Steve Litchfield

Every time I try and contact a lot of people on my contacts list, I keep hearing 'They're in a meeting' 8-( Ah yes, meetings, I remember those. When I worked in Aerospace, I remember that these seemed to be the main point of each working day, a way of getting through each day without actually having to do any work, just lots of talking. Since going self employed 14 years ago, I haven't had to attend more than three or four actual 'meetings' and as a result I'm soooo much more productive, per day, than I used to be. And now meetings are stopping me getting through to people I want to talk to.... grr..... I HATE MEETINGS!

No, not an anti-iPhone rant, but a few links to put the new 'connect, wide-screened, iPod' into perspective. Tomi got me thinking, with his predictions piece on how the iPhone's release will signify a welcome change in attitudes of mainstream media towards smartphones. He's absolutely right, though both he and I are also taking every opportunity to point out to anyone that will listen that many of us having been doing almost everything the iPhone can do for several years now on much cheaper hardware. The Nokia N95, for example, knocks the iPhone's specification into a cocked hat and is available now and much cheaper. And it's arguably just as easy to use. Talking of hardware though, what device do I really rate, which one do I recommend people save up for? It's a controversial choice, but I'd argue an awful lot of people should start saving pennies for the Nokia E90 Communicator . One device to do everything except make the tea? Oh, hang on, there's

I can't stand it! I know I've ranted before about teenagers swearing, but this is almost as bad.... Listen to the average 8 to 16 year old talk these days and somehow extra words have crept into their grammar. And there are rules. Every sentence has to have three 'You know's in it, every noun has to have the word 'like' in front of it and every verb or adjective has to have 'sort of' prefixed. I'm guessing that once the kids grow up and have to earn a living, they'll discover a world of mature adults who don't waste every other word. Sigh. I know, I know, I'm getting old. Maybe I'll emigrate to a country with a less easily mangled language? Is there one?

Sorry to sound like a toy shop pedlar again, but a brief plug for a new toy my daughter's bought - the VMIGO virtual puppy - coming with a docking station , it plugs into the TV and lets her interact with the puppy on the colour screen. Only problem is that we can't now watch TV much of the time. Solution: get her a separate portable telly, down from the loft!

OK, so I'm gadget mad. I started a site three years ago talking about gadgets that fit on your keyring, you know, torches and tools, etc. I revisited the HTML today and found that half the links were broken... grrr... I've put the Keyring Tools page back up again now but the pages look a bit emaciated, watch this space for more gadget reviews.... once I've actually bought some more! ooh, ooh, raid the gadget fund all over again... 8-)

Testing the waters - is the E90 compatible with Blogger's code? For more on the E90 see www.allaboutsymbian.com

Just a pointer to folks coming in from the Carnival of the Mobilists - this is my personal blog. The May 2007 Carnival will be over at 3-Lib, my smartphone/palmtop site . Only one click away, don't worry!

It struck me that trying to move house is unlike anything else in this life. For most tasks, you start, you put lots of effort in and then you gradually reach a goal. At any point you can say the job is xx% done. But when trying to move house, you put your house on the market, you tidy it up and get 20 viewers round over a month, you get an offer, you eventually find a new house that you like and put an offer in, which is accepted. Sounds good so far? But then the person buying your house can't sell their house and the house you want is snapped up by someone with no 'chain' behind them and in one fell swoop you're back to square one, effectively. Dozens (or even hundreds) of man hours and if things don't then come together pretty quickly then you might as well have just not bothered in the first place and it'll be time to try again next year. Sigh.