A few days ago I entered a competition on the MediaDevil Facebook page to win one of their new Grafikcases featuring the design of my choice (as long as it wasn’t copyrighted – which threw the Bat Symbol right out the window).  As some of my blog readers will know, I’m a computer graphic design dabbler so this is exactly the sort of prize that gets my juices flowing.  So this is a very cool prize from a very cool UK-based company who make, in my humble opinion, the best screen protectors out there.  I used to show Zagg’s InvisibleShield a lot of love until I started using MediaDevil products a year ago when I got the Magic Screen Protector Matte Clear Anti-Glare edition for my 1st Generation iPad (also available for the iPad 2) and I haven’t looked back.  I also now own both the front and back versions of the MediaDevil (PhoneDevil) Magic Screen Protector Crystal Clear edition for iPhone 4 / 4S.  They’re thin and work perfectly with every case I’ve tried the with.  But I digress.  Back to the Grafikcase.

First draft of a Grafikcase using my current and alternative gamer tags.

I debated using the GingerNinja or GeekDad3 logos I’ve created for this blog and as gamer tags or even a collage of the two showing a kind of transition (as I may migrate from GingerNinja to GeekDad3 as discussed previously); but then I realised that I should probably use a design featuring what I spend most of my free time working on or thinking about: karate.

I discussed things with Sean over at MediaDevil and he sent me a Photoshop template to use in place of the PNG file I originally submitted and I sent over a simple Essex Dragon logo with my name and region details underneath to make the case unique and personal.  It was after this that the product page for the case came back online after it had been down and I noticed that the image transferred onto the case could actually wrap around the sides of the case.  Cue more discussions with Sean and an updated version of my design, which is based on my Facebook Cover Photo, with some kanji in the background and the GKR initials logo at the top in the whitespace next to the camera lens.

I got an email late Friday night from Sean saying that they’d kindly made both of the designs that I’d sent over, one with a matte finish and one with a glossy finish, and put them in the post as my prize.  I was amazed at their generosity and more than a little excited!  They arrived on Saturday morning so I thought I’d post some pictures and review them.  I should point out that I have sample products as they are still working out the kinks and that the final commercially available products may differ to the ones I have on review here.

Packaging & first impressions

Left: Glossy Grafikcase. Right: Matte Grafikcase.

Despite the temporary nature proclaimed on the label, I actually really like the packaging.  It’s minimal and if the stickers said something like “bespoke Grafikcase created by MediaDevil especially for [insert name here]” then this would make the packaging make more sense to people as it already does to me:  the product has been made for me and is unique.  It doesn’t need big, heavy blister retail packaging as it’s not designed to be around the case for very long.

Construction & Fit

In terms of construction and fit, both cases are superbly snug in a great way and won’t just pop off; they grip the phone and feel very secure.  Additionally, both cases are more than happy with the fact that I kept my MediaDevil iPhone 4/4S Back Protector on my iPhone which means that should any dust or grit get between case and phone (as often happens) then the glass on the iPhone back will not suffer for it as has happened with cases & phones past.  Some iPhone cases also hate you having a screen protector on the front, let alone one on the back too but the Grafikcases show no sign of concern when paired with the Crystal Clear screen protectors.  Perhaps this is by design, coming from the same manufacturer?  The case is also very low profile adding only about 2mm to the profile of the iPhone.  Finally, the buttons are all accessible on both the iPhone 4 and 4S so no problems there.

Matte case

This is the first revision of my design and I’m rather pleased with it, even if I did miss the second hyphen in “Go-Kan-Ryu” which I’ll correct with a Sharpie!  I didn’t intend for the badge to wrap around onto the left hand side of the case so I can only assume that some minor tweaking was required during printing.

Certainly something seems to have happened during manufacture or printing as the top of the case in the middle, where the power button and headphone jack are, is slightly melted as if the thermal printing damaged the case in some way.  I don’t particularly mind though as my finger actually sits very comfortably in the groove when using the phone, the quality isn’t promised to be spot on as it’s a pre-release sample and it was free.  (A particular bugbear of mine recently has been people moaning about the free stuff on 12 Days of iTunes.  It’s free.  Stop looking a gift horse in the mouth, people!)

