Just to update you on a new website, and social network - WirralWeb. It was created by Daniel Lawson and Milo Noblet, and is for inhabitants of the Wirral peninsula, where they can share their thoughts, ideas, comments, photos, etc. If you are an inhabitant of the Wirral, please join at: http://www.wirralweb.co.uk
Also, please tell any other suitable member.
You can follow us on Twitter too, @WirralWebOnline
Thanks,
Dan
Hi everyone,
I thought it was time for some change. So I decided to design a new logo. It was made on Adobe Illustrator, and uses a font called “Android”, rather appropriate I thought. Give me some feedback about it on: feedback@danlawsonblog.co.uk and tell me if you think it could be improved, or if you prefer the old one.
Thanks,
Dan
You may have, or may not have heard of the Kymera Magic Wand, created by Chris Barnardo and Richard Blakesley, together who make up the Wand Company. However, in 2010, there was another addition to the company, in the form of Scottish entrepreneur, and infamous Dragon, Duncan Bannatyne. When they appeared on ‘Dragons’ Den’, he invested £200,000 in return for, if they managed to turn over £1.2m in the next year, 10% of the company. But that’s a bit of background, now a bit about the actual product.
Well, as soon as I saw this product on Dragons’ Den, I realised that I had to get it. I knew that I didn’t really need it, and it was quite expensive, at £49.99, but nevertheless, I thought I must buy it. So, I did. I was actually quite pleased with it at first. Basically, it has 13 different actions which can respond to different remote control functions. To ‘teach’ the wand what to do, you first have to turn it into ‘learning mode’, by holding the wand vertically and tapping it twice on the side. Once you’ve done that, you perform the action for which you want the wand to respond to, and then the wand vibrates for a set number of times. You know if the wand has received the motion correctly because a list of gestures and vibration ‘pulses’ are in the wizard-like instruction manual which comes with it. Once the vibrations are complete, you hold the remote control for whatever you want to use the wand to control, e.g. TV remote control, and you press the button that you want the wand to replicate. For example, if you want a flick down to turn the TV on, you flick down, wait for the correct number of pulses (in this case 6), when they have finished the wand will pulse continuously, and then you point the TV remote control at the wand and press the on button. You will know the wand has received the code from the remote control as it performs a large pulse which can be felt easily. It may sound complicated, but once you’ve programmed a few codes, you get used to it. I’ll be posting a video soon about the use of the wand.
Overall, I think it’s quite a funny piece of tech, it’s not useful or anything, more like a gimmicky type of thing which you would show off to your friends. Especially for wizard-like folk and Harry Potter fans, it’s quite a fun gadget. You probably will get bored with it after a while though. So the verdict – I would only buy it if you are prepared to pay a fair amount for something which isn’t really very useful, and you will probably forget about after a while, but it is a great invention and a fun tool.
If you want to learn more about The Wand Company, visit their website here.
Hi everyone
I’m writing this post about the new technology blog, founded by Milo Noblet of MiloSoft, of which I am the senior editor. I will be posting articles from this blog onto TechFlame and vice versa. You should take a look at the site here.
Regards,
Dan
Hi everyone,
I realise how long it’s been since I’ve made some progress on this blog, I haven’t actually posted much except at the 4×4 in Schools Technology Challenge on the second to last week of term. But now, I’ve started uploading my tutorials again, and now I’ve got some time I’ll try and do as much as possible. However, I’d like your feedback on what you would like to be done, and what you’d like to see me making in my tutorials next. In the mean time, look at my current tutorials, I’ve just posted one about If Statements in Java, and I’m about to do some user input.
Also, I’m going to Norfolk and Suffolk soon, and then down to London for my holiday, so I’ll make sure that I keep up to date with everyone here, and I’ll keep posting on my blog about my time away and the activities which I’m participating in, such as Water Skiing, orienteering, rock climbing, abseiling, high ropes course, crossbow, canal boating, etc, etc. It should be great.
