I bought an Anker T320 bluetooth keyboard to use with my iPad, mainly because it had such good reviews on Amazon. It's an amazingly good keyboard! It's really light - much smaller and lighter than the Apple bluetooth keyboard I was using before. It charges via mini-USB. The keystroke action is excellent. I am very happy with it. Here is my Amazon Affiliate link to the keyboard should you want to buy it: Anker® T320 Ultrathin (4mm) Wireless Bluetooth Keyboard for iOS (iPad Air, iPad Mini 2, iPad 2 / 3 / 4), Windows and Android 3.0 and above OS with Built-in lithium battery / Aluminum Body
Problems with iPhone 5S and a Virgin SuperHub
Ever since I've had my iPhone 5S, I've had problems with the wifi on my 120 MB Virgin SuperHub. Quite often the phone fails to connect to sites, or the wifi connection drops out. I've even tried re-installing iOS to see if it was a corrupt operating system (as the "Genius" at the Genius Bar suggested).
It turns out that going into the wireless settings of the Virgin SuperHub and changing the "Wireless Band" parameter from 2.4GHz to 5GHz, with a channel setting of "Auto Compatability" fixed my problem.
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iPad to iPhone Tethering Issues
The past few days I've been bringing in my new WIFI-only iPad and trying to use it tethered to my iPhone 5. It's been a frustrating experience so far. I've found that it works OK when the iPad is first tethered to the iPhone, but shortly thereafter the internet connection seems to drop out on the iPad, even though the iPhone is still reporting it to be connected OK.
Markov Chain Monte Carlo as Frogger
I read a really interesting post on Reddit explaining Markov Chain Monte Carlo, which drew the analogy between MCMC and a long game of Frogger.
Surviving Post-Scarcity
I've been reading the "Beyond Scarcity" series on FTAlphaville recently, and it's made some very interesting points. The posts argue that the current economic environment is deflationary with regard to goods. I think that is true, and one of the reasons is because of technology. Firstly technology is constantly making everything more efficient and because of global competition this is both reducing the production costs and making goods cheaper. Secondly technology is causing structural unemployment, which means less people have money to spend and there is less money flowing around the economy. Other factors causing deflation are the tight monetary conditions, the aging population, and potentially the effects of quantitative easing.
Alzheimer Disease and Memory Palaces
I just watched a very interesting TED talk given by Kasper Bormans about his PhD research into using the Method of Loci (or Memory Palace technique) to help Alzheimer patients retain their memories of other people for longer.
Displaying a Productivity Chart in Emacs
I have created the following bit of Emacs Lisp that generates my daily productivity graph and displays it in it's very own emacs buffer. You can kill the buffer by pressing the 'q' key.
Starting apache on OS/X Mountain Lion
Apache is still bundled with Mountain Lion, but you can no longer start it using the "Sharing" icon under the "System Preferences" app.
Productive Workflow
I've been using time-boxing for quite a while, off and on. I have a task list every day and start timing chunks of time in which to work on the tasks. I'm not like Helen, who finds it easy to work at home. I find it far easier to work at a client's office. This has changed recently though, thanks to my new work-flow.
What Google Glass might soon be like
There is an interesting clip over on YouTube, that shows what having Google Glass (or something similar) might someday be like.