The matte finish gives a slightly duller finish to the image, obviously, so the colours are less vibrant but you also get zero reflection so you can see the image in all lighting conditions.  It also feels absolutely lovely to hold with an almost micro-suede feel to the back of it.  Think plastic MacBooks from 2006-8, MacBook Pro/Air cases today, brushed aluminium or a smooth pebble on the beach that hasn’t been polished by anything other than nature.  Smooth but not glossy,  lovely to hold and very tactile indeed: you want to stroke it.

As previously mentioned, the fit of the case itself is snug and secure.  It fits, in the words of Jim Carrey in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, ”like a glove”.  For me this case is now a better fit than the Apple bumper, which had started to become loose, making this case my new daily case of choice.

Glossy case

In terms of first impressions, the 2nd revision design case has the wow factor for me as it just looks more vibrant and I love the kanji wrapping around the case and the fact that I spelt the club name properly on this one *cough, cough*.   The only design change I would possible make on this one would be to move the GKR initials logo downwards to ensure it sits nicely next to the camera opening so that the lines are clean on the image, or possibly removing it altogether as I find it jarring to see it floating out of alignment with the opening.

Whilst I like the fact that the glossy finish ensures that all the colours really stand out, this also makes the case reflective and so you sometimes cannot see the image clearly under bright sunshine.  Also, the glossy powder coating, whilst making you think the phone will feel smooth & slippery, is actually slightly more grippy to hold as the smooth surface has an increased area for resistance.  Despite feeling like polished granite to the touch, it feels plasticky when I go to remove it from my pocket, so I find it less tactile.  Another downside of what I presume is the extra coating required to make it glossy is that it makes the fit even snugger almost to the point of being difficult to put on and take off the device with the back protector on.

Conclusion

Whilst the glossy case wins in terms of looks, of the two, for me personally the matte case wins in terms of how nice it feels in the hand.  After all, I’m going to spend more time holding it than I am looking at the back of it, so the feel is what wins it for me.

You can find out more about the MediaDevil Grafikcase here.  Comments can be made or questions can be asked below.

(I’m still slightly torn between the two different image designs.  I reckon I probably prefer the 2nd revision, so that on a matte case if probably the “perfect” choice.  Still need to look at that top-right logo though.  Hmmm.)

I’ve had a clear out of the themes sitting in my WordPress install as most of them have been sitting in my repository for a while now and are really old or no longer supported or work with WP3.3 – like Hemingway H2.0 by gaarf and the classic & Kubrick WP themes.  A couple of them, Glossy Blue and iTheme, were also from n.design studio and whilst checking to see what they’d come up with as some of them were outstanding I found their desktop wallpapers which include some awesome Japanese artwork.  Well worth a look and the one below is available as iPad and iPhone versions too.

I thought that I would share a review for a free iPhone application that I have found indispensable over the past week or so during the corporate party season where I attend many different vendor events armed with a suit pocket full of business cards and come back with the other pocket equally full of other peoples business cards. Historically, these have all been filed away in a card wallet with the ones I need on a regular basis in a pile somewhere convenient. This is where CardMunch comes in. I downloaded CardMunch when it was the App of the Day/Week and it saved me the effort of manually creating entries for not only all the new contacts I had but also the several hundred business cards I had sitting in the card wallet. It was effortless and I got through a 3 inch high pile of cards in about an hour including processing time (actual interaction on my part was far less as it just required me to take a photo of the card, most of this was waiting time as the card was transcribed, which is not a criticism!).

Opening the CardMunch app presents you with a list of cards already uploaded or the option to take a snapshot of a card. Line up the card, tap to focus and tap to capture it. I’ve even uploaded cards that are printed vertically and it still happily transcribes text set at 90 degrees.

The card is then scheduled to be transposed. You can capture as many as you want and I haven’t found a limit to the number that can be queued. If you haven’t got the app open when the transcribing is completed then you’ll get a message. The app grabs all the relevant contact details from the card and if you are already connected via LinkedIn, enriches their details. If not, then you have the option to Connect to them via a button. You also have two additional buttons to allow you to email them or to download the contact details to your iPhone contacts.