Dan
As you may or may not know, my school, Calday Grange Grammar (or CGGS) have this year taken part in the 4×4 In Schools Technology Challenge, sponsored by Land Rover Jaguar and various other companies such as JCB. This year, 3 teams took part from our school; the Cheetahs, the Ferrets and the Cougars. The regional final for the north was held at the Land Rover Jaguar plant at Halewood, near Liverpool. At this, the Ferrets won the “Best Winch Test” award and the “Best Track Performance” award. However, this was unfortunately not enough to progress to the national finals. Furthermore, the Cougars won the “Most Innovative” award and the “Best in Class 1″ award which won them a place in the national finals! Unfortunately, the Cheetahs did not win any awards however the judges said that they had “great potential and would love to see the Cheetahs’ progress next year”. So, the national finals are being held today, 13th July, at the Coventry Transport Museum in, you guessed it, Coventry! We all got invited even though only the Cougars progressed through, just to celebrate their achievements. So, I’m writing this from the café in there, and below I will be posting live updates from the afternoon:
16.08
Sam Harrison is using all of the café network’s bandwidth. That’s annoying.
15.53
Sorry about the fish thing, it seems to be a new secretive thing around here. Milo Noblet and Paul Briggs are also here with me, and they have PMR446 radios along with me. If you want to see the model we have, the Binatone T550 travel pack. Y0u can see the product on Maplins, where I purchased them from, here: http://www.maplin.co.uk/binatone-terrain-550-pmr-two-way-radio-travel-pack-345545.
If you’re wondering why I didn’t embed the link in the “here” text, it’s because the system doesn’t seem to let me on the new Live Blogging feature.
14.41
Fish.
14.39
Still sitting in the café, waiting for more information on the Cougars. The milkshakes here are SO DELICIOUS! You should come to visit just for the milkshakes. They put chocolate and double cream in EVERY ONE! Anyway, I will probably speak to you in a minute when we think of more strange things to post.
14.15
Sitting in the café with free WiFi. The Cougars have done their track performance and gave an extremely good effort – it would have really helped if they would have had four wheel steering. They’ve also done their trailer tow, portfolio presentation, engineering judging and scrutineering. The judges were very impressed. I will update you later when they’ve done their verbal presentation and if they are lucky enough to win any awards!
Hello everyone!
With some more latest news, I’m here to inform you that the amazing Milo Noblet, owner of MiloSoft UK, and MiloSoft Blog, has got two new sites: milonoblet.com and carspotting.milonoblet.com
Please can you take a look at his new sites, and when on the carspotting page, please submit your own car videos, links, reports etc. like I have done – with your blog/YouTube/Flickr account etc underneath for your own publicity. Milo will be very gracious of this.
Yours in the name of cars,
Dan Lawson.
Hello everyone,
I’m guessing everybody who is reading this know what PacMan is, if you don’t – find out. What I wanted to tell you was, that I have made a version of PacMan using Adobe Flash CS5 and ActionScript 3. There are variations in mine where the PacMan and the Ghost can get trapped in a corridor which is too small!! There are also some other surprises which you’ll have to work out yourself. You can play it HERE.
Yours,
Dan Lawson
Hello everyone,
As you know, I’ve made quite a few tutorials during the time this website’s been running (believe me, there’s more to be uploaded!) What I want to know is, what do you like? Which tutorials would you like to see in the future on my blog?? Please tell me, and I will answer your requests – email tutorialrequests@danlawsonblog.co.uk
I will attempt to create ALL the tutorials which you ask.
Regards,
Dan Lawson
Hello everyone,
I have recently ditched Geekshed and decided to go for EvoIRC. This was because (1) Milo (from http://www.milosoft.eu) now is a member of staff (check out http://www.evoirc.org/staff/).
Secondly, I now have an ultimate BNC which is always logged in when I’m not there.
The EvoIRC channel will be on the Live page along with my Ustream.
Thanks everyone,
Dan Lawson.