Checked it out

Testing Blogger Android app

2011-02-05T20:20:00.001-08:00

Just trying out the Android Blogger app.

It works, well worth a try

Checked it out -eBay

2008-07-18T22:31:00.000-07:00

I guess I when looking at eBay, I have pretty well checked it out.

Having been a seller and buyer on eBay, for over 5 years, I have found it a changed place during that time.

When I first started, it was a bit of a gamble when either buying or selling, but things rapidly improved and became a sellers market. Prices secured as a seller were consistent and quite high.

eBay changed their marketing stance, looking to drive more buyers to the general marketplace and prices as a seller dropped considerably, which was a good thing for buyers and still remains the case.

The perception of eBay has changed over time and it is unusual for a transaction to go wrong and the support infrastructure makes it a pretty safe place to buy on the internet.

The range of features, searches, tracking asking for products and product reviews, along with a vastly improved feedback system, makes it a venue of choice for many online purchases.

It is always worth a search, to see what eBay prices are for items, before heading over to 'regular' shops, as there is often a decent bargain to be found and for the more obscure, or collectors item, it remains and always has been a first choice venue.

If you haven't done so, take a look around eBay and see what you can find.

Come back to see what else is on checked it out

Checked it out Morphy Richards Stainless Steel Jug Kettle model 43311

2008-05-05T10:53:00.000-07:00

I had been looking for a while for a new kettle, and have been happy to say the Morphy Richards kettle was the one I chose and I have now checked it out.

I was looking for two key features, quick boil and quiet. The third factor was price, which I will get onto in a minute.

The 43311 stainless steel kettle has:

Quiet boil technology

Whistle on boil (can be activatged or turned off)

Blue illumination in water gauge

Large spout for easy filling and pouring

Top button lid release

3KW Element for rapid boil

8 Cup / 1.7 litre capacity

360 Degree cordless base for right and left handed use

Removable limescale filter and concealed element

I have found the kettle stacks up to the description. Quiet it certainly is, I was convinced the whistle would never be used, but apart from the slight click as the power cuts out when the kettle boils, there is no other sound, in a nearby room to distinguish between it boiling and having boild. On more than one occassion, I have gone to reboil the kettle, only to find it had quietly gone about its business.

The jug shape and stainless steel casing, doesn't look out of place in most kitchens, the illuminaiton, which is a feature on more and more kettles, I personally find a gimmick. But it is common on so many kettles now, I guess it is all about keeping up with the Jonese's and it certainly isn't a hinderance to its efficiency.

The final considertation was price. Many kettles of a similar quality form competitors are selling at over £50.00, so I was delighted to find this was generally available at below £35.00. I was able to find it at below £30.00 form an online retailer and it to this retailer I will direct you.

Checked it out ratings.

Looks: 3 stars: well it is difficult to rate any kettle above this

Efficiency: 4 stars. It boils very quickly

Noise: 5 stars: Undoubtedly the best feature of the kettle from my point of view

Price: 4 star: Beats the vast majority of the competition hands down.

Overall: 4 stars: does exactly what it says it will, at a great price.

Available at 24 Studio for less than £30.00

Having checked it out, I would definately suggest you do the same.

Checked it out - Littlewoods

2008-04-30T05:09:00.000-07:00

Having languished as a reactive catalogue shop for some years, they are rebranded and repositioned and I have checked it out.

With a recent spate of television advertising, Littlewoods Home Shopping have embraced the internet, making shopping far more simple and attaining a much wider reach. The days of wading through hundreds of pages of rubbish has nbeen replaced by a simple internet search. They do still sell through catalogues if that is preferred.

The old days of over priced catalogues full of over priced cheap tat, look way behind them.

Littlewoods Shop Direct Home Shopping Limited is the UK’s leading online and home shopping retailer, with annual sales of around £2 billion and five million customers. They sell all of the major brands, including Sony, Nike, Levi’s, Adidas, Phillips, Kodak, Dyson, Bosch, Amanda Wakeley, Morgan and Miss Sixty.