Cards appear in an alphabetical list with any cards still waiting to be transcribed sitting above the list. All new cards are highlighted in the list and the latest version, out this weekend, puts new cards in a separate tab for even easier locating.

I especially love the fact that I am not forced to download the contact to my iPhone, the information stays in the LinkedIn cloud and I can effectively use it as a second address book. Hmmm….. maybe I’ll be deleting some vendor contacts from my iPhone now and keeping there here instead.

Anything I’d like to see added? I’d love the ability to choose which Contacts Group on my iPhone to add the downloaded card to. I have so many people in my address book who are carefully categorised based on work, personal or the couple of voluntary activities I do that I need to be able to sort them without having to do it back on my MacBook (something Apple needs to fix in iOS anywhere as you still rely on the cord here). This is a minor niggle though and the app still performs a niche function flawlessly.

You can download the app here.

My first Mac was a MacBook Black, so I felt it fitting that I adapted the image that is everywhere on the web right now and made it glow slightly just like the back on my MacBook did. RIP Steve and thanks for giving me the tools to work, rest and play in techie style.

Woke this morning to the news that Steve Jobs had passed away during the night. Felt numb as if I’d been told an old friend had died. Despite having an iPod since the iPod Video came out in 2004/5/6, I’ve only really been a full-on Apple fanboy since I got my first Mac, a MacBook Black, off of eBay in 2008. I’ve since found with the iPhone and iPad, and to a lesser extent with my MacBook Pro, that Apple kit is a ubiquitous part of my life. I guess that Steve’s passing has saddened me because he’s given me so much. What other CEO and mega-rich businessman could prompt such a worldwide reaction of grief. God bless you, Steve, and rest in peace.

I’ve been thinking about this for some time and I’m considering migrating off of gingerninja.net.  WHY!?!? I hear you all cry.  Well, Twitter started it, not me!

For some time now, I’ve been getting @gingerninja messages on Twitter for a Danish band called…wait for it….Ginger Ninja.  Oooo, look.  They have a SPACE.  I don’t.  By that I mean a space between Ginger and Ninja.  Not a MySpace space.  I have one of those.  It’s over at http://www.myspace.com/gingerninjanet and that’s part of the problem:  GingerNinja is too popular a nickname.

When I first started this blog and grabbed the domain name, I found that GingerNinja was already in fairly common usage.  So where I couldn’t grab “GingerNinja” for something, I would grab “GingerNinjaNet” instead.  Problem is that that has led to much confusion and a lot of muckaroundiness in some places.  Then Game Centre happened.

I jailbroke my iPhone 3G in order to add some functionality I wanted – LockInfo calendar notifications on the home screen and biteSMS allowing me to reply or send texts within apps without quitting – which meant that I delayed upgrading to 4.1 or 4.3 until a JB version was available.  This was a delay of a month or so and by the time I got on there, “GingerNinja” was gone.  On a whim, I chose “GeekDad3″ (which I have as an alternative gmail account and a test blogger blog).  It snowballed from there with the culmination of the purchase of geekdad3.com yesterday.

Maybe it’s a maturity thing as I’m not the same gamer guy I was when I registered the domain back in the ’90s.  Maybe it’s a convergence thing as I have geekdad3 accounts on Apple Game Centre, gmail, blogger, twitter, wordpress.com and now tumblr (which handles mini-blogs status updates which are automagically sent to Facebook and Twitter).  Could be the new me?  Well, just in case, I now own geekdad3.com and I’ve even come up with a logo that I like:

I’m really excited by the iCloud, iOS 5 and OS X Lion announcements from Apple. This synchronisation of my data has always been a goal of mine and is one of the reasons I am so vocal about Dropbox to my friends but I have multiple accounts to handle it all and still sync my contacts via the cable and my Mac because Google’s handling of it is a bit pants and removes some of the fields. Finally I can also stop bitching about it and with iCloud have it just work. I’m a big fan of digital convergence and Apple are way ahead of everyone else. I’m smitten.

On the theme of convergence for blogs and social networks, I’ve started using Tumblr. This not only allows me to have a mini-blog running alongside bigger articles like this one, but my Tumblr posts are now also my Tweets and my Facebook status updates. This allows me to post once centrally and have multiple social networks updated, something I have long desired. I’ve also back tracked and decided to stick with a self hosted WordPress install for now as I couldn’t get along with Blogger. I have migrated my comments to the brilliant Disqus though.

