This came as a surprise as the Apple iPad wasn’t due to launch until tomorrow (28/05/2010). Not that I was complaining of course.

I looked on Twitter and there were posts of people getting their iPads… I had to sit and wait.. and wait.. as more and more people got their hands on this much talked about device from Apple.

Early afternoon and there was a knock on my door from a friendly UPS man with my iPad. Yeah.

The box was very light.

I opened it to find a find a sexy new iPad inside. After connecting it to iTunes as requested to activate the device I was ready to try out some of the apps that I had already downloaded ready.

The first thing that you notice is the amazing screen. You have to see it to appreciate how awesome it really is.

I’ve been having a good play with the device and have to say that I am VERY happy with my decision to ditch my netbook in favour of it.

I think that I have gotten used to it’s size already as going to use my iPhone afterwards is a really weird experience, as for the first time the iPhone just feels so oddly small!

The keyboard on the iPad is far better than I was expecting, in-fact this post was written entirely from the iPad without much issue at all, with some pretty quick typing speeds..

I can’t believe that people are queuing outside shops this evening to get their hands on one. I’m so glad that I pre-ordered.

See mypocketOS.com for all the details.

The walk started by a nice stroll across the local farm fields, taking in the start of the new growing season and wondering what crops were slowly starting to show themselves as their small green leaves started to shoot. We have walked these fields for years, and watched their life-cycle from seedlings, to full crop, harvested and then empty field.

In the distance we could hear the toot-toot of the steam train and as we crossed another field, which had recently been spread with manure, we dodged the drying dung and made our way to the railway crossing just as the train steamed past us.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSpwH-Tud_g

Over the other side of the railway line we stopped to look at a field of baby lambs and recalled some of the events featured on the recent BBC Lambing Live series.

Enjoying this afternoon stroll, taking in all the sights and sounds of spring we thought that instead of re-tracing our path back home, we’d go the long way around, through a small village and then back across some other fields.

Venturing into the village we passed a series of council houses. As we got to one particular house, we were greeted with two dogs who started to bark as we approached.

The owner who was in the front garden shouted to the dogs to be quiet, but they were having none of this. One particular dog was getting more irate as we passed and looked for a way to get out from behind the locked gate.

Slow motion

The next part was so surreal it kinda happened in slow motion.. As we walked past the property, the agitated dog had managed to get itself free from within it’s confinement and had it’s jaws locked firmly around Harvey, my Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.

The dog was growling and shaking Harvey, who was still attached to his dog lead, like a ragdoll!

My mind was racing and I didn’t know what to do. Do I kick the dog away and risk the chance of getting attacked myself? Trying to pull Harvey away proved fruitless as the dog had such a tight hold around his neck.

After much shaking the dog’s owner raced over to prize their dog away, as this was happening, Harvey’s body was slumping to the ground, foaming at the mouth.

There he lay on his side at the side of the road motionless with the froth from his mouth on the road in front of him.

Time seemed to stand still for ages. My other-half bent down to check Harvey and move him to see if he was OK, but he just lay there motionless, unconscious in a limp lifeless state.

My heart sank, and I was in a daze. Could this really be the last moments of my lovable dog dying at the side of road?

What to do? Who to call?

After an exchange of words with the owner who then quickly disappeared back into the property, we tried to get our heads around what had just happened. One minute we were laughing and joking, the next we were looking in despair at our dog whose life seemed to be slipping away before our eyes.

What do you do? phone a vet? the police? I couldn’t think.

Thankfully after what seemed like forever Harvey’s still and lifeless body started to stir and after a few coughs he slowly staggered to his feet, looking somewhat shaken.

Amazingly on checking Harvey over, the attacking dog hadn’t actually broken the skin and there was no trace of blood. We were so lucky.

Shaken by the incident we headed home. Walking slowly to start, Harvey was soon back to his normal self and tail wagging frantically like nothing had happened.

That image of Harvey lying motionless is something that scares the life out of me. It reminds me how we all take life for granted and how easily it can be snatched away from us.

It also highlights the need for people to be more responsible for the actions of their dogs, and how the planned insurance for all dogs is much needed.

]]> http://nechbi.com/2010/03/28/sunday-afternoon-dog-walk-from-hell/feed/ 1 http://nechbi.com/2009/09/16/onedotzero-and-the-nokia-n900/ http://nechbi.com/2009/09/16/onedotzero-and-the-nokia-n900/#comments Wed, 16 Sep 2009 20:34:06 +0000 Neil Bird http://nechbi.com/?p=1775 At 18:30 on Friday evening I let the train take the strain on my trip to the onedotzero / Nokia N900 event in London over the weekend, which I was kindly invited to by the folks at WOM World / Nokia.

For more technical details see my hands-on Nokia N900 review at mypocketOS.com.

Arriving in London

On arriving at Paddington Station at 20:40, I set about getting across London to the hotel.

Using a Nokia N82 I was able to navigate my way around the London Underground using a trusty little app, that I use every time I go to London, call MetrO. Its great as you don’t need to worry about looking at and understanding the Underground map and figuring out where you are and need to head, you just enter you start and end locations, and it will tell you which line to take and in which direction, and where you need to get off and change. So easy!

I arrived at the hotel at 21.45 and checked in, got to my room and crashed.

Meet & Greet breakfast

Down to breakfast on the first day, and it was time to meet my fellow bloggers that have also travelled to London for the event, as well as Donna and Robbie from WOM World / Nokia.

