Souping up my Sinclair ZX Spectrum+ 128k
Ah yes, some might think that the ZX Spectrum +2 or +3 where the pinnacle of the Sinclair computers, even though they were made by Amstrad. But no, the best ZX Spectrum ever made was the Spectrum+ 128k, lovingly known by fans as the "Toastrack" due...
Posted by Robert John Shepherd

Falling Skies - Epic Fail
There is no justice in the world. But then anyone who has been watching the lowlifes go on a rampage looting London, will already know that. TV can often reflect true life, to varying degrees of success and enjoyment, and sometimes the industry that...
Posted by Robert John Shepherd

Modern Gaming on the Cheap
These days, you don't have to spend thousands on a top of the line PC gaming rig to enjoy games. Sure, if you want to run Crysis 2 with everything maxed out and the all new DX11 patches and high res textures, then maybe you do. But there is an insane...
Posted by Robert John Shepherd

The Internet is Wrong - Volume 3
Bored with writing useful articles that might contribute something to the Internet, I'm back this week attacking blatantly wrong articles other people have written on the aforementioned Internet! Check me. Lipstick Gives You Cancer is Wrong...
Posted by Robert John Shepherd

Why Do Studios Still Treat Reviewers As Potential Pirates?
I had a few titles for this article, including The Ludicrous Over-Protectiveness of Studios, Who Does Warner Think They Are?, and even Why I Need To Start My Own PR Company. In the end you can see what I went with, and I'll show you that consumers...
Posted by Robert John Shepherd

Programmers Today Don't Know They're Born
So much has changed in the computing world since I first got my ZX81 at the age of what I think was 9. The power of PCs is just insane nowadays in comparison, in fact even some of the cheapest mobile phones make the glory days of home computing look...
Posted by Robert John Shepherd

ZX Spectrum vs Commodore 64 - My Computer is Better Than Yours
Ah, the olden days of home computing, when monitors were not only not LCD, but not even monitors. We used to use the house TV, or if you were really lucky a portable in your bedroom. Myself, for many years I had to use a black and white machine for...
Posted by Robert John Shepherd

The Internet is Wrong - Volume 2
Yes, yet more whingeing about people being wrong on the Internet. Who'd have thought it. My Start Menu is Wrong Okay, okay, technically not the Internet, but how can Google find me millions of results in a fraction of a second but searching my...
Posted by Robert John Shepherd

The Internet is Wrong - Volume 1
Perhaps volume is too vast a word, heck, chapter is probably too much of an exaggeration. Part might be more appropriate, but in this day and age where one is trying to desperately grab those page views amidst much competition, advertising blurb is...
Posted by Robert John Shepherd

Firefox 4 First Impressions
After trying out IE9 last week, it seems only fair to write about what my first impressions of the final release version of Firefox 4 are, having just downloaded it. Needless to say installation is a lot less painful than Internads Exploder (to coin...
Posted by Robert John Shepherd

IE9 Installation Wants Me To Close Firefox
As a heavy web user, and web developer, I make no secret of the fact that my browser of choice is Firefox. But that isn't to say I don't occasionally dabble with the others, beyond of course the usual testing that my work appears correctly in them....
Posted by Robert John Shepherd

How to Fix Strange nVidia Graphics Lag in World of Warcraft
Probably the game I play the most in recent times is the mammoth all conquering MMORPG that is World of Warcraft. Very few PC only games get their own adverts on the telly, but this one not only does, it gets them with Mr T and Shatner. But I digress,...
Posted by Robert John Shepherd

Apple iPhone 4 iOS 4.2.1 Update Killed My Battery life
I am many things, and a habitual updater of software is unfortunately one of them. If I run something and a 0.0.0.1 patch incrimental update comes out, I have to upgrade, I have no choice, it is a compulsion. Even if I don't use the software very...
Posted by Robert John Shepherd

Daily Mail Film Reviewer Christopher Tookey Sinks to New Lows
I have about three or four nearly finished blogs which I've not quite gotten around to posting yet, so it is with great glee that I thank the mighty Christopher Tookey, for giving me the inspiration to Kick myself up the Ass and throw all of them on...
Posted by Robert John Shepherd

Train2Game Spammed My Inbox
So yesterday, I got yet more spam in my inbox, amongst the usual crap pretending to be from banks I have no accounts with, and Nigerian scams (it is quite sad to have a type of scam named after an entire country, I feel for the innocent populous...
Posted by Robert John Shepherd

How Losing Our ADSL Broke Our Websites
This is a cautionary tale, ladies and gentlephones, one which begins either late Friday night, or early Saturday morning, a few weeks ago, the exact timings are unclear. It may not be the most exciting story, nor is it the sort of revolutionary epic...
Posted by Robert John Shepherd

The Sanctimonious Self Righteous Tossers of the Internets
It's a strange thing the Internet, so much of it is available for free, that we get used to that fact. The moment you even suggest that something previously accessible to everyone will become chargable, pretty soon posts start to appear on forums...
Posted by Robert John Shepherd

The Marketing of Psychics
So, last week we got a PR email in from a website apparently run by Russell Grant, a chubby camp guy from the UK who is famous for being one of the most public faces of Astrology. Now anyone with an ounce of common sense should be able to work out...
Posted by Robert John Shepherd

