I Save money when I shower with two natty watery gadgets

If your shower runs at mains pressure or close to it, it's quite possible that you can reduce its pressure without detriment to its cleaning potential and how it feels. Indeed, if your shower is like mine, it might actually be painful to stand under at high pressure.  It seems that most modern houses comes with thermal store hot water systems which allow hot water to be delivered to the house at mains pressure, without little regard to what is actually comfortable or what is economic and eco-friendly.

Since I have the luxury of two showers I have installed two different devices, one in each as follows:

Eaga Shower Smart (get one free)

A small pressure-reducing insert that goes inline with the shower hose.

The Eaga shower smart prevents the unnecessary waste of water without loss of comfort. It creates a constant flow of 7.7 litres per minute, giving a full even jet with less fluctuation in water flow. Water temperature can be more constant - because sudden changes in pressure have a much smaller influence on the temperature. 

For a 2 person household, the Eaga ShowerSmart could save more than 12000 litres of water per year, as well as all the associated energy costs that go with heating it. 

At the time of writing Eaga are running a promotion for a free showersmart.

Oxygenics BodySpa shower head

If you want the dual benefits of economy AND a spa-like experience when you shower, then try the Oygenics BodySpa shower head. The entire oxygenics range not only reduces pressure and flow but at the same time sucks in oxygen and mixes is the with the water, giving an incredible refreshing shower sensation without any feeling of loss of pressure.

I have one fitted in my main shower and have tested that it does indeed reduce the flow (easily done by filling a bag with a line marked for 5 seconds or so) yet it feels wonderful to shower under. And it looks great too. The single orifice design of Oxygenics® showerheads coupled with internal components made of non-stick Delrin® are no match against common "shower cloggers." There isn't a calcium deposit or sediment that will stand in the way.

Oh no! They gave me a scrapberry!?

A bunch of not-so-endearing nicknames I have for the hideous horrendous mobile computing device I have been given for work - otherwise known as a blackberry. I would never ever buy one of these terrible things.

They are very popular in business - and sadly that usually means the people who buy them are not the people who use them. Sadly this means that usability appears to have taken a back seat. Such simple errors of usability still about on these appalling devices. 

For example, there are two "convenience" keys on the side of the device. These are right where I have have to grip it when using it as a phone (for which, incidentally, it is a terrible form factor). So, inevitably these keys are always getting pressed when i try to hold it like a phone.

Whereas other manufacturers have learned to make the most of their keyboard real-estate with multi-function context keys (the ones that change function as you navigate through the menus - usually two just underneath the screen) - the blackberry designers felt it unecessary to provide such convenience to us business users. Instead practically every single function has to be accessed by first pressing a single menu button to pull up the list of functions and options - sometimes as much as 3 screens long! It's so tedious it's untrue.

And don't even mention all that wasted real estate on the main front screen....

so, some nicknames - feel free to suggest more:

• scrapberry
• crackberry (seems generally popular, though not sure why)
• splatberry
• whackberry
• crapberry
• quackberry
• blockberry
• bolokberry
• shatberry
• hackberry
• slackberry
• drawbackberry
• lackberry
• sackberry
• setbackberry
• smackberry
• thwackberry
• blankberry
• blattberry

Working at Verizon - 1 week in...

Things I like

• It's a big company - you can do stuff small companies can't
• The toilets smell nice (by which I mean the airfreshener has a particularly pleasing fragrance)
• There is someone employed to come clean up the cups and glasses at the sink several times a day
• Free tea, instant coffee and milk. Three outlets to buy freshly made filter coffee (and the prices are sensible)
• All the IT and Facilities people I have met seem very friendly and welcoming
• I'm in a great award-winning team of people that I already know
• My team can really make a difference
• The salad is awesome and excellent value
• everything I learnt at BT Global Services is going to apply here

Thing I dislike 

• It's a big company - getting things done can be a bit slow & frustrating
• I've been issued with a blackberry / crackberry / crapberry / bolockberry - this has to be one of the most hideous devices invented. It is neither good as a phone nor good as a mobile computing device. It took me three days to work out how to make the font readable. Viewing a new text message takes 4 clicks as opposed to 1 on my Sony Ericsson mobile. (This could be a whole other blog).
• It's 120 miles away from home
• The canteen food is expensive (and I've already put on weight)
• everything I learnt at BT Global Services is going to apply here

CNN says rock is dead?

