the MacBook safely. I’ve not found a drive that I like more than the Western Digital range yet, but if you have any recommendations on any that are as quiet or reliable as these, then please let me know by commenting on this post.

If you’re wondering where I’ve been for the past few days I’ll tell you. I’ve been in bed with a stinking cold that’s where.

I was feeling a bit rough last week to be honest, but didn’t think much of it. By the weekend I was bed ridden. I’m male, and I can hear all you women sighing and talking under your breath about “men, a little sniffle and they’re dying”. Well, it’s true, I was death’s door (not literally of course, and you’re right women it was just a sniffle in the end) and no amount of Tomato soup by a certain manufacturer was going to make me better.

By Monday, I was feeling much better, but decided to stay in bed for the day just to make sure it wasn’t bird flu or Swine flu (Can’t be too careful these days!). So I’m back to normal now and will be letting you all know of the cool things that I’ve been looking at whilst lying in my bed being tended on by my wonderful girlfriend.

The weather is still rubbish though, so no trips to the seaside for a while. To be honest I can’t believe how fast these summer holidays have gone by. It’s only a couple of weeks and the kids go back to school. Then I’m off to live to Bolton for a few years to finish off my degree course. I’m really looking forward to that.

I remember seeing something like this when I was a young boy many years ago, and was surprised to see them back (or still around maybe?).

The way I remember these were in pouches come to think of it. You pressed a “button” in the corner of the pouch and the food was heated up for you. I had no idea how they worked then.

HotCans are available (as far as I can see) in three varieties:

• Beef Casserole
• Sausage and beans
• Vegetable Chilli

A great selection if you’re planning on going away for the weekend camping and don’t want to carry a barbecue or cooking stove with you. You don’t even have to wash up after yourself. Simply pop the empty can in a bag and recycle it when you get home.

So how do the HotCans work? Well, it’s as simple as heating them up on the stove at home, but not the same method obviously. Firstly you take the plastic lid from the top of the HotCan and place it on the bottom. Secondly, you use the supplied key to pierce the outer jacket of the can. Thirdly, you peel back the lid and wait for 12 minutes whilst your meal heats up. How simple is that! They work by exothermic reaction which is super safe.

I’ve been caught out on (although I don’t like to admit it) a number of occasions when I’ve forgotten the igniter for the stove or it’s started to rain and these HotCans would have been the ideal solution. Obviously, do remember to pack the knife, fork and spoon so that you can actually eat the delicious contents of the HotCans.

These simple, delicious and quite frankly ingenious foody gadgets are a must for any camping trip and, as always, they’re available through PriceGrabber for as little as £4.50 - great value!!