Beware of Third Party Inks
So, the other bank holiday weekend I spent some time trying to fix a problem with my Epson Stylus Photo 950. Clearly it isn't a current model, and it had been out of use for a significant period of time, spurred back into life by my new camera and...
Posted by Robert John Shepherd

Fun With HDR Piccies
Following on from my last update on panoramics, again rather than witter on about something most of you probably aren't interested in, I thought perhaps I'd try and get you interested in something you probably didn't even know about. Ladies and...
Posted by Robert John Shepherd

Fun With Panoramic Piccies
Pretty much everyone has a digital camera of some sort these days, whether it be in their mobile phone, a compact or full blown DSLR. Most will just shoot piccies of things they find interesting, many will make such common mistakes as always centring...
Posted by Robert John Shepherd

Cosplay is fun!
Do not adjust your sets, this is not Jitendar's blog, we are not in Anime land! Except I guess to a small extent we are. My knowledge and interest in the genre is pretty low, if I said I hated Battle of the Planets, but enjoyed the odd showing of...
Posted by Robert John Shepherd

3D Movies - The Gimmick That Will Not Die
Recently ardent followers of technology will have noticed a resurgence in the talk of 3D movies and TV. The more cynical amongst us wonder if it ever went away, especially when you look back at the history of it all. See it all started way back in...
Posted by Robert John Shepherd

Rechargeable Batteries Finally Living Up to Their Promise
I have perhaps many powerful memories from the 80s that run around my brain, no really I have many. However today I'm going to discuss just one, the introduction of rechargeable batteries to the mass market. Do you remember the blurb? Recharge them...
Posted by Robert John Shepherd

Will someone please ban the LOL?
I'm not sure who is to blame, netspeak or txtspeak, but really, someone has to do something about the insanely over usage that encompasses the acronym for Laugh(s) Out Loud. I mean spam, we are never going to win the war on spam, too many low life's...
Posted by Robert John Shepherd

Freedom to Fiddle!
I Can Fiddle With My Car The last car I bought was second hand, I've modified it by changing the speakers, adding a subwoofer, swapped the stereo. Well okay, I didn't do any of that, I paid someone who knows what they are doing to manage it. I did...
Posted by Robert John Shepherd

How to Keep Your PC Secure (an Idiot's guide)
This is something I wrote and posted on a private forum back in May 2007. Ever since then I've been meaning to give it a more public airing, and having read through it all of it is still relevant. Introduction For some people this is going to...
Posted by Robert John Shepherd

Unfair Comparisons - Pentax K20D vs Olympus C-765
Okay, this is incredibly unfair, I'm going to show some of the more obvious differences between my old and new digital cameras. The compact is four years old, retailed for about £220 at the time, whilst my new purchase only came out last year and has...
Posted by Robert John Shepherd

Getting the Photography Bug... Again
Is my life just running in big circles? When I was a kid, I always dreamt of being able to have my own camera and take my own pictures. During the 1970s, when my age sat comfortably in single figures, film was expensive and the last thing my parents...
Posted by Robert John Shepherd

The PR Company's Love Affair with the PDF
Technology is great, many years ago the desk top publishing revolution was spurred on by the likes of the Apple Macintosh, Adobe's Postcript format and Aldus Pagemaker. Of course I am over-simplifying everything, but at least the first two offered...
Posted by Robert John Shepherd

Why I Now Hate Seagate
This is a shame, we've had such a wonderful relationship for the last few years. All my drives have been Seagate, usually Barracudas, all worked pretty well without issue. Then I got one die on me, which isn't an unusual experience when you have...
Posted by Robert John Shepherd

Trudging, Nay Gaily Floating, Through the Internets
I do so love the internet, it gives people a wonderful chance to show genuine creativity to the world, as opposed to just a small circle of friends down the local pub. Of course, like the real world (tm?), there is also a lot of sewage generated too....
Posted by Robert John Shepherd

A Quick Chat with DTS about Blu-Ray
A few weeks ago we got the chance to put a few questions to Anthony Wilkins, Director of Marketing for the European division of DTS, that rather well known digital technology company responsible for delivering the multi-channel lovelyness we have...
Posted by Robert John Shepherd

The Day I Rediscovered my Amiga 1200... Again
So I've been playing around with my old A1200 again, now when I say my old A1200, it isn't actually mine. Well obviously it is, but I wasn't the original owner, oh no. When I was a wee kid all I had was an Amiga A500 with a 512kb memory expansion (yes...
Posted by Robert John Shepherd

MyReviewer.com - About Site Reviewers
This article is part of a documentation project, to help people use the site. What are Site Reviewers? Anyone can post reviews and comments to our website, add their own products for review, contribute articles, and so on. However we maintain...
Posted by Robert John Shepherd

MyReviewer.com - Help for PR Companies
This article is primarily aimed at PR companies, those jolly nice lasses and lads who are often lumbered with the unenviable task of trying to get us lucky punters interested in some funky new product, all on a budget of twenty pence. It also...
Posted by Robert John Shepherd

MyReviewer.com - Frequently Asked Questions
This article represents the beginning of a documentation project, to help people use the site. What is the website all about? Put simply, MyReviewer is a place where you can review and discuss almost anything. It was born out of many ideas...
Posted by Robert John Shepherd