Having appeared from almost nowhere, they aim to double nline sales to £750 million in the next three years.

To support the expected growth of online retailing, Littlewoods Shop Direct Group has a highly valuable and efficient infrastructure that no other UK retailers can rival – sourcing, warehousing, single pick and pack distribution, home delivery to customers.

Over the past four years, they have transformed and modernised the entire business.

Having made an online purchase from them for a antony worral bbq, I was delighted with the prce, (securing a significant discount as a new customer) which made the purchase highly price competative with 1 years interest free credit on orders over £60.

The bbq arrived quickly and the whole process of shopping with them was simple and easy.

Ease of purchase: 4 star

Speed of delivery: 4 star

Price: 4 star (the interest free credit terms and discounts available offset the web page price, which can be higher than other stores)

Well worth a visit, you may be as pleasantly suprised as I was

£15 off your first order of £25 or more at Littlewoods

Thanks for taking a look at checked it out

Checked it out Windows Vista Home Premium

2007-11-26T06:27:00.000-08:00

Windows Vista, Home premium, I have checked it out over the past two months.

According to the geeks, it is no good and has all kinds of problems, with the stark warning, keep away until the service pack upgrade in the new year.

Well, my experience, as a Computer user, doesn't support that view. It is easy to use, easy to set up and easy to manage.

One of the complaints about Vista, is the processing capacity required by the computer to run Vista. Sure, an old computer is going to struggle, but on a relatively robust 6 - 12 month old system, it really is no big deal. The PC I have been running it on, has 512mb Ram and a processor speed of 2ghz, the dashboard tells me, I can't watchTV on my monitor using Vista comfortably. Hey strangely enough, my world isn't going to end, as I have a TV.

The operating system throttles back to accommodate the computer being used, which is ideal for someone who doesn't want, or know how, to tweak their PC.

The widgets available for the system home page, are a bit gimmicky for my use, but if you want rss feeds, weather and a host of other applications on your screen when you start up, Vista has it.

The ability to tile windows in a 3d style format is a cool application, which I happen to like.

One bug bear when you first get Vista, is the security settings are so high, you almost need to confirm you really want the computer switched on. But that is easy to change, like the security settings on a browser.

I guess the technicians don't like Vista, because it enables the user to do much of what they used to pay technicians to do.

One pain, is compatibility. There are many applications which are not Vista compatible, which will undoubtedly change as the system becomes more widespread.

In my view, for the average home user, small business application, it is a better, more stable product that XP.

Marks

Ease of use 4 stars, easy to manage and set up, does need tweaking when you first start
Stability 5 stars, not had a crash
Speed of start up 4 stars, as slow or quick as XP
Gimmicks 4 stars, if you like them it is full of widgets

Overall 4 stars, it is a Microsoft product, which you can view as either a good or bad thing.

Make sure you keep coming back to see what else is blogged in checked it out.

Checked it out freewebs

2007-11-17T03:02:00.000-08:00

Having used Freewebs for a couple of months I can safely say, I have checked it out.

Freewebs, is a great site for blogging, as it provides many gadgets and widgets which can be added to a site, from videos, images, through shopping, to fun ideas. Freewebs, offers a free blogging service, which really comes with all many people will need for a blog, but there are also premium services available.

Although I was impressed with the site I have always found the statistics on visitors to be useless. It is nigh on impossible, with a free account to add one of the proprietary trackers and I therefore didn't use the service to anything like it's full potential.

That now is all behind us, as freewebs have just added a tracking system to the blog.

While blogger, remains a perennial favourite for new blogs, freewebs is fast on the tail, with it's comprehensive widgets and tools. Well worth having a look.

My own site over there is pretty basic, but will give you some idea.

