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Archive for the ‘Music’ Category

Splat a Rat – A great stress relieving game for the iPhone

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There are many games available for the iPhone and iPod touch from the Apple iStore, some are good and some are not so good, and with so many available there’s a risk that you might miss a great game.

I’ve come across a great little game called Splat a Rat, which is easy and fun to play, and a great stress reliever.

The game comes with 4 variations but each one involves splatting rats, imagine your finger is a giant hammer and you have to hit the on-screen rats, to often gory effect.

There are several different types of rat to splat, from rats with dynamite on their back that causes large explosions to rats strapped to jet packs which when hit fly off around the screen and kill any other rat that they touch, and watch out for Zombie Rats.

There are 4 different variations of the game to play:

Kill Kill Kill – where you have to kill as many rats as possible in 60 seconds

Save the cheese – where you have to save  cheese segments from the rats for as long as possible.

Population attack – where you have to keep the number of Rats on screen below 60 for as long as possible.

Zombie Attack – where you have to protect the non-effected rats from the zombie rats for as long a s possible.

Having 4 versions of the game add important variety and helps add fresh challenges to the game. Splat a Rat is a fun game and the key to it’s fun is its simplicity, if you see a rat –  SPLAT IT

To download Splat a Rat search for splatarat through the app store or click here.




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Free Music with Spotify

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Spotify has an online library of millions of songs which you can listen to, through a windows application.
The best bit is that you can listen to all these songs free of charge, as long as you don’t mind an occasional advert, or you can pay £10 a month for an advert free service.

It works really well if you just want to listen to your favourite songs or discover new music, however, where for me Itunes is a better solution is you can save your music, copy to your Ipod and you own it.

Spotify is a nice product and you can’t go wrong with free music.



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My thoughts on the Panasonic RP-HT225 headphones

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As Mentioned in this post, to improve the experience to listening to music and films on the Panasonic CF-F8, I purchased a pair of Panasonic RP-HT225 headphones for the low price of £10 from Argos.

They took some getting used to, as I’m used to in ear phones and the output on the RP-HT225 is very bassy, but after getting used to them I was impressed. The headphones are very comfortable and with them sitting over the ear you get a nice roomy echo effect, they also shield noise very well, hiding external noise and making sure that you don’t disturb anyone near you.

I’ve used them to listen to my Itunes library and they certainly make music sound very good, much better then the built in Speakers of the Toughbook.

The Panasonic F8 is a business focused laptop and therefore the speakers aren’t designed for multimedia
purposes, and the Panasonic RP-HT225 headphones provide a cost effective way to provide high quality and personal Sound output.



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Improving the Audio Output of the Panasonic CF-F8

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As mentioned in This Post the sound output on the Panasonic CF-F8 Toughbook is a little weak – especially for watching films or listening to Music, so I’ve been looking at ways to improve the sound.

The easiest way to do this (although not suitable for groups) is to use a pair of headphones.

So I’ve purchased a pair of Panasonic RP-HT225 headphones and I’ll report back here how I get on with them.



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Useful Media Applications for the Panasonic F8 Part 1

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One of my goals is to use the Panasonic F8 as a complete home entertainment PC, and to use it to store all my media.

At this stage I thought it would be useful to start to list the media applications that I’m using on the Panasonic F8.

Music Library

I’m a big fan of Apple and I love my Ipod Touch, so for me the ideal application is ITunes. ITunes has come a long way recently and the interface is pretty good now. The Integration with the ITunes Store is brilliant and if there is a song, album, video, film or Tv show that you want to see there is a very good chance that the ITunes Store has it available to buy at a very reasonable price.
On previous laptops I’ve owned Itunes has been a bit laggy – especially at playing videos, but on the F8 so far it’s been great.

Video Player


In the future I plan to investigate using Itunes as a complete media centre but for now I wanted a video player that could play lots of video formats, was free, has good performance and has a small footprint.
The Answer for me VLC Player, it’s very quick, easy to use and plays all sorts of video files.


TV Player

I’ve got a Sling Box on my LAN so I use Sling Player to watch and control my TV from any Internet Connection. It works great on the F8.




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Pure Sensia: Radio for the Facebook generation

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pure-sensia_1 The Pure Sensia is perhaps the future of radio, as well as the usual FM Tuner & DAB Tuner, the Sensia also includes Wifi to connect to internet Radio stations. One striking feature of the Sensia is the large 5.7 inch touch screen which makes make the Radio easy to use, and provides a constant flow of information back to the user.

What really makes the Sensia stand out from the crowd is it’s ability to run Internet enabled applications which opens up a world of possibilities. For example real time weather information can be delivered straight to the screen, and importantly there are a number of social networking sites supported, whilst you are listening to your favorite radio station  you can visit your Facebook page or tweet on Twitter.

Convergence of technology is always exciting and he Pure Sensia may jut signal the future of personal radio.



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3UK Launch Unlimited Mobile Spotify Service in the UK

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Hero_Spotify_Angle3UK are preparing to launch an unlimited Spotify mobile service in November, which will allow their customers to access the streaming music service through their mobile phone handsets.

Initially available to 3 customers with the HTC Hero handset, the tariff will include access to the popular music streaming service, which normally costs £10 per month.

3 have released some pricing details for uk customers: The service is provided on  a £35  per month tariff on a 2 year contract and you will need to pay £99 upfront for the HTC Hero handset.



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