Jay Montano (My Nokia Blog) came up from Cardiff
Gerry Moth (NokiAAddict) flew down from Glasgow
Valerio Valerio (Valerio Valerio’s Blog) had flown in from Portugal
Mike Evans (Mobile Mentalism) took the short journey from Reading
and Roger Sperberg flew in from New Jersey.

On arrival we were presented with 3 Nokia N900 handsets to have a play with over breakfast.

N900 Workshops

A couple of workshops were set-up for us, that allowed us to have a better play with the Nokia N900′s plus also to meet the N900 Prodcut Manager. So we headed over to the BFI Southbank after breakfast.

For more details on the workshops, head over to mypocketos.com for a hands on review of the N900.

Lunch

Finding a nice place to eat on the Southbank allowed everybody to have a chat about their first impressions of the Nokia N900 and the discussions with Jussi, the Product Manager.

The London Eye

After lunch, it was time for a spot of sightseeing, and what better way to do that than on the London Eye.

The onedotzero ‘identity’ installation

Later on that evening we were back at the Southbank to see the Nokia onedotzero ‘identity’ installation outside the BFI.

Read more about the onedotzero / Nokia N900 installation at mypocketOS.com.

Sunday

After a hearty breakfast, it was a great time for all the bloggers to share more details about their own websites, mobile experiences and of course talk about the events of the previous day, plus also try and grab some time online.

Later that afternoon, we were back at the BFI again, for the Hackers Workshop, where we were presented with some cool retro 80′s products brought up-to-date using the new Nokia N900.

Read more about the Nokia Push N900 Project at myPocketOS.com

After the event closed at 5, it was time to head back to Paddington for the journey back home.

You can read more about the Nokia N900 and other mobile news at my main site mypocketOS.com.

The event is taking place at the BFI Southbank in London and will allow myself and 5 other bloggers the chance to have a play with the new Nokia N900 (not currently available to the public) and to get to speak to the Product Manager for the handset.

For more information and updates about my trip to London head over to mypocketOS.com for all the details.

I bought the Mac Mini in March 2005 not long after the ground breaking piece of hardware from Apple was announced. This was my first venture into being a Mac owner, and my very first Apple product.

Equipped with an Apple wireless Keyboard and mouse, the Mac Mini was perfect for watching movies, playing music via iTunes and surfing the Internet on a large LCD TV connected to a surround sound system.

Having found the joys of using a Mac so pleasurable, it then led me on to purchase numerous iPods over the years and eventually to the iMac that I have today.

Sadly the original G4 Mac Mini was starting to show its age, and creak under the demands of today’s software.  It just was not up to the job of playing HD content, as it would stutter it’s way through films.

Also as more and more software was being developed primiraly for Intel based Mac’s my G4 Mac Mini was starting to get left in the dark.  And with Snow Leopard just launched last week, the Mac Mini’s days are well and truly numbered.

Luckily the Mac Mini has found himself a new owner and a new home.

Mobiles have been around for years, but only now are they starting to be more than just a device for making calls and sending text messages.

Since the dramatic arrival of the iPhone in 2007, Apple have set a benchmark for others to follow. Google released its Android operating system a year later and the likes of Nokia have being struggling to play catch-up with it’s Symbian platform.

Today’s mobiles are turning into mobile computers – the Mobile OS wars have commenced..

Check out My Pocket OS and let me know what you think.

I have sold the site to new owners, who will take over the iGadgetLife helm and expand on the work that I started.

It was a tough decision to let iGadgetLife go, as having built it up from a hobby blog (nechbi.com) I kinda got attached to it.

Through the site I have met some cool people, been to great places and of course been able to get my hands on some very exciting new technology!

For now I can be found here on blog.nechbi.com and on Twitter.

Thanks to everybody that stopped by and got involved, it has been fun!

For those of you in the UK, you’ll probably be aware that o2, who exclusively have the iPhone, slashed £100 off the price of the 8GB iPhone to £169 as it would appear that the handset is going ‘end of line’.

I have been toying with the idea of just getting an iPod Touch since that first appeared, but now that the 8GB iPhone is cheaper than an iPod Touch, I just had to do it..

Of course I didn’t want to sign up to an expensive o2 tarrif for 18 months, so promplty Jailboke the handset within minutes of getting it home..

I’ll keep you posted about my experiences with the handset and how, it compares to the market leaders Nokia and their Nseries handsets.

So what did people make of the announcements by Nokia?

The N96 - lovely as it is, is really just a refined N95 with some extra bells and whistles.. mainly DVB-H which isn’t even available in most countries  yet.  I understand that when you have a pretty good product in the N95 – you don’t need to re-invent the wheel, just make it better  and I think that they (hopefully) have done that.

Again the same can be said for the N78 – which is the N73 replacement.. Again – its taken the best of its sibling and enhanced on it..

Overall have we heard anything groundbreaking?  Well actually I think not..  Nokia Maps – lovely as it is.. its a Beta, again its just an update (ok a major improvement on the original) but not really anything new.

So what happened to Touch?  This is the one thing that I was really hoping to see.  Sadly it was a no-show (in handset terms at least).

As much as I like the look of the new handsets and the improvements to the software – I did come a way a little underwhelmed..  Thankfully the whole experience of being at WMC and having access to the Nokia Product Managers while there more than made up for it.

Being an Apple fan – we love the big bang announcements and the Steve Jobs Key Note – you really do get that wow factor.  I know that nobody can match Apple for this. The problem is that they raise the bar and I just expect others to follow..

That being said – I really cannot wait to get my hands on the N96 when it comes out – it rocks!

[Note:  I've been a little slow on the blogging front recently, this was drafted shortly after my trip to WMC, I thought I just as well post it, even if it is a bit late in the day..]