Still alive, trying to take it easy…

Seen the Professor, and I have "De Quervain’s tendinitis";

"De Quervain’s tendinitis occurs when the tendons around the base of the thumb are irritated or constricted. The word "tendinitis" refers to a swelling of the tendons. Thickening of the tendons can cause pain and tenderness along the thumb side of the wrist. This is particularly noticeable when forming a fist, grasping or gripping things, or when turning the wrist."

I’ve had a steriod injection directly into the tendon, and have a splint for my wrist/thumb, been told to take two weeks off for rest, so don’t expect any blogs for a while

Well, at St. Anthony’s for my consultation with the Prof’ about my wrist – very different from NHS, clean polite, quiet..

Would you believe there is free WIFI as well? Spotted an access point on the wall and had some fun changing its colour from green to blue and back again as I connected…

Will let you know how it goes a bit later on…

It was a busy week again, and we had a scare on Wednesday when Mum fell out of bed hitting her head on the cabinet on the way down. She was a bit dazzed, with a cut on her ear, but the bruse and bump when down within 48hrs. The nurse gave her the once over on Friday and said all was OK.

I’m in SB’s again watching the world go by chilling, the Touch is performing well and the online iTunes store is quite interesting when you start to compare prices with the like of HMV (iTunes was surprisingly £2 cheeper on a newly released album). Shame there aren’t more WIFI points.

I’m booked into St. Anthony’s private hospital with a specialist to check out my wrist on Wednesday – hopefully they will be able to identify the cause of discomfort…

The week ahead is going to be busy, I feel my grace period has now expired and they are now expecting more.

It looks as though I’m to be the Technical Design Authority (TDA) for a London client, managing all aspects if their infrastructure providing recommendations and continually developing the relationship.

After signing up for thecloud.net’s £3.99 unlimited access for the iPod Touch I discovered that McDonalds are offering free access (via thecloud network) for free, of course while thats nice, I don’t always want to hang out in a McD’s to surf…

Well I’ve had the touch for a couple of days now and the device itself is unique; but at a cost…

I’ve always thought that Apple products are quite beautiful, minimalistic in their design, in the case of the iPod Touch a unique device with only two buttons, a home key and a sleep/power button. Here’s the problem, with any of the previous iPods pausing, playing selecting next/previous tracks were a doodle even from inside your pocket. The Touch is completely different, as all the players buttons are part of the GUI to go to the next track you must follow the steps below;

1. Take out of pocket
2. Press power button
3. Slide the unlock button to the right

… If you’re at the music screen, touch next track, then power button to sleep the display.

… If not…

4. Double click the home button to bring up the music buttons 5. Touch next track, power button to sleep display

Great if your at home, office but a little too obvious for public operation?

Well this is intresting, I’m writing this blog entry using my iPod, if this is how the iPhone keyboard operates then its a little tricky to say the least!

First day of Toil, spent 2hrs dealing with email (Gah!)…

In Kingston at the moment, just bought myself a 16GB iPod Touch so I’m expecting them to either release a 80GB version or drop the price in the next 4 weeks!

Just having a drink before I trek home and put it on charge for the next x+1 hours…

Will let you know what I think in the near future…

Well, all I can say is very impressive. I had a play with the new iPod Touch today in the Apple shop in Kingston; very impressive the display is large sharp and clear, and the OS (based on the same OS used on Mac computers) is easy to use and navigate.

As well as the music and videos, the Touch also makes use of its built-in WIFI capabilities, with built in youtube interface, and a new online store allowing you to download music into the Touch without the need of a computer; your new purchases are sync’d next time you dock.

Another interesting feature is a built in web browser (safari), seems to work great although I couldn’t figure out how to get the keyboard up.

The multi-touch screen is quite amazing allowing you to use two fingers to pinch images smaller, or pull them apart to enlarge; this works on the photos and the web browser allowing you to view the details. Dragging, cropping and moving items is also very natural.

Overall, a big winner, giving us insight into the features and useability of the forthcoming iPhone. My only concern is the dependency upon a WIFI connection for a lot of the features, in the States this isn’t an issue as coverage is very good, but in the UK it’s still patchy and fragmented between a number of service providers – but time will tell, I understand there is a deal for free access via t-mobile/Starbucks but it’s unknown if this will be transferred to the UK audience…