Temporary Diversion has now moved home to http://www.macx.adsl24.co.uk/td/ Hope you keep visiting and enjoy the new and improved site with more content added soon!

See you there.

I'll be changing ISP on tuesday and so this blog will have to move to my new webspace. I might aswell start it fresh again and perhaps get more people reading it. So this is the last post ever on this web address. Hopefully I'll be keeping my blog more update to date in future with goings on in my life and the tech world. Till I open the new blog, Take care folks.

that title could apply to alot lately but I'll keep it centered on one thing the XBOX 360. Mine broke and now I'm left really quite bored. Just when I wanted to play some ridge racer I went on it knowing I had to do the winter update.. witch installed then after a bit of loading the main page decided to go all blocky on the screen and crash the 360 resulting in a stuck 3 lights of death . It's really annoyed me I don't expect after a year and a half to have a dead console. All my other consoles lasted years and years and in fact I have one of the original and I mean pre-ordered limited amount PS2's from launch day and thats still going strong today in the little bedroom for my nieces and nephews to play when they stay over but it may end up being my only solitude. in fact I should drag it back to my room if I didn't like the way it looks on the LCD TV. Hmm.. but I do have a gamecube spare too lol. I guess I have more options than I thought! I'd rather play the better PS2 games but some Resident Evil on the Cube would be sweet.

Ok went off a bit there.. my point is although the PS3 is more expensive than the xbox and has less games I'd prefer one now a days and I'm hoping that I might get spoilt this xmas and get one off my folks but I'm not counting on it. And if I got the 40GB and not the 60GB would I actually be ungrateful and miffed that it wasn't the 60GB? Probably not there isn't much difference. Still I think there's too much Microsoftness still there in the 360 probably more so than the original xbox, like making u pay for online play and the now dying 360's. Aswell as the xbox gamer credit that equals £'s but they make u pay for gamer pictures and themes, is it really worth like a £1 or £2 for a tiny picture, it's ridiculous and they say apple tie you in to buy stuff, least your playing for something worth having with apple. The Ps3 really pushed technology with the cell processor and Blu-ray disc drive, sure the xbox was cheaper but sony did it big. They knew they wanted to get it pretty much right from the start thats why they included about every connectivity option going including wi-fi witch can cost u up to £60 for a wi-fi dongle for the 360 when it's such a cheap technology to implement. Now Microsoft have numerous versions of the 360 out basically just fixing what it was lacking in the first place. I'm not sayng the 360 is aweful because it's still powerful and has some great games but mine is currently sitting there dead waiting for a box from ms to ship it for fixing. Im just hoping I don't get any 360 games for xmas otherwise it's gonna be annoying! Lucky that I never asked for any.

So I say the ps3 should be king and I'll defiantly have one soon one way or the other, I rarely play games now but the blu-ray player interests me alot now.

I can't get over how great an idea this service is. I first found out about it when I started using hotukdeals.com a site that offerers links to great bargains and freebies across the uk on the web and in store in places like ASDA, tecco's and for a lot of gadgets and phones but basically anything thats a great offer. In most of the posts there was usually a note that said like + £10 quidco cashback but I figured it would be something awkward and fiddly so I never bothered to look into it for ages untill one day I got bored and did. My first impressions of quidco is that although it's explained well they could make it a little easier to understand the benefits of it and just what you have to do to get it going. After using it I can say it's really easy to get to grips with and it's a must service for anyone in the uk who uses the net to buy things.

Put simply they have a list of online shops that offer different percentages of cashback or a maximum payout for a transaction, the list thankfully it quite substantial including Apple, iTunes, Dell, Play.com, teco's, 02, T-mobile and many many more. All you do is sign up for an account and then either set it up with your paypal address ( but there's a maximum of £50 you can transfer) or your bank details for BACS money transfer. And then when you want to purchase something online just go to there merchant list or create a list of favorites and click the link to the merchant. It works through cookies so you must do it this way to earn your cashback from the site. The best thing is that Quidco only take £5 off you annually for there's fee's but if you dont earn anything they don't charge you, and if u earn under £5 in that year they just keep that. So you can't really loose with it it's never gonna actually cost you anything. Some of the earnings can be really good too like if you sign up for a contract with t-mobile they'll give you £40 cashback!

I don't normally blog about services like these but it really is a great idea

I'm writing this blog in response to Cubans post about the iPhone on his blog. I've already mentioned to him that he makes some valid points but some are also a bit questionable.
He starts by saying the iPhone's hype is to do with the success of the ipod and I agree this is part of the reason, but there's also the fact that apple is a very popular company at the moment. If apple comes out with a new product it's put on almost every tech news site on the web. There's just this buzz surrounding gadgets and products from apple because for most people there so desirable. But I think with the iPhone the hype mainly came from the huge wait we had for the device from announcement and from the years of people wishing apple would create a phone with that usual apple desire and wow factor. I think the iphone succeeds in this greatly, as a wow device it's slick, smooth interface mixed with the large touch screen and ease of use makes it stand out from the crowd. This is ultimately what's helped it sell by the bucket load in America, people have gadly switched from there mobile providers that may have had better signal or better speed to go to a 2.5G ( edge) device that may not have the best technology on the market but is easy to use and has a great interface, this alone surely says something about the iphones pulling power.

However I fear in the UK the iphone won't ever become as popular until 02 change the tariff's because there just so poor. 200 mins and 200 txts for £35 a month is a joke. Ok so you get unlimited web access and cloud hotspot access but this really doesn't make up for the lack of the essential minutes and txt's. Plus were so use to having even the best phones for free or almost free that people are gonna be put off hugely by the outright cost of the iPhone. However it seems the iphone is selling as there are plenty of style conscious people out there who want the device with the most glitz surrounding it and then there's the masses of apple fans who just have to have one, and also the hackers who want an iphone to unlock and use with there probably much better contract.

So to wrap it up my opinion of the iphone is yes it's lacking in the latest technology and it doesn't quite fit into the "mobile phone" ecosystem due to issues like not having a file manager making bluetooth transfers kinda pointless and your own ringtones a no no but if apple changes this and improves on the technology with a 3G iphone ( which is inventible in 2008 really) then the iPhone will live a long and happy life. However if you just want a great touch screen iPod with plenty of extra functionality and web access then get an iPod touch like me.. you won't regret it