Bad Language » Reviews

Gadget review: Siri for couch potatoes

Matthew Stibbe — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 12:54:30 +0000

One of the nice things about running a business like Turbine is that I get to talk to company owners and managers. We have a few hundred users now and so it’s like a little, exclusive social network.

I think it is the same motivation that took me into business journalism a decade ago and into B2B marketing with Articulate. The great thing about meeting people is meeting people!

I’m also a big fan of Windows Media Center. (Full disclosure: Microsoft is an Articulate client but I pay for my own PCs!) I have an Acer in the sitting room, a Hush silent PC in my home cinema and I use WMC on my office desktop to watch DVDs.

One of Turbine’s customers is Amulet Devices. They make a WMC remote control that has built-in voice recognition and they kindly sent me one to play with.

Voice recognition means that you can say things like “Watch Channel NBC” or “Play Artist U2” and your Media Center PC responds. It’s like Siri for coach potatoes. Check out this video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

It’s available in the US, Australia and New Zealand for $149. You’ll probably also want an IR receiver if your PC doesn’t have one built-in. That’s an extra $15. It’s a lot of fun and highly recommended.

Scoop: HP Slate 2 unboxing and review video

Matthew Stibbe — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 11:30:46 +0000

Last week I got a sneak preview of the new HP Slate 2 tablet. It’s pretty cool – it weighs just over a pound and runs Windows 7. If the iPad 2 is like a big magazine in size, the Slate 2 is more like a big paperback. With a USB or Bluetooth keyboard it could be a good writer’s portable. Unlike the iPad, it comes with a stand and a case. Anyhow, here’s my exclusive unboxing video. I think I may be the first person to have reviewed it! (Given that, it’s not big surprise that HP is a client at Articulate Marketing.)

Click here to view the embedded video.

New HP Notebook videos

Matthew Stibbe — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 06:32:24 +0000

I manage HP’s small business blog in the UK: HP Business Answers. Part of the job is making little video reviews of their notebooks. Here are a couple of recent videos. The 8560p is an awesomely powerful notebook, like a big, powerful 4×4, while the 5330m is more like a little sports car, light and nimble.

Click here to view the embedded video.

New HP video – 4530s unboxed

Matthew Stibbe — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 09:57:14 +0000

New camera, new software, new laptop. Let’s make a video! Related posts: Scoop: HP Slate 2 unboxing and review video Back in Black like you’ve never heard it before (video) Writing for the web video
Related posts:

Daniel Pink’s new book, Drive, in cartoon form

Matthew Stibbe — Fri, 27 May 2011 08:24:34 +0000

I enjoyed A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink and I’m looking forward to reading his new one Drive. But I was delighted to find this animation from the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) which illustrates a talk he gave there recently. You can also watch a 40m video of his talk on the RSA’s website. (Full disclosure, I’m a Fellow of the RSA.)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Book review: Guy Kawasaki’s Enchantment

Matthew Stibbe — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 14:02:00 +0000

First off, I have to admit that I am a big Kawasaki fan. His first book, The Macintosh Way (now a free download), got me excited about running my own business and helped me launch Intelligent Games when I was at college.

I was lucky enough to meet him in 2002 and he is as interesting and charming in person as he is provocative and enlightening on the page.

Since then, the combination of personal opinion, hard-won experience and bullet lists of tips and tactics has become a universal trope of a million blogs (mine included).

Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions, Guy’s new book, uses this format and draws on Guy’s experience over 20 years in technology and VC to help you ‘win friends and influence people’, as Dale Carnegie put it.

Where Seth Godin’s books highlight opportunities, Enchantment tells you have to take advantage of them. It is full of tips (very useful) and stories (more useful when they come from Guy’s experience, less useful otherwise).

Because he’s a mensch (his highest praise, I think), he’s not encouraging you to manipulate people but put your best self forward and contribute to your own success and other people’s. As a Brit, I’m more backward in coming forward and some of his advice might be better tuned to Silicon Valley than the Thames Valley. But everything he says is worth your consideration and I recommend the book highly.

I like this diagram he has created. It’s useful in itself and it’s a good plug for the book. In fact, it’s a good example of what you might call the Kawasaki: do good to make good.

Writing blog from the Economist

Matthew Stibbe — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 15:37:03 +0000

From the Definitely Worth Subscribing department comes The Economist’s Johnson blog which resurrects the column of the same name that used to appear in the magazine. It’s what Bad Language wants to be when it grows up.

Book review: How to work as a freelance journalist

Matthew Stibbe — Thu, 06 May 2010 09:00:00 +0000

One of the most popular pages on this site is How to be a freelance journalist, which is based on my experiences in that job in the early 2000s. It’s a tough gig and getting tougher. Because of this post, Marc Leverton interviewed me for his recent book, How to work as a freelance journalist. We talked about the challenges of marketing yourself but his excellent book goes beyond that and includes interviews with many journalists and lots of useful tips for people thinking of going into the business. I would also recommend reading Writing to Deadline by Don Murray which is a very practical book about the actual process of writing as a journalist. (See my review and summary.)

LEGO Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak

Matthew Stibbe — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:13:13 +0000

It’s a real shame that this Podbrix set has sold out. I want one. I particularly like the LEGO Space Odyssey calendar and the LEGO Apple II. Perhaps I should go get some LEGO for my birthday; it’s been a while. (Hat tip: Mashable.)

The best plays in London – Jerusalem and Twelfth Night

Matthew Stibbe — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 09:42:00 +0000

I went to see Jerusalem at the Apollo Theatre on Tuesday night and Twelfth Night at the Bridewell theatre on Wednesday lunchtime. I recommend them both.

Jerusalem was outstanding. Mark Rylance delivered a precise, compelling and surprisingly physical performance in the lead role of Rooster Byron. His character combines Falstaff and Churchill. He is the ASBO king of Rooster Wood and a lord of misrule and yet he takes a noble stand against mediocrity, the puritans of the local council, their police myrmidons and, ultimately, all the forces of oppression. Jez Butterworth’s text captures the mythic qualities of England, the real presence of nature and the fuck patois of Rooster’s followers. Jerusalem is the best play I have ever seen – go see it, if you can.

(As an aside, it was a very starry, theatrical evening. We went with a couple of friends – a famous director and his movement teacher wife. By coincidence, we sat in the same row as Jerusalem’s director, next to my wife’s movement teacher from Central and a few rows back from Dustin Hoffman and another few rows back from Jude Law and Sienna Miller, whoever she is. I’m not really in that world but it’s fun to be a tourist sometimes!)

Now, Twelfth Night. In the interests of full disclosure, I should explain that my wife is the co-director and one of the stars in Twelfth Night so although I think it is the best show ever made, I am slightly biased. The performances are bright; the company works with the Meisner technique and so the whole show bristles with electricity and human contact. Setting the play in 30s glamour, Hollywood musicals and Gerschwin lyrics works perfectly and brings Shakespeare’s story to life in a modern context.

Here’s a short video about it:

Click here to view the embedded video.