Archive for the ‘review’ Category

I got my Lenovo X230 when I started with CohesiveFT almost 18 months ago. I’ve generally been very happy with it, but the cracks are starting to show – literally: Not as robust I’ve had a succession of ThinkPads – T20[1], T41, X60T, X201T, a loaner X220 from the good people at Bromium, and now my […]


TL;DR This is the best gadget I’ve bought in ages. It’s quick, fuss free, and comes with an excellent software bundle. Background I’ve had a bunch of flatbed scanners over the years. Earlier ones succumbed to a lack of driver support as I upgraded my desktop OS, but I’ve been using a CanoScan N670U for […]


When Paul Simmonds showed up to speak at the privacy and security track I hosted at QCon London last week he brought a Chromebook. After my own experiences using a Chromebook for a presentation my first thought was ‘this isn’t going to end well'[1]. The first issue was connecting to the ubiquitous VGA connector for the […]


I had some fun last year putting CohesiveFT’s VNS3 cloud networking solution onto Raspberry Pi. It gave us something to demo on at trade shows, and we could also give away Pis as part of promotions. The Pis were like geek catnip. I’ll be using Pis again for Cloud Expo Europe later this month, but […]


I’ve been using a Lenovo X201 Tablet in a docking station as my main machine for about 3 years now. 8GB RAM hasn’t been enough for a while, which is why I got 16GB for my X230 laptop, and I’ve been having issues with the CPU running out of steam when using Skype and Google […]


It’s almost 3 years since I got my HP Microserver – time for a change. 8GB wasn’t enough RAM for all the VMs I want to run, and even with an unofficial upgrade to 16GB I was running out of room. The NL40 processor was starting to show some strain too. The time had come […]


I’ve been a big fan of Koss Spark Plug earbuds for many years. They’re cheap, comfortable and sound great. I got my first set after some very expensive Sony noise cancelling earbuds failed on my (just after the warranty ran out), and it was obvious straight away that a good snug fit was an excellent […]


TL;DR The S4 mini is a fantastic piece of kit. The size is right, the screen is vibrant, the battery lasts, it works fine as a phone. The *only* thing I might ask for as an improvement would be a higher resolution screen. Dual SIM is very nice too. Background 2 years is too long […]


Green Earl Grey

04Jul13

A few years ago I accidentally gave up coffee. It wasn’t pleasant at the time, but I felt much better afterwards, so I stuck with it. I still enjoy a very occasional double espresso, and caffeine is a wonderful thing when it’s not part of a regular habit or dependency. When I returned from the […]


I first came across the BeagleBone when Roger Monk presented at OSHUG #18 in April 2012. It was easy at the time to write it off  as too expensive and too underpowered – the Raspberry Pi was finally shipping and the lucky first 2000 already had their $35 computers whilst the rest of us waited for […]