Visit My Website

Ease of use 4 stars, easy enough, but a lot to learn
Personalisation 3 stars, a free account is a little limited with the templates

I will certainly be staying with freewebs and expect to use it more frequently, now the stats issue has been resolved

Checked it out - Helium

2007-10-31T01:30:00.000-07:00

Having been a member of Helium for about 4 weeks, I have now checked it out.

Helium, is a website for writers. A site on which it is possible to write about practically any subject. The aim, as stated by the site owners, is to make Helium the number one source for information on the Internet.

Helium, has a few interesting twists to it, which helps manage the integrity of the site and information.

All articles, once submitted, are subject to voting in comparison to other articles on the same subject. So poor articles drop and better articles rise to the surface.

Debates can be instigated with writers submitting articles to support their point of view, once again articles can be rated against each other.

Articles are commissioned by magazines, journals, bloggers etc. The commissioning client makes the final selection, of course, but the articles are again rated against each other. The commissioned article is then paid for by the commissioning client. Articles selected earn upwards of US$20.00

In addition, revenues from the site are shared with article writers. Articles earning a weighting for their level in comparison to other similar articles and earning in relation to the traffic the article subject draws top the site.

It is a great place to develop writing skills, whilst simultaneously receiving payment.

Writing in Helium, is not like writing on a blog, as the articles are generally longer and more formally structured.

If you enjoy writing, or want to develop your writing skills, I would say Helium is a great place to go.

Having checked it out, I will certainly continue to write on Helium

Checked it out - Weblo

2007-10-17T02:31:00.000-07:00

Having been registered with Weblo for the best part of six months, I have well and truly checked it out.

Weblo is an online space which mirrors a few financial aspects of the real world. You can buy virtual real estate (like cities) and collect taxes on developments on your land. You can set yourself up as the agent of the virtual version of a real-world celebrity and you can buy domain names inside Weblo's universe. Recently introduced is the ability to add real world web assets to your portfolio. Earning advertising and revenue and trading the assets, either virtually, or in reality.

You buy, of course, so you can sell later, hopefully at a nice multiple to what you paid. Why would somebody want to buy your properties to begin with? So he or she can sell it to the next person, of course. Weblo is a trading game, with a currency of real U.S. dollars. Fortunately prices for Weblo analogs of real-world items are not comparable.

Some people, apparently, have bought properties at Weblo's startup prices and flipped them for thousands of dollars. You can cash out of Weblo whenever you want, and transfer your earnings into your PayPal accont.

Because there is nearly a world full of untapped resources on Weblo right now, there's the potential for a real land-grab to start on the system. Un-purchased addresses are less than two bucks. Weblo figures the prices of states and cities by using an algorithm that incorporates real-world population.

If you own a Weblo property, like a building, a state, a site, or the rights to represent a celebrity, you can also develop it -- you can build a Weblo Web page to support it, drive traffic to it from your other Weblo pages or even the "real" Internet. Weblo runs advertising on every page and you'll get a cut of the ad revenues from your properties, as well as a percentage of all properties developed on your real estate (if you're the mayor of a city, you get a share of all the revenues generated in it). How big a cut you get depends on which of the five Weblo membership levels you're signed up for. Free accounts get 10% of revenues. Top-tier "VIP" accounts ($30 a month) get 50%; paid accounts also pay less for unpurchased Weblo resources.

CEO Rocky Mirza has plans to introduce new resource types. In July, Weblo has secured $3.2 million USD in venture capital financing from VantagePoint Venture Partners. Geoff Mott, Managing Director, VantagePoint Venture Partners will also join the Company's Board of Directors.

Click here to join Weblo for FREE, build your Virtual Empire and Make Money!

Weblo is a virtual world based on the real world. Members earn real money by owning online replicas of real cities, states, famous properties and Internet domain names. Members also claim FREE celebrity fan sites. Members create sites and get paid for their popularity via Internet advertising. Owners of cities and states earn additional money from transaction fees in their territories and by selling their virtual investments for a profit.

