Hook up your sound system through Bluetooth

I have a plethora of Bluetooth speakers that I use around the house but increasingly, I've been wanting to use our sound system in lounge to play music through. Afterall, the sub-woofer and Wharfedale speakers are hooked up in there.

Although I already had a Bluetooth audio receiver I could use, I wanted one that would work plugged in. The on-board battery on the one from my kit is useful on the go but painful if I want to have music or other audio streaming for a few hours.

I tracked down this Wireless Bluetooth Audio Music Receiver Adapter from DealExtreme which I considered well worth a go for less than $30 USD.

Although I've had it since August, I only got round to using it last week and I love it. Initially I was worried about a high-pitched squeal but a bit of playing identified that it was the cheapie RCA to 3.5mm audio jack cable I was using. Once I changed it out, no squeal and the sound quality was crisp and clear.

The device is easy to use: just plug in the power and the audio and simply pair with your bluetooth enabled audio device. Unplug the power to switch off. The receiver doesn't remember it's last paired device: it requires re-pairing every time and there's no button to switch it to pairing mode (hence the reboot is the method to switch), however given I use several different devices this is a plus.

If you have a great sound-system at home (or even at work) and want to get wireless sounds going, I'd happily point you to this as a solution.

Wireless Bluetooth Audio Music Receiver Adapter - Black

Stationery fetish turns tech

In my pre-tablet days I carried notebooks and spent many hours poring through stationery shops admiring filing systems, inky pens and textured paper. I still have a thing for stationery and desk accessories but really, it's mostly for show these days. That is until I realised that my digital paper - in the form of a plethora of tablets, smartphones, netbooks and ultrabooks - are now slim enough to slide into and remain upright in what used to be letter and file holders.

My current favourite desk theme is a powder-coated range, Bijou, sold by Briscoes. This letter holder is usually NZ$9.99 but at a 50% discount, was a stunning NZ$5.00. That's definitely inexpensive as far a 'gadget accessories' go!

Stylish, matches the rest of my office and allows me to indulge a pre-digital obsession. If you're migrating to the digital world and wondering what to do with your old stationery, maybe you can re-purpose them for your gadgets. I'd love to hear other ideas!

Blue screen of death

I woke this morning to find that my relatively new Nokia Lumia had stayed on the blue pre-boot screen all night whilst plugged in to charge from empty. Alas, no amount of pressing the power button or popping out the battery or even - in desperation - popping out the SIM gave a different result: the Nokia logo would appear, followed by the blue screen and no Windows and eventually a shutdown.

Frustrated after twenty minutes I resorted to Google. What I found is that my problem was not unique. Nokia 920s and 520s appear to have this common weakness. I found one useful post which outlined how to complete a reset of the device. Apparently it doesn't always work, but it did on my 520.

Fortunately I had already configured my device to backup to the cloud. As a result, as part of the system restore, I was prompted if I wanted to restore the phone image and my configuration and applications automagically came down.

So, if you're in need of resetting your Nokia Windows phone, you can read the discussion thread I found or simply:

1. Disconnect your phone from the charger.
2. Press and hold the volume down key and connect the charger. An exclamation mark (!) is shown on the screen. 
3. Press the following keys in order: volume up, volume down, power, volume down.

Your phone resets and boots up automatically. This may take several minutes. After it reboots you will see a pair of cogs cycling. Different users report having lengthy wait times from this point but mine was done in a couple of minutes.

Telling tales to tots

One of my god-daughters is staying overnight which meant the requisite bedtime story. Having divested ourselves of most of our book collection - including children's books - on a recent move, we've taken to using kindles and iPads as digital substitutes. As with the last few sleepover visits, godchild and I curled up with my old iPad 1 to read a couple of interactive books. Our publisher of choice is Tabtale Limited who produce a range of book, roleplay and educational game applications. The traditional fairytales with princesses and fairies are particular favourites.

TabTale
What makes the experience a shared enjoyment is that I can still elect to read the story myself, whilst Giselle can participate by tapping the various elements, recording snippets for some of the characters and 'turning the page'. As little miss is only four, I'm not keen to get her started gaming on any devices yet, however as a supervised activity we both enjoy the game components of the books: dressing Cinderella up for the ball or choosing Tinkerbell's jewelry.

Tabtale books are predominantly free (a few are paid) and an in-app upgrade can remove the advertising.

With school holidays coming up, even those who don't have little ones may be getting the Christmas visits... it's worth checking out these options. Tabtale can be found on Apple App Store, Google Play and Amazon.

The right kit for your life

In my post yesterday I expressed my doubts as to whether I would be able to get the same levels of productivity on the Windows platform as I do out of my iOS kit. Today, I was talking my friend through the options for her grandfather and concluded that the Surface RT would probably best suit his requirements:

• Touch device
• Portable
• Low cost (currently on sale for less than NZ$250 retail inclusive)
• Has an external USB for easy photo transfer from his camera
• Able to run Skype

If your use is fairly targetted to email, web browsing and social media (including video calling capability) then you can now get very good hardware, for very low cost, that does just that. Whether you go the way of the the Surface RT or a generic Android device like my 7" Nextbook, it's hard to beat the numbers.

Always, always consider what you really need to do before you make a buying decision. If in doubt, check out the options at your local electronic goods store. Also, be honest with yourself: are you really going to use your tablet as a camera the same way you use your phone? I know people who do with valid reason but you could save yourself a few hundred dollars if you simply consider whether your fringe requirements are really going to make it to your mainstream. 

A bit of a challenge

I'm finally getting round to an article series on how to replicate my use of applications for iOS devices on Android and Windows. For the purpose of this case study I've gathered the necessary devices and have started to configure the Windows Surface RT and Nokia Lumia 520. However before I even start, I've become increasingly frustrated by how few of my foundational apps are available on the Windows Store. Whilst I realise that it will get easier over time as more and more apps make it onto the Store, I feel like I'm going backwards a little and it's going to prove even more of a challenge than I thought.

Whilst I can accept that my favourite daily to-do list tracker, Any.do, may not be available just yet, I was immediately frustrated to find no 'native' apps for Dropbox and Google Drive. I even found that Instagram for Windows is still in beta.

With both Google and Apple having announced more than a million available apps each this year, Windows with a tenth that number has a long way to go. It will definitely be an interesting week when I do the Windows trial and I'm beginning to wonder if it will be possible to replicate the same level of digital productivity on that platform as I already have going on the mature iOS and Android markets.