This is, frankly, ridiculous. I checked my blog this morning and realised that my last actual post was in January 2010, so I haven’t written anything for 18 months now. That is an unacceptably long amount of time. I even said to myself 18 months before that that I should start a journal and what happens? I just don’t bloody bother!

*sigh* So here’s what you missed….

Work

The last journal entry I wrote was in September 2009. At that time I was just about to embark on a new phase of my career as a contractor at Commerzbank looking after data compliance and audit globally. This was to be a temporary posting until they looked to make me permanent after 6 months.

As it turned out at didn’t actually happen. Instead I was poached by BNP Paribas for the same global facing contract role but on more money (yay!) although it adds 30 minutes each way to my previous City commute as they are based in the West End (boo!). I’m now on the IPUG Executive as the Chair of the Data Compliance and Audit Special Interest Group (SIG) and have also given addresses to COSSIOM, the French market data consortium, on data compliance & audits. I’ll certainly be at BNPP until at least April 2012 as the project I am mainly working on will last up to 3 years.

All in all my career has found a new lease of life, I’ve managed to carve a niche out for myself in the industry and I’m happier professionally.

Karate

My karate has also taken off in leaps and bounds. I’m over half-way to black belt and qualified as a karate instructor (Sensei) in January after a 3 month course. Shortly after qualifying I also took over as the Branch Instructor of Sandon dojo in Chelmsford. I took over the class with 12 students on the roll, we’ve had a bunch of new students through recruitment drives & word of mouth and now have just over 30 on the roll with 24-28 students attending every week for the past month which is quite impressive. They are a great bunch and it is a pleasure and a privilege to be their sensei.

On a side note, training an average of three times a week and eating salad for lunch, I’ve lost several stone and gone from a 40″ waist and a 44″ chest to a 36″-37″ waist and 42″ chest. I got some t-shirts on Father’s Day and they were Mediums. I’ve only just put the XL ones in the eBay bag and bought some Large ones so maybe I’m still slimming down. I’m certainly physically fitter and feel much healthier than I have for years. My wife says I look hot too as my stomach is flat. Fantastic!

Geekiness

My digital life has totally changed.

I have pretty much completely moved away from using my Windows based PC across to my MacBook Pro (which I upgraded to at the start of the year from my first Mac, a MacBook Black). The only time I boot up the PC personally is when I want to game on there or the rare occasions I need to do something on there which I cannot do on my MBP for whatever reason. Then at Christmas this year my wife gave me a lovely, lovely iPad. This little device goes pretty much everywhere with me and has supplanted both the MBP and the iPhone for the majority of my digital experience. I use the MBP for big or lengthy tasks and the iPhone for mobile quick and dirty stuff; mostly relegating it to it’s core mobile phone and iPod function which is no bad thing. But the middle ground is firmly taken up by the iPad and quite comfortably too. In fact, I’m writing this post on the Blogsy app and can touch type quite well with the on-screen keyboard.

Gaming

My gaming life has also pretty much completely changed. My primary platform is definitely now iOS and even then I now favour the iPad over the iPhone – I’m currently addicted to Tower Madness HD. Leave my sheep alone, you aliens! I still play on my PC and the Wii, but the iPad is the main place. I’ve also tried playing on the PS3 and even bought Batman: Arkham Asylum for £7 to see if I could switch to consoles with a title I enjoyed on PC and figured a 3rd person game rather than an FPS might be easier to get to grips with. Apart from getting headaches dealing with gaming on a big screen, it is going rather well (weirdly I don’t get headaches with the Wii – hmmm). With Steam now releasing more games for Mac maybe I will switch across from PC there too but I doubt it. Certainly for now I want to get Bioshock Infinity on PC rather than any other platform, so watch this space!

Life

As for life in general, all is great: my wife and I are even more in love, which I didn’t think was possible; the kids are happy and all doing stormingly well at their respective schools, one of which I’m Vice-Chair of governors at; I’ve become an Uncle after my brother and his wife had a daughter; and my friends are all sound and hale and living their lives happily with people that they love.