Join for Free and start building your virtual empire today!

Having checked it out what is it like?

Ease of use - 3 stars, takes some navigating

Enjoyment - 4 stars, if you don't enjoy trading and writing, it isn't for you

Ease of making money - 5 stars, every click gets a share and building blocks are in place

Worth a visit and trying out.

Checked it out Apsense business networking

2007-10-04T07:14:00.000-07:00

I have now checked it out, apsense.

Conceptually a great idea, designed to bring people together who have an interest in business and social networking. An opportunity to discuss ideas and learn from and with other people, while at the same time promoting your own business.

Implementation wise, it is a mess, well in my opinion. Still in Beta, there is time to pull itself around, let's hope it does.

The structure of the site is cumbersome, with blogs, business centres, groups, selling advertising, buying advertising, earning revenue from page views and lots more, but it is not cohesive.

If someone asks the wrong question in the wrong place, in the wrong way, a civil servant will apply a yardstick and measure it, not with a jot of common sense or understanding of what is being said.

The concept deserves to work and the site should do well, they just need to get a slicker system, less confusion and moderators who have a brain.

Rating

Ease of use 2 stars. too ambiguous
Concept 4 stars
Ease of registration 5 stars
Potential 3 stars as it stands

Will I keep persevering, no I have better things to do with my time.
Will I go back in a few months, for sure, but expect to see more and better alternatives appear in the interim

Checked it out Yuwie Social Networking site

2007-09-23T11:27:00.000-07:00

Well I have checked it out for the past month. Yuwie is gaining popularity and numbers pretty fast. Another social networking site, but this time with a difference. Yuwie lets you earn as you network and earn from your referrals. So it does offer something a little different.

Yuwie itself is monetized by adsense and other advertising and passes on a small % of that revenue to the registered users. The revenue spilt is based on activity by the registered user and activity by the registered users referral down to 10 levels, which means, for those who haven't been involved in network commission, your referrals, referrals, referral, etc, to 10 levels. So it is possible to gain a healthy revenue income from friends and referrals and their activity.

There are checks and balances in place, to ensure automation and cheating is quickly picked up on and advertising your own business is a no no in almost all areas of the site, but there is a neat little video explaining the principals and an easy accessible faq section, not to mention Terms of Service.

As a Social Networking site, it works well. Offering, video, audio, applications, blogs, comments, notices, messages, photo albums. Customisation of layout is welcome and encouraged.

Profanity is stamped on vigorously, a little to heavy I would say, particularly when the word Cockatoo, is censored to C**katoo, but a great support team exists and within 2 hours of an email, the word had been reverted, as it should have appeared.

Stable and generally responsive, the site is occasionally sluggish, though that is not all that surprising as Yuwie is still in Beta, though that is easy to forget, with the user base numbers as follows:

Total Members:	88,605
New This Month:	48,605
New Today:	1,380

(snap shot 19:37 BST 23/09/07)

it is growing very fast.

If you enjoy Social Networking sites, a la myspace, facebook, beebo, well worth checking it out yourself.

Ratings:

Ease of registration - 5 stars
Ease of use - 5 stars
Flexibility - 4 stars
Ease of navigation - 5 stars

Check it out here Yuwie

Checked it out Bosch SKT 5102 worktop dishwasher

2007-09-21T11:34:00.000-07:00

I have checked it out, the Bosch SKT5102 worktop dishwasher.

A worktop, freestanding dishwasher, with a decent sized wash compartment. Cleans relatively quickly and quietly. Spoilt by a small dishwashing tablet compartment and a strange cutlery holder.

The unit is white, with a dial programme selector, on/off button, door open button and a window to see salt levels. The door is drop down and the washing basket slides easily to the front, giving ample room to wash up 4 place settings with cutlery.

Not being any sort of DIY enthusiast, we called a plumber and it was fitted within about 15 minutes, this included cutting a hole for the water pipes in the kitchen work surface. The machine is cold fill, so there is only one small-bore input and one drain to deal with.

