Returned the iTrip back to the shop I bought it from. Thankfully they just accepted the return without asking any questions or wanting to give me store credit.

I’ll take a knife to my car’s stereo and see if I can make a normal one fit in the hole. Halfords sell converter facias, but the last one I bought didn’t fit at all. The bloke behind the counter implied I was a moron by not removing the car’s own radio cage first. I was going to counter with ‘that’s because it doesn’t come out’ but couldn’t be bothered. Nor could I be bothered enquiring how I attach a new cage to some flimsy plastic facia in such a way that it remains secure. The thing I can buy looks to just be a hole filler, rather than anything to bolt into the car.

Supposedly Facebook wants me to help them translate the site into English (UK). Shouldn’t be too hard, all I have to do is put the ‘u’s back into words and replace ‘z’ with ’s’

Facebook translation request from English (US) to English (UK)

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Griffin iTrip SE

For a while I’ve been looking for a neater, simpler way to connect my iPod Touch to my car’s stereo. Since my car stereo lacks an AUX input, I have to use an FM transmitter. I already own one of these and originally used it on my Tapwave Zodiac, then my Nokia N800/N810 and naturally continued with it on my iPod Touch.

Thing is, it’s a right load of crap. There’s a power cable of standard 2m in length which needs plugging in, and then there’s a curly audio lead that’s at least 4m long when fully stretched. And being curly it loves to wind itself around things causing frustration and much irritation.

I saw an iTrip in Halfords this evening while shopping for some wiper blades, and decided at 20 quid to buy it. This is the Griffin iTrip SE, and what follows relates to that particular model. The Internet seems of the opinion the older version was much better.

My god it’s a cheap piece of crap, it really is. It makes stuff from the Pound shop look good! For a start, the two buttons on the side have such little tactile feedback that you’ll end up pressing them too hard, causing the screen to distort and blank out. Then there’s the small irritation that it does not remember the last station you tuned it to!. So every time the thing turns on, you need to retune it back to the free station your radio has. This is a real pain in the backside and makes me wonder if people ever test stuff properly any more. It can broadcast in mono or stereo and will remember that setting, but not the frequency it transmits on.

This wouldn’t be such an issue if it didn’t choose a frequency at random every time it was turned on.

Oh, and it turns itself off if there’s no sound going into it for more than 30 seconds.

After much grumbling and deciding to return it to the shop I had a look on the Internet to see if there was a solution, or if my unit was faulty. I found out that if you discover the undocumented feature that allows the unit to transmit on US frequencies rather than “international” ones, it also then appears to start remembering the last frequency used.

You do this by holding down the two buttons for ten seconds, until “INTL” flashes on the display. Then choose “US” and work out how to exit the “setup” system. After that mine now seems to remember things.

Griffin iTrip SE closeup

It also contains a mini-USB port for charging the iPod. Why not just put a pass-through dock on the bottom instead? That’d be much better for everyone who owns a charger with a dock connector on it already.

I also bought an in-car iPod holder made by Belkin. It goes in a cup holder and has a little cradle for the iPod and a sucker to stop the iPod escaping. This works perfectly and will prevent my iPod from flying around the inside of my car now. It’s called the Belkin Tunedok Car Holder for iPod and is ridiculously cheap on Amazon!

• ..:: ALWAYS OUTSIDERS, NEVER OUTDONE::..
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• : Flip The Switch – Chemical Brothers Remixed :
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• Smoking Manners
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I had three gerbils, now I have one. The other two are somewhere in the house, or possibly in the walls. At one point I think I heard them inside the washing machine. There was a small trail of sawdust leading over to it, but in the front room a receipt had been chewed on, and a sweet on the floor of the kitchen had been nibbled.

I don’t hold much hope for their return, they’re untame and pretty fast at running. There’s a large hole in the wall so they’ve probably hopped off into there for a look around. I’ll get some humane traps and leave them around the kitchen to see what turns up.

Since gerbils need to live in groups, I’m off with Amy to the petshop to get another one. And a new lid, they chewed through the current one to escape.

My pet gerbils digging and tunnelling

There is supposed to be an embedded YouTube video below this text. If it’s not there, click the link above instead.

Here you go, a short video of my pet gerbils digging in their gerbilarium. According to gerbil intelligence, the ideal home has two entrances, a central bit and the food buried in a corner. Interior redecoration is encouraged and spontaneous, in fact it is normal to leave in the morning and to return, finding your front door has been moved and the living room is now in the kitchen.

Since taking this video they have filled everything in and are busy making more mess.

I need an endoscope, the mud on the glass makes it hard to see what’s going on.

Yep, it is, people don’t care what you have to say, you may continue with your life now.

Over on the YakYak forum we’ve been having a bit of a chat about how to get your blog noticed. Some good ideas have been discussed, and I thought my entry was good enough to separate out and put in here.

There’s nothing like a bit of meta-blogging is there?

I think you need to have a consistent theme. I read quite a few tech/coding/art blogs because they’re interesting, but I only read general blogs for people I know. I’m really not that interested what some random person does every day, and the only person who really cares what I did this evening is me. The Internet is full of billions of people telling the world their immediate thoughts, but the Internet is less full of people writing consistently about one subject.

I think it’s important to have an opinion too that people either agree with, or feel wound up enough to write to you about. If you run a blog, think of every other blog you’ve looked at and thought “boooooring, shut up”. Then try to work out why yours is different.

If you can’t, don’t be surprised when your Feedburner stats only hit four.

This is why I’ve got my Photo blog and main tech website. They’re not updated as often, but have consistent content.

(Cross posted from my Photo blog)

While driving through the outskirts of Scunthorpe, around Brigg, I saw the perfect scene to test my digital camera. There was a war memorial on a street corner lit perfectly by a light, casting really interesting shadows. Even better was the lamp post on the street corner that I could lean against.

Of the five photos I took, this was the best. Shot in RAW and post-processed in Photoshop to bring out the detail and change to black and white made the picture so much better than it originally was.