I’ve been away for a few days – nine in total.

I had precisely two bits of “tech” with me as I was more than happy to shed the need to connect. In reality, I could have reduced the tech to one – my iphone as it has a GPS built in and thus makes my Garmin surplus. Well not yet it doesn’t – that is not until the battery life improves and the accuracy gets locked down.

But I digress.

In the nine days we were away as a family I seriously used my tech once – and that was the GPS when we did a day of geocaching around Saundersfoot and Caldey Island.

Other than the very rare phone call or text message I checked my emails once a day at the most.

We enjoyed, as a family, getting away from the TV, from the computers, the Nintendo DS, the xbox, the … well you get the picture.

It’s good to detach, de-stress and recharge (oh look, a tech play on words).

Whilst I don’t think we need to go as far as committing Seppukoo it is important that we identify the distinction between real life and online.

Equally it’s important we take time to detach ourselves from the addiction that online life can so easily become.

Don’t get me wrong – there is great value in our online personas and one hopes that the person I meet online is the same as the one I’d meet in real life.

There is great value to be had online and great stores of knowledge to be tapped but let me ask this:

For those of you, like me, who are over 40 – how much did you rely on technology as a child?

My fear is not that we over-utilise the tech or get caught up in it (though that is a genuine concern as a parent) but it’s what being online might be doing to our creative selves.

I refuse to let my two youngest (the same for the eldest but he’s an adult now) ‘play’ with or via tech all the time. I make them ((horrid dad that I am) go outside or build something with lego or play a game with cards or … again, you get the point.

I come across so many young children these days that are listless or agitated or hyper or angry or bored or … and whilst I don’t have any facts to back it up (do you?) I do have a very strong belief that most if not all of this is caused by being too connected.

Or as I’ve seen it said – hyper-connected.

Let me ask you this:

• Are we sometimes too hyper-connected?
• Do we not spend enough time away from technology?
• Have you ever passed up opportunities in real-life due to your online activities?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this one so please dive in and comment – especially if you are a first time commenter or vehemently disagree with me.

Shocking isn’t it.

But let me step back a second and explain.

According to the many terms and conditions (T&Cs) I’ve agreed to down the year I, and most likely you, are indulging in alleged criminal behaviour. Let me give you an example or two.

- Have you ever bought a CD and then copied t to tape or even your MP3 player? Yes. Then you’re a criminal.

- What about your iPhone / iTouch. Have you jailbroken it? Then yes, you’ve just broken the law again.

- Ever bought a DVD? Then ripped it to place on your media player? Guess what? … You’re a criminal.

But in reality, occasions like this are highly unlikely to get you arrested, let alone face a judge or fine. These are some of the many absurd ‘restrictions’ that companies place in their T&Cs.

But, I digress.

My main reason for this is to reveal that I ‘jailbroke’ my iPhone. There are any number of reasons I’ve done it but to obtain “pay for apps” for free is not one of them.

And here’s one of those reasons: WiCarrier.

Simply put, it displays the name of the WiFi network your iPhone / iTouch is connected too. Why is this so necessary when I can drop into settings and see the same name there? It isn’t but it does make life that one step easier and adds to my security at a glance that I am actually connected to the local coffee house’s network and not some hacker hotspot.

If you want this tweak then fire up your Cydia app and search it out – install and job done.

What about you?

Are you a criminal too?

I promise I won’t hold it against you.

This looks awesome and I want one.

However it isn’t available until Q4 2010 according to the makers (22moo) website and although I’m not a huge gamer I can see where and how this could be of benefit even to me.

Some of its features are (will be):

• Styling to compliment iPod/iPhone with optimized design for ergonomics and comfort
• 2000mAh Lithium-ion Battery for additional power for your iPod touch / iPhone
• LED showing charging state and capacity
• 8-way D-Pad with 6 buttons
• Built-in Stereo speakers
• Highly sensitive omni directional Mic
• 3.5mm audio headphone jack

No idea on price yet but I guess it’ll be in the £15 to £35 range and I’ve submitted my name for a review of one – will see what happens there.

I got this email yesterday:

Over the past couple of days I’ve been thinking about Wi-Fi being provided free (secure and filtered) by churches and Christians. The idea came to me when I noticed a guy outside of my house in the cold, winter weather accessing my wireless with some kind of hand held device. I was thinking that it would be cool if people were able to access a connection for free BUT there would always be one pop-up at the beginning of the access…sort of a “provided by” message along with some other message. like info about a church or group or the gospel message for that matter, or maybe a link with info on donating to specific charities or disaster relief. I would think that would be only a minor inconvenience if one was able to access the internet for free. What are you’re thoughts on that?

I confess my first thought would not have been a charitable one if I’d seen someone outside my house trying to access my wifi. First I’d think best of luck and then I’d instantly change my pre-shared key . Me, paranoid?

But to answer the question the answer I gave was “I love the idea” … (more…)

I’ve had my iPhone 3GS for precisely two days now.

In that time I have spent a good number of minutes searching for a way to have my iPhone utilise multiple computers without the dreaded “is synched with another computer” pop up message.

Well I’ve found the answer now and it is just so easy… I can also see this being useful for those rare situations where you have more than 5 computers you want to sync with. Which, if you didn’t know, is the limit put on your device by itunes… grrr.

Anyway, you can find the full details over at iSmashPhone.com – just click the link.

I like to attend InfoSec occasionally.

In fact so occasional that I won’t say when the last time was. Anyway, this year it falls on a date when I can make it and due to a recent renewing of an acquaintance via twitter has made me want to do it. So I start looking into the cost of train tickets and planning it when it dawns on me that my workplace would probably pay for the jolly.

So I ask the boss expecting a simple yes or no. Instead I get, and this is the daft bit, requested to “explain what benefit this will be to me and the business” in a paragraph!

Well strike me down if I’m being silly, but surely it’s obvious? I work in network support and most of my day is spent digging in the bowels of firewalls, IDS’s, load balancers, routers and switches.I think I can safely say that over 70% of my day is spent on Information Security (emphasis mine).

Then again it might just be me.

I love Yanko Design and I have it as one of my regular rss feeds – I find if I don’t visit almost daily I can miss some really great ideas.

Recently, one of their designs (more…)

I feel that this posting will be one that gets repeated many a time over the coming months, but everything has to start somewhere.

So let me proudly introduce the first in the line of “gadgets I want”.

The Optima Pico Projector.

It’s supposed to allow those whom ustilise mobile gadgets for viewing films, pictures, etc to share and enjoy a far better visual experience with an image that is up to 100 times larger than the small screen of the source device.

Yummy …