CNN.com ran an article titled “What will save rock 'n' roll?” which included an interview with Steve Van Zandt and some others

The short version, in the article Steven, and others, claim people are not buying music and albums because “they suck” and bands don’t know how to rock.

Somehow, they feel, bands just don’t know how create music that inspires.

With all due respect, bullsh*t.  And shame on CNN for running a news story based on a few people’s uneducated opinions.

There is more music being created and recorded today then ever before in the history of humanity.  Although sheer volume of music creation does not make it good, the fact that more people are creating it certainly increases the odds. Hell, just having access to affordable gear and recording equipment (like your Mac) allows more music to come to life, both the terrible and the incredible.

What Steven and CNN don’t seem to know, or acknowledge, is that the real “music industry” is that thing over in the corner main-stream media is not reporting on and not aware of.

There are between 150 to 300 releases a day via TuneCore alone.  I have to suspect that Steven has heard perhaps less than a percent of a percent of them.  You want the opinion from the guy running TuneCore, now the largest distributor of bands, labels and music in the world, there is more great “rock”, “punk”, “dance”, “hip hop” “classical”, “funk”, “folk”, “country” etc etc than there has ever been before.  And this is why IT IS SELLING.

(follow the references link for the rest of this article)

Click here for TuneCore

is it all a load of Berocca?

Is it really worth paying almost £5 for a tube of Berocca tablets (£4.37 for 15 = 29p per tablet), when both Boots and Tesco have their own variants for much less?

Boots' "Re-energise" costs less (£3.49 = 17p per tablet) but also has higher RDA levels for all the vitamins and minerals so seems like good value. Meanwhile Tesco's "B-active" costs significantly less (£1.93 for 20 = 10p per tablet) and has identical RDAs to Berocca! Is it in fact exactly the same stuff?

% RDA for...	Berocca	Tesco "B-active"	Boots "Re-Energise"
Vitamin C	793	793	833
Thiamin (Vitamin B1)	743	743	929
Ribofalvin (Vitamin B2)	850	850	938
Niacin (Vitamin B3)	252	252	278
Vitamin B6	355	355	500
Folic Acid	183	183	200
Vitamin B12	860	860	1000
Biotin	87	87	100
Panthothenic Acid	378	378	417
Calcium	12	12	13
Magnesium	32	32	33
Zinc	60	60	67

How to get your music on iTunes

the digital age has made it possible to self-publish your own music on the route to rock-stardom. Here's how you can get your music on the apple iTunes store as well as all the main digital download stores such as Amazon, Napster and eMusic.

Without doubt the advent of MP3s and the digital download age has revolutionised music forever. It's now possible for anyone with a PC and the right software to create their own music and recordings and make them available to the world without the merest hint of a record contract or a large record producing organisation to both invest or constrain the artistic process.  

However, in the absence of a huge marketing budgets it is essential to get your music into all the major online record stores and all the online download stores in order to reach the widest audience possible.

In my opinion the best way to do this is through the tunecore service. For a ludicrously low annual fee in the region of $20 they will make your digital music album available to all the major music retailers across the globe, including iTunes, Amazon, Napster and many more. It's extremely easy to upload your music just once to tune core who will then distribute it on your behalf to all the stores you select. This is a process you can complete in one or two hours and within a matter of a few weeks your album and recordings will be available to buy and download to hundreds of millions of Internet users all over the world. Tune core takes all the hassle  out of hosting and distributing your files, as well as collecting and is shooting the royalties you earn.   On top of that they provided information and advice on how to be successful in the industry.. I cannot recommend them highly enough and I have my own music published through tunecore.

Click here for TuneCore