Simon Barker
Simon Barker is the founder and editor of Zath who just so happens to be a big technology and gadget fan! If you'd like to follow and/or contact me on Twitter, please feel free to do so, I'm @SimonBarker.Here are all the Zath articles written by Simon Barker...
iPhone 3G & 3GS On Vodafone Mobile Network (UK)
September 29, 2009
Another day, another iPhone announcement from a mobile network in the UK – you discuss the possibility of the iPhone on other UK mobile networks, then two announcements come along in as many days!
The day after we found out that we’d be getting iPhones on the Orange network in late 2009, we now find out that Vodafone will also have them available on their network after talks were completed and the deal was signed late last night with Apple.
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iPhone 3G and 3GS On Orange Mobile Network (UK)
September 28, 2009
Good news everyone! The iPhone’s exclusivity deal with O2 is over and we’ll be seeing the iPhone available on the Orange network before the end of the year!
Orange have announced that they now have an agreement with Apple to offer the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS to Orange customers later this year in 28 countries and territories. Within the UK they will be sold via all direct Orange channels including Orange shops, the Orange website, and Orange telesales, in addition to other selected high street partners.
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SteelSeries Siberia V2 Gaming Headset Preview
September 26, 2009
SteelSeries recently announced that they will soon be releasing their first closed-type headset which will be the upgrade to one of their existing headset range, namely the SteelSeries Siberia V2 gaming headset. The original SteelSeries Siberia headset was a hit with gamers around the world and also achieved some notoriety in the music industry when used by musicians in several high profile music videos.
For this reason alone, I thought that their follow-up headset would be worth looking at, as well as being their first closed-type headset that SteelSeries have released, the Siberia V2 has some other notable features such as great sound quality, integrated control capabilities, an enhanced more comfortable design and better passive noise reduction technology.
Continue reading »Share Spotify Playlists With ShareMyPlaylists.com
September 15, 2009
Listening to free music online has now become really popular thanks to Spotify and the service has many benefits, including now having a Spotify iPhone app to listen to your music on the move. You can search for songs and artists that you’re a fan of and add that music to your playlist; however, there is one limiting factor I’ve found and that is actually how you find new music or add large numbers of songs at a time that you like.
Thankfully there is an answer to just this problem in the form of Spotify allowing you to export your playlists as a URL to share with other people, combined with a specific website that has been set up to make it easier for you to do just that – ShareMyPlaylists.com!
Continue reading »Think Visibility Review (Sept 2009)
September 14, 2009
This weekend I took the chance to attend the second Think Visibility conference, held in Leeds that is described as covering “the things that usually get left behind in the web design process” – with speakers covering various areas of blogging, SEO, affililate marketing and PPC.
First of all, I think it’s always good to see these types of events happening outside of London for a change and giving us northern bloggers and online, web-type people to experience an event such as this without having to necessarily travel all the way down south – not there’s anything wrong with that, but the chance to meet other people is always good!
Continue reading »Spotify Invites Required Again (UK)
September 11, 2009
Spotify invites are now required again! The great new online streaming music service had been free for anyone (in the UK) to sign up to since they ditched using invites for us British people, however with the recent launch of their mobile services, specifically their Spotify iPhone app as well as an equivalent for Android users, they’ve had to go back to being invite-only. The exception to this is being if you want to sign up to being a premium member paying a subscription…obviously!
If you don’t fancy signing up to paying a subscription without first trying it out, you can either sign up to the waiting list or if you’re lucky enough to have some friends with some Spotify invites left, then obviously that would be the best way of getting onto the service for the time being.
Continue reading »How To Get Belkin N+ Wireless Router Working With Xbox Live
September 8, 2009
I’ve recently had to go through the process of trying to replace my aging Belkin N wireless router which has proven to be something of a challenge as any of you who read my Belkin N+ wireless router review will have found.
The main issue centred around being unable to connect to Xbox Live with the Belkin N+ “out of the box” which meant I spent several hours trying to get it to work. The Xbox 360 reported that the MTU setting of my internet connection was setup incorrectly on my router, which having double checked it with my ISP settings I could see was fine.
Continue reading »Spotify iPhone App – Is It Worth It?
September 7, 2009
Well the Spotify iPhone app has been released, it’s finally here after Apple actually approved it (a surprise in itself to some people), but has it been worth the wait?
I’m a big fan of the Spotify music-streaming service and usually have its music playing in the background as I work (or play) on my main desktop computer and have been perfectly happy just sitting back and using this free service listening to the occasional advert between songs. With the release of the iPhone app, it’s given me cause to think a bit more about this service, here’s my thoughts…
Continue reading »Zath’s Technology & Gadget Roundup (31/08/09)
August 31, 2009
Here’s the latest in hi-tech gadgets and general technology that sparked our interest here at Zath, but we didn’t get chance to cover ourselves – thankfully these sites did do and you should definitely check them out as we liked reading these articles!
Night Vision Goggles – Who hasn’t played a stealth computer game or watched them used on TV and movies and not wanted to have some yourself to scout out your surroundings in the dark?
Laser Airzooka – When the Airzooka was first released, it allowed you to shoot people with air! Now you can improve your accuracy given the nearly added laser sight!