Now. Let’s see if I can keep this blog up to date. Again.

So, I’m sitting here looking at jobs on the net when I get an AIM message from someone called PsychopathicCoho which says Let’s kill Lady Gaga together!.   I immediately think spam or virus and Google the AIM name before closing window or responding and I find lots of information.

Turns out it’s a social networking fish bot (not to be confused with a phish bot) which randomly connects two AIM ID’s together and gives a spurious message to both to get the conversation flowing as well as much hilarity as one accuses the other of initiating the conversation.

After much confusion and then amusement, I had a lovely chat with my random person – a 26 year old film major from San Francisco who loves The Smiths and Joy Division – about everything from the current economic climate to the fact that we both love music from the decade we were born rather than stuff that is around now and how Americans get rather confused about how Britain, the UK, England, Scotland and Wales all fit together.

It was random and totally anonymous but ultimately harmless and rather fun. It also highlighted for me that the world isn’t as big as you sometimes may think and the internet can be brilliant and surprising.

More links:
The AIM FishBot Phenomenon
Got a random IM message?
AIM Fish (not Phish) bots
Project Upsteam Screen Names
The Missing Hat

My PC has been taking an increasingly longer time to boot over the past few weeks to the point yesterday where it sat at the loading screen for nearly an hour. So there followed several hours of running CHKDSK /R in the recovery console and making sure that everything was fine and it was, or so I thought.

This morning I turn on GN-01 and, again, she takes a good twenty minutes to boot up. So I check the eventvwr and what do I see? Two weird entries, one for {F4524160-9145-49C9-8810-46CBC1EA0021} and one for KService.exe which has failed to load several times over. So I search the registry and discover that they are the same thing. I don’t recognise the name or the self-named directory it is sitting in. It isn’t in my Add/Remove Programs listing and I don’t recognise publisher, Kontiki, listed in the apps properties.

Like all good geeks I hit Google and what do I find? It’s peer-to-peer sharing service which most consider malware and Sky Anytime has apparantly installed it. As the Sky service is more than a little bit poo, I decided to uninstall it and see if that resolved the problem. Windows uninstalled the Sky Anytime application but not the KService itself, so with a bit more searching I found some references to KClean.exe at PC Doctor (where I downloaded a copy), the Sky website & AskJack at the Guardian and used that to clean up after KService, followed up with ensuring that it was gone by following the the manual instructions on Geoff’s Blog and checking references to the CLSID and KService.exe itself in my registry. The only thing that hadn’t been changed was the Service actually disabled, it was still set to Automatic, and the files deleted. Those done I rebooted to see what would happen and after several hours of chkdsk running again, boot-up time has once again been reduced to one minute or less.

I’ve been using iTunes for ages, in fact since before I even owned an iPod as I really liked the widgets in Konfabulator (as was) and AveDesk which were predominately related to iTunes and I always intended to eventually get an iPod anyway as I didn’t really like Windows based media players. And yes, I’ll admit it, I was also sucked in by the whole coolness of iPod.

Today, however, I started to play with the View menu for the first time and discovered some options that I didn’t even know were there. It all started when Jo announced that she wanted to get all her album’s into iTunes on her profile as she was going to purchase an 80GB iPod and iTrip so she had everything in the car. When I was mucking around with setting it all up, I found the MiniStore option in iTunes and quite liked it. As it was disabled on my profile, I had to hunt to find it and then I stumbled across something wonderful…..Album View and Cover Flow View.

For those of you who just had a WTF? reaction the same as I, here are some screenshots. The blue bit at the bottom of the screen is the MniStore in action, giving me recommendations based on what I am looking at:

The normal, default List View:

The rather cool Album View which groups the List View in a much nicer manner in my opinion:

The very gorgeous Cover Flow View in normal browser mode….

….and in full-screen mode:

In Cover Flow View, you can either use the scrollbar to move through your selection or mouse click on the album you want to scroll through it. Love the reflections and the immediate tactility of it all, much nicer than Windows MCE if you ask me. In a cannot see the woods for the trees kind of way, these are not only available from the View menu but also the three buttons immediately to the left of the search box. How on earth did I miss these up until now?