A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far Far Away…

There was a poor defenseless little hibachi, desperate to be lit. He cried out for flame to ignite his charcoal. Flame was duly brought forward. Alas, the little heat the flame could bring was just not sufficient to support combustion of the little hibachi’s valiant charcoal.

Along came Darth Petrol bringing with him the lure of the dark side. Maximum heat, quick ignition, superb fire spreadability. The innocent little hibachi jumped at the thought of quick burn. To be lit and give forth searing heat was all it wanted…

Slosh went Darth Petrol, whoosh went the hibachi. Heat was brought forth in a marvelous energetic dance…

For in a few seconds, hibachi’s coals were hot. But too hot, the fire would not recede, the heat began to burn through poor little hibachi and then it was no more. Hibachi had melted. He was no more. The lure of the dark side had reduced him to slag. Never to be cooked on again.

Here endeth the lesson and beggineth the tip…

When lighting your BBQ, NEVER use petrol or other accelerants. They burn too quick, damage your grill and leave a nasty taste in your mouth – quite literally. Also, they are pretty dangerous. 

How to do it safely?

Get a BBQ lighting chimney, use organic, environmental friendly lighting blocks (marked as suitable for BBQ) or…

Get the heat gun you use for stripping paint, put it on it’s hot setting and leave it for a few minutes….

For a few briquettes – it looks like this and works a charm. Why only a few briquettes? I used them for starting a slow burn. If you have more to do then fire the heat from the bottom up.

Use your heat gun to light coals

Lay a snake of coals for a long slow burn

Because I’m over 40 and the Internet is not genetically programmed within my psyche I forgot to post the thing I’d just written about my iPad mini 4.

That’s ok because it’s a quiet Sunday morning and there is just me and the dog so I can add a bit more about the thing – after using it for a number of weeks.

Basically, if you are looking for a tablet or new laptop or new computer and you can’t decide then my guess is that the mini will do all the work you need. In a nut shell it’s truly amazing. It out performs similar classed laptops (with the exception of gaming type graphics). It runs Microsoft Office. It has a great camera. The battery lasts for a long time. The speakers are very good considering the size of the thing. The screen is great. Etc….

What’s not to like?

Some of the apps are expensive compared to Android. If that is a problem I don’t know. Stability and security are important. Paying for stuff is a way to help developers build better solutions.

I use an external keyboard that cost an extra 90 Euros (a Logitech key case type thing). This makes using the tablet more into a laptop experience if you have a lot of typing to do. Is this a downside? I don’t know – some folks would say that it is. I found the regular Apple onscreen keyboard fine but maybe not for masses and masses of text.

There is no external storage. Again – I’m no sure this is a relevant argument. This little box has 64Gb storage – certainly needed. That’s enough to store a load of music, games, pictures and movies – certainly enough for a long flight and business trip. If I needed more – well – there are some nice little options that will allow you to use either wifi or an SD card etc. 

Sometimes there are some little idiosyncrasies with app functionality. Navigation may always not work the way you think. This though is symptomatic of all apps on all platforms. 

Other than that – and of course it’s apple and as such a premium is paid on the brand – what’s not to love:)

Get one.

also known as My New Toy.

Not so long ago I was determined to not like Apple products. They were overpriced, trendy and generally just “not my thing“. Oh how times have changed.
I’m a hacker and a tinkerer. I love to play with technology and make it work differently. A big Linux advocate and occasional programmer, the iPad and iPhone were the antithesis of everything holy. What was wrong with beige? What was wrong with the command line? Why do I need a smart phone?

What happened?

We moved from Blackberry to Apple. I lost my faithful Curve with it’s keyboard, work anywhere and 5 day battery. I got an iPhone 5S. I tried to hate it, I really did. I tried to put it down, to look for faults but I just couldn’t. Even the 24 hour battery on a good day I can’t complain about. Maybe I should just move to Cairo and live on that river (denial – say it out loud, you’ll get it) but nope, I’m now an advocate. That’s not the same as a fan boy – honest. But certainly if you were to try and pry my iPhone or iPad from my cold dead hands you would have a struggle.

So why the change?

In short – “It just works”

The build quality is excellent, the kit just feels good. The software (I’m not going into technicalities) similarly just works. You can install an application, find you don’t like it and then remove it without any problems. If you want to buy something you can, and yes, the apps may be more expensive than Google Android but they also tend to be of a better build and design quality. 

Connecting to wifi, it’s a breeze. Select which network, type the password and go. No messing with having to remove the old one for whatever reason.

Sound from the little speakers – considering the size – great volume and clarity. The phone comes with earbuds that similarly sound good. It’s true that they are not the best in the world but by no means are they the worst and they come included.

The screen is just so clear. On both iPhone and iPad – clarity is awesome. Responsiveness of the touch screen is snappy and accurate.