The dishwasher has a one way valve for incoming water and you just need to ensure you have sufficient water pressure to open this valve, which should be the case in most kitchen water supplies, but may be a consideration if you are intending to put this on a high work surface in the utility room.

Inside the machine, the water revolves from the floor, so all cups, glasses etc. need to be face down. The basket has places for 11 plates. But if you are using the cutlery basket this reduces to 9, though you can fit another plate in to a central divide. If set up this way, you also have room for 4-6 glasses.

Additionally there is a small rack which is set high in the dishwasher, which will take long items, such as knives in a horizontal position or can retain thin items with large handles, as the gap is way to large for a knife or similar. Maybe a potato masher, slotted vegetable spoon, or similar.

Inside the machine is the salt dispenser, this is a bit fiddly to get to and extremely frustrating if you fill up the dishwasher and then realise you need to add salt, as the inner basket has to be drawn out to reach the dispenser, which is on the side of the machine and if the basket is laden, you just won't be able to get there. That said, its a minor point. We are in a hard water area and use the dishwasher at least once a day, needing to fill up with salt every couple of weeks.

The real frustration is the small dishwasher tablet compartment, which sits inside the door. It wont take a full tablet. We used to use the three in one tablets, break them in halfish and possibly again, fit as much of the tablet in as possible and throw the rest away. Now use powder, which is far more efficient at cleaning and less wasteful.

The cutlery basket. 'We manage', is the best description. There are a variety of slot sizes in the basket, most of which we find completely useless as they are too thin. Forks have to sit, prongs up and long knives have to sit face up, placed in the larger slots. Teaspoons sit nicely, as do short knives (Butter, and bread) A decent sized dinner knife, won't fit face down, as the handle will catch the roof of the dishwasher, so have to be placed face up. This leaves lots of empty slots, but with many utensils fitting two to a slot to accommodate them.

That said, the machine gets them clean, so it does work well.

There are 4 start settings. Heavy, normal, light, glass. All work as they should and at about an hour for the longest setting, not a bad time.

The drying of items is very good, with the exception of mugs, which we find have water on the base (Bear in mind they are upside down to wash) other than that, the drier is absolutely fine and there is no need to do anything other than put the things away after the wash cycle has completed.

When we first got the machine, we were convinced it had a fault, as part way through the cycle, there was a load bang. It's not a fault, it is the spring door for the dishwasher tablet opening and banging on the side of the machine.... Apart from that extremely load bang, the machine is relatively quiet. You can sometimes hear it filling with water, occasionally jetting water, but not obtrusively, even when standing in the kitchen.

All in all, for a compact dishwasher it is great value for money, very efficient and most importantly does what it says... Washes dishes... Because it is compact, there are bound to be a few space issues, but these are more than made up for in its cleaning ability and for a small family, the interior compartment is perfectly adequate. I wouldn't go back to a full size dishwasher, if for no other reason, than it is so easy to load and unload at waist level, rather than bending under the worktop. We have housed it in a unit and it looks absolutely fine, it has freed up space for more lower shelving and we also have a room for cupboard above it.

What about doing things you shouldn't? I have put roasting pans into it and they have come out clean, so it can handle some real washing. I wouldn't recommend it often, or for a pan needing some real elbow grease, as I can tell the pan was 'quick washed' but its fine if you are cooking and need to use the same pan later in the meal preparation . Usual dishwasher proof applies.

We are happy and would happily buy again, but it would be great if the banging tablet compartment was enlarged and revised.

Ratings time on checked it out.

Reliability - 5 stars, no problems
Noise - 3 stars, it is a bit noisy, but not unbearable.
Washing and drying - 4 stars, some residual water on the cups

If you are after one yourself, here is a place to try (this is the latest model, which has some additional features)

Bosch SKT 5102 EU Dishwasher

checked it out Firefox

2007-09-20T07:17:00.000-07:00

I have had checked it out, Firefox browser.