Continue reading »Blackberry Storm Review
August 30, 2009
The Blackberry Storm had been launched just under a year ago and it was welcomed with criticism from the start. Blackberry needed to come out with something that would stand as good competition against the Apple iPhone 3G, and though the Storm had a sleek look and a touch screen like their rival, it did not wow anyone.
Tweetie iPhone App Review
August 21, 2009
Twitter is definitely one of the things that the iPhone has helped to increase the usage of, not just because of the mobile internet access, but moreover the wide range of options that have appeared in terms of Twitter apps available through Apple’s App Store.
As such I’ve tried various Twitter apps, both free and paid, but always seem to come back to Tweetie as my default Twitter app of choice – in fact it was the first paid app that I bought, I’d read good things from other people and so I took the plunge!
Continue reading »How To Change Your Facebook Username (Vanity Name URL)
August 17, 2009
Not so long ago, there was the landrush for the launch of Facebook vanity name URLs for your profile page on what is the largest social networking site out there, interestingly we were told at the time that we had to choose wisely as this was a “one time only” deal – never shy of moving the goalposts (so to speak), Facebook have now changed their minds on this one too!
Now most of the non-tech savvy people that I have as friends on Facebook still haven’t chosen their’s – when I’ve asked them about it, most of them either have no clue about it and/or don’t have the slightest interest either way. Perhaps Facebook hasn’t made their users aware of it enough?
Continue reading »Zath’s Technology & Gadget Roundup (16/08/09)
August 16, 2009
Here at Zath we like all things hi-tech, gadget and gaming-related, however unfortunately we can’t feature everything we like, thankfully there are other technology, gadget and gaming websites out there to keep up to date with the other important developments that are going on.
That being the case I thought it might be useful and interesting to everyone to highlight some of our favourite articles that might be useful and interesting to our Zath readers, but first let’s start with highlighting a few of our favourites on Zath in the past week in case you missed them!
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Does US Ghostbusters Game Play On UK Xbox 360? – Confirmed!
August 8, 2009
I know we reported that the US version of the Ghostbusters Xbox 360 game was supposed to work on our UK Xbox 360s, but I can definitely confirm first-hand that this is the case as I’ve played and completed it!
Now obviously, the fact that I managed to set aside the time to play it actually quite impresses me anyway, not because it’s a poor game, but given I’ve still yet to play some games on my New Year’s Resolution games backlog list from 18 months ago!
Continue reading »Free Fantasy Football League – Zath Premiership 2009/10 – Register Your Team Now!
August 5, 2009
It’s that time of year again! The new football season is fast approaching and obviously that means that whether you’re a big football fan or whether you just like to go “shopping” for a few Premiership superstars and pit your wits against other readers here on Zath – yes it’s time to register your free fantasy football league team entry for the Zath Premiership 2009/10 and try to beat the reigning champions; Claire Goulding’s “Toques Tykes”.
As you can see from looking at the end of season results for the Zath Premiership 2008/09, we had quite a lot of entries (the most yet in fact), it made for an exciting season right down to the wire and it was also the first season in which we were able to offer some cash prizes to the winners, but we’re going to be better them this year, keep on reading!
Continue reading »Facebook In Real Life?
August 1, 2009
Facebook as a social networking tool can be like many things, either really useful or really bad, it just depends how you want to use it and whether you use it to do something worthwhile or not. So when you see a funny video that tries to show just how you would be using it if you did the same kind of things in real life – it does make you stop and think for a moment about what you do online, similar to the Twitter in Real Life video we showed not too long ago.
Steelseries’ ‘Month of Madness’ Facebook Competition
July 29, 2009
Steelseries giving away competition prizes on Facebook? That might sound familiar to you and you’d be right in thinking that as they have run similar competitions from their Facebook fan page in the past. The most memorable for me was the Steelseries WoW Facebook Competition and likewise it looks like they’re giving away lots more prizes this time too.
Dell Mini 9 Netbook Review
July 29, 2009
You may have read The Average Windows Nerd’s recent review of the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 netbook, however I thought I’d write-up a quick review of my opinion of this while I could and to outline what I’m planning on doing with it!
Of the netbooks that I’ve had the chance to look at and use in the past, I would say the first thing that strikes you is the build quality of Dell’s offering – it’s certainly a sturdy piece of hardware which has been designed quite well…at least externally, when it features a rounded corners and a cool looking shiny finish – although as with anything like this, it’s an absolute fingerprint magnet.
Continue reading »Microsoft Office 2010: The Movie Trailer
July 28, 2009
Microsoft have currently busy at work on Office 2010 adding a host of new features such as online web versions of the Office 2010 applications, but as part of their pre-launch strategy they’ve clearly come up with another innovative promotional tool for their upcoming product – yes indeed, who would have thought it, this company might actually be getting the hang of marketing what with this and their recent Microsoft TV adverts.
LG Crystal (GD900) Video Preview
July 28, 2009
You may remember reading about our recent LG Crystal (GD900) preview here on Zath and how we rather liked the look of the futuristic-looking see-through keypad/touchpad, well now Helen over at the LG Blog has filmed a short video showing off this rather novel mobile phone handset.
It certainly seems to look like it responds pretty well in general operation and I do rather like the way you get the subtle glow of the keypad as its touched and then it fades to back to being see-through soon afterwards.
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