Nothing but good things to say about it so far. Having held out with ie for years and tried opera and firefox a few years ago, I decided to have another go with Firefox.

I have to say it is now the browser of choice.

With web2.0 properties springing up all the time, I have found the add-ons to be easy to apply, useful, secure (well that is a relative term) and most importantly, the ydo what is said on the tin.

As I use laptops and a few computers, the asset I find most useful is the synchronisation of bookmarks. I add numerous sites everyday and delete them too. So an application that permits me to update bookmarks across all my computer access is a cool as toast item as far as I am concerned.

I have quite a few blogs I write to, as well as social networking applications and the integration with Firefox to many, of course not all, is great.

Applications like Cooliris, seo, google notebook and scribefire, make life even easier.

The session manager and retreival of previous sessions has proven useful on more than one occassion, particularly when using a laptop on the move, when signals can be lost but fortunately not the work.

Switching over from ie after many years requires a new thought process, things are not where they 'should' be, but that is cool and quickly becomes second nature.

Downsides, well the big one is the time it takes to fire up. It isn't a lifetime, but sometimes it feels like it. But once it gets running, I have found it does a great job.

Ratings...

Ease of use - 4 stars, only because I have had to learn
Ease of implemetation - 5 stars, seamless
Functionality - 5 stars, great add-ons and useful too.

Will I keep it. For now, for sure
Is it better than ie For someone who just browses a couple of sites and emails, priobably not worth the change, for everyoen else, yes I would say so, but take the time to learn to maximise its real value.

Now I have checked it out, you can try it here

Checked it out Wahl trend Hairclippers

2007-09-19T00:49:00.000-07:00

Having owned a pair for two years I can for sure say, I have checked it out.

The Wahl trend cordless rechargeable hair clippers.

As someone who has short hair and dyes it bright colors regularly, I needed a decent pair of clippers and the Wahl trend clippers seemed to meet the criteria.

They have some great points, but some not so cool.

For starters, they are light, that is good.

They are cordless, and of course rechargeable, which is great.

Comes complete with the following

Scissors
Oil
Cleaning Brush
Barber Comb
Fader Comb
Cape
Charging Transformer
2 Adjustable length attachement combs
3 Hair Clips
Storage Case
Instructions

They have a range of hairclipping lengths from 1 all the way to a 14, which is an inch and a quarter, in metirc, that's 42 mm.

To be honest, I can't tell you how they work above a number 3 cut, but I am pretty sure all the lengths will be the same.

It comes with two guide combs, one for cut 1 - 7 and the other cut 8 - 14. The guide easily clips onto the clippers, and are adjusted by simply pushing the guide to the required length.

To be fair to Wahl, I am not patient and these clippers have been used alot, and I do mean alot, most weeks for a couple of years and bear in mind these are 'home clippers' so would usually be used less frequently. I almost forgot where I was heading.... Yes, through extensive use, i have found them to operate well, hold the charge well and cut cleanly. But... there has to be a but, recently I have been unhappy with the guide size.

The combs are plastic and the guide in the clippers has recently developed some freeplay, which means that a number 3 cut coud be a number 3 and a half or two and a half. But by pushing down hard, I have managed to sort it out. Like I said, lets be fair, I have used these alot and I am not a 'gentle soul' with them, well over 100 cuts and only in the past 2 - 3 occassions have I been bothered by this freeplay.

So having checked it out, what do I think?

Reliability - 5 stars - Never a problem
Durability - 3 stars - Just starting to get a problem
Design - 5 stars - I love electric blue, which happens to match my hair color this week.

Would I buy them again?

Yes, for sure, quite happy.

If you want a set try here Wahl 9627-217 Trend 14 piece Rechargeable Cord/Cordless Clipper Kit

Thanks for reading checked it out and come by again soon